Peter seeing him, said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?”
Parallel Translations
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Peter seeing him, said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?”
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When Peter sawe him he sayde to Iesus: Lorde what shall he here do?
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When Peter therefore sawe him, he saide to Iesus, Lord, what shall this man doe?
Cross-references (3)
Passages linked to John 21:21 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Luke 13:23-24 One said to him, “Lord, are they few who are saved?” He said to them, “Strive to enter in by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter in and will not be able.
- Matthew 24:3-4 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?” Jesus answered them, “Be careful that no one leads you astray.
- Acts 1:6-7 Therefore when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, are you now restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 21 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and…
21 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?
Ver. 21. And what shall this man do] When Peter considered that John was dearly beloved and yet not alike forewarned of suffering death, as himself was, he began to doubt whether Christ spake this of love to him or not. Nothing is more ordinary with us than to question God’s affection when we are in affliction; to conceive hard things of God and heavy things of ourselves, as if no children, because chastised. Whereas we should learn to look through the anger of God’s corrections, to the sweetness of his loving countenance, as by a rainbow we see the beautiful image of the sun’s light in the midst of a dark and waterish cloud. (See my "Love Tokens," Doct. 2, Use 1.)
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Do is not in the Greek, nor possibly is…
Do is not in the Greek, nor possibly is so properly added: the sense is, What shall become of this man? What shall be his fate? What shall he suffer?
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus,.... Peter took a…
Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus,.... Peter took a great deal of notice of John, and very likely understood, that he meant by his rising up and following Christ, to signify his readiness for service and suffering in the cause of Christ: and therefore says,
Lord, and what shall this man do? The phrase in the original is very short and concise, "Lord, and this what?" The Arabic version renders it, "and this, of what mind is he?" it looks as if he was of the same mind with me to follow thee; but it is better rendered by us, "what shall this man do?" in what work and service shall he be employed, who seems as willing as I am to serve thee? or it may be rendered thus, "and what shall this man suffer?" shall he suffer at all? and if he shall, what kind of death shall he undergo? what will become of him? what will be his end? how will it fare with him? this he said, partly out of curiosity, and partly out of concern for him, they two being associates and intimates, who had a strong affection for each other.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain What shall this man do? - This question probably…
What shall this man do? - This question probably means, “What death shall he die?” But it is impossible to ascertain certainly why Peter asked this question. John was a favorite disciple, and perhaps Peter suspected that he would have a happier lot, and not be put to death in this manner. Peter was grieved at the question of Jesus; he was probably deeply affected with the account of his own approaching sufferings; and, with perhaps a mixture of grief and envy, he asked what would be his lot. But it is possible, also, that it was from kindness to John - a deep solicitude about him, and a wish that he might not die in the same manner as one who had denied his Lord. Whatever the motive was, it was a curiosity which the Lord Jesus did not choose to gratify.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Lord, what shall this man do? St. John Chrysostom…
Lord, what shall this man do? St. John Chrysostom thinks, it was the love and friendship, that St. Peter had for St. John, that moved him to ask this question. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Peter . . . saith to Jesus, Lord, and…
Peter . . . saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?--What of this man? or, How shall it fare with him?
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 21. Peter seeing him] Peter therefore seeing him. Once…
21. Peter seeing him] Peter therefore seeing him. Once more we see the intimacy between these two Apostles. When S. Peter is told to follow, S. John does so also unbidden; and S. Peter having received his own commission asks about that of his friend. Comp. Joh_18:15, Joh_20:1 [15].
and what shall this man do?] Literally, but this man, what? Not so much ‘what shall he do?’ as ‘what about him?’ What is the lot in store for him. The question indicates the natural wish to know the future of a friend, all the more natural after having been told something about his own future. Hence the ‘therefore’ at the beginning of the verse. As usual, S. Peter acts on the first impulse.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (21) Lord, and what shall this man do?—The motive…
(21) Lord, and what shall this man do?—The motive prompting this question was probably that of loving interest in the future of his friend. It may well be that the two friends, in the sadness of the dark days through which they had passed, had talked together of what their Master’s predictions of the future meant, and had wondered what there was in store for themselves. They knew the world was to hate them as it had hated Him, and they never knew what its hatred for Him was. One of them had learnt that he was to follow his Lord in death as in life, and he now sees the other following them as they draw apart from the group, and would fain know the future of his friend as he knew his own.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 21, 22. Peter then, seeing this man, saith…
Vers. 21, 22. Peter then, seeing this man, saith to Jesus, Lord, and this man, what? What is the duty, place, fate, or honor of this man? Paulus and Tholuck suggest in the words the inquiry, "May not this man come now and hear our intercourse, share in my travail and the like?" Meyer supposes it to be dictated by a certain jealousy or curiosity, a consciousness of contrast between his own impetuosity and the beloved disciple"s quietude and self-possession. Clearly the inquiry was not altogether pleasing to the Lord, and led him once more to reiterate the original injunction, If I will that he abide until I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Do thou follow me, and cease to inquire after another"s duty. Meyer considers that the menein is the opposite to akolouwein that the latter word means "following unto death and martyrdom," while the former means "to be preserved alive," and turns to Php_1:25 and 1Co_15:6 in vindication. Doubtless that was the crude explanation which led to the subsequent legend of his immortality on earth, and the apostle"s own disclaimer; but the word menein seems to be used in Joh_1:37, Joh_1:39, Joh_1:40, and in many other places, of the complement and entire fulfillment of the idea and practice of akolouyein of that abiding in Christ which is the full result of heartfelt following and unquestioning submission to the Savior"s will. (Joh_15:4, Joh_15:5, Joh_15:10; see also 1Jn_2:6, 1Jn_2:17, 1Jn_2:24, 26 3:24 4:15) Taking with these passages the corresponding and alternative use of the word to express the manner in which God, truth, or love "abides" in the child of God, it would seem as though it were the keynote of much of John"s most mature experience a fact which is very remarkably elucidated by the passage before us. Baur, Hilgenfeld, Schwegler, Strauss, have urged from this passage that the writer was contending against the Petrine tendency in the Church, by representing John as the higher and more distinguished apostle; and, according to Kostlin, a precisely opposite expression was conveyed by the unknown writer, who meant to flatter the Roman primacy, in the second century, by the dignities thus conferred upon the chief of the apostles. Both hypotheses are baseless. The beloved disciple quietly accepts here the role of "abiding," "waiting," "resting in the Lord," and admits the superior energy and constant initiation which Peter was, as a man, constrained to pursue. There is no jealousy between them, nor the hint of it. John receives more than he asks. "If I will that he abide till I come," etc., has been variously interpreted (the condition is not a simple supposition, there is a probability or uncertainty in the period of the "abiding the apodosis declares the as yet unuttered condition to be without bearing on Peter"s immediate duty). Some have said that it means, "If I will that he enjoy the long life and the natural death of one who rests with Christ until he comes to take him home by a quiet departure, until he comes to receive him to himself". (Joh_14:3. So Ewald and Olshausen) This view is improbable, because most certainly in that sense, Peter too followed and tarried and abode with Christ till the day when he was taken home. Luthardt suggests that the saying, as here given and interpreted by John himself, not of physical immortality, but of the coming itself, is John"s way of asserting that the Lord has come; that in the fall of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, the destruction of the theocracy, and the obvious establishment of the true kingdom in all the world was the "coming," the parousia , the ercomai , of which the Savior had always spoken. John "sees the coming of the Lord in that event." In this general interpretation, Stier and Hengstenberg concur. Westcott throws more light upon it by wisely emphasizing (ewv ercomai) the coming, not as one great event, but that continuous realization of his return which is the lofty privilege of faith; and shows that in numerous places ewv points, not so much to the ultimate consummation, as to the interval which will elapse between the commencement and the consummation of the coming. (cf. Joh_9:4 Mar_6:45 (with apoluei) 1Ti_4:13 Luk_19:2 Mat_5:25) How frequently has Christ spoken, in the latest discourses, of coming again, to fill the sorrowing with joy, to teach in the power of the Comforter, to judge the prince of this world, to raise and quicken the dead! Such abiding is the full issue of faithful following. Surely two types of character pervade the whole dispensation the Martha and the Mary types; the faithful servant who works and trades with his talents, and the virgin who waits for the Bridegroom; and these two types both meet with appropriate advice. Simon is bidden to follow, and, occupied with busy cares of the Church, leave results to Christ; but John, who has passed into the sanctuary of holy love, is encouraged to rest patiently, and in obscurity and silence, to glory and serve by "standing and waiting.
