Verse 51
51. Angels… ascending and descending upon the Son of man Christ now presents himself to this Israelite indeed, as the reality, of which the ladder that ancient Israel saw (Genesis 28:12) is the symbol; as the mediator through which the intercourse of heaven and earth shall be opened in the new dispensation. Prayers and holy intercession should ascend; blessings and holy communions, revelations, miracles, powers, and gifts of the Holy Ghost should descend; blessings of which angels are but the messengers and symbols. The person of the Son of man, with his feet upon the earth and his head above the highest heavens, should be the conduct or of these communications. This miracle of Jesus’s knowledge of Nathanael’s secret prayer was how small compared with these intercourses of the new dispensation!
Son of man Though Nathanael has just acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God, Jesus himself here appropriates the humbler title of Son of man. See note on Matthew 8:20; Luke 1:35.
Jesus thus, having by divine attraction attached these five disciples to himself, proceeds on his return home to Nazareth; whence he had last departed to receive baptism, to undergo temptation, and to attain from his harbinger his due attestation, preparatory to the hour of his ministration to the world, by miracles of power and mercy. It is now full time to receive the narrative of his first miracle.
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