The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”
Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote–Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.
“Come and see,” said Philip.
When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.”
“How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.
Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.” He then added, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
John 1:43-51 (NIV)
Again, we see the new disciples of Jesus spontaneously bringing their friends to Him as well. First it was Andrew who brought his brother Simon to Jesus, and now it is Philip, who brings his friend Nathanael. And all without a single evangelism class! All they did was to urge those closest to them into the presence of the one who had changed them, and the encounter was life-changing for those they brought as well.
In this case, Nathanael is at first skeptical of Philip’s claim that he had actually found the Messiah (the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote), because of where He was from. Nathanael really seems to have been a person with a very strong grasp of the Scriptures, and if that was the case, he would have known two things for sure. First, according to the prophets, especially Daniel, it was definitely time for the Messiah to show up. But second, the Messiah should be from Bethlehem, in the south of the country, not from Nazareth up north! It’s not that Nazareth was a terrible place to have as your hometown; it was that it was the wrong place for the Messiah to come from, according to the Bible, which was the only real criteria that mattered. (Jesus actually was born in Bethlehem (see Matthew 2:1 and Luke 2:4-6) in fulfillment of the prophecy in Micah 5:2, but He was known as Jesus of Nazareth, after the town that His family moved to after His birth.)
Philip’s answer to Nathanael’s doubts is simple and elegant: “Come and see.” So often people hesitate to tell people about Jesus, because they are afraid that they will be asked questions that they don’t have the answer for, or that objections will be raised that they can’t explain. But the most satisfactory answer to them all is that, once you meet Jesus, you will find the answers in Him to the important questions, and the rest will simply fade into the background. In a relationship with Jesus, every answer can be found; outside of that relationship, even the right answers won’t be satisfying.
When Nathanael meets Jesus, Jesus completely disarms him by telling him all about himself: “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” This is not just a compliment; it is a solid judgment of Nathanael and his character. He is a man of godly character, not like Jacob the schemer and scoundrel, but like Israel, Jacob after he had become submissive to the God who had mastered him. He was a man who was waiting for the Messiah and who was ready for His appearing.
He also described to the stunned Nathanael exactly what he had been doing before Philip had arrived – sitting and meditating under a fig tree (a favorite place for students of the Bible to study, because of the shade of its large leaves). That was all it took for Nathanael. Jesus hadn’t been anywhere near where he was studying, and if He knew about that, He must know everything. He immediately declared Jesus to be the Son of God, meaning the true Messiah, as well as the King of Israel, a true descendent of David, who would be eligible to rule over the whole nation.
I can almost hear Jesus laugh as He says, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that. I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” He is reminding this “true descendent of Israel/Jacob” about Jacob’s dream at Bethel (Genesis 28:12) where he saw angels ascending and descending on a stairway stretched between heaven and earth. What Jesus seems to be saying is that He Himself is the one who will be a conduit between mankind and God, a veritable ladder by which God descended to mankind, and by which mankind can ascend into God’s presence. And He promised Philip that he would be a witness to that.
Three and a half years later, Philip was among those gathered in the upper room after Jesus’ crucifixion, with the doors locked for fear of the Jesus. Suddenly the resurrected Jesus walked right through the locked door into their midst, bringing with Him the fulfillment of this promise. From that moment forward, the gates of heaven were thrown open to anyone who will trust in Jesus, the stairway into God’s presence.