Vers. 21, 22. Curiosity rebuked.
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Peter and John were the two among the twelve who were nearest to Christ, and they were peculiarly intimate in their friendship and congenial in their disposition. It was very natural that, when the risen Jesus had uttered so explicit a prediction concerning the future of the apostle viz., that he should live to old age, and then should glorify God by enduring a martyr"s death by crucifixion a general desire should be aroused in the breasts of the disciples to know something of the future history and the end of John. Especially it was very natural that Peter should put to the Lord the question here recorded. Yet Jesus not merely declined to comply with this request, he even rebuked the questioner for his curiosity.
I THE CAUSES OF CURIOSITY.
1. Of these one is good, viz. the natural desire to know, with which is conjoined that sympathy that transfers to another the feelings of interest first belonging to one"s self. A person utterly indifferent to the prospects of his neighbors would be regarded as morally imperfect and defective.
2. On the other hand, there is something of evil in the springs of curiosity, inasmuch as this habit of mind arises very much from the tendency to remove attention from principles, and attach it to persons. He who thinks only of principles is pedantic, and his pedantry is blamed; but he who thinks only of persons and of what happens to them is curious, and his disposition is condemned as trivial and prying. Peter"s question was evidently regarded by our Lord in this latter light.
II THE MISCHIEF OF CURIOSITY. In two respects this mental habit is injurious.
1. There is a great danger of the curious man"s attention being drawn away from what relates to himself and his own true welfare.
2. There is a further danger lest the curious man should yield to the temptation to indulge in gossip, and even in scandal. It is not easy to speculate much about the circumstances and prospects of others without talking about their affairs, and surmising with regard to matters upon which we have no means of exact knowledge.
III TRUE REBUKE AND CURE OF CURIOSITY. The language of the Lord Jesus was very emphatic and very just.
1. Let every man remember his own personal responsibility. "Follow thou me," said Jesus to Peter. We are not accountable for our neighbors, but we are accountable for ourselves.
2. Let every man remember that, the ease of others is in the hands of Divine wisdom and beneficence. "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" said Jesus; i.e. fear not; he is cared for equally with thyself; a good hand is over him, and he shall not be forsaken. There is often good reason for us to bear in mind the somewhat sharp but very needful rebuke of Christ, "What is that to thee? T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Peter seeing John saith to Jesus, Lord, what shall…
Joh_21:21-23
Peter seeing John saith to Jesus, Lord, what shall this man do?
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The individuality of Christian life
Christ had just foretold to Peter that he should in his old age die a martyr, and with that before him, the apostle left the thought of his own suffering and inquired respecting the destiny of John.
1. It is not easy to determine the spirit of the question. Some suppose that Peter argued from Christs silence that Johns course would be free from fierce trouble, and inquired with a kind of envious dissatisfaction. Not so.
Peters generous nature would prompt him to forget his own troubles in devotion to his friend, and remembering the recent incident it is hard to infer discontent here. Most probably the question sprang from earnest anxiety. Having learned the glory of his Saviours cross, he was concerned lest John should lose the honour. It is easier for such impetuous souls to trust their own lot to God than their brothers.
2. It is not easy to explain the reply. Some have emptied the words of all their meaning by referring them to the moment of death. But Christ would come as truly to Peter as to John. Rather are the words to be referred to the coming of Christ at the fall of Jerusalem, when His kingdom began its world-wide supremacy. And that day in Patmos John saw visions of Christs future dominion. Learn that
I. GOD APPOINTS A COURSE OF LIFE FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIAN. No words could mark the difference which was now to mark the paths of those two men who had as yet followed Christ side by side.
1. Taking their characters we find the Divine meaning of their separate courses. Peter, the man of impulse and energy--first everywhere--his training was to be labour crowned with suffering. Unless he worked, he would fall into depression. John, calm, loving, profound--his discipline yeas patient waiting--a course not less hard, but how different.
2. Look at their work. Each was wanted in Christs kingdom. Peter is the apostle to the doubter, the sufferer; the earnest preacher of fidelity and supporter of the distressed. Would not the prospect of his own suffering deepen his sympathy and kindle his zeal? Johns mission was to declare Christ the Eternal King, the foundation of the new earth and the new heaven. Therefore he waited till the Temple was destroyed and the Jews scattered; then amid the ruins of the old he saw the unchanging One.
3. So each of us has our appointed course, and both experience of life and faith in providence teach it. Our sorrows, temptations, work, are peculiarly our own. We are each of us souls to be trained--the practical like Peter, the contemplative like John. To one God sends action and often crowns it with suffering; to another God says, Wait and watch! Let not the one despise the other.
II. BY WHAT LAW IS THAT COURSE FULFILLED? The answer is, Follow thou Me. Like Him, obey whenever Gods will is clear and be patient when it is dark. There are circumstances to which no other law applies, under which no experiences of other men can help us. Do the duty that is nearest you, and challenge results: Although another shall gird thee, &c., follow thou Me.
