The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me. …45 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.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 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.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 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.” 51 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).
Believing is Seeing
In my last post I talked about Nathanael’s encounter with Jesus, and how he at first was dubious about how anyone from Nazareth could be the Messiah of Israel, for goodness’ sake.
However, because Jesus told Nathanael he had seen him under the fig tree when there was no way Jesus could have done that without divine intervention, Nathanael believed Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the King of Israel that Nathanael had looked for with longing. Then the Lord told Nathanael he and the others would see greater things than these, things like angels going up and down on a ladder reaching to heaven called “the Son of Man,” who was the Way into God’s presence. It was Jacob’s dream at Beth-el come to life, Jesus’ words declaring himself the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, and finally to Jacob (Genesis 28:10-22).
Greater Things
The “greater things” Nathanael and the other disciples would see, according to Jesus, was a new realm of spiritual activity that they would become not only observers of but participants in, revolving around the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself became The Way to God. He is the “ladder” to heaven. God’s minister’s, his angels who serve him faithfully, though unseen and unrecognized by us, are always doing the will of God (Hebrews 1:4, 14). And we will be, or should be, too.
The appearance of angels can be found throughout the Old and New Testaments. I think because angels are so mysterious to us that though we give a nod of acknowledgement to them, we tend to skim over their activity spoken of in Scripture. Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, see angelic activity, good or bad, everywhere. We know very little about angels so we perhaps are wary of them.
God has, however, given us all the information we need to know about angels, that they are “all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). Angels do unquestioningly the will of God and in some way I do not fully understand, they assist us to also do the will of God, as they ascend and descend, from earth to heaven and back again, on the Son of Man.
Faith to Action
Someday we will all understand this angelic process when faith becomes sight. For now, we can find comfort and assurance that we are not alone in our quest to love and obey our Lord against all odds in this life.
But what is it we are to be doing in love and obedience to our Lord? We’ll consider that in the next blog post.