QUICK LEARNERS IN JOHN'S GOSPEL
QUICK LEARNERS IN JOHN’S GOSPEL
John 1: 47 - 51; John 4: 16 - 19; John 20: 16, 17
JT It is well known that the gospel of John affords much instruction as to teaching, but what is in mind now is learning, and learning quickly, in Nathanael, the Samaritan woman, and Mary of Magdala. It will be well known that Nathanael appears early, in verse 45; he was then quite indifferent and doubtful. But after Philip says to him, “Come and see”, it says in verse 47, “Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and says of him, Behold one truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile. Nathanael says to him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said to him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered and said to him, [p. 313] Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel”. And then the Lord says, “Because I said to thee, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou ? Thou shalt see greater things than these. And he says to him, Verily, verily, I say to you, Henceforth ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man”. The Lord changes to the plural in verse 51, as if He assumes that Nathanael would share what light he was receiving with others, and so He says “ye” instead of ‘thou’. The quick learning is in verse 49, “Nathanael answered and said to him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel”.
Rem You stress this thought of quick learning because of the shortness of the time.
JT I was thinking of that. We have the very words, “brethren, the time is short” or “straitened” (1 Corinthians 7: 29), and we are to redeem the time (Ephesians 5: 16); that is to buy it up, to learn [p. 311] well and quickly; and the shortness of the time suggests this, lest we be found without the proper teaching for the assembly or for heaven.
Rem “Always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”, 2 Timothy 3: 7.
JT I was thinking of that, and with all the extra meetings, especially fellowship meetings where we hear the word and meet each other, the question is how much more are we learning on each occasion? The Samaritan woman clearly learnt quickly, “Sir, I see that thou art a prophet”; so with Mary of Magdala, she says, “Rabboni” when He speaks to her: “Jesus says to her, Mary. She, turning round, says to him in Hebrew, Rabboni, which means, Teacher”.
Ques Does it involve wholehearted committal? Paul says to Timothy, “that thy progress may be manifest to all”, 1 Timothy 4: 15.
JT Very good.
Rem We have two great thoughts here, the Son of God, and the King of Israel.
JT The former is the greater no doubt. The suggestion is that he quoted the scripture in Psalm 2: 7, and it is all the more important to quote the scripture if you are learning, to put a name on what you have learnt! It is the scripture, not only what a brother says. We may take up a brother’s remarks, but it is better to have one’s own language, unless quoting from Scripture, then quote the scripture!
Ques Was it the Lord’s words to Nathanael in verse 48 reaching his heart, that brought out the quick answer?
JT It seems that is how the truth is meant. He was evidently lazily sitting under the fig-tree, with critical thoughts. Philip was in earnest. Jesus finds Philip, and Philip finds Nathanael; it was evidently a time of finding; it is so now, and the children of God are scattered abroad, and we have to [p. 312] find them. The idea of finding is very noticeable in John. Then Philip says, “We have found him of whom Moses wrote in the law, and the prophets, Jesus, the son of Joseph, who is from Nazareth”, that is Philip had found Him, “Jesus”. Not that the Lord was out of the way, or hidden, but that it fits in with this thought of finding in the scripture. He notifies the place where He is from, and then Nathanael retorts, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” It was a poor answer. Nazareth was a village or town and it needed research to find out what was really there. Then we have “Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him”.
Ques What would the fig-tree represent?
JT The millennium. It would speak of millennial conditions and earthly conditions here.
Ques Would the reference to his having no guile show that there was a certain honesty about Nathanael?
JT There was virtue in it.
Rem “An honest and good heart”, Luke 8: 15.
JT In Matthew 13 it says that Jesus “sat down by the sea” to say that. We should see how alertness comes into these matters, that the Lord saying what He did to Nathanael in verse 47 brings out what He meant to bring out, and there was something there to bring out!
Rem The Lord discerns the kind of soil.
JT Yes.
Rem And as having this honest and good heart Nathanael discerns who the Lord is.
JT He must have read the Scriptures; many Christians are very ignorant of the Scriptures.
Rem Philip’s testimony seems to have been on the line of Philippians 2: 7, He “emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form, taking his place in the likeness of men”, but Nathanael’s was quite different,
“Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel”.
