Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and says of him, Behold [one] truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile.
Philip's invitation brings Nathanael face to face with a stranger. The stranger greets him by naming his inner character. The words show two things at once: what kind of man Nathanael was, and what kind of person could know it. (Where the ESV reads "no deceit," older translations read "no guile." The writers quoted below use that word.)
Christ's greeting is not a declaration that Nathanael was sinless. It marks a narrower quality, and the distinction matters:
That is not equivalent to saying "In whom is no sin." Guile is sin, it is true, yet there is much sin that is not guile. Guile is hypocrisy, empty pretence, unreality, a lack of uprightness and honesty. Nathanael was a man who, though a sinner, was honest.
The same writer contrasts Nathanael with the religion around him. The nation kept up its ceremonies after God's presence had gone — "an empty shell without a kernel."
One writer links this word to Psalm 32, and to what had already happened to Nathanael in private.
In the case of Nathanael (John 1) the Lord seems to have had a silent glance at Psalm 32. That Psalm reveals the secret of having "no guile" in the spirit: confession of all the secrets that might try to hide themselves before God, and pardon meeting them. Nathanael, we may judge, had been confessing in this way. The fig tree is always the symbol of repentance. The Lord sees him in the light of this Psalm.
Honest confession and guile cannot live together. So this description fits any repentant person, not Nathanael alone:
How can a soul that is truly unburdening itself in the fear of God be full of guile? Does not its very relief depend on the completeness and truthfulness of its confessions? Would it be what it is if there were any pretending or concealing?
The greeting is God's estimate spoken out loud. One writer compares it with another surprising title given to an unlikely man.
So He greets Nathanael on the ground of God's estimate of him: "Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile." He greets him as He greeted Gideon in his day: "The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor." In God's esteem the poor threshing man of Manasseh was a mighty man of valour, for God had purposed it so. And so, in the reckoning of the mind of Christ, Nathanael was a guileless Israelite. In a divine way he had been acquiring that name under the fig tree. By that name the Son of God knows him.
By every ordinary measure Nathanael was a stranger to Jesus. Yet Jesus read him at a glance.
Again Jesus took the initiative. By His opening words about Nathanael He revealed Himself as the Discerner of the hearts of men. Here was an Israelite, not without sin, but without guile — that is, without deceit or dishonesty. Here was a man who was straight and honest in his spirit before God, and Jesus knew it. The Lord was showing Himself to be the Judge of all, before whom every man lies open and exposed, and who can put every man in his proper place... Nathanael came to see Jesus of Nazareth, and he discovered One who knew all about him and read him through like an open book. Who could this Jesus be?
That verdict comes from the One who sees everything. So it settles the question of reputation: "if He approves, you need not be much concerned that men blame you."
A person with something to hide dreads exposure. Nathanael had nothing to hide.
But if someone has nothing to hide, then he does not fear the light. No doubt Nathanael illustrates this in John 1:47-48. Having "no guile," no deceitful covering up of evil, he could come with confidence to the Lord Jesus. Certainly in coming to Him one finds himself exposed as he really is, and honesty does not object to this.
One writer reads this scene as a picture of Israel's future. The name "Israelite" carries the point: the man first called Jacob was the opposite of guileless.
Jacob was a crooked man, always trying to gain by craft what it was God's purpose to give him by grace. In other words, he was a man full of guile. But by the end of God's ways with him, Jacob's character showed three marks: self-judgment, spiritual understanding and worship. The remnant of Israel will be brought to the same end. God's chastening will purify them in practice, and at the same time show their integrity, for in all their trouble they will cling to the LORD.
- Guile — Not the absence of sin, but the absence of pretence. It means no hypocrisy and no dishonesty of spirit.
- Confession — Guile goes when a person owns everything before God. For Nathanael that happened under the fig tree.
- Reckoning — Christ says out loud what Nathanael became in secret, just as He called Gideon a mighty man before Gideon had done anything.
