(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.

10309. 'The man who makes any like it, to make an odour with it' means an imitation - springing from self - of the worship of God expressed through affections for truth and good. This is clear from the meaning of 'making any like it' as imitating the worship of God, for 'making' means imitating, and the incense to which this refers means the worship of God, as above; and from the meaning of 'making an odour' as producing what is pleasing. And since this is done through affections for truth and good, these affections are what is meant by such pleasure; for 'odour' means the perception of something enjoyable, and so means that which is pleasing, 10292. It is evident that any imitation of this springs from self, for it says that 'he who makes it will be cut off from his people'. The proprium or self is the source of any endeavour that springs from an affection which desires truth and good not for their own sake but for a selfish reason; and doing something for a selfish reason implies doing it for the sake of personal gain, important positions, and reputation as the ends in view, and not for the sake of the welfare of one's neighbour and the glory of the Lord. Consequently that endeavour springs from evil and not from good; or what amounts to the same thing, it springs from hell and not from the Lord. This therefore is what should be understood by an imitation - springing from self - of the worship of God expressed through affections for truth and good, meant by 'making an incense like it, to make an odour with it'. The people therefore who do this are those who love the world more than heaven, and themselves more than God. Also, when they think secretly within themselves they have no belief at all in heaven nor in the Lord; but when they think openly, as they do when talking in the presence of other people, they talk about heaven and the Lord with more emotion and conviction than others express. How much more depends on the degree to which they burn with the desire for personal gain, important positions, and reputation. Their condition at this time is such that inwardly they are black and outwardly shining white, that is, they are devils in the shape of angels of light. For their interiors which ought to lie exposed to heaven are closed, and their exteriors which lie exposed to the world are open. And if they are moved at this time by an affection that seemingly belongs to love to raise their eyes and hands towards heaven, they are nevertheless like statues skillfully made to portray that pose; and they also appear to angels as such statues. Indeed, can you believe it, there are in hell very many such as these who are present with and inspire people like them in the world, especially with preachers who for selfish reasons imitate the worship of God by expressing affections for truth and good. Furthermore the Lord allows them to act in this way, because at the same time they also perform a useful function; for good people can still receive the Word properly from them. They can do so because the reception of the Word by a person, no matter whose mouth it goes out of, depends on the character of the good governing that person. But such externals, being mere postures, are stripped away from them in the next life, and then their spirit is shown to be black, as it had been while they were in the body.