Philip and Nathanael Become Disciples

“The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee.  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.’  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 there is no deceit!’  Nathanael said to Him, ‘How do you know me?’  Jesus answered him, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.  Nathanael answered Him, ‘Rabbi, You are the Son of God!  You are the King of Israel!’  Jesus answered 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, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’” –John 1:43-51 (ESV).

“The next day” in the opening of this passage from John’s gospel refers to the day after Jesus had called John himself as a disciple, and Andrew and Peter, and two days after John the Baptist had declared that Jesus was the Son of God.   Some scholars call Philip and Nathanael brothers.  Their calling is similar to that of Andrew and Peter, with Andrew finding Christ first and then going to find his own brother, Peter.  In Galilee, Jesus “found” Philip who was from the same city in Galilee, Bethsaida, where Andrew and Peter were from.  The important thing we see here is that each time the men who first encountered Jesus and were moved by Him to follow, went seeking others to follow Jesus whom they believed strongly from the time they first met Him was the Messiah, the Christ.  “Come and see,” they invited.  And Jesus was so compelling and had such a quality of spiritual insight that they wanted to follow Him.

Nathanael first shows some doubt, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Nazareth was an obscure town, not mentioned in the Old Testament, and certainly not held as a place from which the Messiah would come. To counter Nathanael’s doubts, Philip wisely invited him to come and meet Jesus for himself.  No doubt Philip, in his short time of knowing Jesus, had recognized something strong and different about Him.  When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching Him, he made an unusual statement about his character:  “Behold, and Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit!”  He was comparing Nathanael as an opposite of the long-ago Jacob who had deceived his brother Esau to get his father’s blessing.  Then Jesus told Nathanael He had already seen him “under the fig tree.”Much of speculation and imagination has been written about Jesus observing Nathanael as he was ‘under the fig tree.’  What had drawn Jesus’ attention to him, and why was this significant enough for John to mention it as he wrote of the calling of Philip and Nathanael?  We don’t have the answer to these questions, except to surmise that wherever we are, Jesus in His omnipotence already knows about us and wants us to follow Him..After Nathanael’s declaration “You are the Son of God!  You are the King of Israel!” Jesus promised Nathanael he would see greater things, and he referred to the dream of Jacob in the Old Testament when he saw a ladder reaching to Heaven and angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.  This was a designation Jesus used for Himself as Messiah  It is a term indicating that Jesus was completely partaking of the human nature, but at the same time He was completely divine.

Scholars believe that Nathanael and Bartholomew are one and the same disciple, with Bartholomew used in some of the lists of disciples, and Nathanael used here at the time of his calling as recorded by John.  We see in Philip first coming to Jesus and then inviting Nathanael a firm pattern of how we ourselves should lead others to discipleship.  We come to know Jesus and decide to follow Him.  He makes such a difference in our lives that we want to invite others to “Come and see” Jesus for themselves.  Like Philip to Nathanael, we want them to experience the joy of knowing the Messiah, the Savior.  And, like Nathanael and Philip, they can know that Jesus knew and loved them even before they came to Him. He awaits, still, each individual’s response.