God, Savior, and Judge (John 1:43-50)
My brother and I played and sang music together at my grandpa’s funeral. After it was over, my uncle came to us and said that he hoped something like that could be played at his funeral and that the things we sang would be true for him. He immediately walked away and said he’d lived too bad for God to do those things for him.
The songs we played were “It is Well with my Soul” and “Amazing Grace”. And it took me a moment to realize what he was saying because he had just said these things at us like he was thinking it out for himself. And what he was saying was that he had failed to climb the ladder of achievement. He had failed to do what he believed was necessary to earn God’s favor.
And if I really sit down and think about this, it is very similar to what the average person walking down the street would say.
But that is not correct. That is not how we receive God’s favor.
We saw last week that Andrew and Phillip ran to family and friends to tell them about Jesus. Well, Andrew’s brother immediately believed. But this was not the case for Nathanael.
People come to faith in different ways. Different paths in life may bring us to Jesus. Some people hear about Jesus when they are children and are faithful their whole lives. Others among us have lived a long and windy road that eventually brought us to Jesus. Some people believed the message quickly. Others hear it for years and then come to faith in Christ. Peter was apparently not as stubborn as Nathanael, and we get to be view that at the end of John 1 today.
Jesus is God (John 1:43-49)
Jesus found Philip and said “Follow me” (John 1:43). And then we see that he immediately followed. And, as we saw a few weeks ago, Philip immediately went and preached to Nathanael. As we saw in the previous sermon from John, this is the natural response to becoming a Christian. He went and told Nathanael.
Philip’s message to Nathanael was that they had found the Messiah (John 1:45). It is humorous to consider because it was Jesus that found him. But still, this was the message he was proclaiming about Jesus. Philip is saying that this is the person that Moses wrote about, Jesus is a prophet like Moses that was promised to come (Deuteronomy 18:15). Jesus is the one the prophets wrote about in passages that we often quote such as Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22.
Nathanael’s immediate response was skepticism saying, “can anything good come from out of Nazareth”. It was not a place with a great reputation. It’s similar to how people talk about certain locations near Conway that are filled with redneck crackheads. Can anything good come from there? Nathanael was immediately unimpressed, completely skeptical of the messiah coming from Nazareth (John 1:46).
But Jesus quickly proved him wrong.
Jesus knew Nathanael’s character, though they had never met (John 1:47). He was in Israelite with no guile. His life exhibited faithfulness to the Lord. And Nathanael asked the question that we would all want to ask. “How do you know me?” (John 1:48) But Jesus did not answer that question. He just kept revealing Himself to Nathanael.
Jesus said that he saw Philip under the fig tree (John 1:48). This is crazy. Jesus wasn’t there when Philip was under the fig tree. In fact, we don’t know what happened under the fig tree. Maybe Philip had been praying or maybe he had done something else. We just don’t know. Only Jesus and Philip knew and Philip had been all alone.
There was an immediate response from Nathanael, “you are the Son of God”, “you are the King of Israel”. Nathanael’s attitude concerning Jesus had quickly been turned around. Now Nathanael believed Philip’s testimony concerning Jesus.
One of the proofs that Jesus is God is that He does only what God can do.
Who could have know the heart of Nathanael?
Who could have known whatever it was that Nathanael was doing under the fig tree?
I have discussed the divinity of Christ a few times in our sermons through John recently, and it will come up again. John’s gospel discusses it with some regularity. Only God could have known the character of Nathanael. Only God could have known what Nathanael had been up to without being there.
It is often said that the gospels don’t proclaim that Jesus is God. As Christians we know better. And here, in the interaction with Nathanael, we see better.
We see the truth of who Jesus is right here in our story today. He is God. And Nathanael understood the message completely.
And I hope that you do too!
Jesus is the Son of God. He is of one substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He is God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity. And He made a way for us to be brought into relationship with God.
Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:49 ESV)
Jesus is the Way to God (John 1:50)
Jesus’s answer to Nathanael is simply that he will see greater things than these. Seeing him under the fig tree without being there is nothing compared to what is to come. Nathanael will see “heaven opened; and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man (John 1:50).
If we are to understand what Jesus is saying, then we must go all the way back to the Book of Genesis. Jacob was running for his life from his brother Esau. And alone, out in the wilderness, Jacob had a dream.
A ladder was on earth that reached to Heaven. There were angels ascending and descending upon it. And the LORD gave His promise to Jacob. It was through Jacob that the promises would be fulfilled (Genesis 28:10-22). It was through the family of Jacob that people would have a relationship with God.
And here Jesus refers to that story to say that He is the way. The angels were ascending and descending on a ladder, but now they were ascending and descending upon Him. Nathanael would see Heaven open, and people come to God through Jesus.
Jesus is the true and greater Israel. Through Him people are brought to God. And through Him the nations are blessed.
God the Son took on human flesh and dwelt among us. He died on the cross and paid the punishment for sin. And He rose from the grave three days later. And all those who trust in Him are brought out of the sinful mass of humanity and brough to God.
