From where know you me?

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said of him: Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Nathanael said to him: From where know you me? Jesus answered and said to him, Before that Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathanael answered and said to him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel. (John 1:47)

JESUS SAW HIM

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him. Jesus, who knew all that had passed between him and Philip, said of him: "Behold a son of Israel (as the Syriac and Persic versions read) in whom is no guile!"

THE SECRET OF MEN'S HEARTS

Not that Nathanael was without sin; but guile was not a governing sin in him: the course of his life, was with great integrity, and uprightness, and without any prevailing hypocrisy and deceit, either to God, or men.

👉 This Jesus said to show how much such a character is approved by Him; and that He knew the secrets of men's hearts, and the inward frames of their minds. (John Gill)

Behold an Israelite indeed, (behold a son of Israel), in whom is no guile.

FACE TO FACE

John 1:47 no doubt speaks of one who had seen God face to face (it had its origin when the name of Jacob was changed, and he was called Israel, in the night of Peniel). Nathanael itself was a fine name; like so many of the Hebrew names it spoke of God. The affix, El -  the hallowing, consecrating name of God - how often we find it in the Hebrew names! So the Israelites, we may believe in no light spirit, honoured God in conferring names; and Peniel, or the Face of God, was the place where the old patriarch believed he had seen God face to face; and Nathanael had his own Peniel.

Nathanael answered and said to him: Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel. And Jesus said to him: Amen, amen... I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man. (John 1:47,51)

The key to this great saying is Jacob's vision (Gen 28:12-22), to which the allusion plainly is. To show the patriarch that though alone and friendless on earth his interests were busying all heaven, he was made to see "heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon a" mystic "ladder reaching from heaven to earth." 

"Amen, amen!" says Jesus here, "you shall see this communication between heaven and earth thrown wide open, and the Son of man the real Ladder of this intercourse."

IN CHRIST

What Jacob dreamed 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. 

Nathanael could say: I met the Messiah. Have you?

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