JT So that His humanity is here, but His Sonship, too. It is Sonship in humanity.
Rem Both references are to the Old Testament.
JT Yes, it is a very interesting thought. Jehovah says, “Thou art my Son I this day have begotten thee”, Psalm 2:7. It brings out how sonship is a matter of time.
Ques Would the two on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24 be slow learners?
JT He reproved them for their lack of knowledge: “O senseless and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” Luke 24: 25. They should have known; they had been in His company.
Rem It is not knowing just the letter of Scripture.
JT Well, Apollos was “mighty in the scriptures” (Acts 18: 24), but he had to be taught. He was accurate as to the teaching of John the baptist. That was the point with Apollos; we are apt to quote scriptures erroneously.
Rem Nathanael’s heart was reached; he confessed what he knew.
JT Very interesting, that. We cannot, of course, say all we know, and brevity is a great matter in quoting the scripture. One is struck with the brevity in which things are quoted in Scripture: “Dost thou then know what thou art reading of?” Acts 8: 30. Many outside quote the Scriptures very loosely; I do not mean the brethren!
Rem Luke speaks of being “accurately acquainted”, Luke 1: 3.
JT Very good.
Rem Daniel “understood by the books”, Daniel 9: 2.
JT A good way to arrive at prophecy, “by the books”; the moral basis of Daniel is that he [p. 314] understood.
Ques Is it the Berean spirit?
JT Quite so. Some of us have spoken of Paul’s companions in travel in Acts 20; seven of them, the first was the Berean. The Berean searches the scripture daily; even with an apostle, we have to search what he says.
Rem For quick learning a personal link is needed with the Lord Jesus. It says, “Samuel did not yet know Jehovah” (1 Samuel 3: 7), but later on he knew Him, so it says, “all Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was established a prophet of Jehovah” (verse 20).
JT And another thing, Jehovah revealed something about the leading brother. Samuel had not yet known Jehovah, but He spoke several times by name to him, “Samuel, Samuel!” And then He spoke of Eli, as if Samuel was an elder in Israel, when he was only a boy! We must not close the doors of the care meeting to the young brothers; they may know what the elder ones do not, like the young man in the house of Nabal who helped Abigail; 1 Samuel 25: 14. At one time the young brothers were shut out of the care meeting, but now it is not so. They thus become known as having some gift and knowledge. Elders were, and are yet the rulers of the house of God, but there are the young men as seen in Samuel; and then they can have part in the care meeting; Samuel learnt quickly and thus became useful in the service of God.
Rem There is emphasis in the words of the Lord in Matthew 11: 28, 29, “Come to me”, and “learn from me”.
JT Very good; it is not that we learn about Him, but from Him.
Rem There are wonderful disclosures to those who will learn quickly.
JT Yes, it is just that. “Ye shall see”, the Lord says to Nathanael, but He had said earlier to him,
“Thou shalt see” in the singular, so that he was to learn to share the “greater things”with his brethren.
Rem These greater things would involve “the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man”.
JT Yes. “Verily, verily” occurs twenty-four times in John’s gospel.
Rem The truth is wider here than “the Son of God” and “the King of Israel”.
JT We may apply it to ourselves, these greater things that the Lord will open up to us, “when he is come, the Spirit of truth, he shall guide you into all the truth”, John 16:13.
Rem There would be the consciousness of the Lord’s own personal interest, as in Psalm 139.
JT That is very interesting; he says, “how precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!” So of the Spirit, “he shall guide you into all the truth”, as we said.
Ques How is this affected by our capacity for learning the fundamentals of the truth?
JT What was said of Samuel is a great help to us. He learnt very quickly. Jehovah revealed Himself to him, and he became Jehovah’s confidant. If we disclose anything about an elder brother to a younger we have to be careful lest it is spread abroad. “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing” (Proverbs 25: 2), and we should do this, unless it is useful. Jehovah did not conceal things about Eli’s house. He revealed secrets about this man, this leading priest, and it was not misplaced but used with discretion.
Rem Quick learning is used in the service of God as in Mary of Bethany in John 12.
