TITLE
John 1:35-51 – The Real Stairway to Heaven
EXPLANATION
Next John describes for us the calling of four of
Jesus’s personal disciples. These were
Andrew, Simon, Philip, and Nathanael.
However, the calling of Andrew and Simon are given perfunctory
treatment, merely providing the surface details. By contrast, Philip’s and especially Nathanael’s
recruitment are focused on by John. This
account is not a mere historical record.
Rather, John has a point he is trying to make. He is continuing to drive the idea home that
Jesus, being God Himself, is the only means of access to God. John accomplishes this task here by using the
calling of these men as an illustration of his larger purpose.
The first thing we should notice is that these men
were students of the Scriptures. In
verses 36 and 37 we are told that it was in response to John’s address of Jesus
as the Lamb of God that Andrew and another disciple followed the Lord. As stated in the previous section, this title
had great Abrahamic and Mosaic connotations for a Jew who was well versed in
the Hebrew Bible. Then, in verse 45
Philip referenced the man about whom “Moses in the Law and also the prophets
wrote.” This would have been meaningless
to anyone not steeped in the Scriptures and is probably a reference to
Deuteronomy 18:15. Later, in verse 49,
Nathanael responded to Jesus by calling Him the “Son of God and the King of
Israel.” This was verbiage straight out
of Psalm 2 as well as other passages.
Furthermore, Jesus based His whole mode of interaction
with Nathanael on the Scriptures; specifically, the account of Jacob at
Bethel. In verse 47 He calls Nathanael
“an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit.” At first glance, this may seem to be an odd
and random greeting.
However, in verse
51 Jesus deliberately mentions Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28. Suddenly light is shone upon the way He
greeted Nathanael. Jacob was of course a
man of exceeding deceitfulness in his younger days. And it was he who had the dream of the
stairway reaching from the earth to heaven.
So, I think Jesus was intentionally drawing upon Nathanael’s knowledge
of the Scriptures, in this case specifically his awareness of Jacob’s character
and his dream. In fact, it could be that
when Nathanael was under the fig tree, mentioned in verse 48, that he was
reading the scroll of Genesis which contained the account of Jacob.
APPLICATION
As mentioned, Jesus
draws upon Old Testament imagery here.
He uses the dream of Jacob to make a point. That is, He Himself is the ultimate
fulfillment of Jacob’s dream. Just as
the stairway served as a conduit between God and man in the dream vision, now
we find that the stairway is replaced by Jesus Himself. It is Him the angels will ascend and descend
upon. In this way the Lord used the
pre-existing human effort that the four disciples had spent in studying the
Scriptures. He took those building blocks
and crafted them into a response of saving faith. This is the same way God works today. He is the sole author of faith. Yet, He is often pleased to use the
circumstances of our lives, which were ordained by Him, to bring us to the
point at which we are ready to surrender in faith and trust to the Lordship of
Christ. It behooves us, as Christians,
to remember this, even after salvation.
Because, we are still called to a life of faithfulness and
integrity. And, God is still often
pleased to use that human effort to produce supernatural results which would be
impossible for us to accomplish on our own.
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