Why did Jesus tell Peter to "feed my sheep" in John 21?

The Lord begins with the full restoration of Peter's soul. He does not reproach him with his fault, but judges the source of evil that produced it — self-confidence. Peter had declared, that if all should deny Jesus, yet he at least would not deny Him. The Lord therefore asks him, "Lovest thou me more than do these?" and Peter is reduced to acknowledge that it required the omniscience of God to know that he, who had boasted of having more love than all others for Jesus, had really any affection for Him at all. And the question thrice repeated must indeed have searched the depths of his heart. Nor was it till the third time that he says, "Thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." Jesus did not let his conscience go until he had come to this. Nevertheless the grace which did this for Peter's good — the grace which had followed him in spite of everything, praying for him before he felt his need or had committed the fault — is perfect here also. For, at the moment when it might be thought that at the utmost he would be re-admitted through divine forbearance, the strongest testimony of grace is lavished upon him. When humbled by his fall, and brought to entire dependence upon grace, all-abounding grace displays itself. The Lord commits that which He most loved to him — the sheep whom He had just redeemed. He commits them to Peter's care. This is the grace which surmounts all that man is, which is above all that man is; which consequently produces confidence, not in self, but in God, as One whose grace can always be trusted in, as being full of grace and perfect in that grace which is above everything, and is always itself; grace which makes us able to accomplish the work of grace towards — whom? — man who needs it. It creates confidence in proportion to the measure in which it acts.

The Lord did know, and in view of Peter's deliverance from self-confidence and his reliance on the knowledge and grace of the Lord, He honoured him with a great trust His lambs, His sheep, these were to be Peter's special charge and care, these who were of such value to the Lord that He had laid down His life for them, were committed to Peter, and upon these he was to expend that love which the Lord knew was in his heart for Himself.

But there was more. Peter had three times denied the Lord with oaths and curses and though the Lord had freely and fully forgiven him, I question whether he had forgiven himself, and the very grace of the Lord would increase his sorrow at having missed such an opportunity of confessing Him. Was this in the Lord's mind in what followed? I believe it was. Consider the words, "Verily, verily, I say to thee, When thou wast young thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thine hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake He, signifying by what death he should glorify God." His sin had been blotted out by His Saviour's blood, but he was to be permitted to blot it out too by his own act. He was to have the opportunity of going to prison and death for his Lord, not in self-confidence and boasting, but in such humility of heart and joy in his Lord that God would be glorified by his death. Peter must have been overwhelmed by the loving-kindness of the Lord whenever he thought of this.

Jesus was going away. His sheep were most dear to Him. Where can He find a true, real, and loving shepherd, to whose care and guidance He can commit them! Peter is the chosen one. Infinite grace, matchless love! "Peter is the last man I should choose" — his fellow-man might say, — "Peter is the very man I can implicitly trust," is Christ's answer in grace.

Here, in plain language, you have Peter restored in the most beautiful way publicly. Restoration of a brother publicly is, alas! a very rare thing in this day. How beautifully the Lord put this man right first with Himself, and then with his brethren. There is one thing the Lord greatly desires for each of us, that we should be right with Himself and also with our brethren. So in the presence of them all, He manifestly says, "I trust that man absolutely, for I put into his hands the objects of My tenderest love and solicitude — My lambs and My sheep to feed by his ministry." By the threefold commission here given to His servant the Lord shows how profoundly He can trust him. When Peter trusted himself he failed. When he had the springs of self-confidence broken, that was the moment Christ could trust him. And here in the presence of his brethren he is beautifully and publicly restored to the Lord's confidence.

Yet at first Peter does not discover the aim of the Lord. He does avoid unwise comparison with others; he simply appeals to the Lord's inward conscious knowledge: "Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I dearly love (φιλῶ) Thee." Far from denying his profession of tender affection, the Lord proves His own value for it, and His confidence in Peter. For He, the Good Shepherd, about to quit the world, entrusts to His servant that which was unspeakably precious in His eyes and most of all needed His care: "Feed My lambs." Thus does He prove our love by answering to His love for the weakest of saints. "Whosoever loveth Him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of Him." We love because He first loved us; but it is not that we love Him only, but those that are His, not those that love us naturally, but those that He loves as divinely. "He that saith, I know Him and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him"; and "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also."

