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."