Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 1:51

And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

51. Verily, verily ] The double ‘verily’ occurs 25 times in this Gospel, and nowhere else, always in the mouth of Christ. It introduces a truth of special solemnity and importance. The single ‘verily’ occurs about 30 times in Matthew 14 in Mark , , 7 in Luke. The word represents the Hebrew ‘Amen,’ which in the LXX. never means ‘verily.’ In the Gospels it has no other meaning. The ‘Amen’ at the end of sentences (Mat 6:13; Mat 28:20; Mar 16:20; Luk 24:53; Joh 21:25) is in every case of doubtful authority.

unto you ] Plural; all present are addressed, Andrew, John, Peter (James), and Philip, as well as Nathanael.

Hereafter ] Better, from henceforth; from this point onwards Christ’s Messianic work of linking earth to heaven, and re-establishing free intercourse between man and God, goes on. But the word is wanting in the best MSS.

heaven open ] Better, the heaven opened; made open and remaining so.

the angels of God ] Like Joh 1:47, an apparent reference to the life of Jacob, perhaps suggested by the scene, which may have been near to Bethel. This does not refer to the angels which appeared after the Temptation, at the Agony, and at the Ascension: rather to the perpetual intercourse between God and the Messiah during His ministry.

the Son of man ] This phrase in all four Gospels is invariably used by Christ Himself of Himself as the Messiah, upwards of 80 times in all. None of the Evangelists direct our attention to this strict limitation in the use of the expression: their agreement on this striking point is evidently undesigned, and therefore a strong mark of their veracity. See notes on Mat 8:20; Mar 2:10. In O.T. the phrase ‘Son of Man’ has three distinct uses; (1) in the Psalms, for the ideal man; Psa 8:4-8; Psa 80:17; Psa 144:3; Psa 146:3: (2) in Ezekiel, as the name by which the Prophet is addressed by God; Eze 2:1; Eze 2:3; Eze 2:6; Eze 2:8; Eze 3:1; Eze 3:3-4, &c., &c., more than 80 times in all; probably to remind Ezekiel, that in spite of the favour shewn to him, and the wrath denounced against the children of Israel, he, no less than they, had a mortal’s frailty: (3) in the ‘night visions’ of Dan 7:13-14, where ‘One like a son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days and there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him, &c.’ That ‘Son of man henceforth became one of the titles of the looked-for Messiah’ may be doubted. Rather, the title was a new one assumed by Christ, and as yet only dimly understood (comp. Mat 16:13).

This first chapter alone is enough to shew that the Gospel is the work of a Jew of Palestine, well acquainted with the Messianic hopes, and traditions, and phraseology current in Palestine at the time of Christ’s ministry, and able to give a lifelike picture of the Baptist and of Christ’s first disciples.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Verily, verily – In the Greek, Amen, amen. The word amen means truly, certainly, so be it – from the Hebrew verb to confirm, to establish, to be true. It is often used in this gospel. When repeated it expresses the speakers sense of the importance of what he is saying, and the certainty that it is as he affirms.

Ye shall see – Not, perhaps, with the bodily eyes, but you shall have evidence that it is so. The thing shall take place, and you shall be a witness of it.

Heaven open – This is a figurative expression, denoting the conferring of favors. Psa 78:23-24; he opened the doors of heaven, and had rained down manna. It also denotes that God was about to work a miracle in attestation of a particular thing. See Mat 3:16. In the language, here, there is an evident allusion to the ladder that Jacob saw in a dream, and to the angels ascending and descending on it, Gen 28:12. It is not probable that Jesus referred to any particular instance in which Nathanael should literally see the heavens opened. The baptism of Jesus had taken place, and no other instance occurred in his life in which it is said that the heavens were opened.

Angels of God – Those pure and holy beings that dwell in heaven, and that are employed as ministering spirits to our world, Heb 1:14. Good men are represented in the Scriptures as being under their protection, Psa 91:11-12; Gen 28:12. They are the agents by which God often expressed his will to men, Heb 2:2; Gal 3:19. They are represented as strengthening the Lord Jesus, and ministering unto him. Thus they aided him in the wilderness Mar 1:13, and in the garden Luk 22:43, and they were present when he rose from the dead, Mat 28:2-4; Joh 20:12-13. By their ascending and descending upon him it is probable that he meant that Nathanael would have evidence that they came to his aid, and that he would have the kind of protection and assistance from God which would show more fully that he was the Messiah. Thus his life, his many deliverances from dangers, his wisdom to confute his skilled and cunning adversaries, the scenes of his death, and the attendance of angels at his resurrection, may all be represented by the angels descending upon him, and all would show to Nathanael and the other disciples most clearly that he was the Son of God.

The Son of man – A term by which lie often describes himself. It shows his humility, his love for man, his willingness to be esteemed as a man, Phi 2:6-7.

From this interview with Nathanael we may learn:

1.That Jesus searches the heart.

2.That he was truly the Messiah.

3.That he was under the protection of God.

4.That if we have faith in Jesus, it will be continually strengthened the evidence will grow brighter and brighter.

5.That if we believe his word, we shall yet see full proof that his word is true.

1. Since Jesus was under the protection of God, so all his friends will be. God will defend and save us also if we put our trust in Him.
2. Jesus applied terms expressive of humility to himself. He was not solicitous even to be called by titles which he might claim.

So we should not be ambitious of titles and honors. Ministers of the gospel most resemble him when they seek for the fewest titles, and do not aim at distinctions from each other or their brethren. See the notes at Mat 23:8.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Joh 1:51

Hereafter ye shall see the heaven open

The verilies of Christ

1.

Nothing is more characteristic of our age than its questioning and doubt.

(1) Science has opened many fields in all of which much is yet unsolved.

(2) Philosophy has unsettled much that was once believed.

(3) The growing complications of society force upon us questions to every one of which jarring answers are returned.

(4) The Church is so divided that she is unable to guide herself, much less the world. Hence thousands are asking whether there can be any certainty for man.

2. There was another age which resembled ours–the age when the old-world civilizations broke up: when Greece and Rome were bankrupt, and when Israels sun turned into darkness. In that dark age He came who could meet doubt with certain truth.

3. The Truth still lives who had and still has a message for a doubting age, and for those who received Him there was and is now certainty and rest.

4. This amen has altered some memorable amens–amens which He has marked with reiterated affirmations; the unusual form showing us

(1) That we need light; and

(2) That He will not withhold the light we need.

5. The Verily, verily is only employed by John because he sets forth Christ in His higher relations, and therefore conveys transcendent truth that requires emphasis.

6. Not one of the verilies refers to the Church, but all refer to the peculiar forms of eternal life which are only outwardly manifested in the Church; and will survive its failure.

7. This revelation of eternal life is distinctive of St. John. The other apostles have each their special truth suited to some stage of the Church and individual.

(1) Pauls comes first, meeting us with words relative to our ruin and the righteousness which is by faith.

(2) James meets our advancing needs touching the moralities which belong to Christian doctrine.

(3) Peter comes next with words of our present suffering and future glory.

(4) Once mere we advance and come to Johns witness to the new life which the sons of God are called to manifest.

8. It is this teaching of Johns which the reiterated amens sum up, showing us the course and stages of eternal life in Christ. Twelve of these are distinguished.

(1) The home of the new man: heaven, long shut, is reopened (Joh 1:51).

(2) We enter this home by a new birth (Joh 3:3; Joh 3:5).

(3) The law of the life of the new man (Joh 5:19-22).

(4) His meat (Joh 6:26-58).

(5) His liberty (Joh 8:31-35).

(6) His divinity (Joh 8:48-58).

(7) His service (Joh 10:1-18).

(8) His sacrifice and its results (Joh 12:24-26).

(9) His lowliness (13:1-32).

(10) His glory (Joh 14:8-31.

(11) His sorrow and joy (Joh 16:16-25).

(12) His perfecting (Joh 21:15-23). (A. Jukes, M. A.)

The verilies of Christ teach us three lessons

I. AS TO THE AUTHORITY OF THE TEACHER. The Jews were astonished at His doctrine, for He taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes, which suggests a contrast with other teachers.

1. Put side by side with the autocratic ring of this Verily, verily I say unto you, the formula of the prophets–Thus saith the Lord.

2. Contrast again the bare utterance of His own word as a reason for our acceptance of His sayings with the teaching that was busy around Him. One rabbi says this and another that, and so on through all the wearisome Talmud. They drew their authority from their faithfulness to tradition. Christ steps forward as a fresh fountain of certitude.

3. Contrast His teaching with the tone of modesty suitable to mere thinkers who have learned their truths. The philosopher may argue, Christ asserts. Now, what business has Christ to talk in this fashion and demand that I should take from His lips anything He chooses to say? The only answer is, that He is the Word, the Truth of God.

II. AS TO THE CERTITUDE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE LESSON. Other teachers have to say, Peradventure, This I deem to be true. Jesus says, Most assuredly.

1. In our day of uncertainties and unsolved problems the world wants more than ever to listen to that voice. Much is dark and doubtful, but here at least is a central core of hard rock that no pressure can grind nor any force shift.

2. Think of the difference between the freshness and adaptation of Christs words and the film of old-fashioned untimeliness which has crept over all other ancient utterances, and say what is the secret of this immortal youth. It is because they are free from all admixture of human limitation and transitoriness, and so fit every generation, and are to every generation the source of certitude.

3. Classify the utterances to which this formula is attached, First, those which refer to Himself. He asserts

(1) His Divine nature (Joh 8:58).

(2) His absolute unity of being and identity of action with the

Father (Joh 5:19).

(3) His place as the medium of all communication between earth and heaven (Joh 1:51).

(4) That He is the way by which all men enter the fold of God Joh 10:7).

(5) That He is the infallible Teacher (Joh 3:11).

(6) That He is the God-given source of life (Joh 6:32).

(7) The certain granting of all prayers offered in His name (Joh 16:23).

(8) The necessity for His death, that His mission may be accomplished (Joh 12:24).

Secondly, those which refer to us,

(1) Union by faith with Him is the condition of our life (Joh 6:58; Joh 8:51; Joh 5:24).

(2) The necessity of a new nature ere we can see or enter the kingdom (Joh 3:3; Joh 3:6).

(3) The promise of our complete assimilation and conformity with Him on condition of our faith (Joh 13:16; Joh 13:20; Joh 14:12).

Thirdly, those which contain predictions of a near or remote future which could only be made from supernatural knowledge (Joh 13:21; Joh 16:20; Joh 13:38; Joh 21:18).

Fourthly, those which lay bare to men the hidden foulness of their nature Joh 6:26; Joh 8:34).

III. AS TO THE BACKWARDNESS OF THE SCHOLARS.

1. Verily implies that they to whom it was addressed had dull ears, whose languid attention needed to be stimulated, or that the words which He was going to utter were too great to be easily believed, or too unwelcome to be swiftly accepted.

2. It is a warning against prejudice and sluggish apathy.

3. It is a solemn appeal to us to permit no indifference to come between us and His Word. Two things are required of us as His scholars.

1. That which it is degradation to give to man, but which is blasphemy to withhold from Christ. Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.

2. The absolute certitude of His messsge has for its correlative our unwavering steadfastness. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The first Verily, verily,–the home of the new man

1. The first question of the Old Testament is, Where art thou?–Gods question to fallen man. The first of the New is, Where is He?–asked by men who have just been awakened to feel their need of a Saviour. Gods question reveals mans state that he is not where God placed him; mans question draws forth the purpose of Gods heart, that, fallen as we are, He is with us, our Tabernacle.

2. This first verily teaches both these truths. Heaven, mans proper home, long shut, is now opened, and that all man has lost shall be restored through the Heir, the Son of man. The old man by disobedience lost his home; the New Man comes back again to the opened heavens as His dwelling-place.

3. These words were spoken by one who had just had heaven open to Him, and He comes forth to tell men how they are to enter.

4. Heaven is not far off; it is the spirit-world which is lost or shut only to the natural man. What will be manifested at death may be anticipated here.

5. Take some examples of this opened heaven.

(1) That which took place at Christs baptism. This is fulfilled to Christs members. The Spirit like a dove abides on them; for the mark of the beast is gone, and the voice from heaven proclaims their sonship.

(2) Christs transfiguration is recorded to teach a communion with saints who are not far from us. But this blessing is not without its peril, inasmuch as it awakens in imperfect disciples thoughts which if followed out would give to creatures a place and honour which belongs to God alone. Hence Peter wanted three tabernacles; but is called back to Jesus only by the voice, This is My beloved Son, etc.

(3) Peters vision (Act 10:9-16), which taught him that we should call no man common or unclean.

(4) Johns visions in the Apocalypse, revealing the glory of the Son of man and the endless bliss of His brethren.

6. Whenever mans true home is opened the servants (angels) also are seen, ever near.

(1).Ministering to mans wants (1Ki 19:5-6).

(2) Directing his steps (Gen 16:9).

(3) Barring his way if he turns aside from God (Num 22:24-26).

(4) Present in the assemblies of believers (1Co 11:10).

(5) Specially related to little children (Mat 18:10).

(6) Rejoicing over repenting sinners (Luk 15:10).

(7) Ministering: to the heirs of salvation (Heb 1:14). (A. Jukes, M. A.)

The positiveness of Jesus

This expression is one of the signs and evidences of the originality of Jesus Christ. It occurs more than seventy times, and was a characteristic which separated His conversation from that of other men. There were and are examples enough of mere dogmatism.

1. The scribes, whether of theology or science, will open their books and say, It is written, and that is the end of all controversy.

2. The bigot will hold fast to the letter of his creed and anathematize all who do not hold it.

3. Ignorance will stand firm upon tradition and swear to all passers by, I know. Everywhere there has lived the man who could not be mistaken.

But the assurance of Jesus Christ was wholly different.

1. Nor was it like the positiveness of the prophets of old who proclaimed, Thus saith the Lord.

2. Nor like the confidence of the philosopher in his reasonings, the naturalist in his verifications. Christs verilies precede rather than conclude His teachings. He gave no demonstrations.

3. Nor with the religious faiths of His disciples. Faith is for us an achievement, and after the struggle Jesus comes and saysbelieve. But no Christ came to Jesus, nor is there in His positiveness any trace of conflict. He believed spontaneously and directly out of His own consciousness of God. This positiveness marked Christs teaching from the beginning when He spoke to His mother in the Temple; and never afterwards was there a hesitating note. This peculiar quality appears when we reflect on the subjects on which He was absolutely sure. They are those on which other men are not sure.

