(A commentary on John 21:15-25)

In the first part of this chapter, seven of the Lord's disciples had come home to Galilee. They had gone fishing, seen Jesus on the shore, followed his instructions to fish on the right side of the boat, dragged a net loaded with 153 fish to shore, and... as the second half of the chapter begins, they have just finished breaking their fast with Him. Now they are relaxing.

Jesus says to Peter,"Do you love me?" and Peter, perhaps a little startled at the question, thinking that the answer is obvious, answers "yes", and Jesus responds, "Feed my lambs". Twice more this sequence is repeated, but with some changes. Then, after this unusual conversation, the Lord tells them all a little parable about being young and later being old. Then the Lord tells Peter to follow him, and Peter, apparently jealous, asks what John is supposed to do. The Lord mildly rebukes Peter’s jealousy by saying, "If this man tarry until I come what is that to you?", but then He tells John also to follow him.

Finally, the gospel of John, and indeed the collection of all four gospels, closes with an explanation by John that he is the writer of this gospel.

So now, let’s look more closely at the conversation, the parable, and the outbreak of jealousy.

Only two of the seven disciples, Peter and John, are mentioned in this part of the story. Peter represents faith, or truth, but truth about spiritual things that we really believe are from God. John represents good, or love to the neighbor. The former resides in the understanding part of the mind and the latter in the will part of the mind.

In telling Peter to feed His sheep, the Lord is saying that to follow Him means to preach the truths that all the disciples now know about the Lord, His coming, and about how a life should be led, in order to be a follower of the Lord in a new church. In the conversation the Lord is direct and probing. "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?" I think Peter is being asked whether he loves the Lord, Jesus, more than he loves his fellow Galilean friends, though it’s ambiguous, it could mean "do you love me more than these other six do?’ When Peter answers the first time he says "Lord thou knowest that I love thee."

With this first of the three probing questions, the Lord answers "Feed my lambs," while after that the response is "Feed my sheep." Sheep and lambs both represent people who are in a love of doing good, but while sheep means those who love to do good for the sake of the neighbor, lambs mean those who do good for the sake of the Lord. The first is spiritual good, and the second is higher, and is called celestial good. But people who wish to do good at first don’t know what is good; they need to learn that from the Word and be taught. This is why Peter is told to "feed them", which is to say that truth must indicate how good is to be done. In order to do things that are good, the will's wanting to, and the understanding's knowing how to go about it, must be conjoined. For a successful Christian life, or on a larger scale, a Christian church, 'Peter' and 'John' must work in harmony.

Then comes the parable. "When you were young you got yourself ready and did what you wanted on your own. But when you become old, you have to reach out for help and another shall carry you where you don’t want to go."

This doesn’t seem to fit in here, but of course it does, and in two ways. The first way is given in the Biblical text; it is about the Lord’s death, that all the prophecies were leading Him to His crucifixion, as is mentioned. The second way is a lesson for all of us. When we are young, confident, and strong, we feel that we can do what we want and don’t need any help. Temptations to do evil we ourselves can deal with. But when we grow wiser we realize that all our strength comes from the lord, and if we continue to depend only on ourselves, the temptations from the hells will be too strong and we will be led into doing what the hells want for us, not what we want. We must learn at the start to follow the Lord and depend on Him. This he says at the end of the parable, where it seems not to fit until we understand the parable. "And when He had spoken this He saith unto (them), follow Me." That’s what we need to do also.

Peter is happy to do this preaching of the truth and maybe feels that he has been singled out, but he also realizes that John also loves the Lord and is loved in return. So he asks "And what is this man supposed to do?" It seems that the needed harmony is not yet present, and that Peter is jealous of the bond, and probably hopes to be assured that he is number one... but that doesn’t happen. Peter is simply told that it doesn’t matter; he needs to do the job he has been given.

I’m reminded of the story of Jacob and Esau, in Genesis 25, where Esau is the firstborn and will inherit the birthright and blessing from Isaac, as his due. Jacob by craft devised by his mother deceives Isaac and steals what is Esau’s. Then he runs off to Padan-Aram and stays there with his uncle and becomes rich. It is only on his return journey that he wrestles with the angel and has his name changed to Israel, that he again meets Esau. The change of name means that now that Jacob is rich with truth from the Word, now with the friendly meeting with Esau, also rich, that the two twins can in parable, be merged into one personage, called Israel, meaning the joining of good and truth in the mind.

Esau means something similar to John, they both represent goodness or true charity. Jacob means something similar to Peter, they both represent truth learned from the Word. Any seeming enmity between them as to which is more important can make them both useless, and in a person who is becoming angelic (as everyone should be aiming for), there is no enmity. Truth enables good, and good inspires truth in order to get something done. Although we can think and speak of them separately, they are (perfectly in the Lord and less so in angels) conjoined into a oneness so as to be seen as married. The marriage of the Lord's Divine good and Divine truth is the origin of all creation. Yes, all creation.

This marriage of good and truth, and the need for both to work in our lives, in balance and harmony, is a core New Christian concept.

In the Gospels, there is just one more story that takes place after this one. In it, the rest of the disciples join the seven mentioned here to hear the Lord’s last commands.

5128. 'When you were his cupbearer' means as is the normal position for sensory impressions of this kind. This is clear from the meaning of 'cupbearer' as the powers of the senses, that is, those of them that are subject to the understanding part of the mind, dealt with in 5077, 5082 - the normal position being meant by the expression 'when you were'. The need for sensory impressions to be subject and subordinate to rational ideas has been referred to already in what has gone before; but since the subjection and subordination of them is the subject here in the internal sense, something more must be said about the nature of this.

