Who Is the Disciple Jesus Loved?
00:00:00.000 | Well, we launch into a new week with a wonderful Bible question.
00:00:07.600 | It comes to us from Juliet in Canada.
00:00:10.080 | "Dear Pastor John, hello.
00:00:11.640 | In John 21-7, we read about a disciple whom Jesus loved.
00:00:16.840 | Can you tell me who this is?
00:00:18.680 | Who is this disciple whom Jesus loved?
00:00:22.200 | And why is he referenced like this?
00:00:24.200 | I assume Jesus loved all his disciples.
00:00:27.360 | Is there any takeaway for us in the love designation directed to this one disciple?
00:00:31.800 | I have always wondered about this, and I thought if I am ever going to ask, you would be the
00:00:36.280 | person to ask."
00:00:37.960 | Thank you, Juliet.
00:00:39.360 | Perhaps the first thing to observe is that whoever this disciple is, namely the one who
00:00:45.720 | is identified five times in this gospel as the disciple whom Jesus loved, we know he
00:00:54.460 | was the one who wrote the gospel.
00:00:58.700 | In the last chapter, chapter 21, it says in verse 20, "Peter turned and saw the disciple
00:01:07.800 | whom Jesus loved following them."
00:01:10.760 | That is, following Peter and Jesus.
00:01:13.360 | And then four verses later, it says, "This disciple," namely the one who is following
00:01:18.680 | Peter, "this disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, is the one who is bearing witness about
00:01:24.840 | these things and who has written these things."
00:01:28.800 | 21-24.
00:01:31.040 | So there is an explicit claim in the gospel that this particular disciple, the one whom
00:01:37.920 | Jesus loved, is the author of the gospel.
00:01:42.000 | Now before we move toward an identification of who it is, let's just be clear that when
00:01:48.440 | the author calls himself five times the one whom Jesus loved, he's not saying that Jesus
00:01:56.840 | doesn't love the others.
00:01:59.520 | It's this very author who says in John 11-5 that Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus.
00:02:07.320 | It's this very author who says in John 13-1, "Having loved his own who were in the world,
00:02:15.840 | he loved them to the end," sometimes translated, "to the uttermost."
00:02:22.000 | That's all of them.
00:02:23.920 | And in John 15-9, he quotes Jesus saying, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved
00:02:29.920 | you," plural, all of you, my disciples.
00:02:34.660 | And in 15-12, he says, "This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved
00:02:40.640 | you," all of you.
00:02:42.360 | In other words, this writer is not trying to claim for himself the love of Jesus while
00:02:49.960 | excluding others from it.
00:02:52.440 | Something else is going on.
00:02:53.880 | I'll come back to that in a minute.
00:02:55.640 | But back to the question of who is it?
00:02:57.800 | Who are we talking about?
00:02:59.320 | We know from the other gospels that Peter, James, and John were the closest associates
00:03:06.040 | of Jesus.
00:03:07.040 | For example, those three, Peter, James, and John, went up with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.
00:03:14.520 | It appears from the way the gospel, this gospel presents this unnamed disciple that he had
00:03:24.480 | quite a close relationship with Peter.
00:03:27.560 | For example, John 13-23, at the Last Supper, it says, "One of his disciples, whom Jesus
00:03:36.040 | loved, was reclining at the table at Jesus' side, so Simon Peter motioned to him and asked
00:03:45.840 | Jesus who he's talking about when he mentioned that there's going to be a betrayer."
00:03:50.940 | So the unnamed disciple is close at Jesus' side, and Peter has this exchange of communication
00:04:00.280 | with him.
00:04:01.520 | Then on the morning of the resurrection, Mary Magdalene runs to report what she has seen,
00:04:07.680 | and it says, "So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom
00:04:14.880 | Jesus loved, and told them."
00:04:17.560 | Chapter 20, verse 2.
00:04:19.320 | So there they are, apparently hanging out together, this unnamed disciple and Peter.
00:04:25.480 | Then the author of this gospel tells us in chapter 21, verse 2, that the sons of Zebedee,
00:04:33.640 | which would be James and John, we know from Matthew 4-21, go fishing with Peter and four
00:04:41.880 | other disciples.
00:04:42.880 | They're going to go fishing after the resurrection.
00:04:46.280 | And when Jesus called out from the shore to them, it says in verse 7, "The disciple whom
00:04:54.480 | Jesus loved said to Peter, 'It's the Lord.'"
