The Story

The disciples were just finishing their meal when we left them last week. Can you tell where they were? And when it was? And who they were who had their meal together? And what it was they had to eat?

We will read the rest of the chapter from verse 15. The Lord asked Peter three times: "Lovest thou Me?" Peter twice answered very earnestly: "Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee," and then with still greater feeling, "Lord Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee"; and the Lord said, "Feed My lambs. Feed My sheep." The Lord also spoke loving words to John. Both Peter and John, as long as they lived, and John lived to be very old, must have remembered the Lord's coming to them on the shore and what He said to them.

After they had finished eating the Lord spoke to Simon Peter and asked him if he loved Him more than these, probably meaning more than the other disciples loved Him.. Three times He asked Peter if he loved Him, and when he answered earnestly, the Lord three times charged him to feed His lambs or His sheep. As you read the three earnest professions of love, you remember how once Peter had three times denied Him.

The Lord then said, "Follow Me," and John followed, apparently knowing that the call was to him. The Lord then spoke words of prophecy about John, which no one understood, not even John himself. "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?"

The words to Peter and John look forward to their faithful service in the church. You will be interested to read in the Bible Dictionary, or some other good authority, what is known of the later life of these two apostles. Peter was a leader among those who preached the new Christian faith, laboring in and about Jerusalem, afterwards in Antioch and neighboring towns of Syria, and finally at Rome. John labored at first with the apostles at Jerusalem, and afterwards became leader of the church in Ephesus in Asia Minor. The beloved disciple lived to be very old, outliving his fellow-disciples, and the saying went abroad that he should not die. It seems to be one purpose of this last chapter, a sort of postscript to the Gospel, to tell exactly what the Lord did say: "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" The last verse of the chapter is a way of saying that the Lord's life was Divine and contained more than could possibly be told or written.

1. At the meeting on the shore of Galilee, what question did the Lord ask Peter? How many times?

2. What charge did He give to Peter?

3. What did the Lord say that gave rise to the belief that John should not die? Exactly what were His words?

Spiritual Study

A deeper meaning opens to us in the Lord's words to Peter and John, and in the predictions concerning them, when we remember that each of the apostles stands for some element of character in the church and in every Christian. Peter, with his confession, "Thou art the Christ," stands for a firm faith in the Lord. His name "Peter" means a rock, the type of eternal truth. But truth is useful only when it is obeyed and so becomes the guide and protector of good life. Verses 15-17 teach this lesson. The Lord did not use the name "Peter," but "Simon, son of Jonas" Simon and Simeon are from a word meaning "hearing and obedience." Jonas and Jonah mean "a dove." When the Lord addressed Peter by this name, it meant that He was about to speak of faith as it is obeyed and joined with innocence. This is still more plain from the question three times repeated, "Lovest thou Me?" and from the charge to feed the Lord's lambs and sheep. The question is asked three times to show that the examination of faith must be thorough on every plane and degree of life; to be sure that faith everywhere and always is joined with goodness. The lambs are types of innocence; the sheep are types of charity, both that which is from love and that which is from knowledge of what is good. (A. 10087; E. 820)

The saying to Peter, "When thou wast young, but when thou shalt be old," applies also to faith in the Christian Church. With the apostles and in the early days of the church faith was free and strong, but by and by it would be perverted until it was almost destroyed. But a new and stronger faith would follow.

Afterwards the Lord spoke of John, and he represents the tender love for the Lord which proves itself in devoted life. "If I will that he tarry till I come," meant that something of that love for the Lord which John represented would endure through times of little faith, until the Lord should give again new life to the church.

The Lord's words to Peter and John were more than a prediction in regard to their personal service in the church. They were a prediction in regard to the faith and love which Peter and John represented. Faith had a beautiful beginning, but it would suffer violence in the intellectual dissensions of the church. The love and charity represented by John would in some form endure until the time when the Lord would be more fully and truly known. Even John did not undertake to say what the Lord meant by His words, "If I will that he tarry till I come," but we can now see in them this larger prediction for the church. Remember how the Lord had already committed the mother Mary, who represents the church, to the keeping of the apostle John. Compare also the saying in Matthew 16:28, "There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom." Such words were spoken of the elements of Christian character which the apostles represented. (E. 8, 821)

The last verse of the chapter bears witness to the infinity of the Lord's life and works. The days and years of His life with men were full of works of mercy and service. Mark says of one day that "there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat." (6:31) And in the same chapter (verses 54-56) he tells how the people ran through the whole region, carrying the sick in beds, and laying them in the streets for healing. Peter told the story of the Lord's life in the sentence, He "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil." (Acts 10:38) Still it could not have been merely the number of the Lord's works, which impressed the disciples, but the sense of unlimited power in what He did, of exhaustless wisdom in His words. Remember the testimony of the woman at Jacob's well: "He told me all that ever I did." (John 4:29, 39) How true it was that the world could not and did not contain the things that Jesus did. They all were works which reached in their power and effect to all heavens and beyond all heavens, for they were Divine.

Review

Let me turn over the chapters that we have studied and read you a sentence here and there, and see if you can tell me where the sentence comes in the story; who spoke the words; when they were spoken; who heard them. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Who said this? Of whom was he speaking? "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." To whom was this said? When and where? Who said it? "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work." You know who said it, but who knows when it was, and where? "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." Who was it who had been lying helpless a long time, and who heard these words and was made whole on a Sabbath day? "Make the men sit down." Who said it? How many men? What were they seated for? "I go not up yet unto the feast; for My time is not yet full come." What feast? Where was it kept and when? To whom was this said? "One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see." Who said it? How had his eyes been opened? "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." What beautiful lesson is this a part of? "I am the resurrection, and the life." Who said it? To whom was it said? What had happened? And what was about to happen? "The poor always ye have with you; but Me ye have not always." When was this said, and why? "I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you." What was the example? Where were the Lord and the disciples at the time? "In My Father's house are many mansions." Who was speaking these words of comfort? When was it? What was the need of comfort? "Without Me ye can do nothing." Without the Lord what are we like? "What is truth?" Who asked the question? "Woman, why weepest thou?" Who was the woman? Who asked it? I hear two answers. Who asked it first? Who afterwards? What other question the second time? "My Lord and my God." Who said it? When? "Lovest thou Me?" Who asked it? To whom was He speaking? Was the question asked once? twice? How many times?

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