(1) His verilies have nothing to do with natural truths which we can discover or demonstrate.

(2) Nor with matters of history which scholars may search out.

(3) Nor with such things as Sanhedrims wrangle over.

(4) But with vital, spiritual, eternal truths not otherwise discoverable by man.

Learn, then:

1. That over against all our human ignorance, sinfulness, and need, the gospel is one grand affirmation of God; an assertion of those things of which we most need to be made sure.

2. If we want true hearts and strength to do and dare; if we would learn the secret of cheerful, patient lives; if we wish to live with all our souls for noble purpose, and with great faiths and immortal hope, there is a verily waiting to impart to us its power and its peace.

3. Christian unity is only to be realized upon the high plane of this positiveness, and along the lines of those great spiritual affirmations.

4. There is some verily speaking to each at all times and everywhere. (Newman Smyth, D. D.)

Heaven opened

I. A CERTAIN FACT: Christ has come forth.

II. A BLESSED GOSPEL: Christs appearing a manifestation of Divine grace.

III. A JOYOUS HOPE: Christs coming forth suggests the possibility of mans going in.

IV. A GLORIOUS PREDICTION: the reinstitution of fellowship between earth and heaven predicts the assimilation of the former to the latter. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)

Verily

is simply the familiar amen! which properly is an adjective meaning firm or steadfast, and is used in two connections. Sometimes it precedes an assertion which it confirms, in which case it may be paraphrased by Thus it certainly is. Sometimes it follows a prayer which it sums up and reiterates, and in that case it may be paraphrased by So may it be. Doubled it has the force of a superlative, Most assuredly. It is heard only from the lips of Christ. It becomes no other lips. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Angels ascending and descending

Some of these angelic appearances had already taken place. An angel announced the conception of Christ to His mother. An angel, accompanied by a multitude of the heavenly host, proclaimed His birth to the shepherds, and after His temptation angels came and ministered to Him. These instances of angels descending on the Son of man had taken place before this period, and Nathanael knew them not; but there remained other manifestations of the same kind, which were yet to be afforded. An angel appeared to Him, and strengthened Him in His agony. At His resurrection an angel rolled away the stone from His sepulchre, and two angels sat, the one at the head, the other at the feet where the Lord had lain. And, lastly, angels attended His ascension, and as an angel had announced His first coming, so angels foretold to the witnesses of this great event that the same Jesus who had been parted from them should come again in like manner as they had seen Him go up into heaven. (J. Fawcett, M. A.)

Jesus a ladder to heaven

To the north of Scotland lies an island called Bressay. It is one of the Shetland Islands, and its shores are very rocky. On the south coast of Bressay is a slate-quarry. The workmen had to descend the cliff to it by means of a ladder. One evening, a violent and sudden storm drove the quarrymen from their work. The ladder was left fastened to the cliff. The night was very dark and stormy. A ship which was struggling with the waves was driven close to the island. Her crew beheld with terror the white foam of the breakers as they dashed against the rocks. They knew that, if their ship were stranded, they must be wrecked. Still the howling winds drove her forward. The waves dashed over her, filled the cabin with water, and drowned the wife of the captain. The sailors now climbed into the rigging. They were at the mercy of the furious wind and of the raging sea. They gave themselves up for lost. Many prayers and cries for deliverance were uttered. On came the ship, and struck against the shore. The poor seamen felt that death was almost certain. On the summit of the cliff was safety; but how could they reach it, who were helplessly dashed at its foot? But just as the ship struck near the rock, their terror was changed to joy. Close beside them, on the steep face of the cliff, was a ladder. It seemed as if placed there on purpose for them. In haste they sprang from the rigging, mounted the ladder, and reached the top of the cliff in safety. The vessel went to pieces so quickly that, by the next morning, hardly a trace of her was left.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 51. Verily, verily] Amen, amen. The doubling of this word probably came from this circumstance: that it was written both in Hebrew and in Greek , signifying, it is true.

Heaven open] This seems to be a figurative expression:

1. Christ may be understood by this saying to mean, that a clear and abundant revelation of God’s will should be now made unto men; that heaven itself should be laid as it were open, and all the mysteries which had been shut up and hidden in it from eternity, relative to the salvation and glorification of man; should be now fully revealed.

2. That by the angels of God ascending and descending, is to be understood, that a perpetual intercourse should now be opened between heaven and earth, through the medium of Christ, who was God manifested in the flesh. Our blessed Lord is represented in his mediatorial capacity as the ambassador of God to men; and the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man, is a metaphor taken from the custom of despatching couriers or messengers from the prince to his ambassador in a foreign court, and from the ambassador back to the prince.

This metaphor will receive considerable light when compared with 2Co 5:19-20: God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself:- We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead to be reconciled to God. The whole concerns of human salvation shall be carried on, from henceforth, through the Son of man; and an incessant intercourse be established between heaven and earth. Some have illustrated this passage by the account of Jacob’s vision, Ge 28:12. But though that vision may intimate that God had established at that time a communication between heaven and earth, through the medium of angels, yet it does not appear that our Lord’s saying here has any reference to it; but that it should be understood as stated above.

What a glorious view does this give us of the Gospel dispensation! It is heaven opened to earth; and heaven opened on earth. The Church militant and the Church triumphant become one, and the whole heavenly family, in both, see and adore their common Lord. Neither the world nor the Church is left to the caprices of time or chance. The Son of man governs as he upholds all. Wherever we are praying, studying, hearing, meditating, his gracious eye is upon us. He notes our wants, our weakness, and our petitions; and his eye affects his heart. Let us be without guile, deeply, habitually sincere, serious, and upright; and then we may rest assured, that not only the eye, but the hand, of our Lord shall be ever upon us for good. Happy the man whose heart can rejoice in the reflection, Thou God seest me!

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

These things he ushers in with a Verily, verily, and declareth them spoken not to Nathanael alone, but unto you; viz. all you that are my disciples indeed, who are (like Nathanael) true Israelites, in whom there is no guile. For the terms, Amen, Amen, (by us translated, Verily, verily), some of the ancients accounted them an oath; but the most learned modern writers have seen no reason to agree with them. Surely (see a large discourse about these particles in our learned Fuller, his Miscellan. 1.1. cap. 2, to which nothing need be added) if Amen is never used in the Old Testament but as a term of prayer or wishing, in the New Testament it is used to assert or affirm a thing, or as a particle of wishing and prayer. The word in the Hebrew properly signifies, truth, Isa 65:16; whence Christ (the truth) is called the Amen, Rev 3:14. As the prophets were wont to begin their discourses with The word of the Lord, and Thus saith the Lord, to assert the truth of what they were about to say; so Christ, to show that himself was God, and spake from himself, begins with Amen; and Amen, Amen, sometimes: it is observed that John constantly doubles the particle, and saith Amen, Amen, that is, Verily, verily; either (as interpreters say) for further confirmation of the thing, or to get the greater attention, or to assert as well the truth of the speaker as of the thing spoken. Now the thing spoken followeth as a thing promised, not to Nathanael only, but to all believers, that they should

see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. Some think that hereby is meant the spiritual, metaphorical opening of heaven to believers by Christ. But it seems more properly to signify such an opening of the heavens as we read of, Mat 3:16. Some understand it of the appearances of angels to Christ at his passion, and resurrection, and ascension; but it seems rather to refer to the day of judgment, when ten thousands of angels shall wait upon Christ, as the Judge of the quick and the dead, and minister unto him; which ministration, they say, is expressed by the terms of ascending and descending, with reference (doubtless) to Jacobs vision, Gen 28:12; Jacob saw it sleeping, Nathanael and other believers shall see it with open eyes. Others interpret it more generally, viz. You shall see as many miracles as if you saw the heavens opened, and the angels ascending and descending. Others think it refers to some further appearances of the angels to Christ in their ministration to him than the Scripture records. Christ doth not say, You shall see angels ascending and descending upon me, but upon the Son of man; by which our learned Lightfoot saith, he did not only declare himself to be truly man, but the Second Adam, in whom what was lost in the first was to be restored. It is observed, that only Ezekiel in the Old Testament, and Christ in the New Testament, are thus called; and that Christ was never thus called but by himself. Ezekiel was doubtless so called to distinguish him from those spiritual beings with which he often conversed: Christ, to distinguish his human nature from his Divine nature, both which (in him) made up one person. Christs calling himself so was but a further indication of his making himself of no reputation, while he was in the form of a servant. Others think, that the Son of man in the gospel, used by Christ, signifies no more than I, and me; (it being usual in the Hebrew dialect for persons to speak of themselves in the third person); so, upon the Son of man, is, upon me, who am truly man. Chemnitius thinks, that as the term Messiah (by which the people commonly called Christ) was taken out of Daniel; so this term, by Christ applied to the same person, is taken out thence too, Dan 7:13, where it is said, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, & c.; and that Christ did ordinarily so call himself, to correspond with the prophecy of Daniel, to assert himself truly man, and to declare himself his Fathers servant, according to the prophecy, Isa 42:1.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

51. Hereafter, &c.The keyto this great saying is Jacob’s vision (Ge28:12-22), to which the allusion plainly is. To show thepatriarch that though alone and friendless on earth his interestswere busying all heaven, he was made to see “heaven opened andthe angels of God ascending and descending upon a” mystic”ladder reaching from heaven to earth.” “By andby,” says Jesus here, “ye shall see this communicationbetween heaven and earth thrown wide open, and the Son of man thereal Ladder of this intercourse.“

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And he saith unto him, verily, verily, I say unto you,…. Not only to Nathanael, but to the rest of the disciples that were then with him; and to show himself to be the “Amen”, and faithful witness, as well as more strongly to asseverate what he was about to say, he doubles the expression:

hereafter you shall see heaven open; either in a literal sense, as it had been at his baptism; or, in a mystical sense, that there should be a clearer manifestation of heavenly truths made by his ministry; and that the way into the holiest of all should be made more manifest; and a more familiar intercourse he opened between God and his people; and also between angels and saints:

and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man; or to the son of man, as the Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions render it; meaning himself in human nature; the second Adam, and seed of the woman; and is expressive both of the truth, and infirmity of that nature. Reference may here be had to the ladder Jacob dreamed of, in Ge 28:12, which was a representation of Christ, in his person, as God-man; who, as God, was in heaven, whilst he, as man, was on earth; and in his office, as Mediator between God and man, making peace between them both; and in the ministration of angels to him in person, and to his body the church. And it is observable, that some of the Jewish writers y understand the ascent, and descent of the angels, in Ge 28:12, to be, not upon the ladder, but upon Jacob; which makes the phrase there still more agreeable to this; and so they render , in Ge 28:13, not “above it”, but “above him”. Or the, sense is, that there would be immediately made such clearer discoveries of his person, and grace by his ministry, and such miracles would be wrought by him in confirmation of it, that it would look as if heaven was open, and the angels of God were continually going to and fro, and bringing fresh messages, and performing miraculous operations; as if the whole host of them were constantly employed in such services: and this the rather seems to be the sense, since the next account we have, is, of the beginning of Christ’s miracles to manifest forth his glory in Cana of Galilee, where Nathanael lived; and since the word, rendered “hereafter”, signifies, “from henceforward”; or, as the Persic version renders it, “from this hour”; though the word is left out in the Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions.

y Bereshit Rabba, sect. 68. fol. 61. 2. & sect. 69. fol. 61. 3, 4.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Verily, Verily (, ). Hebrew word transliterated into Greek and then into English, our “amen.” John always repeats it, not singly as in the Synoptics, and only in the words of Jesus, an illustration of Christ’s authoritative manner of speaking as shown also by (I say unto you). Note plural though just before is singular (to him). Jesus addresses thus others besides Nathanael.

The heaven opened ( ). Second perfect active participle of with double reduplication, standing open. The words remind one of what took place at the baptism of Jesus (Matt 3:16; Luke 3:21), but the immediate reference is to the opened heaven as the symbol of free intercourse between God and man (Isa 64:1) and as it was later illustrated in the death of Stephen (Ac 7:56). There is a quotation from Ge 28:12f., Jacob’s vision at Bethel. That was a dream to Jacob, but Christ is himself the bond of fellowship between heaven and earth, between God and man, for Jesus is both “the Son of God” as Nathanael said and “the Son of Man” ( ) as Jesus here calls himself. God and man meet in Christ. He is the true Jacob’s Ladder. “I am the Way,” Jesus will say. He is more than King of Israel, he is the Son of Man (the race). So quickly has this Gospel brought out in the witness of the Baptist, the faith of the first disciples, the claims of Jesus Christ, the fully developed picture of the Logos who is both God and man, moving among men and winning them to his service. At the close of the ministry Christ will tell Caiaphas that he will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven (Mr 14:62). Here at the start Jesus is conscious of the final culmination and in apocalyptic eschatological language that we do not fully understand he sets forth the dignity and majesty of his Person.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

1) “And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you,” (kai legei auto amen, amen lego humin) “And he said to him, truly, truly I tell you,” foretell you.

2) “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open,” (opsesthe ton ouranon aneogota) “Hereafter you all shall see heaven having been opened,” to disclose help from above, continual help from and by this Son of man who should ascend back to heaven, to make intercession for His own, Heb 7:25; 1Jn 2:2.

3) “And the angels of God,” (kai tous angelous tou theou) And you (shall see) the angels of God,” ministering servants of God for you all, Heb 1:14; Angels (good angels) bring heaven’s riches and earth’s poverty together, to meet man’s needs upon the earth. What Jacob dreamed, was realized in Christ; come down from heaven, from which the ladder was extended, see? Gen 28:10-16.

4) “Ascending and descending,” (anabainontas kai katabaninontas) “Going up and coming down,” or coming down and going up, as they appeared to Jacob at Bethel. This signified a new living way through Christ, not the ministration of the law, that angels should give sanction to the administrative ministry of Jesus in His work and church labors, as His followers later saw and recounted, Luk 22:3; Act 1:10-11.