Now, our impulse is to look at our lives and think that we are good, that we have done something to earn right standing with God. But that is not what Jesus says here. Christ died and rose from the grave. Heaven has been opened to you. And it is only through Jesus Christ that you can be brought to God.
Maybe you are listening to this message today and you’ve lived a life like I described earlier. Maybe you’ve done everything wrong. Maybe you’ve made a wreck of your life and you think that there is no way to be brought to God. Jesus has made a way for you. Jesus has opened heaven to you through His perfect life, death, and resurrection.
Maybe you are here today and you think that you are going to white knuckle this thing and get to Heaven through your own work. But that is not what Jesus says here. You will not ascend to Heaven by your own work. It is open to you, but it is open to you because Jesus opened it for you. He made a way for you to be brought to God through His perfect life, death, and resurrection. You need only look to Him and find Heaven to be yours. You need only trust in Him and you will be brought to God. All the blessings of being part of God’s family are yours in Him, not in what you do.
God the Son came down to us and made a way for us to be brought to Him. Remember what John said in the prologue.
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13 ESV)
Nathanael did see heaven opened. He was there when the gospel was preached at Pentecost and thousands came to faith in Christ. We believe, from testimony outside of Scripture, that he went on to Persia, India, and even Armenia preaching the gospel and seeing people come to faith in Christ. He saw heaven opened to many through Jesus.
And that is true even today.
Turn from your sin and trust in Jesus today!
Jesus is the Son of Man (John 1:51)
Now Jesus referred to Himself as “the Son of Man”. What does that mean?
People often say that Nathanael emphasized Jesus’s deity, so Jesus emphasized His humanity. This is a biblical thought. Jesus is both God and man. Somehow, Jesus is completely God and completely man. Both are thoroughly taught in the Scriptures and seen clearly in Jesus.
But this is not what Jesus was doing.
Son of Man was a favorite term of Jesus’s throughout the gospel accounts. But it’s not a discussion of His humanity. It harkens back to Daniel 7. It is very much a discussion of who He is. Jesus is the Son of Man that the Ancient of Days gives universal authority to.
“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14 ESV)
Jesus has been given all authority. He is King over all. God the Son took on human flesh, died, rose from the grave, and has been given all authority.
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” (Matthew 28:18-20 ESV)
Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. He has all authority. And as a church, we go and proclaim this message. We proclaim it here in Conway, Arkansas. We proclaim it in our families. And we proclaim it far and wide.
We proclaim the gospel to the nations.
We proclaim His lordship over all.
And as the Son of Man, He will judge the world (Matthew 25).
Jesus is God the Son who accomplished redemption through His perfect life, death, and resurrection. He has made a way for us to be brought to God through this perfect salvation.
All those who trust in Him find full pardon and entry into God’s family.
All those who do not will find their selves judged by the King of kings and Lord of lords one day.
As we read in Old Testament passages repeatedly, Jesus would suffer and then be exalted.
In Psalm 22, which Jesus quotes from the cross, there is a description of Jesus’s death many years before it happens. But how does that Psalm end? Around 1,000 years before the death of Jesus, what do we read would happen to Him?
“All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.” (Psalm 22:29-31 ESV)
In Isaiah 53, that passage we read every year around Resurrection Sunday, what is that we find after Jesus’s death? Around 900 years before Jesus’s death, what do we read would happen?
“Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:10-12 ESV)
And how do the New Testament authors interpret these things? Look at what Paul wrote in the Book of Phillipians.
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phillipians 2:5-11 ESV)
Because God the Son humbled Himself and took on human flesh, because He humbled Himself further even to death for the salvation of sinners, God bestowed upon Him the name that is above every other name. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Jesus is God who humbled Himself for your salvation. And if you will but trust in Him, you will be saved.
Jesus is God who has been given all authority in Heaven and on Earth. Every knee will bow to Jesus Christ. And that will either happen now, or later in judgment. You will face the Son of Man at your judgment. And you will either be welcomed into His rest, or you will face His wrath. You will either be given an eternity with Him because He is the ladder that gives us the blessing of eternal life or you will face the Son of Man’s judgment.
Conclusion
Here, at the end of the Gospel of John, we are met with the awesome truth that God the Son made a way for us to be redeemed. God the Son took on human flesh and paid the price for us. But we also see that the one who made a way for us is also the Judge. We will all face Him some day.
As a Christian, this causes us to think more about what we discussed last week. It causes us to prioritize sharing the message of Christ and the salvation He gives with our family and friends. It causes us to go home and speak often with our children of God’s grace and mercy found in Jesus Christ. It causes us to speak about Jesus with other family members and friends around us.
If you are here today and don’t know Jesus. This should make you think as well. Do you know Him? Has He opened the doors of Heaven to you?
If you were to die of a brain aneurism in the chair, where you sit right now, and minutes from now be ushered into the presence of God and He were to ask, “Why should I let you into my Heaven?” What would you say? What reason would you give for your being admitted into glory?
If the reason you give is that you somehow made it through your own self effort, then you don’t know Christ or the salvation He gives.
But if your answer is that Christ has opened Heaven to you and through His finished work, you have been brought into His Kingdom, that’s faith. That is believing the gospel. That is casting yourself completely upon Christ.