Verily, verily, I say to thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst where thou desiredst; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and bring thee where thou dost not desire.
Peter had denied his Lord three times, and now, on the shore, the risen Christ tells him plainly how his life will end. The words look back to the young man who boasted about prison and death, and forward to an old man led where he would not choose to go.
These words close a searching conversation. They are not a rebuke but a restoration.
The Lord never blames Peter for the fault. Instead He probes him — probes the root that produced it. When He has fully humbled him, so that Peter has to fall back on the Lord's own divine knowledge that he did love Him, then He entrusts to Peter all that is dearest to Himself... That is exactly what Peter had claimed he would do; he had said, "I will follow you to prison and death." Now He says, Of your own will you cannot. It is a beautiful expression of the Lord's love and a pattern of the Lord's restoring grace.
The picture turns on a belt — where the ESV says "dress yourself," older translations read "gird yourself." To belt yourself is to hold your own strength and use it as you please.
At the start of his career he had, so to speak, his own strength at his disposal (the belt is what braces a man's waist). Self-confidence was the result; he went where he wanted, and walked in independence... At the close of his career, old age would weaken his natural strength. Then he would depend on another for strength, and would let others guide him where his own will might never have led him, "into prison, and to death."
Peter had used that freedom days earlier, and it had collapsed.
He had just ventured to go where he wanted, into the high priest's house. As far as his bold words promised, you might have thought he had belted up his robe like a man about to do great deeds of courage.
No one hearing this would have missed what "stretch out your hands" described. It was the gesture of a man fixed to a cross.
Crucifixion was common enough then for the lowest slaves and the guiltiest criminals, so everyone understood what it meant to be "lifted up," to have your arms stretched out by the force of someone else... Even so, another man carrying him where he would not go proves how little of self was to be in Peter's death on the cross. That stands in contrast with those who at a later day sought a martyr's death to win this crown. Peter's end on earth was to be suffering and death for Christ, and Christ would give him strength to endure at the right moment. Not heroism nor asceticism is the Christian badge, but obedience.
One tradition, reported and not Scripture, says "he was crucified head downward because he asked for it, so that he might not die like his Lord" (For the Young).
Peter had once offered the Lord a death he could not deliver. The Lord now promises him that very death, with the boasting gone.
As a helpless old man, Peter could no longer boast of his own strength or courage. Then God would give him a rare privilege: not only death for Christ's sake — which in younger days he had tried to face and failed at so shamefully — but the very death the Lord Himself had suffered, with its long agony and shame.
The blood of Christ had already dealt with the denial. Here the Lord adds something more: the chance Peter thought he had thrown away.
His Saviour's blood had blotted out his sin, but he would also be allowed to blot it out by his own act. He would get the chance to go to prison and death for his Lord. Not in self-confidence and boasting this time, but in such humility of heart and joy in his Lord that his death would glorify God.
Peter's end looks like the loss of everything that made him useful.
He had become weak, and by that had gained divine strength... This was to be his privilege. Emptied of self and passive, when old he would stretch out his hands for another to belt him and carry him where he did not want to go. It went against his nature and will, but both were set aside. Then the spirit of his Master enabled him to follow Him.
That reverses our instinct about a wasted old age. God is glorified "in this complete breaking down of man, when he is old, weak, and led by others against his wishes, and might look like a useless vessel. How often our judgement is wrong about what suits and honours God" (H. L. Rossier).
- Girded. Young Peter belted on his own strength and walked where he pleased. The verse marks that independence as past.
- Ungirded. Another will do the belting. Old age and being carried where he does not want to go are not the ruin of his service but its shape.
- Restored. The Lord probes the root of the failure first. Then He hands back the death Peter once boasted about, with the boasting gone.
- Strengthened. Weakness is the channel. Peter grew weak, and by that gained divine strength — so no one could claim the courage as his own.
- Glorifying. Death, "instead of being the judgement of God to overwhelm Peter," became the means by which Peter could glorify God (C. H. Mackintosh).
But he said this signifying by what death he should glorify God. And having said this, he says to him, Follow me.
Peter had boasted he would go to prison and to death for his Lord, and then he denied Him. Now Jesus tells him how his life will end, calls that death a way of glorifying God, and sends him back on the road with two words: "Follow me."