5) “Upon the Son of man.” (epi ton huion tou anthropou) “Upon the Son of man,” to serve the Son of man, the heir redeemer of humanity; Our Lord ascribed the term “Son of man,” to Himself, Luk 19:10.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

51. You shall see heaven opened. They are greatly mistaken, in my opinion, who anxiously inquire into the place where, and the time when, Nathanael and others saw heaven opened; for he rather points out something perpetual which was always to exist in his kingdom. I acknowledge indeed, that the disciples sometimes saw angels, who are not seen in the present day; and I acknowledge also that the manifestation of the heavenly glory, when Christ ascended to heaven, was different from what we now behold. But if we duly consider what took place at that time, it is of perpetual duration; for the kingdom of God, which was formerly closed against us, is actually opened in Christ. A visible instance of this was shown to Stephen, (Act 7:55,) to the three disciples on the mountain, (Mat 17:5,) and to the other disciples at Christ’s ascension, (Luk 24:51; Act 1:9.) But all the signs by which God shows himself present with us depend on this opening of heaven, more especially when God communicates himself to us to be our life.

Ascending and descending on the Son of man. This second clause refers to angels. They are said to ascend and descend, so as to be ministers of God’s kindness towards us; and therefore this mode of expression points out the mutual intercourse which exists between God and men. Now we must acknowledge that this benefit was received through Christ, because without him the angels have rather a deadly enmity against us than a friendly care to help us. They are said to ascend and descend on the son of man, not because they minister to him, but because — in reference to him, and for his honor — they include the whole body of the Church in their kindly regard. Nor have I any doubt that he alludes to the ladder which was exhibited to the patriarch Jacob in a dream, (Gen 28:12😉 for what was prefigured by that vision is actually fulfilled in Christ. In short, this passage teaches us, that though the whole human race was banished from the kingdom of God, the gate of heaven is now opened to us, so that we are fellow-citizens of the saints, and companions of the angels, (Eph 2:19😉 and that they, having been appointed to be guardians of our salvation, descend from the blessed rest of the heavenly glory (43) to relieve our distresses.

(43) “ De la gloire celeste.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(51) Verily, verily.This is the first use of this formula of doubled words, which is not found in the New Testament outside St. Johns Gospel. They are always spoken by our Lord, and connected with some deeper truth, to which they direct attention. They represent, in a reduplicated form, the Hebrew Amen, which is common in the Old Testament as an adverb, and twice occurs doubled (Num. 5:22; Neh. 8:6). In the Hebraic style of the Apocalypse the word is a proper name of the faithful and true witness (Rev. 3:14).,

I say unto you . . . ye shall see.The earlier words have been addressed to Nathanael. The truth expressed in these holds for all disciples, and is spoken to all who were then presentto Andrew and John and Peter and James (Joh. 1:41) and Philip, as well as to Nathanael.

Hereafter is omitted by several ancient authorities, including the Sinaitic and Vatican MSS., but there is early evidence for the insertion, and as the omission removes a difficulty in the interpretation, it is probably to be traced to this source. If retained, the better rendering is, henceforth, from this time onwards.

Heaven opened.More exactly, the heaven opened, made and continuing open. The thought was familiar, for Psalmist and Prophet had uttered it to God in the prayers, Bow Thy heavens, O Lord, and come down (Psa. 144:5); O that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come down (Isa. 64:1). The Presence then before Nathanael was the answer to these longings of the soul.

The angels of God ascending and descending.Referring again to the history of Jacob (Gen. 28:12-13).

The Son of man.This is probably the first time that this phrase, which became the ordinary title used by our Lord of Himself, fell from His lips; but it meets us more than seventy times in the earlier Gospels, and has been explained in the Note on Mat. 8:20. It will be enough to observe here that it is suggested by, and is in part opposed to and in part the complement of, the titles used by Nathanael. He could clothe the Messianic idea only in Jewish titles, Son of God, King of Israel. The true expression of the idea was not Hebrew, but human, the Son of Man, the Word made flesh; the Son, the true representative of the race, the Second Adam, in whom all are made alive; the Son of Man. The word is , not ; homo, not vir. It is man as man; not Jew as holier than Greek; not free-man as nobler than bond-man; not man as distinct from woman: but humanity in all space and time and circumstance; in its weakness as in its strength; in its sorrows as in its joys; in its death as in its life. And here lies the explanation of the whole verse. The ladder from earth to heaven is in the truth The Word was made flesh. In that great truth heaven was, and has remained, opened. From that time onwards messengers were ever going backward and forward between humanity and its God. The cry of every erring and helpless child to its Father for guidance and strength; the silent appeal of the wronged and down-trodden to the All-Just Avenger; the fears and hopes of the soul burdened by the unbearable weight of sin, and casting itself on the mercy of the Eternal Loveall these are borne by messengers who always behold the face of God (Mat. 18:10). And every light that falls upon the path, and strength that nerves the moral frame; every comfort to the heart smarting beneath its wrong; every sense of forgiveness, atonement, peaceall these like angels descend that ladder coming from heaven to earth. Ascending precedes descending, as in the vision of old, Heavens messengers are ever ready to descend when earths will bid them come. The revelation of the fullest truth of God is never wanting to the heart that is open to receive it. The ladder is set up upon the earth, but it reaches to heaven, and the Lord stands above it. It goes down to the very depths of mans weakness, wretchedness, and sin; and he may lay hold of it, and step by step ascend it. In the Incarnation, Divinity took human form on earth; in the Ascension, Humanity was raised to heaven.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

51. Angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man Christ now presents himself to this Israelite indeed, as the reality, of which the ladder that ancient Israel saw (Gen 28:12) is the symbol; as the mediator through which the intercourse of heaven and earth shall be opened in the new dispensation. Prayers and holy intercession should ascend; blessings and holy communions, revelations, miracles, powers, and gifts of the Holy Ghost should descend; blessings of which angels are but the messengers and symbols. The person of the Son of man, with his feet upon the earth and his head above the highest heavens, should be the conduct or of these communications. This miracle of Jesus’s knowledge of Nathanael’s secret prayer was how small compared with these intercourses of the new dispensation!

Son of man Though Nathanael has just acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God, Jesus himself here appropriates the humbler title of Son of man. See note on Mat 8:20; Luk 1:35.

Jesus thus, having by divine attraction attached these five disciples to himself, proceeds on his return home to Nazareth; whence he had last departed to receive baptism, to undergo temptation, and to attain from his harbinger his due attestation, preparatory to the hour of his ministration to the world, by miracles of power and mercy. It is now full time to receive the narrative of his first miracle.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Joh 1:51. Hereafter ye shall see, &c. Instead of hereafter, many commentators translate the Greek , from this timehenceforth,”From this time you shall see the whole frame of nature subject to my commands, and such a surprising train of miracles wrought by me, in the course of my succeeding ministry, that shall seem as if heaven was opened, and all the angels of God were continually, as they appeared in a vision to Jacob (Gen 28:12.), ascending and descending to wait upon the Son of man, and to receive and execute his orders.” Accordingly, within three days one glorious miracle was performed by Christ at Cana of Galilee; which being the town whereunto Nathanael belonged, there is great reason to believe he was present with the rest of Christ’s disciples at it; and if he was the same person with the apostleBartholomew,hemustregardthevisionofangelsattendingChrist’sascension, as a glorious accomplishment of these words; as his final appearance at the day of judgment, when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, will yet more eminently be. “If we understand this prediction,” says Mr. Merrick, “concerning the opening of heaven and the vision of the angels, in a literal sense, which seems the most easy method of interpreting it, we may, with Dr. Hammond, refer it to Christ’s ascension, when the heaven was opened to receive him, and the angels came down from thence to wait on him, and ascended after him. The appearance of an angel in his agony, might also be referred to: and as many transactions of Christ’s life are omitted in the gospels, there might be other appearances not recorded, which, if any of them were exhibited soon after Nathanael’s coming to Christ, would determine the phrase , as we have observed, to its most obvious signification, from this time. But we may observe, that as the descending of the angels was previous to their ascending, the order of the facts seems to be inverted, which is not unusual in the classic writers, and is the same in Gen 28:12 to which our Saviour evidently alludes.”Though there may be much truth in what Mr. Merrick observes, and our Lord’s resurrection and ascension may be referred to, as among the greatest of his miracles, and by which the truth of his mission is incontestably proved; yet I cannot help thinking that the passage is of more general import, and means, upon the whole, “You shall be witnesses to such mighty works, and such remarkable interpositions of my divine power, as will leave you no room to doubt of my mission as the true Messiah.” It is evident from the change of number in this verse,ye shall see , that the words do not refer to Nathanael only.

Inferences.How solemn and sublime, magnificent and awful, is the account here given of our blessed Lord, as God co-eternal with the Father, a distinct and yet inseparable Person from him, and as intimately present to him, as thought is to mind; as the Creator of all things without restriction or limitation, the proper Fountain of life and honour, and the true Light, who was in the world to illuminate, uphold, and govern it, ever since it was created by him; and as the Object of faith, the divine Author of evangelical truth, whose Verily I say unto you, demands our faith and obedience, and who is the Discerner of the thoughts, and the Ruler of the heart! How adorable is the constitution of his Person, as the eternal Word made flesh, the Son of God, and the Son of man! And what dignity and honour does his divinity put upon his condescension, who tabernacled in flesh among men, full of grace and truth; and died a sacrifice to take away their sins! Behold this Lamb of God; look to him, and be saved; look and love, and follow him. And O how should we exalt him, and abase ourselves before him, as thinking it honour enough to be employed in the meanest services for him! How evidently divine were the testimonies given to this wonderful Person! To him give all the prophets witness, and the eternal Father himself discovered him to John, and miraculously owned him from heaven by an express notification and infallible signal at his baptism. How excellent is a gospel-ministry, which leads us not to man, but to Christ, as God-man Mediator, the great Prophet of the church, and the only propitiation for sin, that all who believe in him might receive of his fulness grace for grace; and as the Author of all the efficacy of gospel-ordinances by the baptism of the Spirit! And yet, alas! how many wilfully remain in darkness in the midst of noon-day light; and how many professing Christians do in reality reject him and his genuine gospel! But, blessed be God, there are a goodly number, who receive him with a true and saving faith by an assent and approbation of the mind, and by a full consent of the will: and O how great is their happiness! They are made partakers of the dignity and privileges of sons of God by adoption, and of a divine nature by regeneration. Whatever objections or prejudices they might before have in their hearts against him, how will a true acquaintance with him effectually cure and answer them all! The souls that cordially believe in Christ, and faithfully rely on his testimony, shall see still greater things, for his glory, and their own consolation and establishment. And O how happy is it to have his approbation of us, as Israelites indeed, in whom there is no deceit or guile. And what a grateful and generous turn does the grace of God give to the temper of a man’s heart! He wants to have Christ exalted in every soul, and fain would have all his relations, friends, and acquaintance, brought to a saving knowledge of him, and interest in him. And how securely may we depend upon the infinite merit of his blood, commit our all to him, and surrender up ourselves entirely to his authority, guidance, and grace, as God manifested in the flesh, and as able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God the Father by him!

REFLECTIONS.1st. St. John opens his gospel with an account of that divine Personage, concerning whom he was about to write. He is called the Word, or Logos; the essential Word of God, to whom he ascribes all the attributes peculiar to the One Jehovah. We have,

1. His eternal self-existence. In the beginning was the Word, not only before his incarnation, but ere creation rose, or time began to measure its periods; from ever-lasting he existed, as the great I Am.

2. His co-existence with the Father. The Word was with God, and the Word was God; not as one God with another, but as one divine Person co-existing with another in the same Godhead, and partaking with the Father in the same divine nature and essential perfections. The same was in the beginning with God, before any creature had yet been spoken into being.

3. His agency, in the formation of the world, and all things therein. All things were made by him, not as a sub-ordinate instrument, but as the self-sufficient Author of them; and without him was not any thing made that was made; from the highest to the lowest all are the creatures of his hand, and such power proves him to be very God. Isa 44:24.

4. He is the original of life and light to all the creatures that he hath made. In him was life, self-existent and independent; and he is the eternal fount whence all beings, sensitive or rational, receive their life, and are maintained by supplies out of his fulness; and the life was the light of men; from him was communicated to us all that reason and understanding of which we are possessed; and from him comes all the divine light and life by which we can be restored to the knowledge and enjoyment of God.

5. The light shineth in darkness. By the fall all divine light was utterly banished from the minds of men, and they are by nature sunk into the blackness of spiritual darkness. The glimmering of tradition, and the brighter light of revelation, shining in the shadows and types of the law, or in the prophesies and promises of the Old Testament, were utterly ineffectual to lead men to eternal life and salvation, without divine illumination: the darkness comprehended it not: the plainest and most obvious truths, without his illumination, the natural man can no more comprehend to the salvation of his soul, than the blind can discern the objects before them. He, therefore, who first gave eyes to our bodies, must, by the same divine power, give sight to our darkened minds, or we must for ever remain under spiritual darkness and ignorance; but he does in a measure bestow that divine light on every fallen son of Adam, and, if duly improved, will bestow a sufficiency of it for eternal salvation.

2nd, The clearest revelation of gospel light began with the Baptist’s ministry. To him therefore the evangelist refers, as bearing the most glorious testimony of the un-created Word.

1. He relates the mission and preaching of John. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John: his miraculous birth, his extraordinary gifts, and remarkable sanctity, were plain indications of his mission from above. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light; to point out to their notice the sun of righteousness, that was now about to arise; but to whom, through the wilful blindness of their hearts, they were indisposed to pay due attention and regard: and to testify that this was the Messiah of God: that all men through him might believe; who were, without distinction, invited by him to look to Jesus and be saved. He was not that light: though his energetical discourses, and mighty influence, raised in the minds of many an apprehension that he was the promised Christ, he assumed no such title; but his honour was to be the morning-star, the harbinger of day, to usher in the rising sun: he was sent to bear witness of that light, and prepare the way of the Lord. While we rejoice in the light of ministers, we must remember that they are only witnesses to the light; and as they preach not themselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, to him must our eyes be alone directed.

