John 21:1-25 - Exposition

3. The epilogue, answering to the prologue. The post-resurrection life corresponds with the pre-incarnate energy of the Logos.

1. Long and sustained controversy has prevailed on the question of the authenticity and apostolic authorship of this chapter even among those who admit the Johannine authorship of the rest of the Gospel.

2. Among those who accept to the full the authenticity, there are many critics who urge that it is not an integral portion of the Gospel, but a later appendix, that the document terminated, on its first composition, with John 20:30 , John 20:31 , and that the chapter before us is dictated from a different motive—that whereas the first twenty chapters formed a collection of notable "signs" of the Messiahship and Divine Sonship of Jesus, adapted to produce true faith and thereby confer eternal life on the believer, the present chapter is structurally disposed on different lines, with a diverse motive, and has its own conclusion.

3. The purpose is variously conceived by those who agree to regard it as an appendix.

Once more, it is contended by many who admit the composition of the twenty-first chapter to be by St. John, that he was here producing a striking epilogue to the whole, which answers in many ways to the prologue in the first chapter; that as the prologue illustrates

(a) the pre-incarnation energy and presence of the Loges ( John 1:1-5 ), so we have hero the idea of the post-resurrection energy and presence of the "Son of God" in the work of the Church, watching, waiting, guiding, helping, co-operating with his own, "who received him, and to whom he gave power to become sons of God;"

(b) that as in John 1:6 we have the various methods by which the οἱ ἴδιοι receive and bear witness to the archetypal light, from John the Baptist to the company of the regenerated, so here from John 1:14-19 we have a representation of the principle of witness, the powers and ends of holy love, the methods and law of Divine pleasing; and

(c) that as in John 1:14-18 the prologue sets forth his first coming in the flesh full of grace and truth, in John 1:20-23 the risen Lord predicts and to a certain extent defines the second coming. This is a very attractive, if somewhat conjectural, series of comparisons. It cannot be said that these analogies do not exist. The correspondence consists in the two sets of facts rather than in the art of the writer. The true representation of the efficacy of the Lord's resurrection-life and ascended majesty is contained historically in the "Acts," which are far more certainly "Acts of the Risen Lord" than "Acts of the Apostles," and are contained prophetically in the Revelation of St. John. We have in this appendix or epilogue to the Gospel, indications and specimens of the kind of intercourse which prevailed between Jesus and his disciples during the forty days, and a specimen which, after the manner of John, made the deepest and most ineffaceable impression upon his own mind. It was, indeed, the third appearance to the apostles after his resurrection, but not the last. M'Clellan, in his special dissertation on the subject, treats with great warmth and vigorous denunciation the theory of the Gospel being concluded with John 20:1-31 ., and of the subsequent addition by the apostle of John 21:1-25 . His arguments are little better than assertions, based upon the translation or paraphrase which he gives of the πολλὰ μὲν οὖν , etc., of John 20:30 . This is as follows: "' Accordingly ( οὖν ), whilst it is true ( μὲν ) that Christ wrought many other miracles in the presence of his disciples, besides ( καὶ ) those which are written in the Holy Scriptures of this book, yet ( δὲ ) these which are recorded, are recorded with this special object, that ye may believe in Christ [though ye have not seen him], and that believing, ye might have life in his Name.'

"The appropriateness of the position and language of the comment in reference only to this one particular incident is obvious; and the conclusion theory tumbles to the ground. With it," he adds with characteristic impetuosity, "deservedly perishes the dangerous appendix theory concerning John 21:1-25 ." After enumerating numerous theories with derogatory comment, he adds, "But for the hypothesis that the Gospel originally ended with John 20:1-31 ., the theory (of its being an appendix) would never have been heard of, and with the utter collapse of that hypothesis, it is shattered to atoms! So perish, we may firmly believe, one after another, the conceits of ' modern criticism.'" Of course, the two ideas stand and fall together. No words are needed to vindicate one of these positions without the ether. It is unfortunate that, in paraphrasing the clause on which the conclusion rests, Mr. M'Clellan should have begged the question at issue by introducing a phrase which gives the apostolic comment a specific reference to the words of Jesus as addressed to Thomas, and omitted the weighty reference to the whole of the proof which demonstrates that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." This able commentator often forces on his reader the contradictory of his own conclusions.