THE KING’S BUSINESS
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21:2). Cana is mentioned in the opening of the next chapter as the place where Jesus went with His disciples to the marriage feast and some have thought that Nathanael was the bridegroom on that occasion. Cana was only about five miles distant from Nazareth and yet apparently Nathanael had never heard of Jesus. Philip’s testimony to Nathanael was essentially the same as that of Andrew to Peter but expressed in a more' exact and full way. Philip seems to have been very methodical in his thought. This comes out also in John 6 :7-9. It is noteworthy how throughout the Gospel of John what is said about one person in any one place fits what is said about him in another even down to minutest details, thus showing the minute accuracy of John and how the story that he tells is not a fiction but real fact. Philip was evidently a careful and thorough student of the Old Testament Scriptures. He had discovered (what many modern “scholars” have not discovered even yet) that the one great subject of the Old Testament Scriptures, of “the law” as well as “the prophets,” was the coming Messiah, and he also saw that Jesus fitted this description. Apparently at this time Philip did not know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, nor did he know of His virgin birth. Of course, he was a new disciple and had many things yet to learn. Jesus would be known by the name of “son of Joseph” (cf. ch. 6: 42), even though He was not in actual fact his son. The order of the words in the Greek lays the heavy emphasis on “Him of whom Moses in the lazv and the prophets wrote.” Perhaps there is an implication that Philip and Nathanael had together dwelt on the Old Testament pictures of "the coming Messiah. Philip did not say, “I have found” but “We have found,” thus referring to the other members
peror Julian and the philosopher Porphyry ridiculed the Apostles, for following Jesus and Celsus ridiculed Christ’s Apostles as mechanics and fishermen. Vs. 45, 46, “Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write (rather, “wrote”'), Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.” Just aS Andrew when he had found the Christ went out and found some one else, so Philip having found Him went and sought and found another. It was probably as they journeyed toward Galilee that Philip found Nathanael. Nathanael means the same as our name Theodore, i. e., “gift of God.” He evidently is to be identified with Bartholomew the Apostle. This is clear for several reasons: First, No mention is made of Nathanael in the synoptic Gospels or of Bartholomew in John’s Gospel, and Nathanael occupies the same position in John’s Gospel in relation to Andrew and Peter and John and James and Philip that Bartholomew occupies in the other Gospels. Second, In the list of Apostles, Bartholomew is coupled with Philip (Matt. 10:3; Luke 6:14; Mark 3 :18) in the way we would naturally expect if he 'were the Nathanael* whom Philip found in the passage we are now studying. Third, In the 21st chapter and the 2nd verse Nathanael is seen to occupy a prominent position among the disciples, such a position as he would not have been likely to have occupied if he were not one of the Apostolic company. The name “Bartholomew” is his patronymic name and signifies simply son of Tolmai, so his whole name was Nathanael son of Tolmai. Nathanael was of Cana in Galilee (ch.
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