The Gospel of John - Outline Part 50 - Focused Love

TITLE

John 21:15-25 – Focused Love

EXPLANATION

After breakfast, Jesus had a final test for Peter.  The Lord asked him three times if he truly loved Him.  Peter responded affirmatively each time, and he was given the charge of caring for Jesus’s flock of Christians.  By the third time Peter was truly bothered by the implication of Jesus’s repeated questions.  The three-fold repetition seems to have been designed to make a point to Peter, by reminding him of his three denials on the night of Jesus’s arrest.  Jesus wanted to instill humility so deep into the bones of Peter that he would never forget these lessons.  To really cement that in place, Jesus then prophesied that Peter would die a martyr’s death.

Peter, ever one to let his mind wander, turned and asked Jesus about John, and how he would die.  Jesus responded that if he wanted John to remain alive until He returned, that was none of Peter’s business.  All he needed to concern himself with was following his Master.  John, the author, was careful to point out here that Jesus did not explicitly state that John would remain alive until Christ returned.

John closes his gospel by confirming his identity and by clarifying that this was only a small portion of the works that Jesus did.

APPLICATION

As already mentioned, Jesus drilled into Peter three times the need to stay on mission.  Poor Peter was a slow learner.  This is evidenced by the fact that, almost as soon as the words were out of Jesus’s mouth, Peter turned and got distracted by worry about what was going to happen to John.  So, Jesus gave him a little verbal slap and reminded him to remain focused on his task.

I think there is another way that Jesus layered into this lesson the kind of conduct He expected out of Peter in the future.  There are two Greek verbs for love in this section: phileo and agapao.  They both refer to an affection that one has for another.  But, phileo has a connotation of familial love; of the love for a sibling or a parent.  This is almost an instinctual affection.  Agapao, on the other hand, is a deliberate conscious affection, typically involving sacrifice on the part of the one displaying love.

The first two times Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him, the Lord used agapao.  He was asking if Peter truly had affection for Christ that was an intentional act of the will.  And, both times, Peter responded that he loved Jesus with phileo love.  In other words, he had affection for Jesus, but not to the point of sacrifice.  Either Peter was not catching Jesus’s point, or he was balking at what was being asked of him.

The third time Jesus asked the question, both He and Peter used phileo.  I think the point was this.  Jesus wanted to know if Peter was ready to sacrifice for him.  Peter claimed to have brotherly affection for Christ.  So, Jesus pointedly said that if Peter truly had such affection for Him, like he claimed, then he would be willing to sacrifice in order to tend the Lord’s flock.

This is such a great question for us today.  Those of us who claim Christ as our Savior often express love for Him.  Whether in song or in word, we talk like we love Jesus.  But, do we walk like it?  When the chips are down, the gospel is on the line, and we are being called on to die to self and follow in the footsteps of Christ, are we willing to demonstrably prove our affection for Jesus by giving up whatever we hold dear?  Whether it is possessions, our pride, our prerogatives, or anything else, Jesus’s clear instruction to Peter here is to lay it all down for the cause of Christ.  His admonition to Peter echoes across the centuries to us today as the gospel of John comes to a close.