Verse 18 sets up verse 19 with a picture of a belt. One writer explains what the belt stands for, and what changed:
At the start of his life he had his own strength at his disposal (the belt is what strengthens a man's waist). The result was self-confidence. He went where he wished, and walked in independence… At the end of his life, old age would have drained his natural strength. Then he would depend on another for strength. He would agree to let others guide him, and they would lead him where perhaps his own will would never have taken him — "into prison, and to death." It would happen, but not by man's strength. It would happen in the weakness of old age… God would be glorified in this complete breaking down of man, when, old, weak, and led by others against his wishes, he might seem to have become a useless vessel.
The note in the verse points to the kind of death, not just the fact of it. One writer finds grace in that:
See how grace leaves no ground for boasting, and yet secures honour beyond anything we ever dared to hope for… As a helpless old man, Peter could no longer boast of his own strength or courage. Then God gave him a rare privilege. It was not only death for Christ's sake, which in younger days he had tried to face and failed in so shamefully. It was that very death which the Lord had suffered, with its long agony and shame. The Lord, as we are plainly told, spoke as He did to point not to death so much as to "by what" sort of death Peter was to glorify God. And after saying this, He says to him, Follow Me.
A man's dying could bring God glory. Death looked like the final verdict on a failed disciple. Here it becomes something else:
Death, instead of being God's judgement to overwhelm Peter, was turned into a means by which Peter could glorify God.
Peter had once had his moment to stand for Christ and lost it. The verse announces that the moment will come again — and this time it will hold:
The Lord seems to say to him: You had a chance before, Peter, but you lost it. I am going to give you another opportunity of witnessing for Me. More than that, you shall not turn aside… He would give him another chance to be a witness for Him, and this time His grace would sustain him. What he had failed to do by his own will, he was yet to do by the will of God. In a day to come he would die for his Lord, energised and sustained by God for it.
"Follow me" is not a new call. It is where the disciples started, and Peter hears it again after all that has happened:
The original starting point of the disciples, as it must be, was "Follow me" — the one right path in a world that was wrong, and that path was the perfection of Jesus. But there was confidence in self. So Peter had to go through the terribly humbling process of his fall, while Christ kept praying for him and watching over him. Self-confidence is broken down, and his will too — he did not go where he wanted, but was bound and led by another. So, emptied of self-confidence, he could serve what was dearest to Jesus… and suffer with Him, the very thing he could not do before. And now Jesus says again, "Follow me." He could follow so far as self was judged — known and judged through real experience.
Short as the words are, one writer treats them as the servant's whole path:
Here we have in two words the path of the servant of Christ — "Follow Me." The Lord had just given Peter the sweetest pledges of His love and confidence… Now, in one brief but full sentence, He opens his proper path before him — "Follow Me." This is enough. It includes all the rest.
- Broken first. Peter's self-confidence caused the denial. It had to be judged before "Follow me" could hold.
- Then girded. Another man ties the belt Peter once tied himself. Strength from God takes over from his own.
- Then given. The death he once boasted he was ready for comes back as a gift — one writer calls it the very death his Master died.
- Then glory. Old, weak and led where he did not want to go, Peter looks useless. The verse calls it glorifying God.
- Then follow. The same two words from the beginning hold the whole path of a servant.
Peter, turning round, sees the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also leaned at supper on his breast, and said, Lord, who is it that delivers thee up?
Jesus has just restored Peter and given him one command: follow. The first thing Peter does is look over his shoulder. He sees another disciple already walking behind Jesus. The verse does not give that man's name. It points instead to where he lay at the supper.
Peter turns round. One writer says what that movement really was, and what came out of it:
But Peter "turning about" — that was the opposite of following. … Peter's blunder gave the Lord the opportunity of bringing John to our notice in a special way.
The verse looks back to that supper. One writer explains why this disciple was the one who asked the question, and what the table looked like.
In John 13 the Lord was in the upper room with His twelve disciples, knowing that one of them would betray Him. Peter learned this, and he knew that John was closer to the Lord than he was, so he said to John, "You ask Him!" We must not think of people at meals in those days as sitting on chairs around a table, like us today. They were lying at table. They had long cushions on the ground. They would lie with their heads towards the table and their legs away from it, side by side. So the one who lay in front of the Lord Jesus lay "in his bosom." He could also lean on His breast. So this one was not only sure of the wonderful love of the Lord Jesus; he also wanted His nearness. These two things go together. He was nearest to the heart of his Master. It was not a doctrinal thing that he knew Jesus loved him — he felt it, and he wanted to enjoy being close to the Lord. This nearness to his Lord is the source of his teaching. He learnt, as it were, through the heartbeat of his Master, leaning on His breast.
Three things stand out in how the verse describes him.
