"20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who had been reclining at table close to him and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” 21 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” 22 Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” 23 So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”
24 This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.
25 Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."
John 21:20-25
We look next at Peter's query concerning John, in 21. What are we to say of this? He had just been devastated by the threefold challenge that had ploughed into his soul, humbling and recommissioning him; and then, almost in the next moment, his eyes are off his own situation and its solemnity, and he indulges in a fleshly preoccupation with someone else's spiritual life. There is an attitude of glancing over one's shoulder at others' affairs that is reprehensible at any time; but that Peter should have indulged in it at this point almost passes comprehension. And it bears witness to something in Peter that was obviously proving difficult to crucify. It is hardly surprising that Jesus roundly rebuked him, bidding him mind his own business. This carnal desire to 'manage' John's life was an evidence of Peter's old self flaring up again, and it prompts the question whether in fact the interview of the earlier verses had really touched him at depth. We can hardly deny that it did, but this is an indication of just how much self there may be in the deepest of spiritual experiences. One sees a parallel here with the incident at Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:13ff), when the wonderful confession of Christ as Messiah was followed by an attitude that Jesus described as Satanic. This should teach us how partial even the deepest experiences of grace are, and how much land there still remains to be possessed. This is further corroborated when we look at the post-Pentecostal period. It may be said that after the baptism of fire at Pentecost, Peter became a different man. Yet, even in the context of this great transformation in the Apostle, the partial nature of the experience of grace must still be recognised, as we may see from Galatians 2:11ff, where we learn that Peter dissembled, for fear of the Jews and compromised his testimony. This does not mean that Peter was false, or his experience spurious; but it does bear witness to the fact that problems of personality and temperament have a habit of recurring even in the context of Pentecostal conditions. This should help us to keep such things in perspective.