III. THE STRENGTH THAT WILL HELD US TO FULFIL OUR COURSE. If I will. It is the will of Christ which gives us power, for it implies knowledge and sympathy. Our deepest nature is only won by individual sympathy. There are depths of power in every soul which are unknown until it is made to feel that someone understands its joys and cares for its sorrows. Hence one great purpose of the Incarnation. Christs life abounds with proofs that His love was personal. He has chosen our path and that fact alone is a mighty impulse to obedience. Conclusion: Herein lies the grandeur of Our Christian life. We are in a world of mystery. We dare not choose for ourselves. The merest trifles affect our destiny. But the thought that Christ has bidden us follow Him, and that by His grace we can do so clothes us with power sublime. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)
Individual responsibility
Each one must answer for himself. The account is kept between God and each individual. There must be no impertinent curiosity as to Gods dealings with others--the heathen, children--those possessing few privileges. In a sense we are not our brothers keeper. God communicates direct, seldom by the way of other souls. He did not convey His message to John through Peter. Christ wished to hold Peters mind to his own sin and responsibility. See that you follow Me, whatever John or others do. Yet this he was to do in a way that did not prevent his seeking the welfare of others. The thrice-repeated command of Christ was still ringing in his ears--Feed My sheep; Feed My lambs. Observe
1. What this individual responsibility is.
2. The sin of neglecting it.
3. Our only escape if we have neglected it in the past, immediate repentance and acceptance of the proffered pardon.
(Homiletic Monthly.)
Personal responsibility
It is good to know the principles of Christianity, it is better to practise them. One of these is that the conduct of ethers towards Christ ought not to govern our own. Peter felt a great interest in John, and was anxious to know what department he was to occupy in the new kingdom. Peter meant no wrong: but Christ said, What is that to thee? Thy work is to echo My doctrine, to tread in My steps. By If I will Christ intimates that we are not to be or do what we like, but what Christ wills. The doctrine is, that it is important to think more about Christ Himself than about any fellow-agents in spreading His religion. Because
I. CHRIST HAS A PERSONAL AND ESSENTIAL PRE-EMINENCE.
1. He is what others are not and cannot be. If we want to come in contact with the most agreeable truths, let us rise above the agitation of the Church in its present state of imperfection, and fix our minds on the Redeemer Himself.
2. He is the Revealer of God to man, and I look at Him to see all I need.
3. He has a peculiar relation to me--Brother, Teacher, Priest, King. My all depends on Him. My fellow-man may be very valuable, but I can and must do without him; but I cannot live without Christ.
II. OUR ENGAGEMENTS TO CHRIST ARE INDEPENDENT OF OUR FELLOWBEINGS. Anything they may or may not do cannot affect our individual obligation to Him. We perceive this if we consider that every one has his own work. The Church has its work, and it cannot be done by schools of philosophy; and each member has his, and if he neglects it he will be rebuked in the presence of the universe. But, you say, my ability is small and my sphere contracted. Never mind; God has called you to that; be faithful in the least, and He will make you ruler over many things. Does the scholar or business man say, Because such a man is indolent I may be? I can love many of my fellow agents, but I would not stand before the love of God in the place of any one. Each must give an account to God, and bear his own burden.
III. BY THINKING OF JESUS WE CAN MAINTAIN AN EMINENT STANDARD OF MORAL ACTION. There is a tendency in individuals and churches to imitate one another, but since none is perfect this may be injurious. It is right and safe, however, to imitate the perfect Redeemer. Then imitate
1. His cordiality in religion. Whatever Christ did He did with all His heart.
2. His wonderful triumphs over obstacles. It would be useful to be acquainted with Christs methods with His enemies as well as His friends.
3. His devotion. (Caleb Morris.)
Misplaced anxiety
Our Master encouraged His followers to come to Him with all their difficulties. But He exercised a Divine discretion in the answers which He gave. Sometimes, as in the case of the blind man, He gave a direct reply, which removed error. Sometime, as after the parables, He entered into the fullest explanation. But when their questions sprang out of curiosity, He turned them aside either with quiet reproof or practical admonition, as when they asked Him, Are there few that be saved? and Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Beneath all this class of answers is the principle that we should not allow the difficulty of questions, for the solution of which we are not responsible, to keep us from doing the plain duty that is at our hands. In my student days I had a friend who was pro-eminently successful in gaining prizes by written competition. In general work he did not appear to be any better than his neighbours. I asked him to explain this, and he said, You take the questions in the paper as they come; hence, if the first question is a very hard one, you spend, perhaps, the whole time upon that; but I pick out those that I can answer at once, and then having disposed of them, I go on to the harder ones. There was great wisdom in the plan, and in the college of life more of us would come out prizemen if we were to let speculation alone until we have performed plain duties. Much more does this hold of those things which are insoluble by mere human reason. Take
I. THE MYSTERIES THAT LIE OUTSIDE OF REVELATION ALTOGETHER. Many of those things in revelation which perplex men have already emerged in another form in nature and providence. There is
1. That great enigma, the existence of evil under the government of a wise, holy, and loving God. Revelation did not make that; it found it; and while it shows us a way of escape from evil, it does not attempt to solve the mystery of its existence. Neither can we solve it. But then we are not asked to do so, and we are not responsible for it. How it came is not our affair; but how we may rid ourselves of its defilement, that is for us the question of questions. Just there, however, the Lord Jesus comes with His salvation. What madness, then, to turn away from the remedy to find out the origin of the disease! When you have extinguished the fire, inquire the cause; but while it is blazing, All hands to the fire-engines! When we have rescued the drowning man, we may examine how he came to be in the water; but our present duty is to throw him a rope.
2. Akin to that great difficulty is the perplexity occasioned by the anomalies presented by Gods providence--the prosperity of the wicked and the adversity of the good. That old debate which waxed so hot between Job and his friends has emerged in every successive generation. Yet virtually they left it where they found it. Jehovah appeared to them at the close, asking them to leave the matter in His hands. And what farther can we get than that? We are not responsible for the government of the world. God will take care of His own honour. Meanwhile for us there is the lowlier province of working out our own salvation, under the assurance that it is God who worketh in us, to will and to do of His good pleasure. To us the Saviour has said, Follow Me, and for the answer we give to that we shall be responsible. We cannot unravel the perplexities of providence, but we can see the way of life. Let us work in the light we have, and as we follow it we shall be led to the fountain of light.
3. Very dark many occurrences around us seem to be. The vessel goes to pieces, and hundreds are hurried to a watery grave; the little child is battered to death by a brutal ruffian; the devout worshippers in a crowded church are burned or trampled to death. These things happen, we say, under a God of mercy and love and justice! Why do they occur? And then there comes the answer, What is that to thee? In the long run God will be His own interpreter, and He will make it plain; meanwhile follow Christ.
II. THE MYSTERIES WHICH SPRING OUT OF REVELATION.
1. To the superficial thinker it seems anomalous that in a communication from God there shall be any difficulties. But when we go deeper it will appear that mystery is inseparable from a revelation given by a higher to a lower intelligence. Your child asks you for an explanation of something, and you give him an answer suited to his comprehension; but your reply, perfectly intelligible from your stand-point, starts in his mind a whole crop of new perplexities. Now something like that occurs in our reception of the revelation which God has given us. The cry of our humanity was, How shall man be just with God? and in reply God has pointed us to Him whom He hath set forth to be a propitiation, &c. This is a precious declaration; but how many new difficulties it has started! It brings us face to face with the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the innocent suffering for the guilty, and so working out their redemption, &c.; and many caught in the meshes of the perplexities which they have occasioned are to-day where they were years ago. They have not followed Christ, they have not joined His Church, they have not begun to grow in nobility and holiness of character, because they have not been able to thread their way through the labyrinth in which such questionings have involved them.