Three things marked out the beloved disciple. He was the object of Christ's love, and he knew it. He had confidence in Christ alone. And the way he lay at supper showed that he enjoyed a closeness of communion with the Father which others did not have. There is no simpler motive for following Jesus than this: His love. We know that love. It draws us after Him, wins our confidence, and brings us into communion with the Lord.
The writer of this Gospel could have said many true things about himself. He chose the one that put the Lord's love, not his own, in the foreground.
How like the Spirit it is that a man enjoying such favour should describe himself, not as loving Jesus — though he truly did — but as loved by Him. And he says it as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He holds his own name back here and elsewhere, as a thing of small account. Yet he is plainly described at the close where that was needed, and named where men might deny that he wrote the book, as they have done! It is intimacy with Jesus that gathers secrets, but imparts them for others' good.
Jesus had to tell Peter to follow. The man Peter turned and saw was already doing it. The difference lies in what each man had trusted.
But what of John? "Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them." The man who trusted his own love had broken down. He needed restoring grace and the call, "Follow Me." The man who was resting in the love of the Lord did not. He was already "following."
The same thread runs through the whole Gospel, from the first chapter to this last scene:
He appears at the start of this Gospel, following the Lord without anyone telling him to. In the last sight we have of him, he is still following without anyone telling him to. He followed because he could do no other. The treasure he had found in the Lord's love had made him a disciple. Love drew him; no command drove him, and in that lies true discipleship.
Peter's look turns into a question about the other disciple's future. The Lord's answer sends his eyes back to Himself.
The Lord's answer is puzzling, but it teaches us much — "If it is My will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me." It is enough to know our own path; we are not called on to ask about our brother's. "What shall this man do?" is too often on our lips. The Lord's reply has the character of a rebuke. It meant, "Leave your brother alone, Peter, and follow Me. You keep your eye on Me, not on your brother." How good, how healthy, such a word!
- Love — The beloved disciple is the object of Christ's love, and he knows it. The name rests on Christ's love, not on his own.
- Nearness — Knowing the love, he wanted closeness, and lay nearest the heart of his Master at the table.
- Secrets — Closeness to Jesus gathers secrets, and he passed on what he learned there for others' good.
- Following — Peter had trusted his own love, so he needed the command. The man resting in Christ's love was already walking behind Him, drawn and not ordered.
- Focus — Turning round is the opposite of following. The cure for curiosity about another's path is the Lord's own word: "Follow Me."
Peter, seeing him, says to Jesus, Lord, and what [of] this [man]?
The Lord had just told Peter how he would die, and then said, "Follow me." Peter turned round at once, saw John walking behind them, and asked about him — a question that sounds affectionate, yet the Lord met it with a correction.
One writer traces the question to real love, and still finds a fault in it:
It was really loving interest about someone bound to him more closely than his own brother Andrew. The bond was a shared love for Jesus, and Jesus' love for them. That made Peter curious about John, now that the Lord had just revealed his own earthly future. The gracious Lord did gently reprove the prying spirit of His servant. But He also gave him plenty to think about in the riddle He set before him.
Another writer finds the question typical of the man who asked it:
The Lord had only just forgiven his fault and foretold his death. It is hard to imagine Peter asking such a question about someone else at such a moment. But as we read the record we can only say, "That is Peter to the life."
The verse before says Peter "turned." One writer puts the whole trouble down to that one movement:
An eye off the Master, and on a fellow disciple, leads to an outburst of curiosity. Turning round, getting taken up with someone other than the One he was called to follow — that was and still is the cause of the trouble. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was probably the best of the apostles, in character and in spiritual life. But anyone or anything that turns a believer's gaze away from his Lord makes close following in His steps harder.
One writer notes that Peter's mistake takes a different form today — not curiosity, but commentary:
It emphasised one thing. For each disciple — whether Peter or ourselves — our great business is not with our brothers and sisters but with our Lord. What the Lord appointed for John was not Peter's concern. His concern was to follow the Lord himself. Not many people today point to their brother and say, "What about this man?" But plenty say, "Look what this man has done!" To be troubled about somebody else's doings, especially if they are not quite right, is cheap and easy. To be troubled about your own is a costly business.
Not every question about the Lord's will is met this way. One writer sets Peter's words beside Paul's on the Damascus road to show the difference:
Peter asks out of sheer curiosity of heart, and maybe out of concern for his friend, but with no regard for God's glory: "Lord, what about this man?" The reproof meets him: "What is that to you? Follow me." Here is what matters in practice for the disciple: "follow me". All his knowledge and learning should bear on this. When Paul, by contrast, is struck to the ground on his journey to Damascus, what is his first word? "Lord, what do You want me to do?" Here there is no curiosity, and so no reproof.
