John 21:23 - Exposition

We need not be surprised that the sublime meaning of these words, "Wait while I am ever coming to him," should have been misunderstood. Therefore this word went forth to the brethren. The designation, "brethren," only occurs in John 20:17 and Luke 22:32 . The more familiar names of "disciples" and "children," "servants" and "apostles," are used in the Gospels. The Acts and Epistles introduce a new group of titles, e.g. "believers" as well as "brethren," "saints" as well as "disciples," "Christians," "slaves and soldiers of Christ," "sons of God," "priests and kings," and "little children;" but now, acting on the Divine hint of the Lord's own words, John speaks of his fellow-disciples who are called into the sacred fellowship as "brethren." The word went forth that that disciple dieth not ( ἐκεῖνος , equivalent to "the disciple whom Jesus loved"). This was not an unnatural supposition, as his age advanced, and he was regarded as the "great light of Asia," the depositary of the latest traditions, as the link between the days of our Lord's ministry and two succeeding generations of believers, the seer of mighty visions, the enemy of all unrighteousness, and the apostle of love to the lost. In virtue of this very tradition, three hundred years later it was said that the holy apostle was still sleeping in his tomb at Ephesus, and that the dust moved lightly on his heaving breast. Here was the beginning of a genuine myth, which, having no real root in fact, failed to establish itself. "John the Baptist is risen from the dead," exclaimed Herod Antipas, "and therefore mighty powers energize in him." But there was no life and no truth in the story, and even among the disciples of St. John Baptist it did not take any place as a supposed fact. It is interesting to see that here a myth was started without positively bad faith, and based itself upon a recorded saying of the Lord; but it perished! The aged apostle strikes the folly dead with one stroke of his pen. The language is remarkable, as helping to prove that John wrote this chapter as well as the rest of the Gospel. Yet £ Jesus said not unto him, that he dieth not; but, If I will that he abide while I am ever coming, what is that to thee ? Meyer, who always insists on the apostolic idea of the nearness of the παρουσία , thinks that John does not decide here whether the rumor was true or false, and simply says it must, when he wrote, have been left still uncertain and unsettled (so Luther). The tradition is not authoritatively condemned; but it is shown to be a mere inference, one inference out of many, from words partially understood. The Epistles of John show how deeply John pondered the idea, and how much he crowded into the words, "abide in him," until the coming, and before and during and after the various comings of the Lord to him. Mr. Browning, in 'A Death in the Desert,' makes St. John say in his last hours—

"If I live yet, it is for good, more love

Through me to men: be naught but ashes here

That keep awhile my semblance, who was John—

Still when they scatter, there is left on earth."

No one alive who knew (consider this!)—

Saw with his eyes and handled with his hands

That which was from the first, the Word of life.

How will it be when none more saith, 'I saw'?

Such ever was love's way: to rise, it stoops.

Since I, whom Christ's mouth taught, was bidden teach,

I went, for many years, about the world,

Saying, 'It was so; so I heard and saw,'?

Speaking as the ease asked: and men believed.

* * *

"To me that story—ay, that Life and Death

Of which I wrote 'it was'—to me it is;—

Is, here and now: I apprehend naught else.

Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprise

To the right hand of the throne— …

I saw the Power; I see the Love, once weak,

Resume the Power; and in this word 'I see'

Lo, there is recognized the Spirit of both

That moving o'er the spirit of man, unblinds

His eye and bids him look …

Then stand before that fact, that Life and Death,

Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread,

As though a star should open out, all sides,

Grow the world on you, as it is my world."

In verse 23 we find the significant close of the Fourth Gospel, and there is much to make it highly probable that the two remaining verses were added by the Ephesian elders, as their certificate of its authorship, and their identification of the beloved disciple with the author of the Gospel. It differs from the similar passage, John 19:35 , where the writer himself gives his own autoptic testimony to the great miracle of the spear-thrust; and where that testimony is declared by himself to be ἀληθινή , "veritable," i.e. answering to the very idea of testimony. Here the person and verb are plural.