John 21: The Epilogue

I know this is going to sound a lot like the conclusion to the last chapter, but it really is the best way to transition the chapters. By the time the reader gets to the end of chapter 20, at John 20:31, it would seem as if the book of John has come to its end. Everything has finished fully and completely. Jesus finished His ministry, died to pay for the sins of the world, and then rose again 3 days late to defeat sin, evil and death. Many witnesses saw and heard Jesus, coming to faith in Him. There are no loose ends, plot holes or cliff hangers. John has both inductively and deductively brought the reader to the conclusion that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. He even states in the last verse of John 20. You almost even want to put a big “THE END” at the end of the chapter to give it that complete fulfillment feeling. But that’s not the end. John has one more story to give the reader. After going through the story, hopefully we’ll be able to see why John included with that chapter.

Before we go into the story itself, let’s go into a little textual criticism. I’m not the only one who thinks that John 20 ends well. A lot of scholars believe it’s a good ending for the chapter. But some scholars say it ends too well. They believe that was the intended ending, and John 21 was attached to the book later. This isn’t the first time we’ve encountered that problem. We encountered with the first 11 verses of John 8. If you read my overview of the whole book of Mark, the same problem was encountered with the last chapter. Sometimes these accusations come up because the text doesn’t seem to fit. But most of the time, the reason the accusations come up is because the earliest manuscripts of the book do not have the section, or the ancient witnesses do not attest to it (that pretty much means the 2nd and 3rd century church fathers do not quote it). This is not true for John 21. All the manuscripts, even the earliest manuscripts, have John 21 in it. There have been writings from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd century that have quoted this story. So both the manuscripts and ancient witnesses support this story. On top of that, it has the same writing style as all the other 20 chapters of John. There is enough proof to say John wrote this chapter and fully intended it to be the last chapter of his Gospel.

Let’s set the scene. The book opens with the Greek words Meta tauta, which, when literally translated, is “after these things,” but dynamically translated “afterwards.” There is no clear time frame on how much time as past since Jesus appeared the 11 disciples, including Thomas, on that second Sunday. But I believe a good amount of time has passed, and I’ll explain that later. The location is a beach on the Sea of Tiberias, or as we know it better, the Sea of Galilee. Our list of characters are Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, John, James, and 2 other disciples. The book of John does not mention who these two disciples were, but if I had to take a guess, it would be Andrew and Philip. Why? Well, Andrew would could simply say that it would make sense he stayed with his brother Peter. But I think there’s a bigger picture to look at. The technical term is chiasmus, but it has also been called mirror imaging and reflective parallelism. In a chiasmus, a story ends in a reflective or opposite way, kind of like a mirror reflects the opposite of what you actually see. If this is true, I see John 21 as a chiasmus to John 1. John 21 is going to parallel John 1. We already see it in the setting. John 1 takes place in Galilee, and John 21 takes place in Galilee. In John 1, Jesus called 5 disciples: John, James, Andrew, Simon Peter and Philip. All 5 of those disciples are there (if you go along with my assumption the other 2 are Andrew and Philip). If John 1 was the calling of the disciples, this is the “re-calling” of the disciples. Some Bible translations even call the second half of John 21 “The Reinstating of Peter.” I also believe that is why Thomas is there, too. Thomas doubted that the Lord Jesus was alive. He needs continual proof and forgiveness to get him back on track. Also, notice Nathanael is there. Yes, this is the same Nathanael as in John 1, once more, showing the chiasmus. Although it can’t be found in the Bible, I believe that Nathanael must have been one of the greater crowd of followers. After all, he’s still hanging around with the disciples. So the setting has 6 disciples and 1 follower at the Sea of Tiberius at an unknown time.

While we don’t know the time frame exactly, I do believe that a good amount of time has passed. Why? Just look at the disciples’ situation. They went back to their hometown in Galilee, and they went back to their old occupations of being fishermen (I do believe those 6 disciples were all fishermen). Enough time went by since the last resurrection appearance, they must have said to one another, “Well those years following Jesus around on His ministry was a fun learning experience. And I’m glad we got to see he survived that whole crucifixion thing. But he’s probably moving on to bigger and greater things. So we better stop slacking off and get back to our homes, our families and our jobs.” That must have been what they thought because that’s what they did. But still, after reading the first 3 verses of John 21, I almost feel like the men are still daydreaming about that life, because to me, they seem bored to death. They have nothing better to do with their lives but to fish. Oh how they should have remembered what Jesus taught them. Luckily, Jesus is there to remind them.