[2] The person with whom the senses have been made subject is called a rational person, but a person with whom they have not is called one ruled by his senses. But whether a person is rational or whether he is one ruled by his senses is scarcely discernible by others; only the individual himself can know, if he examines himself inwardly, that is, if he examines what he wills and what he thinks. Others cannot know from a person's speech whether he is one ruled by his senses or whether he is a rational person, nor can they know it from his actions, because the life of his thought held within his speech and the life of his will held within his actions cannot be perceived by any of the physical senses. These hear merely the sound he utters, or they see the movement made by his body together with the affection that impels him to make it. One cannot tell whether this affection is artificial or genuine. In the next life however those who are governed by good perceive clearly both what is held within a person's speech and what is held within his actions, and so perceive the nature of the life within them and where that life has its origin. Yet even in the world several indications exist which enable one to deduce to some extent whether the senses are subject to the rational, or the rational to the senses; or what amounts to the same, whether a person is rational or ruled solely by his senses. Those indications are as follows: If one notices that a person who makes false assumptions is not ready to become more enlightened but casts truths altogether aside, dispenses with reason, and obstinately defends falsities, this is an indication that he is ruled by his senses and is not a rational person. His rational is closed, so that it does not let in the light of heaven.

[3] Ruled even more by their senses are those who are quite convinced by what is false, for such a conviction closes the rational altogether. It is one thing to make false assumptions, another to be convinced by what is false. Those convinced by what is false do have some light shining within their natural, but this is like the light in winter. When it shines among them in the next life that light is as bright as snow; but as soon as the light of heaven falls on it, it becomes a dull light, the degree and nature of their conviction making it dark as night. The same is also evident in these people while they are living in the world, for during that time they are unable to see the faintest glimmer of truth. Indeed because of the dullness and benightedness due to the falsity of which they are convinced, they see no value at all in truths and laugh at them. To the simple those people sometimes give the impression that they are rational, for by means of that snowy-white wintry light they are able to employ clever reasonings to substantiate falsities and make them look like truths. This kind of conviction exists in many of the learned, more than in every other kind of person, for they have used syllogistic and philosophical reasonings, and finally much factual knowledge to become firmly convinced by falsities. Among the ancients such people were called serpents belonging to the tree of knowledge, 195-197, but today they may be called those who are ruled inwardly by their senses and are devoid of true rationality.

[4] The main indication that shows whether someone is ruled wholly by his senses or whether he is a rational person exists in the life he leads. By this one does not mean the kind of life that is evident in his words and deeds but the kind that is held inwardly in these. For the source of the life within his words is his thought, and the source of the life within his deeds is his will, both having their origin in his intentions or end in view. The nature therefore of the intentions or end in view present within his words and deeds determines the nature of the life they hold within them, for without the life within them words are mere sounds, while deeds are mere motions. This kind of life is also what is meant when one speaks of life continuing after death. If a person is rational his words flow from right thinking and his deeds from right willing; that is, his words are a product of faith and his deeds a product of charity. But if a person is not rational he can, it is true, make a pretence of acting as one who is rational, and likewise of speaking as one who is such; but no life at all is coming from his rational. For a life of evil closes entirely the path to or communication with the rational, which causes him to be a merely natural person or one ruled by his senses.

[5] There are two things which not only close that path of communication but also rob a person of the ability ever to become rational - deceit and profanation. Deceit is like a subtle poison which affects the inward parts, while profanation is that which mixes up falsities with truths and evils with forms of good. The two completely destroy the rational. Present with everyone there are forms of good and truth which have been stored away by the Lord since earliest childhood. In the Word these forms of good and truth are called remnants, regarding which see 468, 530, 560, 561, 661, 1050, 1738, 1906, 2284; and it is these remnants that deceit poisons and that profanation mixes up with falsities and evils. For what profanation is, see 593, 1008, 1010, 1059, 1327, 1328, 2051, 2426, 3398, 3402, 3489, 3898, 4289, 4601. All these indications show to some extent who a rational person is and who one ruled by his senses is.

[6] When the senses have become subject to the rational, the sensory powers that serve to form a person's first mental images receive light which comes through heaven from the Lord; they are at the same time brought into a state of order that enables them to receive that light and agree with the rational. Once they exist in this condition sensory impressions are no longer a barrier that prevents truths from being either acknowledged or seen, for those that are not in keeping with truths are instantly set aside, while those which are in keeping are accepted. Those that are in keeping are now so to speak at the centre and those that are not are on the fringes. Those at the centre are so to speak raised up towards heaven, while those on the fringes are hanging downwards. Those at the centre receive light from the rational, and when they are manifested visually in the next life they look like small glittering stars which radiate light, gradually decreasing, out to the fringes. This is the kind of form that natural or sensory images are being brought into when the rational has dominion and the senses exist subject to it. This is what happens to a person while he is being regenerated, bringing him as a consequence into a state in which truths can be seen and acknowledged by him in abundance. But when the rational is subject to the senses the opposite happens, for in this case falsities are in the middle or at the centre and truths are on the fringes. The falsities at the centre dwell in a certain kind of light, which however is an inferior and deceptive one, like that emitted by a coal fire. Into this there is flowing light on every side from hell. This inferior light is that which is called darkness, for as soon as any light from heaven flows into it, it is converted into darkness.