COME AND SEE by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 30, 1901

“COME AND SEE.”

By T.

ANY one who really sees the Saviour as He so plainly reveals Himself in His Word, has found the one complete satisfaction of his soul. There is no want that is not fully supplied in Him.

As soon as the individual finds the Saviour for himself, his first thought is for some one else. There is some friend who needs just the consolation and help that come thru believing, and we long to have him see Jesus. Theories about the Saviour do not reveal Him, neither can any person see the real Son of God thru some one’s “ideal” of Him. To seek to present merely our “ideas” about Him is to fall far short. He is infinite in all His attributes and perfections, hence human “ideals” can not present Him. We must see Him as He is revealed in His Word and works, else we do not see the real Christ. It is quite possible for us to be worshiping at the shrine of a god formed in our own minds while we think that we are followers of Jesus.

NATHANAEL had his ideas about how Christ should make His appearance in His first advent. Those ideas were based upon the doctrines and traditions of the Jews. But when Philip led him to the real Saviour, he was made to see the error he had held. His exclamation upon becoming acquainted with the Man of Nazareth was, “Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel.” John 1:49.

THE record tells in these words how Nathanael was led to the Saviour: “Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.” John 1:45, 46. Philip did not make the attempt to give his ideas of Christ. He was so impressed with His wonderful personage and character that the only answer he knew to make to Nathanael’s query was, “Come and see.”

WE do not have the Saviour with us in person so as to see Him now in just the same way that Philip saw Him; but thru His Word and the manifestations of His Spirit, He has made it so that we may become even more intimately acquainted with Him than those who saw Him as He came and went from His earthly home in Nazareth.

THOSE who had the privilege of meeting and associating with Christ when He was upon earth as a man among men, failed to become

truly acquainted with Him. They had theories about the Messiah, and some vague notions concerning the prophecies that foretold the manner of His advent, but they had not definitely and carefully studied to have a correct knowledge of the Saviour as He was presented in the Scriptures. Instead of allowing the Bible to tell its own story in its own clear language, the Book of God was interpreted and explained by the rabbis from the standpoint of national prejudices, and these prejudices were often intensified by the hatred exercised by the Jewish race toward the nations about them. So when Nathanael was told that Jesus was of Nazareth, his first question was, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” But the prophets had said, “He shall be called a Nazarene;” and if Nathanael had followed those prophecies closely, he would not have been so much in the dark on so important a subject. His failure to know just what the Word of God said might have kept him from finding the real Messiah had not Philip come to him with his earnest invitation, “Come and see.”

THERE is a wonderful lesson in all this for us at the present time. We can not go out to the little village of Nazareth, nestled in the hills of Galilee, to find Jesus in person. But in all parts of the world He may be found thru the representation of His Word, and His Spirit, and His works.

WHEN we would desire to present Jesus to any one, we make a great failure if we try to present our ideas of Him. We will be constantly groping about, and doing nothing more perhaps than to raise the query, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” As followers of the Man of Nazareth, we should be able to say to every one, “Come and see.” We should be so definitely acquainted with the Saviour thru a knowledge of His Word that we can present Him as He really is in the words that He has caused to be written; for that Word presents Him so perfectly that we may be enabled thru its reverential study to say, “I have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write,” and, “I know whom I have believed,” and, furthermore, “We have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

HAVE we been to the Word of God for ourselves to see its clear presentation of our personal Saviour? When any one gives us the opportunity to tell of this Saviour, do we have such a personal knowledge of Him that we can say, as did Philip, “Come and see”? Is our acquaintance with Christ so intimate that He is to us as personal and real a friend as our own father or mother, or the one who of all others is the cherished associate of our life? If not, we have failed to get out of the Word of God what our heavenly Father has placed there for us.