Out of boredom, Peter decides to pass the time by fishing. The other disciples, and Nathanael, with nothing better to do, decide to join Peter out on the boat fishing. They sit there all morning (and possibly the night before) and they catch nothing. In the morning, Jesus appears out of nowhere. At first, they do not recognize Jesus. Perhaps they thought Jesus was just another fisherman. Maybe it was just an issue of bad lighting or he was too far away. Or, as we kind of understand from other resurrection accounts, it’s possible the disciples still had problems recognizing Jesus in His resurrected form. Jesus calls out to the men on the boat, “Friends, do you have any fish. The NIV chooses to use the word “Friends,” but a more literal translation of the Greek word is more like “children” or “little ones.” It is suggested Jesus is using a term here to show the close love between and teacher and his followers. I can imagine all the disciples giving each other a stupid look, and then pulling a Bill Engvall “Here’s your sign” moment, like, “No, Jesus, we thought we would just hang our nets over into the sea to give them a good washing. Here’s your sign!”

Jesus then instructs the disciples to throw their nets on the other side. Now it doesn’t matter if you are a career fisherman who goes out on a big ship and catches fish with a large net, or if you are a fisherman by hobby who goes out on a small fishing boat and catches fish with a fishing pole. Either way, you know it’s not going to make a big difference what side you are fishing on. Those disciples on the boat were professional fisherman, and they knew with both their “book smarts” and their “street smarts” (or should I say “sea smarts”) that it didn’t matter either way. But they decide to throw their nets on the other side anyway. I don’t know if they did it as an act of faith, or if it was just a “why not?” move. The Bible doesn’t explain. It’s a good thing they did, for when they did, they got fish, a lot of them! 153 to be exact (please don’t try to give it an allegorical meaning; it’s a detail in a historical fact, that’s all). And these weren’t small, measly fish. These 153 fish were so large and heavy that the men could not bring the nets up into the boat. What a miracle!

Indeed, it was a miracle. Once again, I apologize for not being more specific when I said there was only 7 miracles. There were only 7 miracles during Christ’s ministry. If we count Christ’s own resurrection as a miracle (and a lot of people do) and we were to count this large catching of fish as a miracle, this is the 9th miracle. It is another miracle where Jesus shows his authority over nature. It clearly reveals Jesus to be the Son of God, for only God could manipulate nature like that. Indeed, it was enough proof for John. When John realizes this is a miracle, he knows the only man to have miraculous power like that is the Lord. So with a cheerful cry, John explains, “It’s the Lord!” Everyone is excited to see Jesus again, especially Peter. Peter is so excited that he jumps from the boat and swims a hundred yards to see Jesus. The rest of the men follow behind in the boat, going slowly because of all the fish.

When Peter and the rest of the men reach shore, they see Jesus has prepared a fire and some bread. Jesus asks for some fish to cook so they can have breakfast together. John 21:12-14 paints a beautiful picture of fellowship between friends. Over a breakfast meal, the disciples and Nathanael enjoy eating and chatting it up with their Lord and friend Jesus. There was no need to question who the man was or to question Jesus about any teaching. With absolute certainty, they were assured they were eating with Jesus, and this allowed them to eat in peaceful, friendly fellowship with their God. John records this as Christ’s third appearance after dying on the cross (at least recorded in the book of John).

Before we move onto the second half, I want to throw in an application piece here. I drew up the picture painted in John 21:12-14 because I want it to teach a lesson on fellowship with God. I think a lot of Christians think that appearing in the presence of God is one of solemn and reverent worship. When they worship God in His presence, they are to be bowed down, softly speaking in fear, as God talks to them in a monotone and boring voice. Or maybe Christians picture it like a traditional church worship, where we orderly sing hymns, chant liturgy and pray, and then quietly leave. I do believe that there is time and place for that. It shows our reverence and admiration for a holy God, who is willing to extend his love to a sinner. But I also believe that if we do that too much, we lose that picture of Jesus as our brother and our friend. I truly believe there are sometimes that Jesus just wants to sit down with us and be our friend. Sometimes Jesus wants to go on a walk with us and have a good conversation. Say, that’s a perfect segway into the second half of John…

