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."
This is the disciple who bears witness concerning these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his witness is true.
The Gospel of John closes with the writer signing his own work: the disciple in the story and the man holding the pen are the same person. Two questions press here — who is he, and why trust what he wrote?
Throughout the Gospel a figure appears without a name — at the supper table, at the cross, at the empty tomb. This closing verse settles who he was, and ties that answer to the truth of what he wrote.
Verse 24 is decisive as to the many references to the unnamed disciple: it is of course John himself. He speaks with full seriousness about the absolute truth of what he has written. He also uses the plural: "we know." Believers know the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (John 14:4-7; 17), and in the same way we know the truth of the word of God. Let that knowledge then have constant, vital power in our lives.
John never names himself in the story. He describes himself by the Lord's love toward him instead.
How like the Spirit this is! The man who enjoyed such favour describes himself not as loving Jesus — though he did — but as loved by Him. He calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. Here and elsewhere he leaves his own name out, as a thing of small account. Yet he describes himself clearly at the close, where it was needed, and his name is given where men might deny who wrote the Gospel — as they have done!
The verse works like a seal pressed onto a finished document. It also explains why the Gospel is short.
Last of all comes the personal seal or attestation of the writer. It was John, and no other. Every inspired writer keeps his own style and manner, and none more clearly than the writer of the fourth Gospel. Yet what he wrote is only a sample, chosen in divine wisdom, following a specific plan that serves the grand scope and purpose of divine revelation.
The choosing was not John's own:
What we have is a selection made by the Holy Spirit: a principle just as true of the "signs" worked by our Lord (John 20:30-31; John 21:24-25). Every scripture is of God's special design.
The verse shifts from "this is the disciple" to a plural voice. John does not stand alone.
John is one of these qualified witnesses, and he represents them and speaks for them. I want to stress this: with full authority he has declared (John 21:24) what the Son of God testified to the world. He has also declared what the Son said to the men God gave Him out of the world.
The verse claims the record is accurate. People have attacked that claim, and one writer says what is lost if it falls.
To question whether its statements are accurate in fact corrupts the soul, because John 21:24 gives us a clear assurance… Intellectual honesty is a duty for all of us. As Bishop Gore says: "We must all train ourselves in the very rare quality of submission to good evidence. This quality is as rare among sceptics as among believers."
Some have argued that the Gospel first ended at chapter 20, and that chapter 21 was added later. The manuscript evidence answers that.
No early manuscript presents the Gospel without the closing chapter as part of it. No ancient version leaves out chapter 21. From the earliest testimony we can produce, the closing chapter has appeared as part of the Fourth Gospel… Look at how John writes. In 1 John 5:13 he states why he wrote that letter. Did the letter first end at that verse? Who would say so? Before finishing, he adds some fresh remarks. If John could compose his letter that way, why not his Gospel — stating his reasons for writing before bringing it to a close?
- Witness. The nameless disciple leaning on Jesus, standing at the cross, running to the tomb, is John — and this verse is where he says so.
- Written. He was there and he held the pen — one of the qualified witnesses, speaking for them all.
- Sealed. The last lines are his personal attestation, the writer's own signature on the finished account.
- Selected. What he wrote is a sample chosen by divine wisdom — not everything Jesus did, but exactly what God designed us to have.
- Sure. "True" is not a formality. If we can doubt the record's accuracy, the Gospel's own assurance is empty — and sceptic and believer alike owe honest submission to good evidence.
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they were written one by one, I suppose that not even the world itself would contain the books written.
John ends his Gospel by telling us why he stopped writing. Is that last line a wild exaggeration, or a sober measure of a subject no library could hold?
Readers have long wondered whether the closing sentence is simply a figure of speech stretched for effect. One commentator answers that the size of the claim matches the size of the Person behind it — a finite life lived by One who is not finite:
The words about the world and the books are no colourful exaggeration. John has traced for us the matchless words and works of the Word become flesh. He gives us only a selection of them. That selection is small, yet it is enough to convince us that in Him we have the Christ, the Son of God. Though He took a finite form, the Word who took it is infinite. He therefore put the stamp of infinity on everything He did and said. The world and books cannot contain that.
The same point is pressed as a direct answer to the sceptic. What sounds like poetry is offered as fact:
This in the judgment of the critic is exaggerated language; we claim that it is the sober statement of the truth inspired by the Holy Spirit. Remember the greatness and glory of the Person; try to conceive the character of the revelation that He made in His works and words, and then say whether this could be told in books.
John's first chapter already told us who made the world. That is why his last line is not extravagant:
So John is not exaggerating as he closes his Gospel. He supposed that not even the world itself would hold the records, if someone wrote down the things that such a One as Jesus did. How could it? Chapter 1 shows Him to be the Creator of all things! Could the whole of creation even contain the Creator?
If so much is left out, then what we do have was chosen. One writer sees wisdom and a plan in that choice:
Yet what was written is only a sample. God chose it in His wisdom, with a specific plan that serves the grand scope and purpose of divine revelation. If everything Jesus did were written out, the adoring writer had good reason to suppose that the world itself would be too small for the books needed.
One writer uses this to answer a common objection about the Gospels:
This last verse reminds us that what is recorded of the Lord's doings on earth is only a tiny fraction of the whole, and this stays true even if we put all four Gospels together. It is as true of His words as of His works. This fact helps to explain things that people sometimes point to as apparent contradictions. For instance, the Lord must have done and said similar things scores of times during the years of His constant service in various parts of Judaea and Galilee.
There is mercy in the restraint. A full account would be too heavy to lift, while the book we do have opens as far as any reader wants to go:
If anyone tried to tell it all, the world could not hold the books that would be written. It would be an impossible load to lift, rather than a help to clearer understanding. How thankful we may be for the restraint that has packed what is a real blessing to us into such a small space! And yet, as we all must know, it opens out to whatever capacity we have. Our Bibles are all the same, and anyone can handle them. On the other hand, are we burning to know more? We may go on without any limit, except the limit our little faith or heart may impose.
Many acts of Jesus never made it into the record. One writer will not guess what they were, yet is sure of their character:
These "many other things" ... are unknown to us, apart from their general character. But we know they must have carried the same divine grace and spotless holiness, the same moral glory, that marked everything the Son of God did. Some need or some sorrow probably prompted them. But we can go no further — and we would not wish to. As another has put it very well: "The silence of God is to be respected in the next place to His utterance."
What was left out does not leave the reader short. What was written was written with a purpose:
The world would not contain the books that would be written, if all were told. But what is told is told for our blessing, so that we may know Him, live by that knowledge, love Him, and trust Him.
And the untold part is not lost. It waits for a bigger place than any page:
Well may John add that the story of such a One cannot be exhausted. The world itself, he supposes, could not contain all that should be written. Heaven and eternity are the place where everything will be opened up, to the delight and wonder of our hearts.
- Infinite — the subject is an infinite Person, so no record could ever be complete. The words are a measurement, not an overstatement.
- Selected — what we have is a sample chosen in divine wisdom; even four Gospels together hold only a fraction.
- Manageable — the short record is mercy. A full account would be too heavy to lift; this one fits any hand.
- Inexhaustible — the same small book opens out to whatever capacity you bring. The only limit is a small heart.
- Unfinished — the untold deeds carried the same grace and glory. Heaven and eternity will unfold them.