2. Now, how shall we deal with such? In the spirit of the principle before us. These questionings are not in our department. They have reference to matters which belong to God. We are not responsible for them. It may be that it is just as impossible for God to make them plain to us, as it is for us to render something which is incomprehensible to our child intelligible to him. It is not required of us to understand the infinite. Only God can comprehend God. What we are commanded to do is to follow Christ. That is within our power. There is but one way out of a labyrinth, when we have become hopelessly involved, and that is to put our hand in that of a guide, and follow his leading. And there is only one way out of these spiritual perplexities, viz., taking all that Christ says in childlike faith.
III. THE CONTINGENCIES OF THE FUTURE. We are all prone to pry into the years to come. Sometimes we are solicitous about ourselves. We cannot see what is to become of us; and if we have no cause for apprehension, we torment ourselves about our children, or our friends, or the Church, or the nation. Now to all our misgivings we have but one answer. The future is not ours. The present is. We are responsible for the present and not for the future, except only as it shall be affected by the present. Nay, we shall best serve the future, and secure it from those evils which we fear, by doing with our might the work of the present, and leaving the issue with God. Follow Christ. In your business follow Christ, by conducting it on His maxims, and leave the result with Him. In your household follow Christ, by setting before them an example of faith and charity. In the Church let your endeavour be to adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour, and do not distress yourselves about things that have not yet occurred. The Philistines will not carry off Gods ark, or if they do, they will soon be made as eager to send it back as they were to take it away. So with national affairs. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Our own duty and our brethrens welfare
1. This is the last recorded dialogue between Peter and Christ, and it has therefore a touching interest. How many and how varied these dialogues had been! Had we no other fragments of Christs life, we would still have a tolerably full indication both of Christian doctrine and duty. And now the interviews were to cease. Could there be a more fitting and consistent close to the whole? Follow Me, Christ said three years before by the lakeside, and now at the self-same spot He reminds him that the omega of his life is the same as its alpha, even the duty of personal discipleship, the word Follow me.
2. Peters question about John is a common one, and the answer Christ gave is fitting and final. There is nothing in it to discourage feeling for a brothers welfare. Yet mark, it may be one thing to say, What shall I do for this man? and another to ask, What shall this man do? Take the question as that of
I. LOVING BUT OVER-ANXIOUS SOLICITUDE.
1. Perhaps, as in this case, the relation is that of friendship. You stand with a neighbour at the outset of life. Your own track is laid down, be it attractive or difficult. And no sooner have you faced the disclosure than your thoughts revert to your friend, and the question starts up, How shall life shape itself for him? You may fear for that future, or you may envy it. But if your forecast of your friend be such as to affect your own present, deranging its plans or obscuring its claims, it is plain that you ask amiss. It is met with the rebuke, What is that unto thee? Follow thou Me.
2. Or the tie may be the closer one of family. What shall that future yield for them? Some may be sick; shall it bring them health and long life? Some may be thoughtless and easily led; shall it give them wisdom and stability? Once more comes the message, Leave their future in My hands; and for your own part, follow Me!
3. Or, again, this question is asked by those who are burdened with the state and the prospects of the Church. And no doubt an interest in the Church is the token of a thriving Christian life. But there is a morbid apprehensiveness which is totally different, unbefitting belief in the Churchs destiny and loyalty to its head. Most certainly these forebodings are amiss, if they are permitted to interfere with attention to the Churchs claims, and lead to the toleration of a present evil on the score that a worse evil may follow its removal. Christ answers, Leave the future of the Church with Another, and do thou follow Me. And surely, if each took the lesson home, the problem of the Churchs future would soon solve itself. For the Church will be just what its members are.
4. The question involves indirectly a care for oneself. It really meant much to Peter what was to become of his partner. If John was about to depart, his heart would be emptier, his life weaker, his path lonelier. And just so still. Johns track in due time did diverge. But Peter found a better and a stronger by his side than his own loved John--even the Shepherd and the Bishop of his soul. The future hides many paths to-day, but whatever the paths, the guidance and example are the same.
II. VAIN SPECULATION, which may sometimes be stirred by affection to a person, but often is curiosity towards facts. There are those whose present state and future prospects, religiously speaking, are matters of curious and perplexing interest. They have so much of the practical religious spirit, while, in point of saving religious doctrine, they diverge. May there not be fruitless and unwarranted guessing here. One dare not lay down the amount of light needed to make them Christians, and one cannot decide what light they possess. What is that, says the Saviour, unto thee? You who have attained to a clearer perception, are you acting up to it? You who have listened to a richer gospel, are you communicating and adorning it? Pray for those of whose destiny you are doubtful; enlighten them as God gives you opportunity; above all, make it plain that the more tenacious your hold is on doctrine, the richer is your outcome in practice.
III. SELFISH DISCONTENT. Your own post in life seems a hard one; and, as you brood on its burdens, you compare yourselves with others with whom God has dealt otherwise. Lord, is the question, what shall this man do? Is he always to succeed while I must fail? If so, verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency, for how cloth God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High? The only answer is, If I will that it be so, what is that unto thee? Trust the God of the earth to do right. Follow thou Me!
IV. INTENDED CONFORMITY. What many are keenest to settle is the mode of their neighbours service, the extent of his sacrifices, not the question, What do my own opportunities make possible, my own indebtedness impose, my Master require? But if the question, What shall this man do? is to intrude on the sphere of our Christian principles, then farewell to the spirit of true consecration. For He who presides in the Church, by whose will your responsibilities are imposed, at whose bar your account must be rendered, is saying, What is that unto thee? and what really is it? Art thou scanning thy neighbours conduct, waiting thy neighbours lead? Nay, judge apart m these matters, as apart thou shalt yet be judged. Be true to the light of thine individual conscience and thine individual commands. Follow thou Christ. Conclusion:
1. In matters of religious life--all the duties that pertain to discipleship--ones own things come first. And to give them anything else than the first place is to become practical idolaters by the preference of a neighbours claim to Gods.
2. This order is the best one for the interests of your neighbour himself. It is just this care for your personal salvation and duty that will further his prosperity, affording him the stimulus and allowing him the freedom he may happen to require. For the building of the city of God is like the building of Jerusalem in Nehemiahs time. They who wrought wrought each at the portion of the wall that was opposite himself, and the issue was the steady growth of the whole. And had any slackened his efforts to ask what his neighbour was doing, he might have been answered in the spirit of the text: What is that unto thee? See that thine own task is done! Or the Church is like a battalion of soldiers, as they swarm a height, while the voice of their captain is calling them and his figure is leading the way. One may ascend by one path, another may ascend by another. Only let all hear the same ringing summons, and push steadily toward the same goal. And as all do the best for themselves, they will do the best for the troop, the success of its enterprise, the glory of its leader. Say not, therefore, Lord, what shall this man do? From the far heights above floats the answer of our Forerunner and King, What is that unto thee? Follow thou Me. (W.
