Day 21, John 21

Blogger: Aaron Martin

Chapter 20 ends with the words, “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you might have life through His name.” This is the logical summation of a written work. But chapter 21 follows, so chapter 21 appears to be a post script to a first draft. The writer was compelled to record yet one more event.
The dramatic restoration of Peter, along with Jesus’ great charge to him to pastor his flock, really could not have gone unrecorded. How much forgiveness is taught in this chapter? The Lord had been denied, not once, not twice, but three times by this man whom he had declared the rock upon which his church would be built! Even when Jesus was facing crucifixion, Peter would not come to his aid—not even so much as to acknowledge that he knew the man.
Now Jesus extends forgiveness to Peter. But it is not without cost—cost to Peter’s pride. Jesus demands three times from this man if he truly loves him. Three times—the same number of times that Peter denied him. It must have been painful to hear this conversation, knowing the background, much less to be Peter on the receiving end of this rebuke!

But we have here a picture of what Jesus will do for us. We must submit ourselves in repentance before the Lord if we hope to have his blessing upon us and upon any ministry for him. With an abasement of self comes the rise to glory. Peter, of course, went on to become the greatest church leader in the apostolic era. And while there was no concept of an authoritarian papacy in those days (see e.g., Acts 15:4-31), Peter might be rightly viewed as the first among equals. He indeed had been personally commissioned by Jesus to oversee the sheep that Jesus left behind. (The symbolism of the great catch of fish cannot be overlooked—Jesus had told his disciples that they would become fishers of men. No animal fish were caught in this story until the disciples followed the Lord’s instruction to cast their net in the right direction. A lesson to us: do evangelism God’s way and not our way.)

Thus we come to the exasperated summation of the writer/editor of this gospel (see verse 24 for a clue that an amanuensis—writer/helper—may have taken dictation from John): “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” It is as though he says, “I’ve given it my best shot. I’ve described all I can. I could go on writing forever, but at some point this book has to be closed. I tried to end at chapter 20, but I had to go on. But this is it folks. Take what you can learn from the rest of this book and go do God’s work.”

Even so, Amen.

Study Notes:
Nathanael – of Cana – in Galilee – he reappears! After Jesus revealed himself to this man in chapter one, the gospel writer was largely quiet on what had happened to the one in whom there was “no guile” (Jn. 1:47). Now he is back for the post script to this amazing book that amplifies the life of the Christ in ways that we could not possibly gather from the “Synoptics” (Matthew, Mark and Luke – so called because they relate the life of Jesus largely from the same perspective.). So Nathanael was a faithful servant. He was there at the first call of the disciples by the sea and he was there at the amazing post-resurrection reunion by the sea.