We have read of John the Baptist giving testimony of himself that he is not the Christ, the Son of God that people were seeking; rather, he was the forerunner of Christ proclaiming His arrival. Next, he gives testimony of the true Christ, the Son of God who appears along with a very special event proving He is the Christ. At this point, after introducing his followers (and us) to Jesus the Christ, John the Baptist pivots to pointing his disciples (one being John the apostle) to their one true teacher, Jesus.

John 1:35-42:
35Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples,
36and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
37The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.
38And Jesus turned and saw them following, and said to them, “What do you seek?” They said to Him, “Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are You staying?”
39He said to them, “Come, and you will see.” So they came and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.
40One of the two who heard John speak and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
41He found first his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which translated means Christ).
42He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

Remember in John 3:30 where John the Baptist says:
30“He must increase, but I must decrease.
Here he is putting his own words and his faith to work. John is effectively putting Christ first, not only in his life but in the lives of his disciples. John is telling his disciples that initially they followed him as he was proclaiming the Messiah. Now, the Messiah has come and his disciples need to follow Him as He is their true rabbi or teacher.

How does John the Baptist do this? He starts with one word…”Behold”. “Behold” is a special word with important meaning. We can see the call to “behold” from John followed by the response from Jesus in verse 39, which is “Come, and you will see.” So what does this word “behold” mean? It can mean to perceive with any of the human senses, but here, in context, it seems to be pertaining more to the sense of sight. After all, Jesus had come in the flesh to all the world, but it has a deeper meaning than just to perceive with the eyes. Here it has the meaning of to pay attention, to discern, to inspect closely, or to understand. John is not simply saying, “Look look, there’s Jesus!” Rather, he’s telling his disciples to go to Him, learn from Him, understand Him, and discern for themselves whether or not Jesus is the Son of God, the Christ.

Notice also that the word “behold” is an interjection. We see this by the addition of the exclamation point at the end of John’s command (yes, it was also phrased as a command) to behold Jesus. This was not just some statement that John was making but an emphatic plead for those to follow their Savior, the Lamb of God. John understood the wrath of God that sinner’s faced. Therefore, he was emphatic about their need to follow the One who could save the sinner from the wrath of God. This is a perfect picture of humility in leadership as John pushed Jesus to the center stage as he exited stage right.

Why should we focus on one word, “behold”? Well, these verses give us such a clear picture of evangelism from first John the Baptist and then the source of salvation…Jesus. What better examples to learn evangelism from than both John and especially Jesus.

John the Baptist was never about himself, he always preached Jesus. In fact, he actively encouraged others to behold Jesus or, in other words, seek out Jesus and examine him closely. Shouldn’t this be our desire too…to explain Jesus to others (as John had been doing with his disciples) and then encouraging them to behold Jesus on their own? But how do we get others to behold Jesus? After all, He’s not with us physically as He was in the gospels but in heaven at the right hand of the Father. What we can do is encourage others to go to church to hear Jesus preached (praise God that Trev preaches Jesus!) or to attend more personal bible studies to learn more of Jesus. Since we know that God’s word will never return void, we know that when others hear Jesus preached and taught, we can be certain that the Holy Spirit is working.

But now that we have encouraged those to behold Christ, what next? We can answer this by Jesus’ first utterance in the gospel of John, “What do you seek?” Of course Jesus knew the answer as He knows all of our hearts. But this is more of an example for us. As we encourage others to behold Christ, we must ask the next natural question, “What are you looking for?” For some it could be wealth and power, for others it could be a healed body, to some it may just be more knowledge, and yet for others it may be a desperate need for the healing of their broken sinfulness…ultimate forgiveness.

The answer that the two men gave in verse 38 was very telling of their true intentions. First, they wanted to know where Jesus was staying. So we know from this that they did not just want a superficial meeting with Jesus; rather, they wanted an in-depth time to sit down with Jesus at a place where they would not be bothered by others. They wanted their full attention on Jesus and Jesus’ full attention on them. Secondly, they called Jesus rabbi (which we know is a highly respected term for teacher). To be called rabbi was a great position to have and one that demanded respect. In calling Jesus rabbi, they showed not only their respect for Him but also (and so very important) their desire to learn from Him and understand…or, in a word, behold Him.

We are not told what conversations transpired between these two men and Jesus, but it certainly changed their lives. There are two clues as to the validity of this statement. First, the place and time are mentioned. The place was where Jesus was staying, granted it is not mentioned exactly where this location was as this was less important than who was staying there…the Christ. But the time is mentioned in precise detail, that is, “in the tenth hour”. The other fact is that only the two men that followed Jesus would have known these details. One is Andrew, mentioned in verse 40 and the other is not mentioned by name. However, with the specificity of details here we can only arrive at the conclusion that the other man was the author of this gospel…John the Apostle. After all, who would have these specific details and who would have also not mentioned himself by name as John was known to do in his own gospel? This is another amazing aspect of this story since, if you recall, John wrote his gospel around 50 years after this event. John remembers this event in such detail not because he has a great memory but because this was a life changing event for him!

The second clue as to the validity of the statement I previously made was that Andrew immediately went out to tell others that the Messiah had arrived. Isn’t that what we all want to do when we receive the Holy Spirit? I remember when I was saved in college at a Southern Baptist retreat one fall weekend. The first thing I wanted to do was to go tell someone what had happened to me…and that’s just what I did. Here we see Andrew doing just that. He was so excited that he ran to find his brother Simon (who’s name Jesus would later change to Peter) and told him of the news. But read verses 41-42 carefully; notice that Andrew first told his brother of who Jesus was. Then Andrew followed this up by bringing his brother straight to the Messiah Himself.