2. Before he proceeds farther with John’s testimony, the evangelist enlarges on the glorious character and office of him, to whom the Baptist bore record. That was the true light, in opposition to the false lights of Gentile philosophy, and in contradistinction to the glimmering taper of ceremonial types and figures: he was eminently the true light, the fountain from which all wisdom and knowledge flow, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world; not only as the author of natural reason to all; but as bestowing such a measure of spiritual light on all the children of men, according to their different dispensations, that none shall have reason to accuse him as the cause of their perdition; but all, if faithful to that light, may come to the knowledge of the truth, and be saved. He was in the world, and the world was made by him: from the beginning his power and providence were displayed; but such was the wilful blindness, the wilful stupidity of mankind in general, that the world knew him not, nor in the expanded volume of nature, opened to their view, discerned his eternal godhead. Nay, he came unto his own, appearing incarnate in the fulness of time, and manifesting himself by his doctrine and miracles to the Jewish people, who were his own in a covenant of peculiarity, and his kinsmen according to the flesh; and his own received him not; they were in general wilfully obstinate, and rejected their God and Saviour. But as many as received him in his real character as the promised Messiah, the prophet, priest, and king of his believing people, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. By faith embracing him as their God and Saviour, and placing their whole dependance on his atonement and intercession, they were advanced to the high dignity and privilege of being accounted the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, entitled to the inheritance of glory as joint-heirs with Christ, and endued with all those heavenly graces and filial dispositions which proved their adoption of God. And all who truly believe in and receive the same Jesus into their hearts, trusting on him alone as the atoning Saviour, and continuing faithfully devoted to him as their Lord and Master, shall be made partakers of the same invaluable blessing and honours. We who were by nature children of wrath, are now become the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. And this is not merely a relative change, but a real one: where God confers the dignity of a child, he gives the Spirit of adoption. Those therefore are his sons, which were born, not of blood, not by natural descent; for nothing but corruption naturally runs in the blood of all the fallen sons of Adam; nor by circumcision, which was only the outward sign of an inward and spiritual grace, without which that bloody rite availed nothing to the soul; nor of the will of the flesh; our regeneration springs not from any natural power or ability in ourselves; nor does it come of the will of man; the wisest reasoners, the most powerful orators, spend their rhetoric in vain, without divine aid accompanying them; moral arguments in this case are ineffectual, unless enforced by divine operation; and therefore the evangelist adds, but of God; the renovation of the soul is a work of grace, and we can only be quickened from the death of trespasses and sins to spiritual life by the power and energy of the Spirit of Christ; though our own endeavours must accompany this grace, and it is offered to all without exception. And in order to this great design of man’s salvation, the Word was made flesh, became incarnate, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood into God: he took our nature, that, in the likeness of sinful flesh, he might make reconciliation; and dwelt among us, in all the fulness of the Godhead taking up his abode in the body which was prepared for him, as the Shechinah dwelt in the temple: (and we beheld his glory, the brightness of which darted through the veil that for a time obscured its lustre, and appeared in all the miracles that he wrought, in the transcendant wisdom, goodness, grace, power, and majesty that he displayed on various occasions, and particularly blazed forth at his transfiguration, his resurrection and ascension; all of which divine manifestations of himself, the more they considered, the more they were filled with reverence and godly fear, and could not but regard the glory of Jesus as the glory of the only begotten of the Father) such as it became this divine Personage to appear in, who was the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of his person; and who was full of grace and truth; full of grace, of all spiritual blessings to bestow on believers; and of truth, fulfilling, in his own person, as the substance, all those typical institutions which were the shadows of good things to come, together with the prophesies which chiefly centred in him, and accomplishing all the engagements that he had undertaken. With what entire satisfaction then may we rest our souls on this adored Redeemer, so admirably qualified for the office of Mediator, possessed of all the excellence which the human nature is capable of receiving, and infinitely exalted in the uncreated glory of the divine? The more we consider his humiliation in becoming incarnate, the more deeply should we be affected with a sense of his grace and love; and, while we view Christ Jesus as the very God of very God, the more confidently should we trust in his infinite merit and intercession.

3rdly, We have,
1. The Baptist’s farther testimony of Christ. John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me, is preferred before me. He was the herald sent to prepare the way of the king Messiah, to proclaim aloud the coming of the incarnate God, and at his baptism to point him out to the notice of the world, as infinitely his superior in dignity, though after him, in point of time, entering upon his ministry and mission. And this pre-eminence he justly ascribes to him, both in the view of his eternal existence as a divine Person, and also of his constitution to the office of mediator between God and man; for he was before me. Note; (1.) The greatest of ministers and the chief of saints are always most careful to ascribe nothing to themselves, but ever to exalt the name of their adored Lord and Master as alone worthy of all honour and glory. (2.) The younger in office is often seen to be the greater in grace.

2. The evangelist takes up the word, and expatiates on the unsearchable riches of Christ, in connection with what he had said, Joh 1:14. And of his fulness, the plenitude of gifts and graces resident in this Son of God’s eternal love, everlastingly exercised towards him, have all we received: not only they, as apostles, were indebted to their incarnate Lord for all the wondrous abilities with which they were qualified for the discharge of the trust committed to them; but also all Christians, of every degree, in every age, draw from the everflowing, overflowing, fountain of a Saviour’s grace, the supply of all their spiritual wants; and grace for grace; which singular expression is differently interpreted; either as representing the fulness as well as the freedom of the gospel blessings, as grace upon grace, heaped up unto glory; or as the supply suited to our necessities, and effectual to strengthen us for all the work and duty to which the Saviour calls us; or such grace as exactly corresponds to that which is in him, transforming us into the same image, as the wax bears the impression of the seal; or as descriptive of the more abundant measures of grace dispensed under the gospel than under the law, to which sense the following verse seems to direct us. For the law was given by Moses: he, as the minister of God, declared his will to the Jewish people; and it was a matter of grace and favour that God by him revealed himself and his law unto them: but one unspeakably greater than Moses is here, the author of a new dispensation, which in glory far excelleth, 2Co 3:10 for grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. He is the sum and substance of all the types and prophesies, and in him they receive their accomplishment: the gospel, which he declared, contained the brightest discoveries of the divine grace and goodness, and the most reviving promises, ratified with his own blood: and as he reveals the only way of obtaining the divine favour, and how we may walk so as to please God, he offers also the ability for that which he enjoins; and his gospel is a law of the Spirit of life, communicating spiritual life and power to the soul. The greatest prophets who went before him, are not to be compared with him; and his word must necessarily, in the clearness and fulness of it, excel all other revelations of his will which God has been pleased to vouchsafe to the sons of men; for no man hath seen God at any time; neither men nor angels are capable of that intimate knowledge of the divine counsels, nor were ever admitted into his secrets: the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, and by his participation of the Godhead most perfectly understands the whole will of the Fatherin nature one with the Father, and infinitely dear to him; he hath declared him, being most transcendently qualified to make such discoveries of God and his counsels, particularly of his wisdom and grace in the redemption of lost sinners, as none of the prophets, nor John himself, could be supposed to do, they being but servants over the house of God; he the Son in his own house; and therefore hath more gloriously and distinctly than ever before, brought life and immortality to light by the gospel. They who went before us, saw but through a glass darkly; we with a distinctness of vision, like that of face to face. May the light of gospel truth, so clearly revealed to us in and by the Son, be accompanied, through believing, with the effectual power of gospel grace to our hearts!

4thly, The testimony of John is here re-assumed, which he delivered to those who were sent from Jerusalem to examine into his credentials.
1. The sanhedrim, whose business it was to take cognizance of all religious matters, sent priests and Levites to inquire who he was, and what character he assumed; the time being at hand when the Messiah, according to the prophets, was now about to appear? And as many took John to be the Christ, or at least an extraordinary personage raised up for some great purposes, they wanted to hear, from his own lips, what he professed himself to be.
2. John’s answers to their questions were direct and faithful. As to his being the Messiah, he freely and earnestly disclaims every such pretension: he confessed and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. Note; We must never arrogate to ourselves honours which do not belong to us; but should reject every temptation to pride with abhorrence. In reply to their question, Whether he were Elias? he said, No. The Jews looked for the person of Elias; John only came in the spirit and power of that zealous reformer; and therefore was not the Elijah whom they expected. He declares himself to be neither Jeremiah, nor that prophet of whom Moses spake, nor any of the ancient prophets risen again, one of whom they supposed would precede the coming of Elias. Hereupon they urge him to give them a positive answer who he was, if he was not one of those whom they had mentioned, that they might carry back something determinate to those who sent them. To this he gave a direct answer in the words of Scripture, Isa 40:3. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias. He was the harbinger of the Messiah: his office was to cry aloud and spare not, rebuking the sins, and rectifying the errors of the people, and thus calling upon them to prepare to meet their God incarnate. And this is the great work of every true minister of Christ: with zeal, which fires his discourses, he labours to call sinners to the Saviour; and, eager in his exhortations, desires to lead them to repentance unto life.Since he disclaims the character of the Messiah and those prophets which they had mentioned, they expostulated with him on his assuming authority to baptize; for it seems those Pharisees, who were now delegated in this commission, tenacious of their traditions, and proud in the conceit of their own goodness, fancied they needed no repentance; and, unable to brook the freedom and severity of the Baptist’s rebukes, would gladly have taken occasion to suppress and silence him. In answer to their question he replied, I baptize with water, as the outward sign of an inward and spiritual grace, which I pretend not to confer: but there standeth one among you, or there lately stood one among you, even Jesus who had been baptized by him, whom ye know not, he not having yet publicly appeared in his glorious character as the Messiah; He it is who, coming after me, is preferred before me, as infinitely my superior, whose shoes’ latchet I am not worthy to unloose: so transcendently glorious and exalted is his dignity, that to be employed in the meanest office about his person, is an honour far beyond all that I can pretend to deserve. This conversation passed at Bethabara, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing; but we find no inquiries made after Him concerning whom John informed them.

5thly, Jesus had now finished his glorious conflict with the great enemy of souls, and was returning from the wilderness victorious, to the banks of Jordan. There John saw him, and bore repeated testimony to him as the Christ of God.
1. He points out Jesus to the notice of his disciples, as he walked near the river’s side, saying, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. He is the Lamb without spot and blemish, which the daily sacrifice and paschal lamb prefigured; he is the Lamb of God, appointed by him as the great oblation which should once be offered, with whose sacrifice he would be well pleased, taking away the sin of the world, the original sin of Adam, and the sins of all that believe in his name; and by the one oblation that he has once offered, hath fully and completely made the atonement; so that all, in every age or place, under whatever degree of guilt or power of corruption they lie, who come to him, are sure to find mercy and salvation through him: and therefore we are directed to behold him, to look to him with an eye of faith, that we may be made partakers of the redemption that is in him.

2. He declares that this is the Person to whom he had before borne witness: This is he of whom I said after me cometh a man which is preferred before me; for he was before me; a man, yet more than man, even God-man. And I knew him not; there was no personal, or at least intimate acquaintance between them before, nor were they in league together to serve any sinister end or purpose: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water: this was the great end of John’s ministry, to point out to Israel the anointed Saviour.

3. He mentions the sign which the Lord had given him to discover that distinguished Personage whose fore-runner he was, but of whom, till then, he had no personal knowledge, at least as the Messiah. The sign given was the visible descent of the Spirit as a dove: and on whomsoever of those, who came to him to be baptized, he should see it light, he might be fully assured that this was he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. This he saw at Jordan when Jesus came to be baptized of him, and heard the voice from heaven mentioned Mat 3:17. On these sure grounds, therefore, he bare record then, and ever after continued to repeat the same testimony, that this is the Son of God incarnate, the true Messiah promised from the beginning.

4. The next day, again looking earnestly on Jesus as he walked, he pointed him out to two of his disciples, saying, Behold the Lamb of God, desirous to engage their attention to the heavenly Saviour, and to lead them to value, regard, and embrace him, as the one great atoning sacrifice for the sins of men, which all those under the law prefigured and represented. Note; (1.) The doctrine of Christ’s sacrifice for our sins is one of the grand leading subjects on which ministers must continually insist. (2.) They who have beheld the excellency of Jesus, cannot but delight to recommend him to the regard of others.

6thly, The first disciples of Jesus now begin to commence their acquaintance with him.
1. The two, who were with John when he pointed out Jesus to their notice, immediately followed him, desiring to be indulged in a greater intimacy with him. And the gracious Lord, who observes and is delighted with the first steps that a soul takes in approaching him, kindly accosted them, and inquired what they sought. With humble and respectful address they replied, Rabbi, where dwellest thou? Rabbi was the title given to the most famed of their wise men; and most deserving of it must he be in whom dwelt all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. They desired to be admitted to a longer conversation with him than they could enjoy as they walked, and would gladly, if they might be permitted, wait upon him to receive his divine instructions. Note; Abiding communion with Jesus, is the thing, that a soul which is at all acquainted with him importunately desires. Christ courteously invites them to his lodgings; Come and see: he was ready to give them an immediate welcome; for his arms are ever open to receive those who desire to come to him. With thankfulness and joy they immediately embraced the offer. Where the soul is at stake, every delay is dangerous. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour: so that they spent that day in delightful conversation with him. The name of one of these disciples was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother; the other probably the author of this gospel, who here, and in other places, modestly suppresses his own name, when the mention of it would be to his honour: a noble instance of his unfeigned humility.

2. A third disciple is added. Andrew, eager to communicate the glad tidings to his brother Simon, findeth him, and with exultation relates the important discovery that they had made, We have found the Messias, (which is being interpreted in the Greek language the Christ) the anointed of God, so often spoken of in the Scriptures; and he brought him to Jesus, who took particular notice of him; and calling him by his name, which, though a stranger to him before, he well knew, he gives him a new name, Cephas, which signifies a stone, as adopting him into his family, and intimating the steadiness of his heart in the work of the gospel, and his being appointed one of those pillars on which, with his brethren and apostles, the church should stand firm, grounded on Jesus the chief cornerstone and sure foundation. Note; (1.) They who have tasted the riches of Christ’s grace themselves, cannot but be active to draw others to him. There is in Christ enough for all. (2.) They who are nearly related to us in blood, claim a peculiar interest in our regard and prayers; and the best token of our love to them will be shewn in leading them to Jesus.

7thly, Our Lord, having begun to make choice of his disciples, adds two more to the number, in Galilee, whither he went the day following.
1. Christ himself calls Philip. He saith unto him, Follow me; and he instantly obeyed. He was of Bethsaida, a town on the lake of Gennesareth, and a place very abandoned, Mat 11:21.: an encouragement to ministers of the gospel, to visit even the worst of places.