Even though this isn’t written down in John, I think what Jesus said to Peter after breakfast was, “Hey, Peter, let’s go for a walk and talk.” Peter answers, “Um, sure Lord. Where are we going?” Jesus answers, “Oh, just around the sea.” Peter replies, “Yeah, sure, Lord, let’s go.” And the two get up and begin walking. Now John knows what’s going on. Remember, John was 1 of the 3 disciples who Jesus pulled aside for special events, such as special miracles and special teachings. So when John sees Jesus pull Peter aside, he can’t help but wonder what’s going on and what Jesus might be telling Him. So he follows close behind to eavesdrop. I know this won’t make sense as of now, but this will make more sense as of verse 20.

As Jesus and Peter are on their walk, Jesus asks Peter 3 times, “Do you love me?” Each time, Jesus starts with the phrase, “Simon, son of John…” Remember back in Bible times, especially among the Jewish custom, your last name was “Ben-[Father’s name]” or “Bar-[Father’s name],” “Ben” and “Bar” both being suffixes for “Son.” In short, your last name was pretty much. “Son of [Father’s name].” Remember when you were a kid, and you really knew you were in trouble when your parents called you by your full name? I think that’s what Jesus is doing here. Jesus is trying to get Peter’s attention and draw him to the seriousness of the conversation.

In between the 10 verse of John 21:15-25, Jesus asks 3 times if Peter loves him, and Peter 3 replies 3 times that he does love him. In English, this looks like a perfect parallel, but not so in the Greek. The Ancient Greek language had 3-4 words for love. In this passage, Jesus uses two of them. The first and second time, Jesus uses the Greek word agape. The third time, Jesus uses the Greek word phileo. All 3 times Peter uses the word phileo. Some scholars have tried to argue there is theological significance in the choosing of the different words for love, but other scholars have simply dismissed it by saying in this context they are synonyms. I would have to agree with the other scholars. To understand, I will have to state the difference between the two words. The Greek word agape is most of the time meant to mean a love that unconditional, sacrificial, and devoted, as between a God and his worshipper. The Greek word phileo is love that is emotional drive and is just as conditional as it is unconditional, like the love between brothers or other family members. If there was a deep significance in the difference, it would seem as if Peter was dodging the question by offering a weaker answer. It would be like Peter saying, “Well, Lord, I don’t love that much, but I do love you.” If you look at the way Jesus responds, I don’t think Jesus took it that way. If Jesus did take it that way, He would be the one getting more upset every time Peter replied with his answer, not vice versa. On that note, if there was a difference, it would not Jesus who would go from agape to phileo, but rather Peter. Jesus would keep asking Peter “Do you love [agape] me?” until Peter stopped saying “I love [phileo] you” and started saying “I love [agape] you.” Instead, the opposite happens. So I must conclude that there is no difference, but they are all synonyms.

On the same note, do not try to make any specific theological differences between “sheep” and “lambs.” Although they are two different Greek words, they are to be treated like synonyms. Also, do not try to make any specific theological differences between “feed” and “take care” of my sheep. They too are synonyms. In fact, the Greek word that the NIV translates into “take care” is a verb form of the noun “pasture.” Why does a shepherd take his sheep out to pasture? The number one reason is to give it fresh grass to eat, which is feeding it.

But all my ranting about making the differences in language a difference in theology should not make you think there is some good exegesis we can pull out of this passage. First of all, what does Jesus mean by “these” when he says to Peter “Do you love me more than these?” I think “These” incorporates his occupation of fishing, his friendship with the other disciples, his family, his hometown, and everything that use to be dear to Peter. Once Jesus went out of Peter’s presence, Peter went back to his old life. Jesus wanted to know if Peter loved his old life better or if he loved the life Jesus gave him better. For if Peter loved his old life better, he wasn’t really fit to become the church leader Jesus wanted him to be. It’s a good thing Peter said he loved Jesus more! Indeed, Jesus did need Peter to love him more than family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, his home and his job for the mission He was to call Peter into (see Luke 14:25-27).

