It must not, of course, be supposed that this represents all that had passed between Jesus and Peter, any more than that the recorded expression was all that Andrew and John had said of Jesus to their brothers. Of the interview between John and James his brother, the writer, with his usual self-reticence, forbears to speak. But we know its result; and, knowing it, can form some conception of what passed on that holy evening between the new-found Messiah and His first four disciples: of teaching manifestation on His part, and of satisfied heart-peace on theirs. As yet they were only followers, learners, not yet called to be Apostles, with all of entire renunciation of home, family, and other calling which this implied. This, in the course of proper development, remained for quite another period. Alike their knowledge and their faith for the present needed, and could only bear, the call to personal attachment. [1696]
It was Sunday morning, the first of Christ's Mission-work, the first of His Preaching. He was purposing to return to Galilee. It was fitting He should do so: for the sake of His new disciples; for what He was to do in Galilee; for His own sake. The first Jerusalem-visit must be prepared for by them all; and He would not go there till the right time - for the Paschal Feast. It was probably a distance of about twenty miles from Bethabara to Cana. By the way, two other disciples were to be gained - this time not brought, but called, where, and in what precise circumstances, we know not. But the notice that Philip was a fellow-townsman of Andrew and Peter, seems to imply some instrumentality on their part. Similarly, we gather that, afterwards, Philip was somewhat in advance of the rest, when he found his acquaintance Nathanael, and engaged in conversation with him just as Jesus and the others came up. But here also we mark, as another characteristic trait of John, that he, and his brother with him, seem to have clung close to the Person of Christ, just as did Mary afterwards in the house of her brother. It was this intense exclusiveness of fellowship with Jesus which traced on his mind that fullest picture of the God-Man, which his narrative reflects.
The call to Philip from the lips of the Saviour met, we know not under what circumstances, immediate responsive obedience. Yet, though no special obstacles had to be overcome, and hence no special narrative was called for, it must have implied much of learning, to judge from what he did, and from what he said to Nathanael. There is something special about Nathanael's conquest by Christ - rather implied, perhaps, than expressed - and of which the Lord's words gives significant hints. They seem to point to what had passed in his mind just before Philip found him. Alike the expression an Israelite in truth, in whom is no guile' [1697] - looking back on what changed the name of Jacob into Israel - and the evident reference to the full realisation of Jacob's vision in Bethel, [1698] may be an indication that this very vision had engaged his thoughts. As the Synagogue understood the narrative, its application to the then state of Israel and the Messianic hope would most readily suggest itself. Putting aside all extravagances, the Synagogue thought, in connection with it, of the rising power of the Gentiles, but concluded with the precious comfort of the assurance, in Jer. xxx. 11, of Israel's final restoration. [1699] Nathanael (Theodore, the gift of God,') had, as we often read of Rabbis, [1700] rested for prayer, meditation, or study, in the shadow of that wide-spreading tree so common in Palestine, the fig-tree. [1701] The approaching Passover-season, perhaps mingling with thoughts of John's announcement by the banks of Jordan, would naturally suggest the great deliverance of Israel in the age to come;' [1702] all the more, perhaps, from the painful contrast in the present. Such a verse as that with which, in a well-known Rabbinic work, [1703] the meditation for the New Moon of Nisan, the Passover month, closes: Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help,' [1704] would recur, and so lead back the mind to the suggestive symbol of Jacob's vision, and its realisation in the age to come.' [1705]