The Balance of Salvation Part II

The Balance of Salvation- Part II

John 1:43-51

Introduction:

          I fear that as Christians there is not enough excitement in our lives about the things of God. Oh, we have an abundance of the temporal fleshy excitement; the Church is even filled with that. But there seems to be missing in the Church a real excitement about the things of God. I fear that we have become too mundane in our relationship with Christ and in our service to Him. What a thrill this passage is as it shows both sides of salvation; the human side and the Divine side.

So we've seen the seeking soul.  And we've seen it from the human side as we saw Peter, we saw John and Andrew and James by implication, and we see the human aspect more than a divine.  Now as we enter into the second part we see the seeking Savior and for verses 43 to 51 which we'll consider very briefly because the narrative is very obvious, we will find the seeking Savior.  And this time we see salvation from the divine side.  We saw it already in a little way in the first part, but here it's fully developed.

       Now verse 43 says this, "The day following, the next day, Jesus would go forth," this is the fourth day since we began with the witness of John the Baptist, "Jesus would go forth into Galilee."  He started toward Galilee.  "And He finds Philip and Philip believed in Him."  No.  He said, "Follow Me."  Now there is the divine dimension of salvation, the seeking Savior.  He walked over to Philip and said, "Philip, follow Me."  That's the divine side of salvation.  It doesn't record Philip's response.  It doesn't record Philip's salvation.  It just says, now you want to know who Philip was, he was the one from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter, that's the Philip.  It doesn't talk a thing about how he believed or what he believed or why he believed or what his thoughts were like it did in the first part.  It's simply the divine side of salvation.  "Philip, you have been chosen by God, follow Me."  You know what it says in John 15:16? Tremendous verse, don't ever forget it, Jesus said to His disciples one day, listen to this, "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and ordained you."  That's the divine side.  And so here we see the divine side, follow Me.  A magnetic drawing of God's power.

      Now, of course, you say, "Well did Philip ever believe or did he just get zapped right into the thing?"  No, of course he believed.  You just saw the human side has to be there, but the emphasis shifts so you'll understand the balance.  Sure he believed but it's not recorded.  It's enough to know that God called him, for when God calls that settles it.  What did Jesus say?  "All that the Father gives to Me shall come to Me." 

      Okay, so we see then the beginning of the seeking Savior's ministry, we see it from the divine side as He calls. And He calls this man Philip who was from the same town where Andrew and Peter and James and John were all from.  And as I said, there's no record of his conversion. 

      Now in verse 45 Philip does exactly what the other two guys did.  He first finds somebody else immediately. This is something that salvation does. You know you see somebody who is a new Christian and they've got this fantastic reality of who Christ is and you can hardly restrict them from wanting to share it.  Really the effective evangelism begins at that point, that's why Christ indicted the church at Ephesus because they left their first love.  You know, people think, well the more you know Christ, the more zealous you are.  Well most of that time that's not true.  Evangelism wanes in proportion to the years that people are Christians, often, if they're not really honest disciples. But in the first warmth of this experience, Philip went right after Nathaniel and said unto him similar to what Andrew had said, however, he takes it purely from the human side, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write."   

      And, of course, they knew who that was. There's no question about that.  Him of whom they wrote, that was Messiah.  Who is He?  "He is Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph, that carpenter, or that mason," as the same Greek word means carpentry and masonry, it may have been that he did both because the houses were built out of stone, not wood but there was window framing and door framing.  It may have been that Joseph was both.  But he said this is Jesus from Nazareth.  And Nathaniel couldn't believe his ear.  Nazareth?  Messiah comes out of that place?  And he says that in so many words in verse 46, but he's honest.  Nathaniel said unto him, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"  I mean, what's He doing up there?   

      It was interesting because there was probably a pretty good rivalry between Bethsaida and Nazareth. There was a lot of rivalry in the towns in those days, kind of like local high schools.  And everybody had their territorial rivalries, very interesting, and the battles that went on often times. But he says, "You mean Messiah started in that place?"   

      And I love Philip's answer, same answer.   "Well let me sit down and discuss with you the merits of Messiah."  No, He says unto him, what does it say at the end of verse 46?  "Come and see."  Same thing again, don’t stand around speculating about who Christ is, if you're really honest and you want to know if He's the Son of God, invite Him into your life and find out.

      And honesty, that's the greatest apologetic in Christianity, did you know that?  That's the most simple and most profound defense of Christianity there is...come and see.  You can stand up and say you can disprove evolution, you can prove the Bible is scientifically accurate, you can lay out all the prophecies under the sun but nobody is going to get saved until they come and see.  And you can't argue with that one, can you?  If you're ever talking to someone about Christ, that's the one argument that they'll never be able to argue against.  All right, you've got a lot of intellectual arguments, why don't you just invite Christ in and see?  Then you've gotten down to the basis, haven't you?  Come and see, come and see.  We found Him, come and see...see, of course, with a spiritual eye.  

      And so, in verse 47 he comes and Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to Him and He says of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile," and interestingly quoting something from the life of Jacob in Genesis 27, that same statement was made of him.  But He says, and He's quoting Jacob here and will again in verse 51...from the life of Jacob, not Jacob especially, but, he says, "There's an honest heart," again see there's the honest seeking heart. 