- Discernment — The greeting proves the Speaker: He reads a man He has never met like an open book.
- Confidence — Nathanael hid nothing, so Christ's searching look was no threat. An honest heart comes to the light without fear.
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.
A stranger had just described Nathanael to his face, and Nathanael asks how this man could know him. The Lord answers by naming a private hour under a fig tree, and that one sentence settles who Jesus is.
Kelly reads the Lord's reply as evidence. Jesus names a private spot, and in doing so shows that He is God while standing there as a man.
He is God always and everywhere in this Gospel. Unseen, Jesus had seen Nathanael. He had seen him in a place where Nathanael must have thought no one could see him. But He who heard the thoughts of his heart in that spot "under the fig tree" saw him. This was the unanswerable evidence of His own glory, of omniscience, and omnipresence. Yet the One who saw him was plainly a man in flesh and blood. He could be no one else than the promised Messiah, Immanuel... the "ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2). His prejudice vanished at once, like mist before the sun in its strength.
The Lord had already called Nathanael a man without guile. Bellett links that word to the Psalm of the man whose sins are forgiven. He reads the fig tree as the place where Nathanael had been pouring out his heart to God.
I believe Nathanael's "guilelessness" was the guilelessness of this Psalm, not just his natural character. He had been under the fig tree in the spirit of this Psalm. There he poured out his heart as a man convicted of his sin, and that freed his spirit from guile. Here we learn that a confessing spirit is a guileless spirit. Jesus had been in the secret of his soul while he was under the tree.
Another writer takes the point further. Honesty like this rests on knowing your sins are forgiven.
I believe "under the fig tree" was a place of complete secrecy. There he dealt with the Lord about his sins. No one can be without guile until he knows his sins are forgiven. "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." "Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit."
The older translation this writer used ends the Psalm with "in whose spirit there is no guile" — the same word the Lord had just used of Nathanael.
The timing matters. Philip's invitation did not start this story. Something was already at work in Nathanael before any human voice reached him.
Under the fig tree, I believe, he had been confessing himself a sinner and thinking over his condition before God. It is the spirit of confession which, in God's reckoning, makes us "guileless". That is the character in which the Lord recognises Nathanael... So the Lord had already been with him in spirit before Philip called him. The longings of an awakened soul are always dear to Him.
Moments earlier Nathanael had doubted that anything good could come from Nazareth. One sentence about a tree removed the objection.
That question drew out an answer. It settled every doubt in his mind for ever: "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." Nathanael was won. Alone under the tree with God, Jesus of Nazareth had seen him... What did it matter to Nathanael now where the Lord had lived! All his prejudice vanished in a moment.
Commentators differ on how much weight the tree itself carries. Some treat it as no more than the spot where he prayed. Kelly argues that the detail is deliberate, because Scripture uses the fig tree as a picture of Israel.
The fig tree is not just a fact or an isolated detail. It carries the meaning it usually has in Scripture. In our Lord's great prophecy the fig tree stands for the nation, and one cannot doubt it does so here. Suppose Nathanael was there thinking before God about the expected Messiah and the hopes of the chosen people... Then we can better imagine how forcefully the words of Jesus struck the heart and conscience of this guileless Israelite.
- Seen. The private hour under the tree was never private. Jesus names a place no one else could have seen. Kelly calls this the unanswerable evidence of His omniscience and omnipresence.
- Searched. What He saw there was confession. A confessing spirit is a guileless spirit. That is why the Lord could greet Nathanael as an Israelite without deceit.
- Sought. "Before Philip called you" puts Christ ahead of the invitation. The longings of an awakened soul were already dear to Him before any messenger arrived.
- Settled. One sentence undid the Nazareth prejudice. Nathanael stopped asking where the Lord came from once he knew the Lord had been with him.
- Symbol. Some read the fig tree as the quiet place of repentance. Others read it as the picture of Israel, since Scripture uses the fig tree as a symbol of the nation.