A. Gray.)
Not to suffer a busybody
It is noteworthy that the apostle so reproved here should afterwards write for the instruction of the Church that excellent sentence, Let none of you suffer … as a busybody in other mens matters. (G. J. Brown, M. A.)
The proper attitude towards Divine mysteries
Well, says one, it is very important to know about predestination and free will, you know. Yes, yes, and if you do not do anything good till you perfectly understand that, you have plenty of time to wait. Yes, but how do those two things meet? Or is one true and not the other? Well, I really do not know, and cannot tell you for the life of me whether I am predestinated to go to bed to-night or not; but I will tell you to-morrow morning. I am of the mind of poor Malachi down in Cornwall. A Wesleyan brother owed him some rent, and he said, Malachi, I owe you five pounds, but I shall not pay you till you tell me if I am predestinated to pay it. Oh, said Malachi, put the money down there. With that Malachi put it in his pocket, and replied, Yes, you are. I believe that the way to answer these questions is just to bring them to some practical test or other. But if any brother dwell upon that which angels cannot fathom, I say to him--in the words of my text I say to him--What is that to thee? Follow thou Me. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Curiosity and neglect of knowledge
There are two great varieties in men with reference to knowledge. The one is a neglect to know what it is our duty to know. The other is a curiosity to know what it doth not belong to us to know. (W. Burkitt.)
An Old Testament parallel
I cannot help seeing a latent resemblance between this place and the well-known passage at the end of Daniels prophecy. Then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And He said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days. (Dan_12:8-9; Dan_12:13). (Bp. Ryle.)
Following Christ
1. Our children sometimes sing that they wish that they had seen Jesus and heard His gentle voice; and perhaps you and I have said Amen! But it appears that the words of Jesus were not very impressive upon Peter. He had said to him, Follow Me, and one would have thought Peter would have done nothing else; for there was a day in which his Master had to say to him, Thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt do so hereafter. But now we find Peter forgetting the following, and turning round to indulge his curiosity. Do not wonder that our people forget what we say, for even when Christ is the sower all the seed does not fall on good soil, and all good soil does not receive the seed.
2. How easily people are diverted from the best of things. Peter at once began to follow Christ; but he turned his head and caught a sight of John, and he began to ask questions. Our people do not attend when we preach as they should. We are telling them a story which ought to hold them spellbound, and yet some one faints in the gallery, and everybody looks round, and it takes a long time to get them back again. Now, we must not be vexed, for it was so even with the Saviour.
3. Since people are taken off from serious thought by little things, do not you be the cause of little things. Among the rest, never come in late and make people turn round to see who is coming up the aisle.
4. Whatever distractions there may be in worship, nothing must be allowed to draw us off from duty. John was a great friend of Peters, and it was most natural that Peter should want to know what was to become of his friend. But no love of friends may ever come in the way to prevent our doing what Christ bids us.
I. THE MAIN BUSINESS OF OUR LIFE IS TO FOLLOW JESUS. We must follow Christ
1. By seeking from Him salvation. If you depart from Christ that is destruction. I hear it said that to tell men to be earnest about their own salvation is practically to make them selfish; but if I had to save a man from drowning, I should be selfish enough to learn to swim. If I had to be a soldier, I should be selfish enough to wish to be strong, that I might fight the battle well. I was present once at a street accident, and I fetched the doctor, and I noticed how very quietly and coolly he came. I was running and out of breath, I wanted to quicken his pace, but he said to me, Why, if I put myself in a bluster, as you have done, I could not do any good at all. Was that selfishness?
2. That done, the next thing is the fashioning of the character according to the mode of Christ. There is no following Christ except by endeavouring to be like Him. Christ, though absolutely perfect, is an imitable character. You could not tell me what special phase of character Christ has. He is so good all round. It is all there, and nothing too much and nothing too little. Lives of Christ--they are in the market everywhere. Write one yourselves in your own life. The Church ought to be like those rooms where the whole of the walls are lined with looking-glass. Stand in the centre, and you see yourself there, there, there, there. Christ is the centre, and all the saints so many looking-glasses, showing Him from different points of view. Each will be different, yet all will be the same, and Christ will be glorified. I saw a little motto hung up in our infant school-room, What would Jesus do? Now, in every case, whatever Jesus would do in that case is what you and I should do.
3. Then the man saved and endeavouring to be conformed to Christ, must follow in His life service. We are committed to the Lord. You do not belong to yourselves, not a hair of your head. There is not one minute of your time that you have a right to call your own. A person of New York when baptised turned all the money he had into a certain form of scrip and had it all in his pocket, for he wanted to dedicate the whole of his substance, as well as himself. I never receive a member without asking him, What are you going to do for the Saviour? If he says he cannot do anything, I say, Here is one who belongs to Christ, and Christ cannot make anything of him. He is dead stock. So the man begins to think, and, as a result, he finds there is something or other that he ought to do. Wherever Cook, the circumnavigator, landed he was seen to take little packets out of his pockets, throwing them out of his hand and circulating them. He belted the whole world with English flowers. That is how we ought to do--get some of the precious seed into your own soul, and carry it with you wherever you go. Have it with you on the trip to the seaside, for in this you will be following Christ, who went about doing good.
4. We are to follow Christ by exhibiting an intense love to Him. This is the way to show that love--attentively listening to everything He has to say.
5. We must do all this
(1) Unreservedly. But some people have got one little reserve--some favourite sin, or thing.
(2) Constantly--not sometimes. The enlistment in the army of Christ is not for a time long or short. You are called to eternal life. Not to the kind of life which, having lived six months or years, you then go on furlough to serve yourself. I heard of one who said that he did such and such a thing when he was off duty. Aye, a policeman may be off duty; but never a Christian.
(3) Heartily. I hate the miserable way in which some people serve Jesus. I illustrate it sometimes by the mumbler at the prayer-meeting. I called at his shop and heard him say, in loud tones, John, bring up that half hundred. I thought, This is the man I cannot hear when he prays. I stepped into a shop the other day, and I noticed the ledger. Oh my! what a ledger! I thought of my own little pocket Bible. Dear me, when the ledger gets on the top of that, what a crush it is.
6. We must follow Christ in the vocation to which He has called us. Some think that if they follow Christ they must give up the shop. No--follow Him there. Another says, I shall go to a nunnery, and I shall follow Christ there. You are better at hems with your children. Another thinks that to follow Christ he must give up his employment and become a city missionary. It is a great pity to spoil a good carpenter to make a bad preacher. When Christ rode the ass through Jerusalem, the ass did its best to carry Him, and it succeeded. It did not take to flying. No, it was not such an ass as that.
II. TO EFFECT THIS WE MUST AVOID ALL DISTRACTION, AND IF WE ARE GOING TO FOLLOW CHRIST, WE MUST GO IN FOR IT. A child was asked by a Sunday-school teacher, Is your father a Christian? The girl said, Yes, but he has not worked much at it lately. Often the reason is because they have turned aside to do something else. Then
1. Do not let distractions come in the form of reflections upon others. Peter wants to know about John.
(1) He might have said, Perhaps John is going to have a much easier post than I am. In working for Christ have you ever said, Ah, ah, it is fine to be him. I wish I had his place; I could do something there. What is that to thee? Follow thou Me. Art thou the poorer because he is the richer? Leave the Lord as He pleases to deal with John, and let John escape the edge of the sword, even if thou go to the cross.