2. Philip immediately went in quest of some friends to whom he might carry the glad tidings; and finding Nathanael, he with joy communicated the news, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph. Probably our Lord had opened these scriptures concerning himself to Philip’s fullest satisfaction. But Nathanael, on the mention of Nazareth, starts an objection, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?a place vile and despicable to a proverb. Philip, unable to solve the difficulty, yet not shaken in his own faith, says, Come and see; persuaded that Jesus himself could easily silence that and every other objection which might be raised against him. Note; (1.) They, who have found Christ, cannot but exult in this happy acquisition. (2.) Though we may not be capable of answering every objection which may be started, we are not therefore to conclude that our religion is a delusion, but examine farther, and then we shall find enough to satisfy us that we have not believed cunningly devised fables. (3.) When we are in doubt, we must come to Jesus, and by prayer and attention to his word may be confident that he will lead us into all truth.

3. Nathanael yielded to Philip’s invitation, and quickly was convinced of the unreasonableness of the prejudices which he had entertained. (1.) Christ highly commends his character as he saw him coming near, saying to those who were in company with him at that time, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile, a genuine son of simple-hearted Jacob. Note; It is a great thing to be an Israelite indeed, in spirit and temper such as our profession demands, without allowed guile either towards God or man, but with regard to both keeping a conscience void of offence. (2.) Nathanael expresses his surprise how Jesus should know him whom he had never seen before; but the confirmation of it which Christ gave yet more amazed him, and silenced all his doubts, as it proved his omniscience: Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee. Probably Nathanael had retired thither for some religious exercises, where no eye might see him, and there had offered up his fervent supplications to God for the Messiah’s coming; or might be employed in meditation, perhaps on that dream of Jacob, Gen 28:12; Gen 28:22 to which our Lord refers, Joh 1:51.; and such an instance of his knowing both the place of his retirement, and the very sentiments of his soul, could not but give Nathanael the strongest evidence of his being indeed the Messiah, as Philip had affirmed. Note; The eye of Jesus is upon us in our most retired moments, and he is acquainted with every sentiment of our souls. And this cannot but afford as much comfort to a gracious soul, as it speaks confusion to every hypocrite. (3.) Nathanael, fully convinced, bows down before him, and makes solemn profession of his faith in him as the Messiah, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel. His prejudices instantly vanished, and, assured of the divine mission and character of Jesus, he gladly yields himself up a loyal subject to Israel’s King, trusting on him for salvation from all enemies.

4. Christ, with approbation of his faith, and admiration of his noble confession, assures Nathanael that he shall shortly see greater and more glorious evidences of his infinite wisdom and power, to confirm his confidence. Verily, verily, I say unto you, who am the faithful and true Witness, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, or from hence-forth, when entering upon his public ministry he should begin to manifest his glory in the miracles that he wrought and the doctrines he taught; and ye shall see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man; either literally, in their ministrations to him at his resurrection and ascension; or, rather figuratively, such a friendly intercourse between heaven and earth would now appear to be restored, and such wonders wrought by Jesus in confirmation of his mission, that it would be proved with evidence as strong and striking as if they saw the heavens themselves opened, and the angels employed in carrying on a correspondence between God the Father and the Son, become man for us men and for our salvation. Note; Through the Son of man the kingdom of heaven is opened to all believers, the angels of God minister for the heirs of salvation, and we may now enter boldly into the holiest of all, ascending by him, who is unto the faithful as the ladder of Jacob, the way to God and glory.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Joh 1:51 . is, with Chrysostom and most others (even Lachmann and Tischendorf, not Godet), to be taken interrogatively; see on Joh 20:29 . [129] But the question is not uttered in a tone of censure , which would only destroy the fresh bloom of this first meeting (Theophylact: “he had not yet rightly believed in Christ’s Godhead”); nor is it even the expression of slight disapproval of a faith which was not yet based upon adequate grounds (De Wette, comp. Ewald); but, on the contrary, it is an expression of surprise , whereby Jesus joyfully recognises a faith in Nathanael which could hardly have been expected so soon. And to this faith, so surprisingly ready in its beginning, He promises something greater ( , Nonnus) by way of further confirmation .

] Plural of the category: “ than this which you now have met with, and which has become the ground of your faith.”

] specially introduces the further statement of the as a most significant word .

] The double does not occur in other parts of the N. T., but we find it twenty-five times in John, and only in the mouth of Jesus, therefore all the more certainly original.

] to thee and Andrew, John, Peter (James, see in Joh 1:42 ), and Philip.

] from now onwards , for Jesus was about to begin His Messianic work. See chap. 2. Thus, in this weighty word He furnishes His disciples with the key for the only correct understanding of that work.

, . . .] The “opened heaven” is not intended to be taken in its literal sense, as if it stood alone , but is part of the figurative moulding of the sentence in keeping with the following metaphor. Observe here the perfect participle: heaven stands open; comp. Act 7:56 . The ascending and descending angels are, according to Gen 28:12 , a symbolical representation of the uninterrupted and living intercourse subsisting between the Messiah and God , an intercommunion which the disciples would clearly and vividly recognise, or, according to the symbolic form of the thought, would see as a matter of experience throughout the ministry of Jesus which was to follow. [130] The angels are not therefore to be regarded as personified divine powers (Olshausen, De Wette, and several), or as personal energies of God’s Spirit (Luthardt and Hofmann), but as always God’s messengers , who brought to the Messiah God’s commands, or executed them on Him (comp. Mat 4:11 ; Mat 26:53 ; Luk 22:43 ), and return to God again ( ), while others with new commissions came down ( . ), and so on. We are not told whether, and if so, to what extent, Nathanael and his companions now already perceived the symbolic meaning of the declaration. It certainly is not to be understood as having reference to the actual appearances of angels in the course of the Gospel history (Chrysostom, Cyril., Euthymius Zigabenus, and most of the early expositors), against which is conclusive; nor merely to the working of miracles (Storr, Godet), which is in keeping neither with the expression itself, nor with the necessary reference to the Messiah’s ministry as a whole , which must be described by , etc.

. ] is placed first , in remembrance of Gen 28:12 , without any special purpose, but not inappropriately, because when the takes place, the intercourse between heaven and earth does not then begin, but is already going on. We may supply . after . from the analogy of what follows. See Khner, II. p. 603.

Concerning . , see on Mat 8:20 ; Mar 2:8 , note. In John likewise it is the standing Messianic designation of Jesus as used by Himself; here, where angelic powers are represented as waiting upon Him who bears the Messianic authority, it corresponds rather with the prophetic vision of the Son of man (Dan 7:14 ), and forms the impressive conclusion of the whole section, confirming and ratifying the joyous faith and confession of the first disciples, as the first solemn self-avowal on the part of Jesus in their presence. It thus retained a deep and indelible hold upon the recollection of John, and therefore it stands as the utterance of the clear Messianic consciousness of Jesus unveiled before us at the outset of His work. It is exactly in John that the Messiahship of Jesus comes out with the greatest precision, not as the consequence and result, but as already, from the beginning onwards, the subject-matter of our Lord’s self-consciousness. [131]

[129] As to the paratactic protasis , which may be read interrogatively or not according to the character of the discourse, see C. F. Hermann, Progr . 1849, p. 18; Scheibe in Schneidew. Philolog . 1850, p. 362 ff. Comp. also Ngelsbach’s note on the Iliad , p. 350, Exo 3 .

[130] This expression tells us nothing concerning the origin of Christ’s knowledge of God, which ver. 18 clearly declares, and which cannot therefore be attributed to a series of progressive revelations (Weizscker); the expression rather presupposes that origin. Comp. also Weiss, Lehrbegr . p. 286 ff.

[131] The historic accuracy of this relation, as testified by John, stands with the apostolic origin of the Gospel, against which even the objections of Holtzmann in his investigation, which are excellent in a historical point of view ( Jahrb. f. D. Theol . 1867, p. 389), can have no effect.

Note .

The synoptical account of the call of the two pairs of brothers, Mat 4:18 ff. and parallels, is utterly irreconcilable with that of John as to place, time, and circumstances; and the usual explanations resorted to that what is here recorded was only a preliminary call, [132] or only a social union with Christ (Luther, Lcke, Ebrard, Tholuck; comp. also Ewald and Godet), or only the gathering together of the first believers (Luthardt), but not their call fall to the ground at once when we see how the narrative proceeds; for according to it the , Joh 2:2 , are with Jesus, and remain with Him. See on Mat 4:19-20 . The harmony of the two accounts consists in this simply, that the two pairs of brothers are the earliest apostles. To recognise in John’s account not an actual history, but a picture of the author’s own, drawn by himself for the sake of illustrating his idea (Baur, Hilgenfeld, Schenkel), that, viz., the knowledge of the disciples and that of Jesus Himself as to His Messianic call might appear perfect from the outset, is only one of the numerous self-deceptions in criticism which form the premisses of the unhistorical conclusion that the fourth Gospel is not the work of the apostle, but of some writer of much later date, who has moulded the history into the form of his own ideal. On the contrary, we must here specially observe that the author, if he wished to antedate the time and place of the call, certainly did not need, for the carrying out of his idea, to invent a totally different situation from that which was before his eyes in the Synoptics. Over and above this, the assumption that, by previously receiving John’s baptism, Jesus renounced any independent action (Schenkel), is pure imagination. Weizscker (p. 404) reduces John’s account to this: “The first acquaintance between Jesus and these followers of His was brought about by His meeting with the Baptist; and on that occasion, amid the excitement which the Baptist created, Messianic hopes, however transitory, were kindled in this circle of friends.” But this rests upon a treatment of the fourth Gospel, according to which it can no longer claim the authority of an independent witness; instead of this witness, we have merely the poet of a thoughtful Idyll. And when Keim (I. p. 553) finds here only the narration of an age that could no longer endure the humble and human beginnings of Jesus, but would transplant into the time of His first appearance that glory which, as a matter of history, first distinguished His departure and His exaltation, this is all the more daring a speculation, the more closely, according to Keim, the origin of the Gospel verges upon the lifetime of the apostle, and must therefore present the most vivid recollections of His disciples.

[132] So, most recently, Mrcker, Uebereinstimm. der Evang. d. Matt. u. Joh ., Meiningen 1868, p. 10 ff. The , Mat 4:18 , furnishes no proof, as is plain from the parallel in Mar 1:16 , which is the source of Matthew’s account, but as not those words. They are simply a personal notice added from the standing-point of the writer, as in Mat 10:2 .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

REFLECTIONS

Reader let you and I, in the review of this blessed Chapter, do as Moses and Israel did, at the borders of the Red Sea; stand still, and contemplate what is here revealed of the salvation of the Lord. Never surely was there ever a proclamation from heaven more full, conclusive, and satisfactory, in confirmation of the Godhead of Christ; the glories of his Person, the infinite preciousness of his work, and the greatness of his salvation! Oh! what a thought for the Church of God to cherish, and to feast upon, to all eternity; that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. And Oh! for grace, like the chosen disciples of the Lord, to behold his glory, the glory, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth!

Blessed forever be the God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath so loved us as to give his only begotten Son! And blessed be God the Son, who hath so loved us as to give himself for us. And blessed be God the Holy Ghost, whose everlasting love prompted his infinite mind to give all the precious manifestations of the Lord in his scriptures. Oh! how inexpressibly sweet are all those views of Jesus, which God the Spirit hath here given of the Godhead, Person, Work, Glory, Grace, and Love, of the Lord Jesus.

And Lord! give thy whole Church upon earth grace to praise thee, for the wonderful witness of that wonderful man, John the Baptist. Lord, the Spirit! do thou graciously be pleased to give to every child of God, thy heavenly teachings, that we may enter into a full apprehension of the design of his ministry; and behold him as raised up on purpose, and filled with the Holy Ghost, even from the womb, to testify to those two great features of the Lord Jesus, contained in this Chapter; namely, his Godhead, and the efficacy of his one all-effectual sacrifice. For surely, the testimonies alone, which this herald of the Lord hath given, are in themselves enough to carry before them all the infidelity of the present Christ-despising generation. Oh! for a boldness in the faith, to say as Paul did upon a like occasion, to the infidels of his day; behold ye despisers, and wonder and perish! Dearest Jesus! may it be my portion, with all the Andrews, and Peters, and Philips, and Nathaniels, of this age of the Church, having found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the Prophets did write; to testify to thy glorious name and character, and say, Rabbi! thou art the Son of God! thou art the King of Israel!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

51 And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

Ver. 52. Upon the Son of man ] The Jacob’s ladder, the bridge that joineth heaven and earth together, , as Gregory hath it.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

51. ] Our Lord says this not in blame, rather in praise of the simple and honest expression of Nathanael’s conviction; but principally to shew him, that if he believed by reason of this comparatively small proof of His divine power, his faith would increase from strength to strength at the greater proofs which should from that time forward be given.

It is perhaps best to set a question at ; but see notes on the similar sentences, ch. Joh 16:31 , and Joh 20:29 .

John 1: 52.

52. ] is peculiar to John. The other Evangelists use once only in such asseverations. The LXX do not use it in this sense. Stier remarks (i. 36, edn. 2), that the Verily, verily, I say unto you of the Lord, is spoken in His coequality with the Father: not as the ‘Thus saith the Lord’ of the Prophets.

] The words following are then spoken to all the disciples present, not only to Nathanael.

With or without , the meaning will be much the same. The glories of a period beginning from the opening of the Lord’s public ministry, and at this day not yet completed , are described. For it is not the outward visible opening of the material heavens, nor ascent and descent of angels in the sight of men, which our Lord here announces; but the series of glories which was about to be unfolded in His Person and Work from that time forward. Lther, cited by Lcke, i. 458, beautifully says: “When Christ became man and had entered on His ministerial office and begun to preach, then was the heaven opened, and remains open; and has from that time, since the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, never been shut, and never will be shut, although we do not see it with our bodily eyes Christ says this: ‘Ye are now heavenly citizens, and have your citizenship above in the heavenly Jerusalem, and are in communion with the holy angels, who shall without intermission ascend and descend about you.’ ”

The opening of heaven is a symbolical expression, signifying the imparting of divine grace, help, and revelation. See Gen 28:10-17 ; Eze 1:1 ; Isa 6:1 ; Mal 3:10 ; Isa 64:1 ; also Deu 11:17 ; 1Ki 8:35 .

