Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chapters I to XIVMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chapters I to XIV
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. John -- Commentaries
Follow Him. Trust, obey, imitate, hold fellowship with Him. You will
always have a Companion, you will always have a Protector. 'He that
followeth Me,' saith He, 'shall not walk in darkness, but shall have
the light of life.' And if you will listen to the Shepherd's voice and
follow Him, that sweet old promise will be true, in its divinest and
sweetest sense, about your life, in time; and about your life in the
moment of death, the isthmus between two worlds, and about your life in
eternity—'They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the sun nor
heat smite them; for He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even
by the springs of water shall He guide them.' 'Follow thou Me.'
THE FIRST DISCIPLES: IV. NATHANAEL
'Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found Him, of
whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph. 46. And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good
thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see. 47.
Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and saith of him, Behold an
Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! 48. Nathanael saith unto Him,
Whence knowest Thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that
Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. 49.
Nathanael answered and saith unto Him, Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God;
Thou art the King of Israel.'—JOHN i. 45-49.
The words are often the least part of a conversation. The Evangelist
can tell us what Nathanael said to Jesus, and what Jesus said to
Nathanael, but no Evangelist can reproduce the look, the tone, the
magnetic influence which streamed out from Christ, and, we may believe,
more than anything He said, riveted these men to Him.
It looks as if Nathanael and his companions were very easily convinced,
as if their adhesion to such tremendous claims as those of Jesus Christ
was much too facile a thing to be a very deep one. But what can be put
down in black and white goes a very short way to solve the secret of
the power which drew them to Himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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