Jesus the Christ: A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy; Scriptures Both Ancient and ModernTalmage, James E. (James Edward)
Religion
Jesus the Christ: A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy; Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern
Talmage, James E. (James Edward)
Christian biography -- Palestine; Jesus Christ -- Biography; Jesus Christ -- Mormon interpretations
Philip soon found his friend Nathanael, to whom he testified that He of
whom Moses and the prophets had written had at last been found; and that
He was none other than Jesus of Nazareth. Nathanael, as his later
history demonstrates, was a righteous man, earnest in his hope and
expectation of the Messiah, yet seemingly imbued with the belief common
throughout Jewry--that the Christ was to come in royal state as seemed
befitting the Son of David. The mention of such a One coming from
Nazareth, the reputed son of a humble carpenter, provoked wonder if not
incredulity in the guileless mind of Nathanael, and he exclaimed: "Can
there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Philip's answer was a
repetition of Christ's words to Andrew and John--"Come and see."
Nathanael left his seat under the fig tree,[321] where Philip had found
him, and went to see for himself. As he approached, Jesus said: "Behold
an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile." Nathanael saw that Jesus
could read his mind, and asked in surprize: "Whence knowest thou me?" In
reply Jesus showed even greater powers of penetration and perception
under conditions that made ordinary observation unlikely if not
impossible: "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the
fig tree, I saw thee." Nathanael replied with conviction: "Rabbi, thou
art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel." Earnest as the man's
testimony was, it rested mainly on his recognition of what he took to be
a supernatural power in Jesus; our Lord assured him that he should see
yet greater things: "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."
"THE SON OF MAN."
In the promise and prediction made by Christ to Nathanael, we find the
significant title--The Son of Man--appearing for the first time,
chronologically speaking, in the New Testament. It recurs, however,
about forty times, excluding repetitions in parallel accounts in the
several Gospels. In each of these passages it is used by the Savior
distinctively to designate Himself. In three other instances the title
appears in the New Testament, outside the Gospels; and in each case it
is applied to the Christ with specific reference to His exalted
attributes as Lord and God.[322]
In the Old Testament, the phrase "son of man" occurs in ordinary usage,
denoting any human son[323] and it appears over ninety times as an
appellation by which Jehovah addressed Ezekiel, though it is never
applied by the prophet to himself.[324] The context of the passages in
which Ezekiel is addressed as "son of man" indicates the divine
intention of emphasizing the human status of the prophet as contrasted
with the divinity of Jehovah.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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