The words have a plain reference to the ladder of Jacob , and imply that what he then saw was now to receive its fulfilment: that He, the Son of Man, was the dwelling of God and the gate of Heaven, and that through Him, and on Him in the first place, was to descend all communication of help and grace from above.

That no allusion is meant to the Transfiguration, or the Agony, is plain; for all those here addressed did not witness these appearances, but Peter and John only; nor to the Ascension, for they did not see heaven opened, nor did angels ascend nor descend.

The above has (remarks Olsh. ii. 79) been the interpretation of all Commentators of any depth in all times: Origen as well as Augustine, Luther as well as Calvin, Lcke as well as Tholuck: and I may add, De Wette as well as Stier.

. . . ] An expression originally (as appears) derived, in its Messianic sense, from Dan 7:13-14 , and thenceforward used as one of the titles of the Messiah (see ch. Joh 12:34 ). It is never predicated of our Lord by any but Himself, except in Act 7:56 by Stephen, in allusion apparently to Mat 26:64 , and which is hardly an exception in the passages of the Revelation (ch. Joh 1:13 ; Joh 14:14 ) which are almost citations from Daniel.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Joh 1:51 . . In accordance with the habit of this evangelist, who calls attention to the moving cause of faith in this or that individual, the source of Nathanael’s faith is indicated with some surprise that it should have proved sufficient: and with the announcement that his nascent faith will find more to feed upon: .

John 1:52. What these things are is described in the words , introduced by the emphatic , , used in this double form twenty-five times in this Gospel (always single in Synop.) and well rendered “verily, verily”. Christ as the Faithful and True Witness is Himself called the Amen in Rev 3:14 . The words are omitted by recent editors. The announcement describes the result of the incarnation of Christ as a bringing together of heaven and earth, a true mediation between God and man, an opening of what is most divine for the satisfaction of human need. It is made in terms of Jacob’s dream (Gen 28:10 ff.). In his dream Jacob saw a ladder fixed on earth with its top in heaven, . What Jacob had dreamt was in Christ realised. The Son of Man, the Messiah or actual representative of God on earth, brings God to man and makes earth a Bethel, and the gate of heaven. What Nathanael under his fig tree had been longing for and unconsciously preparing, an open communication with heaven, a ladder reaching from the deepest abyss of an earth submerged in sin to the highest heaven of purity, Jesus tells him is actually accomplished in His person. “The Son of Man” is the designation by which Jesus commonly indicates that He is the Messiah, while at the same time He suggests that His kingdom is not founded by earthly power or force, but by what is especially human, sympathy, reason, self-sacrifice.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Verily, verily. See note on Mat 5:18. In John always double. Figure of speech Epizeuxis (App-6), for emphasis, twenty-five times (here, Joh 3:3, Joh 3:5, Joh 3:11; Joh 5:19, Joh 5:24, Joh 5:25; Joh 6:26, Joh 6:32, Joh 6:47, Joh 6:53; Joh 8:34, Joh 8:51, Joh 8:58; Joh 10:1, Joh 10:7; Joh 12:24; Joh 13:16, Joh 13:20, Joh 13:21, Joh 13:38; Joh 14:12; Joh 16:20, Joh 16:23; Joh 21:18). See note 3 in the book comments for John.

Hereafter = From henceforth. But omitted by all the texts (not the Syriac) It was conditional on the repentance of the nation, and will yet be seen.

heaven = the heaven. Singular, with Art. See note on Mat 6:9, Mat 6:10.

the Son of man. The first occurance in John. App-98and App-99.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

51.] Our Lord says this not in blame, rather in praise of the simple and honest expression of Nathanaels conviction; but principally to shew him, that if he believed by reason of this comparatively small proof of His divine power, his faith would increase from strength to strength at the greater proofs which should from that time forward be given.

It is perhaps best to set a question at ; but see notes on the similar sentences, ch. Joh 16:31, and Joh 20:29.

John 1:52.

52.] is peculiar to John. The other Evangelists use once only in such asseverations. The LXX do not use it in this sense. Stier remarks (i. 36, edn. 2), that the Verily, verily, I say unto you of the Lord, is spoken in His coequality with the Father: not as the Thus saith the Lord of the Prophets.

] The words following are then spoken to all the disciples present, not only to Nathanael.

With or without , the meaning will be much the same. The glories of a period beginning from the opening of the Lords public ministry, and at this day not yet completed, are described. For it is not the outward visible opening of the material heavens, nor ascent and descent of angels in the sight of men, which our Lord here announces; but the series of glories which was about to be unfolded in His Person and Work from that time forward. Lther, cited by Lcke, i. 458, beautifully says: When Christ became man and had entered on His ministerial office and begun to preach, then was the heaven opened, and remains open; and has from that time, since the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, never been shut, and never will be shut, although we do not see it with our bodily eyes Christ says this: Ye are now heavenly citizens, and have your citizenship above in the heavenly Jerusalem, and are in communion with the holy angels, who shall without intermission ascend and descend about you.

The opening of heaven is a symbolical expression, signifying the imparting of divine grace, help, and revelation. See Gen 28:10-17; Eze 1:1; Isa 6:1; Mal 3:10; Isa 64:1; also Deu 11:17; 1Ki 8:35.

The words have a plain reference to the ladder of Jacob, and imply that what he then saw was now to receive its fulfilment: that He, the Son of Man, was the dwelling of God and the gate of Heaven, and that through Him, and on Him in the first place, was to descend all communication of help and grace from above.

That no allusion is meant to the Transfiguration, or the Agony, is plain; for all those here addressed did not witness these appearances, but Peter and John only; nor to the Ascension, for they did not see heaven opened, nor did angels ascend nor descend.

The above has (remarks Olsh. ii. 79) been the interpretation of all Commentators of any depth in all times: Origen as well as Augustine, Luther as well as Calvin, Lcke as well as Tholuck: and I may add, De Wette as well as Stier.

. . .] An expression originally (as appears) derived, in its Messianic sense, from Dan 7:13-14, and thenceforward used as one of the titles of the Messiah (see ch. Joh 12:34). It is never predicated of our Lord by any but Himself, except in Act 7:56 by Stephen, in allusion apparently to Mat 26:64, and-which is hardly an exception-in the passages of the Revelation (ch. Joh 1:13; Joh 14:14) which are almost citations from Daniel.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Joh 1:51. , , verily, verily) Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in the speeches of Jesus, are wont to set down once, John twice [repeating the word], upon which see Jac. Gaillius tr. de Filio hom. qu. 11, 12, p. 231-239. The others indeed do so too in those passages, which are not parallel; but yet even in parallels too, Mat 26:21; Mat 26:34 [, once]; Joh 13:21; Joh 13:38 [, twice]: whence it appears, that the Saviour either always used this prefatory affirmation, , once, or, as we rather think, always twice. At the time of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it was not yet the seasonable time to record it [the double ]: when John wrote, it was seasonable. But why [is it repeated] twice? Jesus spake in the name of the Father and in His own: add the note on 2Co 1:20 [The promises of God-are in Him, Amen]: and His Word is Truth with the Speaker and with believers; 1Jn 2:8 [A new commandment,-which thing is true in Him and in you]: [both] in substance and in words. Mat 5:37 Let your communication be yea, yea; nay nay: They are [words], faithful and true: comp. Rev 19:11 [He that sat upon the horse was called Faithful and True], This is a Hebrew epizeuxis, as Psa 41:13; Psa 89:52; Psa 72:19 [Amen and Amen]: as , very, very.-, you) [Plur.] To thee and the rest.-, ye shall see) Answering to , thou shalt see) Joh 1:50. Great faith, and [a decided] profession on the part of one, obtains even for others greater gifts.- , heaven open) i.e. Ye shall see the greatest signs, which are to show, that heaven is open. The Lord has descended scended from heaven, and now stays on [versatur in, walks familiarly on] earth: and thence His heavenly messengers will have much to do; for they will have to attend on their Lord.-, opened) The prterite, properly, comp. Mat 3:16, ; and with [i.e. implying also] continuance to the time subsequent, Joh 3:13, No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven; Act 7:56, [The dying Stephen] I see the heavens opened; Rev 11:12, A great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud.- , the angels of God) The same beings, whom the Only-begotten Son of GOD has as His ministering servants.- , ascending and descending) Ascending is put in the first place: therefore there will be a staving of angels on earth. Jacob saw some such vision, Gen 28:12. How much more [shall] Israelites without guile under the New Testament [see it].- , the Son of man) See note on Mat 16:13.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Joh 1:51

Joh 1:51

And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.-When this promise was fulfilled we know not unless at the ascension of Jesus. The angels ascending and descending upon him, possibly was not literal, but meant that he would be constantly watched over and guarded here in the world by the angels of God, and that their ministration to him as the Son of God would be manifested to Nathanael in the care and love God would show him.

Questions on John Chapter One

E.M. Zerr

1. What was in the beginning?

2. Where was it?

3. Tell what was made by him.

4. In him was what?

5. How were men benefited by this?

6. Which was stronger, the light or the darkness?

7. From what source was John sent?

8. What did he come to bear?

9. To what end was this?

10. What persons are “he” and “light” in Joh 1:8?

11. What will the true light do?

12. Tell what the world did not know.

13. To whom did he came?

13. How did they treat him?

14. What did he do for the exceptions to this?

15. By what had they been born?

16. In what form was the Word made?

17. It could then dwell where?

18. But what glory did it display?

19. Of what was it full?

20. What did John bear for Christ?

21. Which of these persons was preferred?

22. Tell the reason here given.

23. For what had fullness and grace been received?

24. What did Moses give?

25. Tell what came by Christ.

26. Who only has seen God?

27. What qualified him to declare his glory?

28. Of what was John asked?

29. What admissions did he make?

30. What did he claim to be?

40. He was to do what?

41. Who were sent to question him?

42. Distinguish priests and Levites.

43. State the next question they asked him?

44. With what did John baptize?

45. Who was unrecognized among them now?

46. State the preference John mentions.

47. How unworthy did he profess to be?

48. Where were these things being done?

49. What presentation did John make next day?

50. How did he classify him?

60. Did he at first know him?

61. By what means did he recognize him?

62. What conclusion did this form for him?

63. The “next day” after what, in Joh 1:35?

64.What did John repeat then?

65. Who then followed Jesus?

66. Why were they following?

67. Did they obtain their desire?

68. Tell who they were.

69.What change in name did Jesus make now?

70. When was the “day following,” in Joh 1:43?

71. Where did Jesus go on this day?

72. Whom did he take?

73. Tell what he said to Nathanael.

74. Repeat Nathanael’s question.

75. And the answer.

76. What did Jesus say of Nathanael?

77. How long had he known this?

78. What confession did this bring from Nathanael?

79. Relate the prediction Jesus made now.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

angels

(See Scofield “Heb 1:4”)

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

Verily: Joh 3:3, Joh 3:5, Joh 5:19, Joh 5:24, Joh 5:25, Joh 6:26, Joh 6:32, Joh 6:47, Joh 6:53, Joh 8:34, Joh 8:51, Joh 8:58, Joh 10:1, Joh 10:7, Joh 12:24, Joh 13:16, Joh 13:20, Joh 13:21, Joh 13:38, Joh 14:12, Joh 16:20, Joh 16:23, Joh 21:18

Hereafter: Eze 1:1, Mat 3:16, Mar 1:10, Luk 3:21, Act 7:56, Act 10:11, Rev 4:1, Rev 19:11

and the: Gen 28:12, Dan 7:9, Dan 7:10, Mat 4:11, Luk 2:9, Luk 2:13, Luk 22:43, Luk 24:4, Act 1:10, Act 1:11, 2Th 1:7-9, 1Ti 3:16, Heb 1:14, Jud 1:14

the Son: Joh 3:13, Joh 3:14, Joh 5:27, Joh 12:23, Joh 12:24, Dan 7:13, Dan 7:14, Zec 13:7, Mat 9:6, Mat 16:13-16, Mat 16:27, Mat 16:28, Mat 25:31, Mat 26:24, Mar 14:62, Luk 22:69

Reciprocal: Exo 25:20 – toward Exo 37:9 – cherubims spread Mat 5:18 – verily Mat 18:3 – Verily Mat 26:64 – Hereafter Mar 8:38 – when Mar 14:18 – Verily

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

1

This verse names the “greater things” referred to in the preceding one. Upon is from EPI, and Greenfield defines it to mean, “On account of, because of.” This prediction was fulfilled at the ascension of Jesus in Act 1:9-11. Here the “two men” were angels, and they were seen coming down in the sight of the apostles (of whom Nathanael was one, verse 45). Their descending from heaven, then ascending thereto again, was brought about by the ascension of Jesus. They conducted this mission “upon” or “on account of” the performance of the Son of Man who had just disappeared in a cloud.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

[Verily, verily.] If Christ doubled his affirmation, as we here find it, why is it not so doubled in the other evangelists? If he did not double it, why is it so here?

I. Perhaps the asseveration he useth in this place may not be to the same things and upon the same occasion to which he useth the single Amen in other evangelists.

II. Perhaps, also, St. John, being to write for the use of the Hellenists, might write the word in the same Hebrew letters wherein Christ used it, and in the same letters also wherein the Greeks used it, retaining still the same Hebrew idiom.

III. But, however, it may be observed, that, whereas by all others the word Amen was generally used in the latter end of a speech or sentence, our Lord only useth it in the beginning, as being himself the Amen, Rev 3:14; and Isa 65:16; the God of truth.

So that that single Amen which he used in the other evangelists contained in it the germination, Amen, Amen. I, the Amen; the true and faithful witness, Amen; i.e. “of a truth do say unto you,” etc. Nor did it become any mortal man to speak Amen in the beginning of a sentence in the same manner as our Saviour did. Indeed, the very Masters of Traditions, who seemed to be the oracles of that nation, were wont to say, I speak in truth; but not “Amen; I say unto you.”

IV. Amen contains in it Yea and Amen; 2Co 1:20; Rev 1:7; i.e. truth and stability; Isa 25:1. Interlin. faithfulness and truth. The other evangelists express the word which our Saviour useth: St. John doubles it, to intimate the full sense of it.