00:05:00.040 | And then finally, in chapter 21, verse 20, the disciple whom Jesus loved is seen following
00:05:07.840 | Peter and Jesus.
00:05:09.420 | So you have this repeated, close relationship between the disciple whom Jesus loved and
00:05:18.040 | Peter.
00:05:19.040 | And we know that Peter, James, and John had a very close relationship with each other
00:05:26.400 | and with Jesus.
00:05:27.560 | And we know that John, one of the sons of Zebedee, was on the boat fishing when a disciple
00:05:35.340 | is identified as the one whom Jesus loved, was there.
00:05:40.160 | And we know that by the time this gospel was written, James had been killed.
00:05:47.360 | That's chapter 12, verse 2.
00:05:49.720 | So he's not an option for who this very close relationship with Peter was, who's called
00:05:57.080 | the one whom Jesus loved.
00:05:59.000 | That leaves us with the high probability that John, the apostle, is the disciple whom Jesus
00:06:08.480 | loved and is the author of this gospel.
00:06:12.180 | And the tradition outside the Bible has almost uniformly agreed with this conclusion ever
00:06:21.340 | since the beginning, which leads us back now to the question, why does this author, John,
00:06:30.400 | the apostle, call himself five times the disciple whom Jesus loved?
00:06:37.460 | And let me just give you three closing suggestions.
00:06:41.260 | First, it identifies the author as an eyewitness throughout the ministry of Jesus.
00:06:49.060 | He refers to himself in this oblique way at the Last Supper, at the cross as he receives
00:06:57.420 | Jesus' mother into his family, at the empty tomb, and in the face-to-face contact with
00:07:04.860 | Jesus after the resurrection.
00:07:06.360 | He was there, and this gospel is his eyewitness account.
00:07:12.420 | Second, perhaps this is John's way of saying, "My most important identity is not my name,
00:07:24.180 | but my being loved by Jesus, the Son of God."
00:07:27.680 | He's not trying to rob anybody else of this privilege.
00:07:32.020 | He is simply exalting in it.
00:07:34.140 | "I'm loved.
00:07:35.140 | I'm loved.
00:07:36.140 | I'm loved.
00:07:37.140 | That's who I am.
00:07:39.100 | I'm loved by Jesus."
00:07:42.660 | And third, perhaps he was speaking like the apostle Paul when Paul said, "The love of
00:07:50.700 | Christ controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore
00:07:56.780 | all have died, and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves,
00:08:03.560 | but for him who for their sake died and was raised."
00:08:07.540 | Second Corinthians 5.14.
00:08:09.720 | In other words, John would be saying, "I identify myself as loved by Christ because this is
00:08:19.280 | the all-constraining, all-controlling reality in my life.
00:08:25.620 | This is why I am writing the gospel.
00:08:28.120 | This is why I minister, why I live.
00:08:32.400 | Christ's love for me controls me."
00:08:35.760 | Man, wow, yes.
00:08:37.480 | The marvel of being loved by the Savior.
00:08:40.040 | May that never be lost on us.
00:08:41.480 | Pastor John, thank you for answering it.
00:08:42.960 | Juliet, thank you for asking it.
00:08:45.480 | And if you have a Bible question you've always wanted to ask John Piper, do it.
00:08:49.000 | Message us through our homepage at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn, and we will do our best to answer it here on
00:08:58.400 | the podcast.
00:09:00.800 | Well the Apostle Paul uses a startling phrase in 2 Corinthians 6.10.
00:09:05.640 | "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing."
00:09:08.960 | Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.
00:09:11.720 | It's startling because he's talking about his own testimony of rejoicing in sorrow.
00:09:17.180 | And those two experiences run consecutively in his life.
00:09:22.120 | Sorrow and joy coexist in his experience at the same time.
00:09:25.680 | It's simply a truism of life that good things and bad things are always happening to us
00:09:30.560 | all the time, simultaneously in our lives.
00:09:33.280 | This is how it works, right?
00:09:35.520 | John Piper's going to explain next time how this all works.
00:09:38.720 | I'm your host Tony Rehnke.
00:09:39.720 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.
00:09:41.320 | [music]
00:09:43.320 | [music]
00:09:45.320 | [music]
00:09:47.320 | [BLANK_AUDIO]