The work of restoration was now fully done. Peter abandons every thought of self, and can find refuge only in grace. Only He Who of Himself knows all without an effort, only He could give credit to Peter's heart, spite of his mouth and all appearances; yet did not He know that His poor denying servant dearly loved Him? The answer of the Lord, committing afresh what was dearest to Him on earth — the gift of the Father's love to Himself — seals Peter's restoration, not in soul only, but in his relation to the sheep of His pasture. Feed them, says the Lord. To tend or rule pastorally is not forgotten; but positive nourishment, as of the lambs at the beginning, remains to the last the abiding task of the shepherd, the habitual need of the sheep; but it demands enduring and deep love, not to scold, perhaps, or govern, but to feed, and not least of all the least of all Christ's sheep. Only the love of Christ can carry one through it.

But this is not all. It is not enough for the Lord to restore fully the soul of Peter and to more than reinstate him in his relation to the sheep which might have seemed otherwise compromised. Grace would give him in God's due time what he had not only lost, but turned to his own shame and his Master's dishonour, the confession of His name even to prison and death.

The scene with Peter at the shore is a complete illustration, we may say, of the washing of the disciples' feet, typically given in the 13th chapter. Individually, Peter's restoration had begun almost as soon as his sin had been committed; but it is here more fully and publicly completed. The details here are suggestive. The whole scene might well remind Peter of the past, — the fire of coals recalling that other fire where he had sat and warmed himself with Christ's enemies; the threefold question: "Lovest thou Me?" touching very closely his proud boast of loyalty and faithfulness. "More than these," we need hardly say, refers to the other disciples, and not to the fish, as some have thought. It was gently reminding Peter of his boast, "Though all shall be offended, yet will not I."

As has often been pointed out, our Lord and Peter use two different words for "love." The Lord's is the stronger, more spiritual, word, nearly always used of the love of God. Peter's answer is the word more used in human intercourse and friendship. It does not suggest a weaker love, we may say, but a different plane. Peter would not qualify the intensity of his love, but would shrink from giving it the dignity implied in the other word. Our Lord at last, in the closing question, comes down to Peter's own word, as though to probe to the very bottom that once self-confident but now self-distrusting heart. Throughout, Peter casts himself upon the knowledge of the Lord rather than his own protestation. "Thou knowest that I love Thee." Precious is the grace which does not even name the sin, save in this holy implication, and yet which so effectually probes to the very bottom that it leaves its holy savor where once had been the roots of pride; at the same time, with no bitterness of humiliation connected with the searching of divine grace.

This is ever the way of our Lord; and instead of setting one aside from service, the poor wandering sheep now brought back is entrusted with the care of the Lord's lambs and sheep. Two different words are also used here. It is, "Feed My lambs" and "Shepherd My sheep." Lambs need not so much correction and control as the nourishment which will insure their growth. This, too, is needed by the sheep as well, and therefore the last word is "feed" as well as "shepherd" My sheep.

"Feed my lambs." This one word shows us what they are for Jesus, and the value of what the Lord confides to Peter. They are His property. The heart of Christ had not changed in retard to Simon, and He entrusted him with what He loved at his first step in the painful pathway leading to restoration. Peter's heart was broken, but sustained by Christ in the breaking. Jesus did not probe it three times to give him an answer only at the third; He gave it already at the first. What delicate affection and care in the discipline! If the three questions had been put without the encouragement of a promise with each, Peter's heart, distressed by his failure, would have been overwhelmed with sorrow; but the promise sustained him each time under the stroke intended to break him down. It was like the burning bush, which grace prevented from being consumed. Jesus probed Peter three times; he had denied Jesus three times. The last time nothing remained but what the Lord had produced and could approve. Sorrow was there too, no doubt, but joined to the certainty that the love which was the fruit of His love, though buried to the eyes of all by manifestations of the flesh, the all-seeing eye of Christ was alone able to discern. "Lord, Thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." After the second and third questions the care of the sheep and the feeding of the whole flock were confided to Peter. It was when, through grace, he had seen himself, and been obliged to appeal to the Lord to discover what he gave up discovering in himself — it was then that he found himself possessed of full and unreserved blessing.

What a volume of love in those words of the. Lord to poor Peter, "Feed my lambs!" as if He would say, "I am going to make a channel of you for love to flow through and I am breaking you down that you may be able to feed my lambs. You thought to be a strong disciple, I am making you see your weakness, giving you a broken heart, that you may be strong. Ah! there is nothing like a broken heart for a shepherd, there will be room in it for the lambs when he has got to the end of self. The Lord must always be breaking down a shepherd to enable him to feed His lambs.

We may observe that the heart of the blessed apostle is where the Lord had placed it. "Feed my sheep" was the expression of the Lord's perfect grace towards Peter, when He was leading him to the humiliating but salutary confession that it needed the eye of God to see that His weak disciple loved Him. At the moment that He convinced him of his utter nothingness, He entrusted to him that which was dearest to Himself.