John 1:42 - Exposition

He £ brought (the past tense) him to Jesus ; as one entirely sympathetic and as eagerly longing for the Christ, for the Lamb of God, for the King of Israel. Seeing that Simon was found so soon—most probably on the evening of the memorable day—we gather that Simon also must have been among the hearers of John. He too must have left his fishing to listen to the Baptist. The entire group must have been drawn away from their ordinary avocations by the trumpet call of the preacher in the wilderness. Jesus looked —intently, with penetrating glance— upon him, and said, Thou art Simon, the Son of John £ —that is the name by which thou hast been introduced to me; a time is coming for thee to receive a new name— Thou shalt be called Cephas £ ( which is interpreted, Peter ). It is perfectly gratuitous of Baur and Hilgenfeld to imagine this to be a fictitious adaptation of the great scene recorded in Matthew 16:1-28 . The solemn assertions made there proceed upon the assumption of the previous conference of the name "Peter." There the Lord said, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock," etc. On this earlier occasion Jesus said, "Thou art Simon, thou shalt be called κηφᾶς ." The assumption of the Tubingen critics, that a desire to lower Peter from his primacy is conspicuous in this passage, cannot be sustained. Though Andrew and John precede Peter in their earliest relations with Jesus, yet Peter is undoubtedly the most conspicuous character, to whom the Lord from the first gives an honourable cognomen (cf. also John 6:67-69 and John 21:15 , etc.). (Compare here, for historic changes of name, Genesis 17:5 ; Genesis 32:28 .) Weiss ('Life of Christ,' Eng. trans., 1:370) says admirably, "There is no ground for assuming that this is an anticipation of Matthew 16:18 . Simon was not to bear this name until he was deserving of it. Jesus never called him anything but Simon ( Mark 14:37 ; Matthew 17:25 ; Luke 22:31 ; John 21:15-17 ). Paul calls him by the names Peter and Cephas …The evangelist is right when he beholds in this scene a more than human acumen. .. The history shows he was not deceived in Peter." This narrative cannot be a Johannine setting forth of the first call of the four disciples as given in the synoptists. If it be, it is a fictitious modification. Place, occasion, and immediate result are all profoundly different. The one narrative cannot be twisted into the ether. Are the anti-harmonists correct in saying that they are irreconcilable? Certainly not. There is no indication that before John was cast into prison, before Jesus commenced his public ministry in Galilee, he had called disciples away from their ordinary duties to be his apostles. Some of these four may have returned, as Jesus himself did, to his family and domestic surroundings ( John 2:12 ). John may have accompanied Jesus to Jerusalem and through Samaria. But there is much to make it probable that Simon, Andrew, and at least, were, during the whole of that period, on the lake pondering the future. Christ's solemn, sudden call to them to become "fishers of men," after a manifestation to them of his supernatural powers, presupposes rather than excludes this earlier interview. Simon, on that occasion, by the exclamation recorded ( Luke 5:5 ), reveals an earlier acquaintance with and reverence for his ἐπιστάτης (see an admirable vindication of this position in Weiss, 'Life of Jesus,' vol. 1.). The Lord, in this first interview, penetrates and denominates the character of the most illustrious of his followers. His rocklike fortitude, which, though sorely assailed and chafed by the storms of the great sea of opinion and prejudice, formed the central nucleus of that Church against which the gates of hell have not prevailed. Our Lord implied the strength of his nature, even when he predicted his great fall ( Luke 22:32 ).