One writer rules out the idea that the Lord simply promised John a long, quiet old age:
It is easy to see how shallow the idea of Augustine and many since his day is. They say the Lord meant no more than this: that John would live to a long and peaceful old age. Peter, by contrast, was killed by violence in old age, and John's own brother James was killed while still young. Peter was to follow the Lord even in His death, as far as that could be. Not so John. He was to remain, hanging on the will of the Lord until He came.
Another writer ties the Lord's answer to the character of John's ministry:
John does not come under "Follow me," but is to continue until Christ comes, and not be cut off, as it were... You never get the church in John's ministry. It is always the individual. And since Christ Himself is what he clings to, everything vital and essential to souls is still there, even if the church goes to the winds.
Peter's mistake had one good result:
But Peter's blunder gave the Lord the opportunity of bringing John to our notice in a special way. He was following without a command.
- Turning — the trouble starts when the eyes move. Anything that turns your gaze from the Lord makes close following harder, even a fellow disciple as good as John.
- Curiosity — Peter's question came from real love, yet it was still prying, and the Lord corrected it with gentleness.
- Contrast — "What about this man?" earns a rebuke; "Lord, what do You want me to do?" earns an answer.
- Cost — watching someone else's doings is cheap and easy. Watching your own is costly. That is why the Lord says "Follow me" to each one alone.
- Silence — John was already following, and no one had told him to. Peter's question is what brought that to notice.
Jesus says to him, If I will that he abide until I come, what [is that] to thee? Follow thou me.
Peter has just been told how he will die. He turns, sees John, asks what will happen to him, and gets an answer that his fellow disciples at once misread.
The problem started before Peter opened his mouth. It started when he looked away.
An eye off the Master, and onto a fellow disciple, leads to an outburst of curiosity. He turned about. He became taken up with someone other than the One he was called to follow. That was the cause of the mischief then, and it still is. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was probably the best of the apostles in character and in spirit. But anyone or anything that turns the believer's gaze away from his Lord is a hindrance to close following in His steps.
The reply settles whose business John's future is.
First, it stressed one thing for every disciple, Peter or ourselves. Our great business is not with fellow believers but with our Lord. What the Lord appointed for John was not Peter's concern; his concern was to follow the Lord himself. Not many today point at someone and say, "What shall this man do?" But plenty say, "Look what this man has done!" Being troubled about somebody else's doings, especially if they are not quite right, is cheap and easy. Being troubled about your own is a costly business.
The command is deliberately singular. It cuts every comparison away.
If we want to follow Jesus, we must keep the eye continually on Him; we must notice His footprints and walk in them. This is to be our one great, all-absorbing business, whatever comes. The devil will tempt us to look here and there, and at this one and that one. He will tempt us to imagine we could do better somewhere else, and to take up and copy the work of some fellow servant. All this is met by those pointed words, "Follow Me."
The sentence hangs on a condition, not a promise. Everything about how long a servant stays rests in one place.
Whatever abides, if it abides, does so in the sovereign "If it is my will" of Christ. We do well to adjust our thoughts fully to that.
That condition also says something about the Lord Himself:
It would also mean this. The Lord's triumph over death is so complete that how long a saint lives on earth is simply a question of His will.
The disciples heard "remain until I come" and concluded John would never die. The correction that follows is careful.
Here we have an instance of how false it is to draw conclusions from Scripture. The point was not to deny the conclusion, but that "Jesus did not say that to him."
Commentators differ on what the Lord did mean. Both readings that follow turn on John's ministry, not on the length of his life.
One reading takes the two men as marking out two lines of testimony.
The nation was to reject the testimony, and Peter's death was to end it. But it would be otherwise with John's. Peter, seeing him also following Jesus, asks the Lord what will happen to him. "If it is my will," says the Saviour, "that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!" He did not say, as people supposed, that he would not die. But in fact his ministry makes known the ways of God to the end.
Others read it in terms of the character of what John writes:
John's ministry was to abide until the Lord's coming. Abiding is one of the key words John uses. The focus of his ministry is on what abides. He had spoken of eternal life, and his ministry deals with fellowship with the Father and the Son. These are things that abide, whatever decline there may be in testimony.
The Gospel closes the way it opened — with three words and an invitation.
The grace that drew and kept these two men, Andrew and John, is beautiful. Their conversion was one of heart-affection. They were won, drawn, attracted. Terror did not drive them; self-interest did not push them. The one influence acting on them was grace. "Come and see" fell on their ears with divine and charming power, and from then on they were captives in the chains of love. But the lips that say "Come" also say "Follow."