This is a great example of evangelism. First, we tell others of who Christ is and then we show them by bringing them to Christ Himself. But since we don’t have Jesus physically here, we need to bring them to where Jesus is preached and taught. We need to bring them to our church and our Bible studies in order to encounter Jesus. It is here that they will come into Jesus’ presence. This is where the work of the Lord is accomplished in saving the person. The work is the Lord’s. We are simply the herald of this wonderful message that the Messiah is here!

John 1:43–51:
43The next day He purposed to go into Galilee, and He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, “Follow Me.”
44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter.
45Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
46Nathanael said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
47Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”
48Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
49Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.”
50Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”
51And He said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

During the next day Jesus does something a little different, He personally calls Phillip to follow Him. We see that Philip immediately follows Jesus and we also see Philip acting in the same way as Andrew acted…he goes and tells others. From Philip’s call we can see a different side of evangelism. Sometimes we must go and tell others of Jesus and who He is. Sometimes Jesus has already worked in someone’s heart and He brings that person to us so that we might show them Jesus. Who knows, the next person who enters our church building for the first time may be just that person. We must be vigilant as to where Jesus is already working in the hearts of others.

After encountering Jesus, Philip goes to tell his friend Nathanael who Jesus is, the prophesied Messiah. But Nathanael has a much different reaction than the others who were told of Jesus. The others seemed to immediately go to Jesus and began to follow Him. Nathanael, however, argued that nothing that came from the town of Nazareth could be good. You see, the people of Nazareth were generally despised or considered much lower than people from other towns in that area. Nathanael’s first thoughts were that since Nazareth was so insignificant and did not factor into any prophecies of scripture, how then could the Messiah come from such a lowly place. Nathanael, like other Jews, might have been looking for a conquering king that would elevate Israel above her enemies rather than a lowly carpenter from a relatively unknown town.

How did Phillip react to Nathanael’s doubt about the authenticity of Jesus as the Christ? Philip simply replied with the words, “Come and see.” He didn’t get into a deep and lengthy debate on the relevance of the Messiah originating from such a lowly place as Nazareth or try to convince Nathanael of Jesus’ authority. Rather, he echoed Jesus’ words, “Come and you will see”…those same words that we previously read in verse 39. Philip was saying that if you don’t believe me, go to the source. Go see Jesus and judge for yourself.

Yes, we can debate who Jesus is, use apologetics, and employ various evangelistic techniques, but in the end we must tell others to, “Come and see who Jesus is for yourself.” To be sure, I’m not reducing the goodness or impact of debates, apologetics, and other techniques for evangelism. I’m saying that we need to, at some point, take Jesus’ example and tell others to carefully consider Jesus as the Messiah (i.e., to behold Him) and then let Jesus work in their hearts.

It might be difficult sometimes to let go and allow Jesus to do the work. After all, we do have good arguments for accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior. However, we must all understand that we are weak and only human and in our humanness we cannot change people’s minds. We must allow the One who can change the heart and mind of a person once and for all to do the real work of salvation. We must invite them to church and to Bible studies so that they might witness Jesus for themselves and judge Him worthy above all others.

If it is still difficult to let go and let Jesus work, consider verses 47-48. This is a clear example of what Jesus is able to do. Jesus is able to see the heart of the person. In verse 47 Jesus gives an accurate depiction of Nathanael. Jesus describes Nathanael as an Israelite with no deceit in him. Jesus looked into Nathanael’s heart and knew that he was indeed coming to see Jesus for himself with a desire to accurately know who He was. Nathanael was not coming to argue with Jesus or condemn Him (like the Pharisees); rather, he really wanted to know if this was the Messiah that scripture foretold. Nathanael’s desire to come and see was not deceitful but honest. We should pray for people that grace our doorstep for the first time that they will also have a “beholding” heart like Nathanael’s.

In the next verse (48) Jesus does something just as miraculous. Jesus tells Nathanael that He saw him under the fig tree much earlier (even before Philip came to him). Now why would this simple phrase have meant so much to Nathanael? Well, that is the power of God who knows the most intimate details of us and the most important events that occur around us. These details He can use to show non-believers that He really is the Messiah, the Christ who has the power to save. This is something we do not possess. We, knowing that Nathanael was under the fig tree, might discard such a seemingly unimportant event but not Jesus. You see, Jesus knew that this event was so important to Nathanael. Why was this event (sitting under a fig tree) important? It is because this is typically where a person would go to meditate on scripture and pray. Jesus not only knew this, but He knew exactly what Nathanael was meditating on and praying for. Was it prayer for guidance or maybe to be shown the Messiah Himself? We aren’t told. But Jesus knew what it was and Jesus knew that only this would pierce Nathanael’s heart. Whatever it was, this must have been an especially close time with God as Nathanael recognized Jesus the moment He spoke those words to him.

We do get a glimpse of what Nathanael was meditating on, though, in verse 51. This verse summarized what is in Genesis 28:12–22:

12He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
13And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.
14“Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
15“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
16Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”
17He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
18So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top.
19He called the name of that place Bethel; however, previously the name of the city had been Luz.
20Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear,
21and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the Lord will be my God.
22“This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”
It is possible that Nathanael was meditating on these specific verses under the fig tree. Giving further proof that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the Son of God.

This initial chapter of John has given us a deeper glimpse into who Jesus is. It has pointed us to Him and explained Him, the same One who explains God the Father. John the Baptist has pointed us to Jesus and commanded us to follow Him and see for ourselves who He really is. Finally, we have a glimpse of how Jesus after we seek Him out and follow Him gives us the wonderful duty to tell others about Him. Regardless of how others respond to us proclaiming Jesus, we always should fall back on those words of Jesus and His Apostles, “Come and see.” Let us be a “come and see” type of church where those who lack deceit and genuinely want to know and behold Jesus really can come and find peace with Him, the Christ, the Son of God.