(2) But some will say, as Peter might have said, though he did not, Now look at that John. He is all contemplation, I cannot bear those mystics. They are no use. Martha says of Mary, Bid her come and help me. Oh, these Marys, what is to become of them, always sitting there at Jesus feet? Now, Martha, what is that to thee--follow thou Me. What if one brother serve God one way and one in another? You follow Christ, and let him follow Him in his own way.
(3) I heard say of a certain good sister, who does a good deal of work for Christ, by one who never did anything to my knowledge, She is such a crotchetty woman. Yes, and I never met with anybody who did nothing that was not crotchetty. And if some of the crochets iv Gods people were taken away it would take away from them their power. God has fashioned them for His use. Now, the next time you see a friend who is not made quite so perfect as yourself, do you hear the Master say, What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.
(4) Well, says one, but I know a man that I am sure is very much overvalued. So do I, but what is that to thee? If the Lord is pleased to use him, pray God to use thee too.
(5) Still, says one, we must correct the mistakes of some Christians. By all means; and whenever you see a crooked stick in the Lords bundle, tell it it is crooked by being perfectly straight yourself. Get close alongside in loving fellowship, and the thing is done directly. I pray that you and I may not be so occupied with washing everybody elses doorstep that we may allow filth to accumulate in front of our own house.
2. Do not let us occupy our own minds about deep theological problems.
(1) Some friends cannot save souls, because they do not know the origin of evil. When a thief comes into your house at night, do not ring the bell for the policeman--let him do exactly what he likes till you find out where he came in. And if you are a drowning man, and the life-buoy is thrown to you, do not touch it till you know who made it, and what it is made of.
(2) Well, says one, it is very important to know about predestination and free will. Yes, and if you do not do anything good till you understand that, you have plenty of time to wait. Let your servant-maid refuse tomorrow to get up to prepare your meals, and say, My dear sir, I cannot do it, for I cannot make out the doctrine of election. You would say, Mary, I never engaged you for that.
(3) And do not let prophecy lead you astray. There are some who make the coming of Christ an excuse for spending their time in speculation rather than in holy active service for Christ. I dropped in upon a member of my church some time ago, and I saw her upon the steps scrubbing the doorstep. She blushed all manner of colours, and said, Sir, if I had known you were coming you would not have found me like this. I said, But if my Lord was coming to-morrow that is just how I should like Him to find me, at my work. Follow thou me, whatever you have to do tomorrow.
(4) There are certain terrible facts which I pray you never unduly to consider so as to be taken off from the service of Christ--e.g., the condition of lost spirits, of the world and of the Church--and what is to become of it. Now look, if you are in a storm, and are set to pull a rope, if you begin to take the whole state and condition of the ship into consideration, all about the crew, the cargo, the compass, the currents, the winds, and do not pull your rope, I tell you, you would do better to know nothing about these things, and to go to your work. And I believe some of Gods servants need to be talked to about this. You get fretting about the times being so bad. Well, you get and make them better. You were never meant to do everything, and God never constructed you to clean the world up. It went on pretty well before you were born, and it is just possible that it may after you are dead.
(5) And sometimes the way of the Christian is so narrow, so dark, that his only safety lies in the clutching the hand of his great leader, as with trembling he says, Master, the abyss, the darkness, the horror of the way! He says, What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.
(6) Oh God, says a poor soul, my own child, I am afraid he will be lost. The Saviour says in reply, Follow thou Me. Try to win him, bus look not at the dire possibilities, so as to have thy mouth shut and thy tongue silent within thee.
(7) We ought all to weep for Jerusalem, say you. Yes, but even Christ that did it did not do it every day.
3. Do not let us distract ourselves from our work with anything out of the line of practical religion. You remember Careys words about Eustace, his son. Poor Eustace has drivelled into an ambassador. When everybody else thought it high promotion, he thought it degradation for him to turn aside from the one work of the ministry. Now, you who love the Lord, are all called to some form of ministry, Stick to it. Better be poor and serve Christ than to grow rich and give it up.
III. THE REASONS FOR THIS CONCENTRATION OF OUR LIFE. We are to do one thing and not twenty things.
1. We have not any too much power, and if we do not use what we have for the one thing we shall waste strength. When the miller has got only a certain stream let him pour that all over one wheel and he will grind. But let him not divert his water into many meandering streams, or else he will certainly waste his power.
2. It is only by taking one object that you can ever become eminent in it.
3. We have not much time in which to do the little we are going to do; let us pack it tight, get all into it that we can. Dr. Chalmers one night spent a very happy evening with some friends. Among the rest a Gallic chieftain was present, who was much amused with Chalmers anecdotes and stories. They went to bed, and in the middle of the night the chieftain was suddenly taken ill and died; and Chalmers, writing of it afterwards, says, How differently they would have talked if they had been aware of what was about to happpen. Let us live as though we knew that we might this evening finish our life. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Then went this saying abroad among the brethren that that disciple should not die.
The tradition of St. Johns immortality
The earliest recorded tradition respecting St. John had apparently sprung up, not like most of them after the Apostles death, but during his lifetime, and professed to be founded on an express prediction of our Lord that St. John should never die. In this case it was possible to confront the traditionary statement with the historical, and this chapter was added to the Gospel, apparently, to state the true fact that Jesus said not unto him, &c. Whether a misunderstanding of our Lords words was the sole origin of the tradition may be questioned; it is, perhaps, most likely to have been in the first instance occasioned partly by the Apostles great age, and partly by the general expectation that our Lords coming was near. Nor was the opinion without some ground of truth if we consider that the language in which our Lords coming is identified, or at least blended with the images which equally describe the fall of Jerusalem. This last feeling, however, had evidently passed away before the time when the tradition assumed the particular shape specified in the text, and it now therefore took its ground on the supposed saying there referred to. The coming of the Lord was now to them, what it is to us, another expression for the end of all things; the next and natural process consequently was to limit the words to the new view. Yet neither the express caution of the Evangelist, nor the contradiction of the story by his death was sufficient entirely to eradicate it. The story of his being not dead but asleep in his grave at Ephesus was related to Augustine by persons who professed to have witnessed the motion of the dust by the supposed breath of the sleeper, and the notion that he was still living not only became a fixed article of popular belief in the Middle Ages, but has been revived from time to time by later enthusiasts, and is still partially commemorated in the Greek Church in the Feast of the Translation of the Body of St. John. Compare, amongst other instances the well-known story of the apparition of St. John to Edward the Confessor and the Ludlow pilgrims, and again to James IV., at Linlithgow, before the Battle of Flodden, the belief in Prester John in Central Asia, and the ancient legendary representations of the search for the body in the empty tomb. (Dean Stanley.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Joh 21:21 - Joh 21:22.