I have been at some question with myself, whether I should insert in this place the blasphemous things which the Talmudic authors belch out against the holy Jesus, in allusion (shall I say?) or derision of this word Amen; to which name he entitled himself, and by which asseveration he confirmed his doctrines. But that thou mightest, reader, both know, and with equal indignation abhor, the snarlings and virulency of these men, take it in their own words, although I cannot without infinite reluctancy allege what they with all audaciousness have uttered.

They have a tradition, that Imma Shalom, the wife of R. Eliezer, and her brother Rabban Gamaliel, went to a certain philosopher (the Gloss hath it ‘a certain heretic’) of very great note for his integrity in giving judgment in matters, and taking no bribes. The woman brings him a golden candlestick, and prayeth him that the inheritance might be divided in part to her. Rabban Gamaliel objects, “It is written amongst us, that the daughter shall not inherit instead of the son. But the philosopher answered, ‘Since the time that you were removed from your land, the law of Moses was made void: and Aven was given ‘ [he means the Gospel, but marks it with a scurrilous title]; and in that it is written, The son and the daughter shall inherit together. The next day Rabban Gamaliel brought him, a Libyan ass. Then saith he unto them, ‘I have found at the end of Aven [i.e. the Gospel] that it is written there, I, Aven; came not to diminish, but to add to the law of Moses'”: where he abuseth both the name of our Saviour and his words too, Mat 5:17.

And now, after our just detestation of this execrable blasphemy, let us think what kind of judge this must be, to whose judgment Rabban Gamaliel, the president of the Sanhedrim, and his sister, wife to the great Eliezer, should betake themselves. A Christian, as it should seem by the whole contexture of the story; but, alas! what kind of Christian, that should make so light of Christ and his gospel! However, were he a Christian of what kind soever, yet if there be any truth in this passage, it is not unworthy our taking notice of it, both as to the history of those times, and also as to that question, Whether there were any Christian judges at that time?

[Ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God, etc.] there are those that in this place observe an allusion to Jacob’s ladder. The meaning of this passage seems to be no other than this: “Because I said, ‘I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou?’ Did this seem to thee a matter of such wonder? ‘Thou shalt see greater things than these.’ For you shall in me observe such plenty, both of revelation and miracle, that it shall seem to you as if the heavens were opened and the angels were ascending and descending, to bring with them all manner of revelation, authority, and power from God, to be imparted to the Son of man.” Where this also is included, viz., that angels must in a more peculiar manner administer unto him, as in the vision of Jacob the whole host of angels had been showed and promised to him in the first setting out of his pilgrimage.

Of this ladder the Rabbins dream very pleasantly: “The ladder is the ascent of the altar and the altar itself. The angels are princes or monarchs. The king of Babylon ascended seventy steps; the king of the Medes fifty-and-two; the king of Greece one hundred and eighty; the king of Edom, it is uncertain how many,” etc. They reckon the breadth of the ladder to have been about eight thousand parasangae, i.e. about two-and-thirty thousand miles; and that the bulk of each angel was about eight thousand English miles in compass. Admirable mathematicians these indeed!

Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

Joh 1:51. And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you. This is the first occasion on which we find the repeated Verily, so characteristic of the discourses related in this Gospel. The formula is always employed to mark some important step in a discourse, where the words of Jesus either take some new start, or rise to some higher stage. Both these conditions are fulfilled in the verse before us. As to the first, it will be observed that Jesus no longer addresses Nathanael alone: the plural instead of the singular is used, and we must understand that He is speaking to all the disciples. As to the second, again, the words of themselves suggest the higher stage of revelation promised.

Ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. The figure is taken from Jacobs dream (Gen 28:12). A wanderer from his fathers house and country, he is encouraged by a vision which teaches him that earth is united with heaven, and that Gods messengers descend to minister to those who are the objects of Gods care. If the ascent of the angels is mentioned (in Genesis 28) before the descent, this is because to Jacob is shown an intercourse that already exists, not one that now begins. Some angels are already returning from earth, their ministries accomplished. What Jacob saw in vision is now in the highest sense fulfilled. There is real and unceasing intercourse between earth and heaven. It is to Jesus that the angels descend; it is from Him that they return to heaven; through His presence on earth this union between earth and heaven exists. Even though He is in His state of humiliation, it is His bidding that the angels do. Perhaps it is this thought that accounts for the mention (in this verse) of the ascending angels first. These words have no direct reference to the angelic visits received by Jesus at different points of His earthly ministry; still less can we refer them to miracles to be hereafter performed, greater even than that displayed to Nathanael, miracles of which the next chapter will furnish the first example. We have simply a symbolical representation of the fact that through the Incarnation and sufferings of Jesus heaven is opened, is brought into the closest and most constant communion with earth, so that the latter is itself transfigured with the glory of Gods special abode. This interpretation is confirmed by two circumstances mentioned in the verse: (1) Nathanael is to see heaven standing open,not opened as if it might again be closed, but opened so as to continue open. It is the complete withdrawal of the inner veil of the Tabernacle, so that all the children of God, now made priests and high priests unto God, even the Father, may pass freely into the innermost sanctuary and out of it again without interruption and without end. (2) Jesus speaks of Himself as the Son of man. This important designation, often used by Jesus of Himself, once only used of Him by another (Act 7:56), is not, as some maintain, a simple equivalent of Messiah. It expresses rather One in whom all that truly belongs to humanity is realised, and by whom it is represented. Jesus is the Son of man, connected with no special race, or class, or condition, equally associated with all, equally near to all, in whom all are equally interested, and may be equally blessed. The designation is not a fourth confession, additional to the three that have been already made, for it comes from the lips of Jesus Himself. It is rather that in which all the confessions meet, the expression of the Personality to which they all belong. Jesus is the Incarnate Word, and as such He is the Messiah, the One of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, the Son of God and King of Israel. Every child of humanity, realising his true humanity in Him, has as his own the blessings associated with these three aspects of the Redeemer. He is anointed with the Holy Ghost, lives in that love which is the fulfilling of the law, is a son in the house of the Heavenly Father, himself a king. These are the greater things which every one who is an Israelite in deed shall see in the new creation introduced by the Word become flesh, and enlightened by the full brightness of that Light in whose presence old things pass away, and all things are made new.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

The heavens were open to Christ, and the angels attended upon him, first at his baptism, Mat 3:13-17 then at his ascension, Act 1:9 Whether Christ alludes to the one or the other, or to both, I shall not positively say; but gather this note, That the ministry and attendance of the holy angels upon the Lord Jesus Christ, in the time of his humiliation, was very remarkable:

An angel foretells his conception to the Virgin, Luke 1-24; Luk 24:31.

An angel publishes his birth to the shepherds, Luk 2:14.

In his temptations in the wilderness, the angels came and ministered unto him, Mat 4:11.

In his agony in the garden, an angel is sent to comfort him, Luk 22:42-43.

At his resurrection an angel rolls away the stone, and proclaims him risen to the women that sought for him, Mat 28:6.

At his ascension, the angels attended upon him, and bare him company to heaven.

And at the day of judgment, he shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.

Now, thus officious are the holy angels to our blessed Saviour, and thus subservient to him upon all occasions.

1. In point of affection and singular love to Christ.

2. In point of duty and special obligation to Christ.

There is no such cheerful and delightful service, as the service of love. Such is the angel’s service to Christ for the services he has done them, he being an Head of confirmation to them: For, that they are established in that holy and glorious state in which they were at first created, is owing to the special grace of the Redeemer: Glorify him then, all ye angels, and praise him all his host.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Ver. 51. Jesus answered and said to him: Because I said unto thee that I saw thee under the fig-tree, thou believest; thou shalt see greater things than these.

Since Chrysostom, most interpreters (Lucke, Meyer, etc.), editors and translators (Tischendorf, Rilliet), give to the words: Thou believest, an interrogative sense. They put into this question either the tone of surprise (Meyer) because of a faith so readily formed, or even that of reproach (de Wette), as if Nathanael had believed before he had sufficient grounds for it. I think, notwithstanding the observations of Weiss and Keil, that there is a more serene dignity in the answer of Jesus, if it is taken as an affirmation. He recognizes and approves the nascent faith of Nathanael; He congratulates him upon it; but He promises him a succession of increasing miraculous manifestations, of which he and his fellow-disciples will be witnesses, and which from this moment onward will develop their nascent faith. This expression proves that from that day Nathanael remained with Jesus. Up to this point, Jesus had spoken to Nathanael alone: Thou believest…thou shalt see. What He now declares, although also promised to him, concerns, nevertheless, all the persons present.

Ver. 52. And he says to him: Verily, verily, I say unto you, From this time onward you shall see the heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

We meet for the first time the formula amen, amen, which is found twenty-five times in John (Meyer), and nowhere else in the New Testament. Matthew says amen (not repeated) thirty times. This expression amen, serving as an introduction to a declaration which is about to follow, is found nowhere either in the Old Testament, or in the Rabbinical writings. It belongs exclusively to the language of Jesus. Hence is the fact more easily explained that Jesus is Himself called the Amen in the Apocalypse (Joh 3:14). This word (coming from the Hebrew aman, firmum fuit) is properly a verbal adjective, firm, worthy of faith; it is used as a substantive in Isa 65:16 : Elohe8 amen, the God of truth. It also becomes an adverb in a large number of passages in the Old Testament, to signify: that remains sure; or: let it be realized! This adverb is doubled, as in St. John, in the two following passages: Num 5:22 : Then the woman (accused of adultery)answered: Amen, amen; Neh 8:6 : All the people answered: Amen, amen. This doubling implies a doubt to be overcome in the hearer’s mind. The supposed doubt arises sometimes, as here, from the greatness of the thing promised, sometimes from a prejudice against which the truth affirmed has to contend (for example, Joh 3:3; Joh 3:5).

The words , from now on, are rejected by three of the ancient Alexandrian authorities; they were, in general, adopted by the moderns, and by Tischendorf himself who said in 1859 (7th ed.): cur omissum sit, facile dictu; cur additum, vix dixeris. But the omission in the Sinaitic MS. has caused him to change his opinion (8th ed.). The rejection can be easily understood, as the Gospel history does not contain any appearance of an angel in the period which followed these first days. It would be very difficult, on the contrary, to account for the addition. Weissand Keil allege the words of Mat 26:64. But there is no resemblance either in situation or thought between that passage and this one, which can explain such an importation; and I persist in thinking, with the Tischendorf of 1859, that the rejection is much more easily explained than the addition. Jesus means to say that heaven, which was opened at the time of His baptism, is not closed. The communication re- established between heaven and earth continues, and the two regions form for the future only one, so that the inhabitants of the one communicate with those of the other; comp. Eph 1:10 and Col 1:20. The expression ascend and descend is a very clear allusion to the vision of Jacob (Gen 28:12-13).

There it represented the continual protection of divine providence, and of its invisible agents assured to the patriarch. What the disciples are about to behold from now on will be a higher realization of the truth represented by that ancient symbol. Jesus certainly does not mean to speak of certain appearances of angels which occurred at the close of His life. The question is of a phenomenon which from this moment is to continue uninterruptedly. Most moderns, putting themselves at the opposite spiritualistic extreme to the literal interpretation, see here only an emblem of the heavenly and holy character of the daily activity of Jesus and, as Lucke and Meyer say, of the living communion between God and His organ, in which the divine forces and revelations are concentrated. Reuss says, with the same meaning: Angels are the divine perfections common to the two persons…, together with this observation: The literal explanation would here be as poor as it is absurd.Luthardt (following Hofmann): the (personified) forces of the Divine Spirit. If the explanation of the Fathers was too narrow, that of the moderns is too broad. There is no passage where the spiritual activity of Jesus is referred, even symbolically, to the ministry of angels. It is derived from the Spirit (Joh 1:32; Joh 3:34), or, still more commonly, from the Father dwelling and acting in Jesus (Joh 6:57). Angels are the instruments of the divine force in the domain of nature (see the angel of the waters, Rev 16:5; of the fire, Rev 14:18).

This expression refers, therefore, to phenomena, which, while taking place in the domain of nature, are due to a causality superior to the laws of nature. Could Jesus characterize His miracles more clearly without naming them? It is also the only sense which connects itself with what has just passed, even at this moment, between Nathanael and Himself: Thou believest because of this wonder ofomniscience; this is only the prelude of more remarkable signs of the same kind. By this Jesus means the works ofpower of which the event that follows, the miracle of Cana, will be the first example (from now on). This explanation is confirmed, moreover, by the remarkable parallel, Mat 8:9-10. It is difficult to explain why the angels who ascendare placed before those who descend. Is it simply owing to a reminiscence of Genesis? But there, there was a special reason: Jacob must understand that the angels were already near him at the moment when he was receiving that revelation.

According to Meyer and Lucke, Jesus would here also mean that, at the moment when the you shall see shall take place, this relation with heaven shall be already in full activity. I think, rather, that the angels are here presented by Jesus as an army grouped around their chief, the Son of man, who says to one, Go, and to another, Do this.These servants ascend first, to seek power in the presence of God; afterwards, they descend again to accomplish the work.

Were not these two allusions, one to the name of Israel (Joh 1:48), the other to the dream of Jacob, suggested by the sight of the very localities through which Jesus was, at this moment, passing? He was going from Judea to Galilee, either by the valley of the Jordan or by one of the two plateaus which extend along that valley on the east and the west. Now Bethel was on the eastern plateau, the very locality in which Jacob’s dream had occurred, and whose name perpetuated the remembrance of that event; on the eastern plateau Mahanaim was situated (thedouble camp of angels) and the ford of Jabbok, two places which equally recalled appearances of angels (Gen 32:1-2; Gen 32:24 ff.). It is possible that, in passing through these places which were classic for every Israelitish heart, Jesus conversed with His disciples concerning those scenes precisely which they recalled, and that this circumstance was the occasion of the figure which He makes use of at this moment.

What are the purpose and meaning of the expression: Son of man, by which Jesus here describes Himself? We examine this question here only in its relation to the context (see the following appendix). It is manifest that this title has a relation to the two titles which Nathanael has just given to Jesus. This is intended to make His disciples sensible of the fact that, besides His particular relation to God and to Israel, He sustains a third no less essential one, His relation to the whole of humanity. It is to this last that this third title refers. By making this designation His habitual title and by avoiding the use of the title of Christ, which had a very marked political and particularistic hue, Jesus wished from the first to establish His ministry on its true and broad foundation, already laid by that saying of His forerunner: who takes away the sin of the world. His task was not, as Nathanael imagined, to found the Israelitish monarchy: it was to save the world. He did not come to complete the theocratic drama, but to bring to its consummation the history of man.