- Turning — Peter's mistake began with the look, not the question. An eye off the Master and onto a fellow disciple is where the mischief starts.
- Deflecting — watching another servant's path is cheap. Being troubled about your own path is costly, and only that one is your business.
- Willing — how long any servant stays rests on Christ's sovereign "if it is my will." His triumph over death is that complete.
- Guessing — the rumour is not corrected by denying it. It is corrected by pointing out that Jesus never said it — a warning against drawing conclusions from Scripture.
- Abiding — Peter's line of testimony closed in his death. John's ministry runs on to the Lord's coming, holding out what abides: eternal life, and fellowship with the Father and the Son.
This word therefore went out among the brethren, That disciple does not die. And Jesus did not say to him, He does not die; but, If I will that he abide until I come, what [is that] to thee?
A rumour spread among the first believers: John would never die. The verse corrects it, and shows how easily sincere people can turn what the Lord said into something He never said.
The error grew inside the circle of the disciples. It looked like sound reasoning from the Lord's own words.
Verse 23 teaches us something of great practical importance. It shows how dangerous it is to trust tradition, even the earliest tradition. It also shows how good it is to have the unerring standard of God's written word. The saying spread among the brothers in the days of the apostles. It seemed a most natural conclusion from the words of our Lord — even a necessary one. But we do not do well to accept such a conclusion without question. Still less should we let such deductions draw us into a whole system... Yet those who let in this early mistake were not enemies. They were not fierce wolves. They were not men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. It was "among the brothers" that the tradition, groundless and misleading, spread. Miracles did not stop it, nor gifts, nor power, nor unity. The mistake came from reasoning, instead of holding to the word of the Lord.
The verse does not explain what Jesus meant. It quotes Him again, word for word.
The Holy Spirit was jealous for the exact words in which the message was given, yet He left the meaning of those words undetermined. His comment amounted to a serious rebuke: "yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, 'If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?'" So He records again, with something more than a correction, the precise words the Lord spoke. And He stresses once and for all how important the unaltered words are in which truth is divinely recorded.
The same danger appeared at the very beginning. Eve added words God had not spoken:
We ought, therefore, to be very jealous for the exact expressions of God the Holy Spirit. We must not add to His words, as Eve did when she added, "Neither shall you touch it," to what God had forbidden.
Peter had just heard how he would die. The Lord answers the question about John in a different way — with a condition that rests on His own will.
It is easy to see how shallow the idea of Augustine and many since his day is. They held that the Lord meant no more than this: John would live to a long and peaceful old age, while Peter would die a violent death in old age, as his own brother James did in youth. Peter was indeed to follow the Lord even in His death, as far as this could be. Not so John, who was to remain hanging on the will of the Lord till He came.
Another writer tests two easy readings of this coming and rejects both:
This could not mean that John might live till the end of the world. But neither could it mean that John might go to be with Jesus at his death. In that case, how would he differ from Peter or any of the other disciples? Such a reading would also rob the words of all meaning. It would make them equal to this — "If I will that he lives till he dies, what is that to you?"
Commentators differ on which coming the Lord means here:
The "until I come" the Lord speaks of here is not, I judge, His coming for the Church. It is His public appearing on earth in glory. John himself lived until the end of all that the Lord saw fit to set up in connection with Jerusalem. He continues here in his ministry, until Christ appears to the world. As a saint and servant he plainly lived a long while and served the Lord. His latest writing — the Revelation — carries us up to the return of the Son of Man in glory.
The Lord's answer turns attention away from another man's path and back to my own.
Whatever is the Lord's will for another should not in any degree influence my thoughts about His will for me. Whatever others may do, I am simply to follow the Lord, with an undivided heart. "You follow Me," He says to each of us individually.
The Lord also shows what kind of disciple He wants to find here when He returns:
He surely meant that He would have that kind of disciple here when He comes again. What kind of disciple? The disciple who leans on His breast, stands by His cross, AND FOLLOWS HIM WITHOUT BEING TOLD.
- Reasoning. The false saying came from a natural conclusion, not from an enemy. Gifts, power and unity did not stop it.
- Recording. The Spirit does not explain the saying. He repeats the Lord's exact words against it.
- Rejecting. Reading "until I come" as "until he dies" would make the sentence say nothing at all.
- Resting. John's future hangs on one thing: "If it is my will" — the choice of Christ, not a promise about length of life.
- Result. The whole exchange lands on one order each disciple must take personally: "You follow Me."