John
‘THEY ALSO SERVE WHO ONLY STAND AND WAIT’
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Joh 21:21 - Joh 21:22.
We have seen in a former sermon that the charge of the risen Christ to Peter, which immediately precedes these verses, allotted to him service and suffering. The closing words of that charge ‘Follow Me!’ had a deep significance, as uniting both parts of his task in the one supreme command of imitation of his Master.
But the same words had also a simpler meaning, as inviting the Apostle to come apart with Christ at the moment, for some further token of His love or indication of His will. Peter follows; but in following, naturally turns to see what the little group, sitting silent there by the coal fire on the beach, may be doing, and he notices John coming towards them, with intent to join them.
What emboldened John to thrust himself, uncalled for, into so secret an interview? The words in which he is described in the context answer the question. ‘He was the disciple whom Jesus loved, which also leaned on His breast at Supper, and said, Lord! which is he that betrayeth Thee?’ He was also bound by close ties to Peter. So with the familiarity of ‘perfect love which casteth out fear,’ he felt that the Master could have no secrets from him, and no charge to give to his friend which he might not share.
Peter’s swift question, ‘Lord! and what shall this man do?’ though it has been often blamed, does not seem very blameworthy. There was perhaps a little touch of his old vivacity in it, indicating that he had not been sufficiently subdued and sobered by the prospect which Christ had held out to him; but far more than that there was a natural interest in his friend’s fate, and something of a wish to have his company on the path which he was to tread. Christ’s answer, ‘If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me!’ gently rebukes any leaven of evil that there may have been in the question; warns him against trying to force other people into his groove; with solemn emphasis reiterates his own duty; and, in effect, bids him let his brother alone, and see that he himself discharges the ministry which he has received of the Lord.
The enigmatical words of Christ, and the long life of the Apostle, which seemed to explain them, naturally bred an interpretation of them in the Early Church which is recorded here, as I believe, by the Evangelist himself, to the effect that John, like another Enoch at the beginning of a new world, was to escape the common lot. And very beautiful is the quiet way in which the Evangelist put that error on one side, by the simple repetition of his Master’s words, emphasising their hypothetical form and their enigmatical character: ‘Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?’
Now all this, I think, is full of lessons. Let me try to draw one or two of them briefly now.
I. First, then, we have in that majestic ‘If I will!’ the revelation of the risen Christ as the Lord of life and death.
In His charge to Peter, Christ had asserted His right absolutely to control His servant’s conduct and fix his place in the world, and His power to foresee and forecast his destiny and his end. But in these words He goes a step further. ‘I will that he tarry’; to communicate life and to sustain life is a divine prerogative; to act by the bare utterance of His will upon physical nature is a divine prerogative. Jesus Christ here claims that His will goes out with sovereign power amongst the perplexities of human history and into the depths of that mystery of life; and that He, the Son of Man, ‘quickens whom He will,’ and has power ‘to kill and to make alive.’ The words would be absurd, if not something worse, upon any but divine lips, that opened with conscious authority, and whose Utterer knew that His hand was laid upon the innermost springs of being.
So, in this entirely incidental fashion, you have one of the strongest and plainest instances of the quiet, unostentatious and habitual manner in which Jesus Christ claimed for Himself properly divine prerogatives.
Remember that He who thus spoke was standing before these seven men there, in the morning light, on the beach, fresh from the grave. His resurrection had proved Him to be the Lord of death. He had bound it to His chariot-wheels as a Conqueror. He had risen and He stood there before them with no more mark of the corruption of the grave upon Him than there are traces of the foul water in which a sea bird may have floated, on its white wing that flashes in the sunshine as it soars. And surely as these men looked to Christ, ‘declared to be the Son of God with power, by His resurrection from the dead, ‘they may have begun, however ‘foolish and slow of heart’ they were ‘to believe,’ to understand that ‘to this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that He might be the Lord both of the dead and of the living,’ both of death and of life.
These two Apostles’ later history was full of proofs that Christ’s claim was valid. Peter is shut up in prison and delivered once, at the very last moment, when hope was almost dead, in order that he might understand that when he was put into another prison and not delivered, the blow of martyrdom fell upon him, not because of the strength of his persecutors, but because of the will of his Lord. And John had to see his brother James, to whom he had been so closely knit, with whom he had pledged himself to drink the cup that Christ drank of, whom he had desired to have associated with himself in the special honours in the Messianic Kingdom-he had to see him slain, first of the Apostles, while he himself lingered here long after all his early associates were gone. He had, no doubt, many a longing to depart. Solitary, surrounded by a new world, pressed by many cares, he must often have felt that the cross which he had to carry was no lighter than that laid on those who had passed to their rest by martyrdom. To him it would often be martyrdom to live. His personal longing is heard for a moment in the last words of the Apocalypse, ‘Amen! even so, come, Lord Jesus!’-but undoubtedly for the most part he stayed his heart on his Lord’s will, and waited in meek patience till he heard the welcome announcement, ‘The Master is come and calleth for thee.’
And, dear friends! that same belief that the risen Christ is the Lord of life and death, is the only one that can stay our hearts, or make us bow with submission to His divine will. He who has conquered death by undergoing it is death’s Lord as well as ours, and when He wills to bring His friends home to Himself, saith to that black-robed servant, ‘Go, and he goeth; do this and he doeth it.’ The vision which John saw long after this on another shore, washed by a stormier sea, spoke the same truth as does this majestic ‘I will’-’He that liveth and became dead and is alive for evermore,’ is by virtue of His divine eternal life, and has become in His humanity by virtue of His death and resurrection the Lord of life and death. The hands that were nailed to the Cross turn the keys of death and Hades. ‘He openeth and no man shutteth; He shutteth and no man openeth.’
II. We have here before us, in this incident, the service of patient waiting.
‘If I will that he tarry, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me.’ Peter is the man of action, not great at reflection; full of impulse, restless until his hands can do something to express his thoughts and his emotions. On the very Mount of Transfiguration he wanted to set to work and build ‘three tabernacles,’ instead of listening awed to the divine colloquy. In Galilee he cannot wait quietly for his Master to come, but must propose to his friends to ‘go a fishing.’ In the fishing-boat, as soon as he sees the Lord he must struggle through the sea to get at Him; whilst John sits quiet in the boat, blessed in the consciousness of his Master’s presence and in silently gazing at Him verily there. All through the first part of the Acts of the Apostles his bold energy goes flashing and flaming. It is always his voice that rings out in the front, whether preaching on the Pentecost Day, bringing healing to the sick, or fronting the Sanhedrim. His element is in the shock of conflict and the strain of work.
John, on the other hand, seldom appears in the narrative. When he does so he stands a silent figure by the side of Peter, and disappears from it altogether before very long. We do not hear that he did anything. He seems to have had no part in the missionary work of the Church.