This title, thus, completes the two others; the three relations of Jesus to God, to men, and to the people of Israel exhaust, indeed, His life and His history.

The Son of Man.

Jesus designates Himself here, for the first time, by the name Son of man, and it is quite probable that this occasion was really the first on which He assumed this title. We find it thirty-nine times in the Synoptics (by connecting the parallels: most frequently in Matt. and Luke); ten times in John (Joh 1:51; Joh 3:13-14; Joh 5:27 (without the article); Joh 6:27; Joh 6:53; Joh 6:62; Joh 8:28; Joh 12:23; Joh 12:34; Joh 13:31). Three very different opinions prevail respecting the meaning, the origin and the purpose of this designation. We can, however, arrange these in two principal classes.

I. Some think that Jesus here borrows from the Old Testament a title in some measure technical, which was adapted to designate Him either as prophet there would thus be an illusion to the name son of man by which God often designates Ezekiel, when addressing His word to himor as Messiah, in allusion to Dan 7:13 : And I saw one like unto a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven. This Messianic prophecy had become popular in Israel, to such an extent that the Messiah had received the name Anani, , the man of the clouds. It would thus be natural to suppose that Jesus made choice of this term as in a popular way designating his Messianic function; the more so, as there exists a saying of Jesus, in which He solemnly recalls this description of Daniel, applying it to Himself, Mat 26:64 : Henceforth ye shall see the Son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Of these two alleged allusions, the first cannot be sustained. For it is not as a prophet that God calls Ezekiel son of man, but as a creature completely powerless to perform the divine work of which he is inviting him to become the agentthus, as a man. Would it not be contrary to all logic to maintain that, because God on one occasion has called a prophet son of man, it follows that this name is the equivalent of the title prophet.

The allusion to Daniel, as the foundation of this peculiar name of Jesus, is admitted by almost all modern interpreters, Lucke, Bleek, Ewald, Hilgenfeld, Renan, Strauss, Meyer, Keil, Weiss, etc. This is also, apparently, the opinion of M. Wabnitz.

If the question were this: Did Jesus, in designating Himself thus, bring together in His own mind this name and the: as a son of man, of Daniel? it would seem difficult to deny it, at least as to the time when He proclaimed Himself the Messiah in reply to the high-priest before the Sanhedrim. But this is not the question. The point in hand is to determine whether, in choosing this title as His habitual name, as His title by predilection, Jesus meant to say: I am the Messiah announced by Daniel. As for myself, I think that this name is rather an immediate creation of His own heart, with which He was inspired by the profound feeling of what He was for humanity. The following are the reasons which impel me to reject the first view; and to prefer the second to it:

1. The borrowings of Jesus from the O. T. have, in general, a character of formal accommodation rather than that of a real imitation. The idea always springs up as perfectly original from His heart and mind; and if He connects it with some saying of Scripture, it is that He may give it support with His hearers, rather than that He may cite it as a source. How, then, could the name of which Jesus, by preference, makes use to designate His relation to humanity be the product of a servile imitation? If anything must have come forth from the depths of His own consciousness, it is this name.

2. Throughout the whole course of the Gospel of John, Jesus, as we shall see, carefully avoids proclaiming Himself as the Messiah, , before the people, because He knows too well the political meaning commonly attached to this term, and that the least misunderstanding on this point would have been immediately fatal to His work. He makes use, therefore, of all kinds of circumlocutions to avoid designating Himself as the Messiah: comp. Joh 8:24-25; Joh 10:24-25, etc. Comp. also, in the Synoptics, Luk 4:41; Luk 9:21, where he forbids the demons and His disciples to declare Him to be the Christ. And in direct contradiction to this procedure, He would have chosen, for His habitual name, a designation to which the popular opinion had attached this sense of Messiah!

3. Two passages in John prove, moreover, that the name Son of man was not generally applied to the Messiah: Joh 12:34, where the people ask Jesus who this personage is whom He designates by the name Son of man (see the exegesis); and Joh 5:27, where Jesus says that the Father has committed the judgment to Him because He is Son of man. Certainly, if this expression had here meant: the Messiah, the article the could not have been wanting It was necessary, in that case, since the question was of a personage well-known and designated under this name. Without the article, there is here a mere indication of quality: God makes Him judge of men as having the quality of man. Besides, let us not forget that in Daniel judgment is exercised, not, as Renan wrongly says, by the Son of man, but by Jehovah Himself; and it is only after this act is wholly finished, that the Son of man, to whom the title is given, appears on the clouds.

4. In the Synoptics, also, there are passages where the meaning Messiah does not suit the term Son of man. It is sufficient to cite Mat 16:13; Mat 16:15, where Jesus asks His disciples: Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?…And you, who do you say that I am? Had this term been equivalent to Messiah, would not the first question contain an intolerable tautology, and would not Holtzmann have ground for asking how Jesus, after having designated Himself a hundred times as Son of Man, could still propose to His disciples this question, Whom do you take me to be?

5. The appearance of the Son of man in the prophecy of Daniel has an exclusively eschatological bearing. The question is of the glorious establishment of the final kingdom. Now one cannot comprehend how from such a representation, especially, Jesus could have derived the title of which He makes use to designate His person during the period of His earthly abasement. But one can easily understand that, when this title had once been adopted by Him for other reasons, He should have made express allusion to this term employed by Daniel, at the solemn moment when, before the Sanhedrim, He wished to affirm His glorious return and His character as judge of His judges. Let us add, finally, that Daniel had not said: I saw the Son of man, or even a Son of man, but vaguely: like [the figure of] a son of man; and could Jesus have derived from such a vague expression His title of Son of man?

6. If we believe the common exegesis, the term Son of God had the sense of Messiah. Now, according to the same exegesis, this also is the meaning of the term Son of man, and it would follow from this that these two titles, which are evidently antithetic, would both have the same sensea thing which is impossible. They do not, either the one or the other, properly designate the office of the Messiah, but rather two aspects of the Messianic personage, which are complementary of each other.

II. We are led thus to the second class of interpretations, that which finds in this title a spontaneous expression of the consciousness which Jesus had of Himselfsome finding the feeling of His greatness expressed in it, and others, the feeling of His humiliation.

1. There is no longer any need of refuting the explanation of Paulus and Fritzsche, according to which Jesus simply meant to say: This individual whom you see before you homo ille quem bene nostis. Jesus would not, by so exceptional a term, have paraphrased more than fifty times the simple pronoun of the first person.

2. Chrysostom, Tholuck and others explain this title by a deliberate antithesis to the feeling which Jesus had of His own essential sonship to God. To choose, as His characteristic name, the title of descendant of the human race, He must feel Himself a stranger by nature to that race. This explanation is ingenious: but only too much so for the simplicity of the feeling of Jesus.

3. Keerl thought that Jesus meant to designate Himself thereby as the eternal man, pre-existent in God, of whom the Rabbis spoke, the Messiah differing from that heavenly man only through the flesh and blood with which He clothed Himself when He came to the earth. But no others than the Scribes could have attached such a sense to this title which Jesus habitually used, and nothing in His teaching indicates that He Himself shared in that Rabbinical opinion. Moreover, the term Son of man would be very ill adapted to a heavenly man.

4. Gess expresses an analogous idea, but less extra-Biblical. According to him, Jesus wished to express thereby the idea of the divine majesty as having appeared in the form of human life. He rests upon the passages in which divine functions are ascribed to the Son of man, as such; thus the pardon of sins (Mat 9:6, and parallels), lordship over the angels (Mat 13:41), judgment (Mat 16:27; Mat 25:31, Joh 5:27). But, if the destiny of man is to be exalted even to participate in the functions and works of God, there is nothing in the acts cited which surpasses that sublime destiny, and consequently the limits of the human life when it has reached the summit of its perfection. Besides, is the idea of the Kenosis, which Gess adopts, compatible with that of the divine majesty realized in Jesusin Jesus in the form of the human life?

5. De Wette and others think, on the contrary, that by this name Jesus meant to make prominent the weakness of His earthly state. It seems to us that the words of Joh 5:27 are altogether opposed to this sense. It is not because of the meanness of His earthly state, that the judgment is committed to Christ.

6. Only one explanation remains for us, in itself the most simple and natural one, which in various forms has been given by Bohme, Neander, Ebrard, Olshausen, Beyschlag, Holtzmann, Wittichen, Hofmann, Westcott, Schaff, etc., which we have already set forth in the first edition of this work, aud which we continue to defend. Jesus meant to designate by this title, in the first place, His complete participation in our human nature. A son of man is not the son of such or such a man, but an offspring of the human race of which He presents an example; a legitimate representative. It is in this sense that this expression is used in Psa 8:5 : What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him? The same is true in the frequent addresses of the Lord to Ezekiel. It is also the same in Dan 7:13, where the being who appeared like a Son of man represents the human, gentle, holy character of the Messianic kingdom, just as the wild beasts, which preceded him, were figures of the violent, harsh, despotic character of earthly empires. Jesus, therefore, above all, obeyed the instinct of His love in adopting this designation of His person, which expressed the feeling of His perfect homogeneousness with the human family of which He had made Himself a member.

This name was, as it were, the theme of which those words of John: the Word was made flesh, are the paraphrase. But Jesus does not merely name Himself: a son of man; a true man; He names Himself the Son of man; He declares Himself, thereby, the true man, the only normal representative of the human type. Even in affirming, therefore, His equality with us, He affirms, by means of the article, the, His superiority over all the other members of the human family, who are simply sons of men; comp. Mar 3:28; Eph 3:5. To designate Himself thus was, indeed, to affirm, yet only implicitly, His dignity as Messiah. He expressed the idea, while yet avoiding the word whose meaning was falsified. Without saying: I am the Christ, He said to every man: Look on me, and thou shalt see what thou oughtest to have been, and what, through me, thou mayest yet become. He succeeded thus in attaining two equally important ends: to inaugurate the pure Messianism separated from all political alloy, and to present Himself as the chief of a kingdom of God, comprehending, not only Israel, but all the human race. This is what has led Bohme to say (Versuch das Geheimniss des Menschensohns zuenthullen, 1839), that the design of Jesus in choosing this designation was to de-judaize the idea of the Messiah.

We see with what admirable wisdom Jesus acted in the choice of this designation, the creation of His own consciousness and of His inner life. It was His love which guided Him wonderfully in this matter, as it did in everything. Perhaps His inward tact was directed in this choice by the recollection of the most ancient of all the propheciesthe one which was the germ of the tree of the Messianic revelations: The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head. As the term , man, refers equally to the two sexes, and as the woman represents the human nature, rather than the human individuality, the term Son of man is not far removed from the term seed of the woman. Jesus would designate Himself, thus, as the normal man, charged with accomplishing the victory of humanity over its own enemy and the enemy of God.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

Verse 51

What Jesus intended by this declaration, and when and how it was fulfilled, is not known. Most commentators regard the language as figurative, supposing it to mean only that Nathanael should see Jesus, in various circumstances of life, the object of the special protection of Heaven. This does not, however, seem to be a very natural construction.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

1:51 And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God {x} ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

(x) These words signify the power of God which would appear in Christ’s ministry by the angels serving him as the head of the Church.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Jesus then made a very important statement that He identified as such with the phrase "Truly, truly, I say to you" or "I tell you the truth" (Gr. amen amen lego humin). This phrase occurs 25 times in John’s Gospel, and it always introduces an especially important affirmation.

Jesus used the imagery of Jacob’s dream at Bethel to describe the greater revelation that Nathanael and his fellow disciples-the "you" in the Greek text is plural-would receive. The opening of the heavens pictures the insight that people on earth receive into what God is doing in heaven (cf. Act 10:11; Rev 4:1; Rev 19:11). Jesus would reveal heavenly things, a theme that John developed throughout this Gospel. The angels of God are His agents that assist humans by taking their communications up to God above and by bringing knowledge of divine things down to them (cf. Hebrews 1). The role of the Son of Man, Jesus’ favorite title of Himself that He used over 80 times (Dan 7:13), was to make this contact possible.

"In this Gospel the term [Son of Man] is always associated either with Christ’s heavenly glory or with the salvation he came to bring." [Note: Ibid., p. 151. For a good summary of the meaning of the "Son of Man" title, see Carson, p. 164, or Morris, pp. 150-52.]

Similarly a staircase makes travel and communication between two physical levels possible. Jesus was promising Nathanael that He would prove to be the key to access to God and communication with God (cf. Joh 14:6; 1Ti 2:5). God had revealed Himself to Israel, the man and the nation, in a dream at Bethel previously (Gen 28:10-22). Now God would reveal Himself to a true Israelite, Nathanael, to all Israel, and to the world, directly through Jesus.

This first sub-section in the body of the fourth Gospel (Joh 1:19-51) contains the prelude to Jesus’ public ministry. [Note: See Stephen S. Kim, "The Relationship of John 1:19-51 to the Book of Signs in John 2-12," Bibliotheca Sacra 165:659 (July-September 2008):323-37.] John stressed John the Baptist’s witness to Jesus’ identity, first in a veiled manner and then openly. Then he recorded the response of some of John’s disciples, which was to follow Jesus. Philip’s witness resulted in Nathanael’s declaration of faith in Jesus, limited as it may have been, and Jesus’ claim to be the revealer of God and the way to God. The "greater things than these" that Jesus promised (Joh 1:50) follow providing an even more solid foundation for faith in Him (cf. Joh 20:31).

At least 16 different names and titles of Jesus appear in chapter one: the Word (Joh 1:1; Joh 1:14), the light (Joh 1:7-9), the only begotten of the Father (Joh 1:14), Jesus Christ (Joh 1:17), the only begotten God (Joh 1:18), the Lord (Joh 1:23), the Lamb of God (Joh 1:29; Joh 1:36), a man (Joh 1:30), the Son of God (Joh 1:34), Rabbi (Teacher, Joh 1:38; Joh 1:49), Messiah (Joh 1:41), Jesus of Nazareth (Joh 1:45), the son of Joseph (Joh 1:45), the Son of God (Joh 1:49), the King of Israel (Joh 1:49), and the Son of Man (Joh 1:51). Clearly one of John’s purposes in this Gospel was to draw attention to who Jesus is.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)