      But now notice in verse 48 again we see the sovereign side of salvation, the seeking Savior because Christ has already prepared this guy, He's already programmed. Watch this, "Nathaniel says unto Him, `How do You know me?'  Jesus answered and said unto him, watch this, `Before Philip called thee when thou wast under the fig tree I saw thee.'"  I know everything about you.  He could have said, "Who do you think made you?"  And whatever it was that Christ had implied to Nathaniel, he got the message because in verse 49 he said, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God, the King of Israel."  Remember the woman at the well?  She said, "Never a man told me the things that that man told me, He's got to be the Messiah."  Nathaniel couldn't believe that Jesus Christ was reading his mind when he was sitting under a tree where he couldn't even be seen.  Jesus said, "I knew you when you weren't even here, when you were over there under that fig tree."  He's probably thinking, "How did He know I was under a fig tree?"  You don't need to tell Him anything about Nathaniel; He knew everything about Nathaniel, every hair of his head.  And Nathaniel said, "Oh, that's a convincing one." 

      Hey, can you see the beauty of the person of Jesus Christ?  Can you see the tremendous preparation in the heart of a man?  Here is Nathaniel, he comes to Christ.  The simplest little thing and he believed, right?  Jesus didn't do a miracle for him.  No big deal.  And at the same time you have multitudes that followed Christ all His life, saw everything He did and concluded that He did it by the power of Satan.  What's the difference?  The sovereignty of God.  And so he says, "Come and see," and he came and saw and he replies with that tremendous sweeping answer, "Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel."  Why those two together?  Because Psalm 2 puts those two together; the anointed one is the King and the Son of Psalm 2:2. 

      And so, what a testimony.  See what John the Apostle is doing now?  He's got a lot of testimonies.  He's got the testimony of John the Baptist who said, "Behold, the Lamb of God."  He's now got the testimony of Andrew and John who said ”The Messiah is here, we found the Messiah," verse 41.  And now he adds to that the testimony of Nathaniel who says, "Thou art the Son of God, the King of Israel."  You see him building his case?  No question about it.

       Now in response to that in verse 50, "Jesus answered and said unto him, `Because I said unto you I saw you under the fig tree, did you believe?  You believed because of that miracle of My omniscience?  You believed, and this implies a yes answer and there are four kinds of class conditionals in the Greek and this implies a yes, in other words, He's saying you actually believe because of that miracle of knowing you before you got here?  Listen, He says, I am going to show you greater than that.'"  He says, "Nathaniel, you're just getting in on the beginning. 

      You say, "What's the rest?"  Verse 51, now hang on to this one.  "He saith unto him, Verily, verily I say unto you, hereafter you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."  Now commentators have had a field day with that verse.  Let me see if I can reduce it to a simple concept in just a matter of seconds.  Listen.  That comes out of Genesis 28, now hang on to this, this is very important.  In Genesis 28 Jacob saw a ladder, remember it?  And Jacob saw a ladder going from earth to heaven and angels going up and down the ladder and Jacob was dreaming of a day, now watch this, dreaming of a day when man would have access to God.  You see, that's what that ladder represented, from earth to heaven and angels were ministering to that ladder to keep it open, to keep it available, and to keep it working so that man could go to God.  And Jacob was dreaming of that day. 

      Do you know who that ladder is?  The Son of Man, look at it, what does it say?  You shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending not upon a ladder but upon what?  On a man.  You know what He was saying to Nathaniel?  He was saying, "Nathaniel, it's wonderful that you know I'm omniscient, but let Me tell you something better, you now have permanent open access to God through Me."  Isn't that a beautiful thought?  "I am that golden ladder."  And you say, "What are the angels doing there?"  Who ministered to Christ?  Who ministered to Him after His temptation, through His life?  The angels did.  Who ministers to God?  The angels.  Who ministers to us?  The angels.  That's a busy place, you see them up and down, up and down. 

      He says, "Nathaniel, it's good that you appreciate My omniscience, but wait a minute, I want to show you that you have open access to heaven."  Tremendous promise.

      Well we see some exciting things.  We see the two sides of salvation, the seeking soul and the seeking Savior, the balance of salvation.  If you're honest and you want to know Jesus Christ, if you're honest in your heart it's because the Savior has sought you out, God has drawn you, the Spirit has convicted you.  And if you'll put your trust in Christ even with your doubts, you'll know if you'll come and see. Christ is available.  And when you meet Him you have open access to heaven.  What a thrill! 

      And so, today we have seen the passage that began the work of Christ.  And I say in conclusion, its one thing to see the beginning of the work of Christ; I trust you're experiencing it in your own life.  If you can sense the Holy Spirit of God in your heart convicting you of sin and the need for repentance and the desire to have what Christ can give you, love and peace, joy, forgiveness, freedom from guilt, all of these things, and you're really honest and you want Jesus Christ, if you'll come to Him with an honest heart, He'll meet you.  If you'll ask Him into your life, He'll be there.