“Jesus saith…Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me?” Philip had been with Jesus three years. During this time he had eaten with Him, slept near Him, heard His teachings, and listened to His prayers. But what’s even more important is the fact that this Disciple, along with the others, had seen His Lord raise the dead, cast out demons, heal the sick, walk on water, and tell people their innermost thoughts. Displaying attributes as these (omnipotence and omniscience), could only be ascribed to God Himself.
But in spite of Philip being with Jesus so long a time, he, like so many Christians today, possessed a defective knowledge of Christ. True, he knew Him as the Son of God, but had not yet comprehended Him as God the Son. You might say he had entered the Holy Place: feeding on the Word (Shew-bread); praying (Altar of incense); and enjoying light (Golden candlestick). But he had not yet entered the Holy of Holies, where God alone was! So often, God’s people never grasp the fact these three things are means to take us into God’s very presence, that we might worship Him alone.
Philip had ignorantly requested, “Lord, shew us the Father.” Poor soul, he was asking for something he already had. If you have Jesus, you have God! As Matthew Henry so ably wrote, “Many know Christ, who yet do not know what they might know of him.”
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