While I am not one for trying to distinguish theological differences between synonyms, and I am usually oppose unnecessary numerology (trying to find allegorical significance of numbers) in the Bible, I do believe there is a significance in why Jesus asked Peter 3 times if Peter loved Him. It does have to do with how many times Peter denied Jesus. If you remember correctly, I proposed in John 13 that a possible reason Peter denied Jesus 3 times was because Peter said 3 times that he would stick up for Jesus. Now in a bigger picture, the 3s are bunched up to make a bigger 3. Peter first says he will stick up for Jesus 3 times, then Peter denies him 3 times, so Peter has to confess his love 3 times. It’s like Jesus is saying, “Just making sure you love me, Peter. Because last time I checked, you pretended like you didn’t even know me.”

Like I said, Jesus really needed to know Peter loved him, and the prophecy about Peter in John 21:18 explains it. If I may take I guess at what the Bible doesn’t have written down, I think Jesus said something to Peter along of the lines of, “Peter, I just really needed to know that you love me. Because, Peter, you will face the same persecution I faced. You too will be falsely accused and falsely condemned. You too will be thrown into prison. You too will be persecuted and tortured, and you too will be martyred for your beliefs. And when you go through all this, I can’t have you doubting me, I can’t have you denying me, I can’t have you disowning me, and I can’t have you recanting. For I want you to be the leader of the church. If you’re the leader, they are going to look up to you, as they look up to me now. And when they look up to you, they need to see Me. I need you evangelize to the non-believers and disciples the believers at any cost, and the only way to do that is to love Me and My will for you more than anything in the world. Can you do that for Me?”

That’s just my paraphrasing. If we were to look at the text, Jesus prophecies Peter’s fate by using an analogy between a young man and an old man. A young man is independent enough to dress himself and go wherever he wants, but an old man is dependant on everyone for everything, from getting dressed to moving about. Jesus predicts that Peter in the near future will still have his independence to go and preach wherever the Holy Spirit leads him. But in the distant future, Peter will be arrested, and an arrested man is dragged to where his captors want him to go. Ultimiately, this prophecy talks about his death of crucifixion, where the crucified person’s hands were stretched across the beam. Early church tradition states that Peter was arrested in 64 A.D. and later crucified within the same year. In one way, we can see Peter’s death glorifying Jesus by dying by the exact same method. In another way, Peter’s death glorifying Jesus because, like Jesus, He was willing to die for the exact same gospel message his Lord died for.

Jesus closes this section in John 21:19 by giving the command, “Follow me!” Once again, we see another parallel back to John 1, as this book began with Jesus calling disciples, including Peter, to follow him (John 1:43, cf. Matthew 4:18-20 & Mark 1:16-18). The NIV calls this section “Jesus Reinstates Peter.” In one sense, we can see Christ’s command to Peter to follow him as making him a disciple again. If Peter legitimately recanted being a disciple by disowning Jesus, he needed to be made a disciple again. In another sense, maybe Christ’s command for Peter to follow him was a greater calling than when Jesus first called Peter to follow Him. The first time, Jesus called Peter to be His disciple, His student. Now Jesus was calling Peter to a greater mission. Peter was now called to be His apostle, His messenger of the good news and a leader to His believers. Either way, Peter is being called to stick with Jesus, even when Jesus is not present with Him.

By this time on their walk, Jesus and Peter know John is following close behind. While Jesus is giving prophecies about the future, Peter might as well ask about John. I don’t see this as Peter being nosy into the life of other people. Think all the way back to my introduction on John. In my introduction, I talked a little about the character of John, who he was. Remember that I said it’s possible that John’s father Zebedee and Simon Peter’s father John were partners in fishing, so it’s possible that Peter and John were co-workers all their adult life, and maybe even childhood friends. During the ministry of Jesus, Peter and John were 2 of the inner 3 disciples, so they had unique bonding time with Jesus. Even after this book, John is always seen with Peter in Acts. When you put all this evidence together, I really think Peter and John were best friends. Being best friends, naturally Peter wants to know what happens to his best friend.