JT Good. Young brothers, as taught by the Holy Spirit, add to the personnel to whom secrets may be made known. The Lord will reveal things to such. Nathanael is a remarkable illustration of what we are saying, of quick learning. Then the woman in [p. 316] John 4 was morally unfit for things. But the Lord knew the whole history, and before He disclosed anything to her, He shows her to herself, “Sir, I see that thou art a prophet”, and goes on from that. The man in chapter 9 (we did not read it), “answered and said, A man called Jesus made mud and anointed mine eyes, and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash: and having gone and washed, I saw”; the “I saw” is historic. But then “The Pharisees therefore also again asked him how he received his sight. And he said to them, He put mud upon mine eyes, and I washed, and I see” (verse 15), this is not historic; the neighbours got the historic, but the Pharisees got the truth before their eyes, in the man saying “I see”, he was standing there before them. It is a point of interest in the testimony; we can testify to a thing if we see it. We may have seen things historically, but are we seeing them now?
Rem He was speaking from conscious knowledge.
JT Just so.
Rem “This Jesus has God raised up, whereof all we are witnesses”, Acts 2: 32.
JT Yes, every preacher should be a witness to what he preaches.
Rem This woman in John 4 was ready to discern who was there.
JT Yes; “Sir, I see”, she says, “that thou art a prophet”. All these are very practical things; things that we are to have transpiring amongst us. We are to be luminous and transparent.
Rem No resistance to the truth, even unconsciously.
JT Yes, she got on well; she had discernment. She could see that He was a prophet because of what He had said to her, and then He calls her “Woman”, after she had said, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must worship”; that was remarkable [p. 317] from an ordinary person. He had not called her ‘woman’ before, but it is as if she had testified to what was proper to her sex, proper discernment. Then the truth is coming out, and the Lord goes on, “the hour is coming when ye shall neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father”. We might question speaking of worship to such a woman, but her light must have increased, for she sees now. She can hardly be called an idolator now when He spoke thus to her. “Ye worship ye know not what; we worship what we know, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for also the Father seeks such as his worshippers”. Now He is telling her, too, that “God is a spirit; and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth”.
Rem He is taking her beyond the Jewish position.
JT Yes, indeed, because of what He said of her. She knew, and these enquiries we are making will illuminate the company because the body is full of light.
Rem Like Nathanael without guile; that leads the way to being luminous.
JT Yes.
Rem The men of the city say, “we have heard him ourselves”.
JT She became an evangelist.
Rem She was not fit to be sent as an evangelist when the Lord said, “Go, call thy husband”.
JT Well, yes. But later she leaves her waterpot behind, she is the vessel, the Lord has a vessel now; Paul was a vessel. She understood that she was brought into the system, and that she was a usable vessel.
Rem The waterpot was now herself.
JT Yes; for living water.
Rem And to become a true [p. 318] worshipper.
JT Yes; we can think so if we take liberties with the scriptures, but what we have said is true, that she is getting light, and it is beginning to shine from her. He could speak to her of worship because she would ultimately become a worshipper.
Rem “God is a spirit”; what a wonderful truth to speak of to her.
JT One of the greatest you can get. Now she has something to say to the men; she is unabashed now, a vessel of light here; later she would be a vessel of living water.
Rem Levitical instincts were developing in her.
JT Yes; she belongs to the divine system now.
Rem She is under a new Head.
JT Well; I would say that the whole position is that; and that it is now a question of teaching; what she has taken in, and what she can still take in: “The woman says to him, I know that Messias is coming, who is called Christ; when he comes he will tell us all things. Jesus says to her, I who speak to thee am he. And upon this came his disciples, and wondered that he spoke with a woman; yet no one said, What seekest thou? or, Why speakest thou with her? The woman then left her waterpot and went away into the city, and says to the men, Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ”
Rem “He will tell us all things”; what a conception of Him!
JT I suppose we should conclude that she was fit for fellowship, and that you would see her later with the apostles in the upper room!
Rem “To head up all things in the Christ”, Ephesians 1: 10.
JT Just so.
Rem She would be fit for a part in the holy city, the great luminous vessel.
JT Yes; John presents what is in mind [p. 319] for the new world; gathering up for the universe of bliss.
Rem He gives us a finished work.
JT That is another word proper to John, “I have completed the work which thou gayest me that I should do it”, John 17: 4. Then there is the matter that the woman is available for, “Come, see a man”.
