A few years ago, I received a new pair of binoculars as a birthday present. When our family traveled to the Grand Canyon, I could look out from the South Rim and see rafts on the Colorado River a mile below, remarkable rock formations and layers of sediment, and even the outstretched wings of a California condor. On many occasions, I exclaimed, “Come and see this!” then handed my kids the binoculars. We would not have seen or appreciated these wonders if we gave a passing glance out the window of a moving car. We needed to slow down and look carefully through the right lenses to grasp the grandeur before us.
The Lord Jesus issues a stunning invitation in John 1: “Come and see.” What does it mean to heed this invitation today, whether for the first time or the ten thousandth time? What will we see when we come?
Come and See Then
When John the Baptist sees Jesus walking by him, he says to his disciples, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (John 1:36). The two disciples then leave their teacher and say to Jesus, “Teacher . . . where are you staying?” Jesus responds, “Come and you will see,” and they came and saw and stayed with him (verses 38–39). This invitation may seem pedestrian — like, “Sure, come over for supper.” Yet it is staggering that the true Light, the Son of God, summons these men to “come and see.” These disciples acknowledge Jesus as Teacher, one even greater than the Baptizer. Andrew even tells his brother that they have found “the Messiah.” But as they remain with Jesus, they will grasp so much more of his divine majesty.
The “come and see” pattern continues in the next scene. Jesus journeys to Galilee, finds Philip, and calls him: “Follow me” (verse 43). Philip immediately searches for his friend Nathanael to tell him about Jesus. He rightly recognizes that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah foretold by the prophets, though he identifies his new Teacher as “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (verse 45). Philip’s testimony presents only part of the picture of Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, conceived by the Spirit and born of the virgin in Bethlehem, David’s town. He has much more to learn about Jesus.
Nathanael is initially skeptical: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (verse 46). As a new disciple himself, Philip does not dispute with his friend but invites him to “come and see” for himself. When Nathanael does come to see Jesus, he discovers that Jesus already sees and knows him — not just his activities but his heart. And so this former skeptic addresses Jesus with an honorific title, “Rabbi” (Teacher), and confesses, “You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” Jesus has the last word: “You will see greater things than these” (verses 49–50).
Nathanael and the other disciples will indeed see the Lord’s miraculous signs — turning water into wine; healing the sick, the lame, and the blind; feeding the crowd; even raising the dead. Later, they will even see and touch and dine with the risen Lord. Christ adds, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” He alludes to Jacob’s famous dream in Genesis 28:12: “He dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!” Here in John 1, the angels do not ascend and descend on a ladder but on a person — the Son of Man.
Jesus’s point is that he is where heaven and earth meet. He makes the unseen God of heaven seen and known on earth (John 1:18). When Jacob awakes from his dream, he declares, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it” (Genesis 28:16). The patriarch has an amazing dream, but the disciples see the divine Son himself, the Word-become-flesh.
Come and See Now
How do we “come and see” the Son of God? We do not encounter him on the streets of Galilee like the disciples in John 1. Even if we could encounter him that way, the Gospels include plenty of examples of people coming to Jesus, seeing his mighty works, and walking away in unbelief. Many people gave Jesus a passing glance and did not behold his glory. So how do we respond to his invitation today?
To “come and see” him, we need spectacles of faith. Consider Jesus’s words in John 6:35: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” In this verse, “coming” and “believing” are synonymous and inform each other. As bread and water satisfy our physical hunger and thirst, so Jesus satisfies our weary souls.
Thus, “coming” to Jesus by faith involves responding to his invitation, recognizing who he really is, and receiving him as the one we need. When we come to Jesus like this, we want to keep coming to feast on the Bread of Life and slake our thirst on the Living Water. To see Jesus doesn’t simply mean to notice him, to give him a passing glance, to know facts about him. It means seeing him spiritually with the perspective of faith. We need God to give us spiritual sight — new lenses — that we may behold Jesus as compellingly lovely and satisfying.
Seeing Jesus also requires patience and persistence. The first disciples initially see that Jesus is an honored Teacher, one even greater than the prophet John. Over time, they come to recognize him as the Lamb of God, the Messiah, the very Son of God. Jesus promises that there is far more glory to behold. The invitation “Come and see” prompts us to keep coming to our Lord by faith, to keep seeing his diverse excellencies, to keep feasting on the Bread of Life.
Those who have grown up in the church or professed faith many years ago may be tempted to assume the glories of Christ because they are overly familiar with the Bible’s accounts of all that he said and did. This is like a park ranger who visits the Grand Canyon every day but has stopped gazing at its grandeur.
John 1 calls us to gaze upon the God-man with heartfelt faith, with wonder, with adoration. The apostle John writes, “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Have you come and seen the goodness and glory of Jesus, our Savior and Lord? If you have, then you will keep coming by faith, keep looking by faith, keep savoring and celebrating the sweetness of our Savior. There are more glories to discover. And we will want to tell others, “Come and see.”
Desiring God