Before we get into what Jesus didn’t mean, let’s talk about what Jesus did mean. I think it would be helpful to put another paraphrase of mine. Pretty much, Jesus said, “Don’t worry about it. Don’t focus on what’s going to happen to him or my relationship with him. You need to focus on your relationship with me and what I called you do. Focus on that.” There’s some good application there. Too often Christians will meddle into other people’s spiritual life before they take care of their own. They will call out other people’s sins before confessing or repenting of their own sins. They will try to spiritually discipline someone while their spiritual walk is far from disciplined. They compare and contrast their spiritual life with others, only to come out feeling that they are better than everyone else. The worse part is when they think they are in the right to do so, even calling it accountability! The problem is they end up doing what Jesus warned us no to do: we try to take the speck out of someone else’s eye before taking the plank out of our own eye! Now Jesus doesn’t say to leave the speck in their eye and leave the plank in our own eye, but simply that we should make sure we remove our own plank first before removing the speck. Before we meddle into other spiritual lives, we need to straighten out our own lives.

Now onto what Jesus didn’t mean. Apparently the witnesses who heard this took the words “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?” to mean that John was going to live until Jesus came again (and I can see that mistake even being made in the modern era, if it wasn’t for the following verses). The thought Jesus was saying, “He will remain alive until I return.” John clearly understands Jesus to mean, “Even if I suggest something as crazy as him living on earth until I return, that shouldn’t affect you.” Context also helps the misunderstanding. First of all, a lot of 1st century Christians, including the Twelve Apostles (especially them) really thought that Christ’s second return would happen within their lifetime. So at first, this idea wasn’t too far-fetched. This idea meant Jesus was coming back in half a century, and all 12 of the Apostles would escape martyrdom until Christ’s return. The idea was quickly shot down by the time John wrote his Gospel. If John truly wrote the book of John either in the late 80s or early 90s AD, most of the Twelve Apostles have died martyred deaths. It’s even possible John is the only original Apostle still alive. Yet some of the 1st century Christians are holding on to this idea that Jesus was returning soon. Why? They remembered the words Jesus spoke to Peter in John 21:22. John was still alive. He was even dodging persecution pretty when. When tried for his faith, he was not martyred, but exiled to the island of Patmos. Even then, John finished his sentence and left the island. He was still alive. So some Christians still thought Jesus was coming very soon because Jesus promised that John would not die. John quickly kills the rumor and gets everything straightened out. Indeed, tradition states John simply died of old age.

The real, true last 2 verses of the book do not parallel any passage in John 1, but I do kind of see them parallel the last 2 verses of the previous chapter, John 20. Let’s put them both up.

John 20:30–31-
30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 21:24–25-
24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. 25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

The overall message both pairs of verses have is that the book of John is just a sampling of what Jesus. But even adding the Synoptic Gospels, that too only seems like a sampling of what Jesus did. It may seem like John is using a hyperbole in John 21:25, but maybe it’s really an understatement. Jesus did do a lot in his 35 years of life on earth as a human being. Heck, Jesus did a lot in just the 3-4 years of his ministry. If ever single second, or every single minute of the life of Jesus was recorded, it would take a lot of books and scrolls to get it all down. But it brings up a good point. Why didn’t the Gospel writers put more down than just the 89 chapters written between the 4 Gospel writers? It goes back to the purpose statement in John 20:31. The Gospel writers only wrote down the information that proved their message. And that’s why the last 2 verses of John 21 (which are the last 2 verses of the book) also carry the overall purpose in them. Jesus did many other things as well, and John witnessed a lot of them, but John only wrote down 21 chapters worth because that’s all needed to prove Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God.

One more thing to note about these 2 conclusions. Both conclusions mention one or more disciples present to bear witness. John 21 says it explicitly in verse 24, and John 20 says it implicitly in verse 30. Simply put, John is saying that the reader can be sure all of the recorded events are true because there was at least one disciple who saw them all, and that disciple was John. I do find comfort that this Gospel is not merely an editor putting together an anthology of stories, or an interviewer writing down a news report from witnesses. Rather, this information is first hand from John himself. (Maybe that’s why John didn’t put down a birth story. He wasn’t there to witness it.)

This is really and truly the end of the Gospel of John. Yet I just don’t feel right ending my commentary here. Even though this chapter can be seen as an epilogue to the book of John, for my devotional commentary, I’m going to write my own epilogue. My epilogue will be like an overall summary of the book. I plan to try to find some way to outline the book, as well as connect all the chapters to show you how John in consistent in carrying out the theme of Jesus as Christ and God the Son.