He ‘tarried,’ that was all. The word is the same-’abide’-which is so often upon his lips in his Gospel and in his Epistles, as expressive of the innermost experience of the Christian soul, the condition of all fruitfulness, blessedness, knowledge and Christ-likeness. Christ’s charge to John to ‘tarry’ did not only, as his brethren misinterpreted it, mean that his life was to be continued, but it prescribed the manner of his life. It was to be patient contemplation, a ‘dwelling in the house of the Lord,’ a keeping of his heart still, like some little tarn up amongst the silent hills, for heaven with all its blue to mirror itself in.
And that quiet life of contemplation bore its fruit. In his meditation the deeds and words of his Master slowly grew ever more and more luminous to him. Deeper meanings came out, revealing new constellations, as he gazed into that opening heaven of memory. He reaped ‘the harvest of a quiet eye’ and garnered the sheaves of it in his Gospel, the holy of holies of the New Testament; and in his Epistles, in which he proclaims the first and last word of revelation, ‘God is love’-the pure diamond that hangs at the end of the golden chain let down from Heaven. Often, no doubt, his brethren thought him ‘but an idler in the land,’ but at last his ‘tarrying’ was vindicated.
Now, dear brethren! in all times of the world’s history that form of Christian service needs to be pressed upon busy people. And there never was a time in the world’s history, or in the Church’s history, when it more needed to be pressed upon the ordinary Christian man than at this day. The good and the bad of our present Christianity, and of our present social life, conspire to make people think that those who are not at work in some external form of Christian service for the good of their fellows are necessarily idlers. Many of them are so, but by no means all, and there is always the danger that the external work which good, earnest people do shall become greater than can be wholesomely and safely done by them without their constant recourse to this solitary meditation, and to tarrying before God.
The stress and bustle of our everyday life; the feverish desire for immediate results; the awakened conviction that Christianity is nothing if not practical; the new sense of responsibility for the condition of our fellows; the large increase of all sorts of domestic, evangelistic, and missionary work among all churches in this day-things to be profoundly thankful for, like all other good things have their possible dangers; and it is laid on my heart to warn you of these now. For the sake of our own personal hold on Jesus Christ, for the sake of our progress in the knowledge of His truth, and for the sake of the very work which some of us count so precious, there is need that we shall betake ourselves to that still communion. The stream that is to water half a continent must rise high in the lonely hills, and be fed by many a mountain rill in the solitude, and the men who are to keep the freshness of their Christian zeal, and of the consecration which they will ever feel is being worn away by the attrition even of faithful service, can only renew and refresh it by resorting again to the Master, and imitating Him who prepared Himself for a day of teaching in the Temple by a night of communion on the Mount of Olives.
Further, there is here a lesson of tolerance for us all. Practical men are always disposed, as I said, to force everybody else into their groove. Martha is always disposed to think that Mary is idle when she is ‘sitting at Christ’s feet,’ and wants to have her come into the kitchen and help her there. The eye which sees must not say to the hand which toils, nor the hand to the eye, ‘I have no need of thee.’ There are men who cannot think much; there are men who cannot work much. There are men whom God has chosen for diligent external service; there are men whom God has chosen for solitary retired musing; and we cannot dispense with either the one or the other. Did not John Bunyan do more for the world when he was shut up in Bedford Gaol and dreamed his dream than by all his tramping about Bedfordshire, preaching to a handful of cottagers? And has not the Christian literature of the prison, which includes three at least of Paul’s Epistles, proved of the greatest service and most precious value to the Church?
We need all to listen to the voice which says, ‘Come ye apart by yourselves into a solitary place, and rest awhile.’ Work is good, but the foundation of work is better. Activity is good, but the life which is the basis of activity is even more. There is plenty of so-called Christian work to-day which I fear me is not life but mechanism; has slipped off its original foundations, and is, therefore, powerless. Let us tolerate the forms of service least like our own, not seek to force other men into our paths nor seek to imitate them. Let Peter flame in the van, and beard high priests, and stir and fight; and let John sit in his quiet horns, caring for his Lord’s mother, and holding fellowship with his Lord’s Spirit.
III. Lastly, we have here the lesson of patient acquiescence in Christ’s undisclosed will.
The error into which the brethren of the Apostle fell as to the meaning of the Lord’s words was a very natural one, especially when taken with the commentary which John’s unusually protracted life seemed to append to it. We know that that belief lingered long after the death of the Apostle; and that legends, like the stories that are found in many nations of heroes that have disappeared, but are sleeping in some mountain recess, clustered round John’s grave; over which the earth was for many a century believed to heave and fall with his gentle breathing.
John did not know exactly what his Master meant. He would not venture upon a counter-interpretation. Perhaps his brethren were right, he does not know; perhaps they were wrong, he does not know. One thing he is quite sure of, that what his Master said was: ‘If I will that he tarry.’ And he acquiesces quietly in the certainty that it shall be as his Master wills; and, in the uncertainty what that will is, he says in effect: ‘I do not know, and it does not much matter. If I am to go to find Him, well! If He is to come to find me, well again! Whichever way it be, I know that the patient tarrying here will lead to a closer communion hereafter, and so I leave it all in His hands.’
Dear brethren! that is a blessed state that you and I may come to; a state of quiet submission, not of indifference but of acquiescence in the undisclosed will of our loving Christ about all matters, and about this alternative of life or death amongst the rest. The soul that has had communion with Jesus Christ amidst the imperfections here will be able to refer all the mysteries and problems of its future to Him with unshaken confidence. For union with Him carries with it the assurance of its own perpetuity, and ‘in its sweetness yieldeth proof that it was born for immortality.’ The Psalmist learned to say, ‘Thou shalt afterward receive me to glory,’ because he could say, ‘I am continually with Thee.’ And in like manner we may all rise from the experience of the present to confidence in that immortal future. Death with his ‘abhorred shears’ cuts other close ties, but their edge turns on the knot that binds the soul to its Saviour. He who has felt the power of communion with the ever-living Christ cannot but feel that such union must be for ever, and that because Christ lives, and as long as Christ lives, he will live also.
Therefore, to the soul thus abiding in Christ that alternative of life or death which looms so large to us when we have not Christ with us, will dwindle down into very small dimensions. If I live there will be work for me to do here, and His love to possess; if I die there will be work for me to do there too, and His love to possess in still more abundant measure. So it will not be difficult for such a soul to leave the decision of this as of all other things with the Lord of life and death, and to lie acquiescent in His gracious hands. That calm acceptance of His will and patience with Christ’s ‘If’ is the reward of tarrying in silent communion with Him.
My dear friend! has death to you dwindled to a very little thing? Can you say that you are quite sure that it will not touch your truest self? Are you able to leave the alternative in His hands, content with His decision and content with the uncertainty that wraps His decision? Can you say,
‘Lord! It belongs not to my care,
Whether I die or live’?
The answer to these questions is involved in the answer to the other:-Have you trusted your sinful soul for salvation to Jesus Christ, and are you drawing from Him a life which bears fruit in glad service and in patient communion? Then it will not much matter whether you are in heaven or on earth, for in both places and states the essence of your life will be the same, your Companion one, and your work identical. If it be ‘Christ’ for me to live it will be ‘gain’ for me to die.
END OF VOL. III.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.