John 1:49

Nathaniel answered him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God: thou art the King of Israel.

This confession hailed Jesus as the divine Son of God, which being true, also entitled him as the King of Israel. John's introduction of this full understanding of Jesus' Messiahship so early in his narrative does not contradict the subsequent failure of the apostles to maintain this high level of conviction. The examples cited in this chapter should be viewed as resulting from the generally accepted opinion which derived from the preaching of John the Baptist and his unqualified identification of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God. Satan launched a counterattack at once; the Pharisees propounded plausible arguments why Jesus could not be the Messiah; and Jesus himself proved not to be the political figure most were expecting; in consequence of all this, the road to true belief grew very difficult as the years of the Master's ministry unfolded. Despite this, there is no doubt at all that the divine Messiahship of Jesus was enthusiastically believed and confessed from the very first, notwithstanding the fact that many who so confessed him did not have the slightest understanding of the full implications of the truth they confessed.