<p>1:47 <em>Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, and said of him: Behold, a true Israelite in whom is no deceit</em>- This is surely another case of imputed righteousness; for Nathanael had just discounted the Lord's Messiahship on the basis that He was unlikely to be a good man, seeing He hailed from Nazareth. The allusion is to Ps. 32:2 &quot;Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile / deceit&quot;. There is deceit in the spirit of every man; but imputed righteousness means that this is not the case for the believer before God.</p><p>The Lord&rsquo;s basic understanding of us is that we are to become brethren <em>in Him</em>. He ever sought to teach the disciples to not only worship and respect Him, but to rise up to emulate His example, and to act and feel as part of Him. When He saw Nathanael under the fig tree, He commented that here was a man who had the good side of Jacob, an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile. But the Lord then goes on to liken <em>Himself</em> to Jacob, saying that Angels would ascend and descend upon Him as they had upon Jacob (Jn. 1:47,51). What He was basically trying to say to His new disciple was that &lsquo;You&rsquo;re like Jacob But, I&rsquo;m like Jacob too. And you will powerfully realize the significance of this a bit later on&rsquo;. He was seeking always to build up an identity between Himself and His followers. This is so different to admiring a man as one admires a picture, and assenting to him as a leader. This is about a unique and intimate relationship, bonding and identity with Him. Nathanael no doubt puzzled over the Lord&rsquo;s enigmatic words, as we likely have also done. His enigmatic style was to provoke just such reflection, to lead Nathanael to realize the force of the identification with Him which the Lord was inviting.</p>