An Israelite in Whom is no Guile: John 1:43-51

John 1:43-51

John 1:43–51 NKJV

The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and He found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” And Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!” Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered and said to Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And He said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

In the last passage which is presented as the second of a three-day sequence following John the Baptist’s declaration that Jesus is the Lamb of God. On the first day, John stood alone in his witness to Jesus. On the second day, he repeats his declaration, and this time two of John’s disciples followed Jesus instead. Andrew then went out and found his brother Simon. The testimony of another person about Jesus led others to Jesus. But like the woman at the well in Chapter 4, the witness is confirmed by hearing the words of Jesus directly. The Samaritans were influenced by the woman at the well, but were not fully satisfied until they heard Jesus spoke. The first two disciples had heard John and went to Jesus’ house. Then they heard the teaching of Jesus Himself, convincing Andrew that Jesus was the Messiah. So he went out and confessed and brought Peter. We should do so well to get people to come to and hear Jesus directly.

We need to address at some point an apparent discrepancy between the other gospels and John over the calling of the disciples. This account seems to occur much earlier and in a different context than the other gospels. In Luke 5, it occurred at the lake after a night in which James, john, Peter and Andrew had fished all night and caught nothing. Jesus told them to fish of the wrong side of the boat, and they had caught so many fish that the boats foundered. But I have learned from experience that God has to call several times before we fully respond. Before that point, we either fight against the call or follow in fits and spurts. The text in John says that they followed and stayed the night, and that was it. But it does not necessarily lead to that. One only need look at chapter 21 of John in which several disciples went fishing, AFTER the resurrection. One would think that they would have been fully committed at that point to Christian ministry. Jesus had breathed the Holy Spirit on them and said: “Even as the Father has sent me; so I send you” in the 20th chapter. What Peter does by saying “I’m going fishing” is more than a recreational decision. It was a vocational decision. It was to back to life as usual. So I am not concerned about the accounts. Jesus had to constantly encourage and call them to the work before they actually followed fully.

This passage begins with the same “on the next day. The beginning of the next chapter begins with on the third day. The whole sequence then is a week in length, from the witness of John to the priests. Levites, and the turning of the water into wine. Whether there is significance in this, I do not know.

On this day, it says he desired to go into Galilee. The word for desired is the verb “to will.” There is a divine nuance to this. Jesus willed to go there, because He had a particular purpose. He went to call two more disciples. These verbs are in the simple past tense. But the next two verbs are again historical presents of which we have talked before. He finds Phillip and then says to Him: “Follow Me.” Can you put yourself by the lakeside next to Phillip. Does your heart yearn that He might call you too to follow Him?

The name “Phillip” is interesting because it is a Greek name. Considering that the north shore of the Sea of Galilee was mostly the villages of Aramaic-speaking Jews who struggled against assimilation into Greek culture. Phillip was the name of the father of Alexander the Great who had conquered Palestine some 350 years earlier. The Greeks practiced making Greeks out of their subjects, an idea that led to a war of resistance by the Maccabees around 170 BC. Either the Greek culture had penetrated upper Galilee more than was previously thought, or it was indeed odd that Jesus would have found someone named Phillip there. He was a Jew, of course, but one with a Greek name. He must have known Peter and Andrew as he came from the same town which was small. This Jew with a Greek name had a friend with the most Hebrew of names, Nathanael, which means “Gift of God,” the equivalent of the Greek “Theodore.” There is an obvious irony there in that the Greek finds the Jew, one who is described by Jesus Himself as the model Israelite, who had no guile.

Nathanael was in the next village, well out of sight where Jesus was at the time. The Greek literally says: “The One whom Moses wrote about in the Law and Prophets we have found, Jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth!” this sounds very stilted in English, but in Greek it is easy to invert the normal word order for emphasis. This places emphasis that Phillip thought this Jesus, an earthly person, was the prophet whom Moses talked about. Andrew had thought Jesus to be the Messiah, a political figure who was the son of David. But many of the Jews also held to a separate person called the teacher who would be a priestly leader. Andrew sees on picture and Phillip another. The Samaritans believed in this teacher they called “Taheeb.” They only held to the first five books of the Bible called the Law (Torah or Pentateuch). They did not believe in the prophets. Yet the woman at the well used the Jewish term Messiah to describe this teacher. So we can see an interesting mix of ideas.