Ques A good way to teach is to ask questions that carry their own answers; who could deny that He was the Christ? Do we all learn in this way?
JT Just so. It is the idea of confession, and it means that we are becoming transparent, “standing upon the glass sea”, Revelation 15: 2.
Ques Could you say more as to a vessel of light, and especially as to the vessel of living water, seen in the woman?
JT He had said it to her, but where she really got light is seen in her discerning He was a prophet; she was a disreputable person, but “she says to the men, Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done”; it is a luminous position, and things are spreading.
Rem It is the way of liberty.
JT Yes, indeed. And now the disciples say, “Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat which ye do not know. The disciples therefore said to one another, Has any one brought him anything to eat? Jesus says to them, My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work”. Now we have to confess that the disciples, the assumed disciples of Christ, those who belong to the system He is building up, that they do not know! One of them could have gone to buy the bread. There was no light in them, or their question, “Has any one brought him anything to eat?”
Rem It shows how quickly we may drop.
JT Yes; we may become [p. 320] dark.
Rem Positionally right, but dark.
JT Well, they have not been learning; but this woman had been learning. We shall have to drop this precious subject and speak of Mary of Magdala; she is firstly called “Woman”, but the Lord calls her by her name “Mary” later, and shows that He knows His own sheep by name; John 10: 3. She says, “Rabboni”, that is Teacher, for she is learning now. If asked where she got those things she would say, ‘He is my Teacher’; and she was learning because she could hardly say that He was her Teacher if she had not learnt something. She had been to school to Him, so to speak.
Ques What does her name imply?
JT It means ‘Marah’, so she is a person of bitter experiences.
Rem It says, “She turning round”; is that John’s way?
JT Yes; he also “turned back to see the voice” in Revelation 1: 12. So Mary affords us much to contemplate, because she is a learner, and ‘Rabboni’ means she had learnt from Him, like the woman of John 4; she can carry a message; though the woman in John 4 was not given a message, but Mary of Magdala was; thus there is progress.
Rem She understood the message.
JT Yes, she is quick to carry the message, “Mary of Magdala comes bringing word to the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her”; she conveyed things accurately (not like the report among the disciples in John 21: 23); it should characterise all our meetings.
Ques Does the name she gives to the Lord show she is going to learn?
JT It means that she is learning, and also the fact that she can go to the disciples and say “that he had said these things to her”. There is no question or doubt as to the fact that she [p. 321] was accurate.
Rem The Lord had taken account of all her exercises.
JT Yes.
Ques Are we to see the Lord in these days?
JT I would say that, too. As to making up the missing apostle in Acts 1, the twelfth, he was to be one of those men “who have assembled with us all the time in which the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us”; Matthias was qualified by that, he had been there since John’s baptism till He was received up. It shows we are living in times when we have seen the Lord, we discern Him; it is assembly teaching.
Ques Is it to work out in testimony, so that we can humbly say that we have seen Him?
JT Yes; in Hebrews 2: 9 it says, “but we see Jesus”, and we have it now, in John 14: 18, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you”; it is an assembly thought, and enters into the moment; so that we can say that we have seen Him.
Ques Does Mary represent right feminine feelings?
JT The feminine side here is of very great importance, though she did not say that she represented the assembly, but I think the thought is there, that she represents the assembly. He “came and stood in the midst”; it is known now, and gives character to the present teaching.
Rem So the disciples can say, “We have seen the Lord” (verse 25).
JT Yes.
Ques What is the difference in Luke’s account? (Luke 24: 36).
JT In that chapter they were perturbed; in Mark 16 they were not only trembling and excessively amazed, and grieved and weeping, but when He appeared to them He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart; all that will not do for assembly testimony. But today there are those [p. 322] who can say that they have seen Him in the assembly.
Rem The word ‘come’ in each of these instances we have read of is an assembly word.
JT Yes; “Jesus came” in verse 19; it is His moving; we get to see Him in movement. In Luke’s second treatise (Acts 1: 3) it says, “he presented himself living”; that is the thought of attitude, but this is the thought of movement.
Ques Does this involve the truth of Ephesians?
JT John 20 is parallel to Ephesian truth. So Paul “passed through the upper districts”, Acts 19: 1. It is just that.