The Pulpit Commentary on John 1:50

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Jesus answered and said to him, Because I said unto thee, that I saw thee underneath the fig tree, thou believest. There is no need to transform this into a question, as though Jesus smiled a gentle reproof upon the rapidity with which Nathanael espoused his cause (cf.

John 16:31; John 20:29). The Lord, on the contrary, congratulates him upon the sincerity with which he had at once admitted claims which had never been more explicitly expressed. Thou hast believed because I have made thee feel that I have sounded the depths of thy heart, by means which pass understanding.

There are profounder abysses than the human heart. There are powers at my disposal calculated to create a more tender and inspiring faith, one which shall carry thee into other worlds as well as through this.

Thou shalt see greater things than these. There shall be vouchsafed a fuller, clearer revelation of what I am, which shall pour new and deeper meaning into the confession thou hast made. Hitherto the Lord was speaking to the one man; but now he says what would be applicable, not only to Nathanael, but to all who had found him, and accepted that outline of his functions and claims which had formed the substance of the latest teaching of John the Baptist.

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