Nathaniel seems to have been sitting under a fig tree. This tree was a symbol of Israelite prosperity and blessing from God. Israel itself was symbolized by the fig tree. The text holds this fact back until later to increase the dramatic effect. What Nathanael might have been doing at that time is not brought out at this time. But the Hebrew named Jew asks the Greek named Jew whether anything good could come out of Nazareth. Nazareth was a little town like Nathanael’s Cana. As a good Jew, he would have expected the political Messiah to have come from an equally small town of Bethlehem. The Messiah would be identified as the Son of David rather than some obscure Joseph. If he held to a priestly teacher, one would have expected him to have come from Jerusalem where the priests ministered or one of the small villages around Jerusalem where many of the priests came. But Nazareth? We are clued into the details of the birth of Jesus from Luke and Matthew, but Nathanael, acting out of what he knew could not see it.

Phillip answers Nathaniel with the words “Come and see.” Phillip did not yet have the necessary knowledge to get into an honest debate with Nathanael, so he invites Nathanael to see for himself. We cannot witness beyond what we know. Sooner or later we have to get people to see Jesus. The use of the historical present here puts us in that scene. How do we answer questions that others pose, when we don’t know the answer? Take them to the answer!

When Nathanael comes, Jesus makes an odd declaration: “Behold an Israelite in whom there is no guile.” The human Jesus had never met the man. How could He make such a judgment? Nathanael is taken back from the statement and responds: “How could you possibly know me?” Jesus responds that He knew Nathanael by saying that before Phillip had called him to come, Jesus had seen him sitting under that fig tree. A light bulb goes on in Nathanael’s head, because he had been under the fig tree. He also knew that there was no way for Jesus to have known that. So he confesses: “Rabbi, YOU ARE the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” As John’s gospel is to encourage the believer to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, Nathaniel is an example of one coming to eternal life in Christ. We need to see ourselves in this scene as Nathanael makes this confession, as this is the confession Jesus wants us to make as well.

It seemed that a rather little matter changed Nathanael. But why the mention of an Israelite with no guile? We still have not answered this. An Israelite was one who was a descendant of Israel whose original name was Jacob which is roughly translated the “guile full one” or “deceiver.” Jacob had been transformed by God’s grace after the wrestling match with the Angel of Yahweh.” The name Israel was given upon Jacob’s conversion took away his guile. Jacob was full of guile, but not Israel. So in a sense this was Jesus’ call to Nathanael to conversion, to be what he had been called to be from God The woman at the well had been told if only she knew the gift of God she would be a new person. Ina sense Jesus is the true Nathanael of God rather than this man who had sat under the tree.

If we look at the next statement Jesus makes that Nathanael would see greater things. Jacob in his flight from Esau after he had used guile to rob his brother of the patriarchal blessing had fallen asleep at Bethel that night. This was the place where Abraham had once built an altar. The place which means “House of God” in English was the place where the exhausted Jacob had found rest that night. His head rested on a stone, and he saw a vision of angels going up and down a staircase from Yahweh in heaven. Here he heard the words of assurance that the LORD would look after Him. Now Nathanael, a man without guile would see even a greater vision than Jacob. He had become a man without guile, a true member of Israel. By faith, he was transformed and had been gifted by God. It makes me wonder if Nathaniel was reading this passage while sitting under the fig tree. Nathaniel was not part of the house of God and covenantally protected. He would go through trials. Jacob had to endure Laban. But even through, Nathanael was now in the hands of one from whom no one could pluck.

We too who were once deceivers and deceived have been converted by the grace and the Word of God. It is nothing we have done. It is entirely the gift of God. So we have to see ourselves through the eyes of Nathaniel. Perhaps we might even have been a little self-righteous and dismissed the testimony of others about Jesus because it did not fit our picture of what our Messiah ought to be. In spite of this, this skeptic is saved by God’s grace and his doubts about Jesus were taken away just like Thomas’ doubts were removed by the call to touch the hands and side of Jesus. For this, we should be grateful. We did not turn on our own light bulb. We must instead boast in God’s grace.