Current Tunage: Matthew Good – Metal Airplanes
Quiet, reflective, and quite broken… Matthew Good at his finest, I suppose.

Steph was sharing with me this morning about a passage in John she found rather interesting. Specifically, John 1:45-51:

John 1:45-51 ESV
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.”

Specifically, she was wondering about the significance of the fig tree. What was it about being seen under this tree that caused this kind of rapturous and, dare I say, salvific response from Nathaniel?

We received a little help from our good old friend C.H. Spurgeon on this one. You can read his sermon on the passage [here]. Here is the portion relevant to answering Steph’s question (which by this point had become my own as well):

But what was Nathanael doing under the fig tree, according to our best surmise? Well, as devout Easterns are accustomed to have a special place for prayer, this may have been a shadowy fig tree under which Nathanael was accustomed to offer his devotions. And perhaps just before Philip came to him, he may have been engaged in personal and solitary confession of sin. He had looked round the garden and fastened the gate that none might come in—and he had poured into the ear of his God some very tender confession under the fig tree shade. When Christ said to him, “When you were under the fig tree,” it brought to his recollection how he poured out his broken and his contrite spirit, and confessed sins unknown to all but God. That confession, it may be, the very look of Christ brought back to his remembrance and the words and look together seemed to say, “I know your secret burden, and the peace you found in rolling it upon the Lord.” He felt, therefore, that Jesus must be Israel’s God.
-Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Nathaniel and the Fig Tree (emphasis mine)

With our question essentially resolved, I found it quite remarkable to peruse the remainder of what Spurgeon had to say in the remainder of this exposition. Here’s another meaningful excerpt which struck me as so very true of our present age just as it apparently was in Spurgeon’s over 100 years ago:

Nathanael was just the very opposite of all this. He was no hypocrite and no crafty deceiver. He wore his heart upon his sleeve. If he spoke, you might know that he said what he meant and that he meant what he said. He was a childlike, simple-hearted man, transparent as glass. He was not one of those fools who believe everything. But on the other hand, he was not of that other sort of fools so much admired in these days who will believe nothing, but who find it necessary to doubt the most self-evident Truth in order to maintain their credit for profound philosophy. These “thinkers” of this enlightened age are great at quibbles, mighty in feigning or feeling mistrust concerning matters which common sense has no doubts about.

They will profess to doubt whether there is a God, though that is as plain as the sun at noonday. No, Nathanael was neither credulous nor mistrustful. He was honestly ready to yield to the force of Truth. He was willing to receive testimony and to be swayed by evidence. He was not suspicious, because he was not a man who, himself, would be suspected. He was true-hearted and straightforward—a plain dealer and plain speaker. Cana had not within her gates a more thoroughly honest man. Philip seems to have known this, for he went to him directly, as to a man who was likely to be convinced and worth winning to the good cause.
-Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Nathaniel and the Fig Tree (emphasis mine)

I can’t count the times, as I’ve sat in my post-postmodern university classes where, having dismissed both God and Relativism, my peers and profs are left grasping for the proverbial straws to try and come up with some meaningful basis for ethics and metaphysics and life and existence and all of the deeper questions and things about which human inquiry has always revolved; they are too numerous to… number. I’m always amazed at the lengths to which men and women will go in their attempts to absolve themselves of their culpability before Christ who is both merciful and just.

May we be much more like Nathaniel, believing Christ for who He truly is… than like the fools who really believe in nothing – and where I say nothing we might insert alternately “themselves” or “science” or any other human construct or concept that is not the one true God of the Bible.

After all, all other explanations will always leave us cold and empty in the end.

…and with the Apostle to cry out:

1 Peter 1:3-9 ESV (emphasis mine)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith–more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire–may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.