Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Twenty One

                                                                                                                                              Verses 1-7

Sin happens to be a very powerful seducer, even in the lives of Jesus' disciples. Jesus had appeared to His disciples twice after His resurrection, but apparently he had not appeared to them again for some time. John 21:14. Simon Peter, being an impetuous and impatient man, decided to return to fishing for fish instead of for men as Jesus had commanded them. Matthew 4:19. Some of the other disciples followed Peter because he was their leader. Christ had tested their faith, and they had failed. They all had backslidden on Christ. This event put the Church in its greatest peril.

They toiled all night on the Sea of Galilee and had caught nothing. Jesus appeared to them on the shore, but they did not recognize Him. Jesus sometimes had a way of blanking the minds of His believers when He appeared to them so that they could not recognize Him until they were reminded of His love and compassion. Mary Magdalene did not recognize Him until He called her name with His characteristic love and compassion. John 20:16. The two believers that Jesus walked with on the road to Emmaus did not recognize Him until He had dinner with them, and He blessed the bread and gave it to them which reminded them of the love and compassion He had shown when He fed the multitudes. Luke 24:29-31. Jesus fed more than five thousand on one occasion and more than four thousand on another, but He also probably fed the multitudes on other occasions. Matthew 14:15-21; Matthew 15:32-38. The fact that Jesus fed the entire multitudes with broken bread, which represented His broken body, symbolized the fact that Jesus intended to save the entire human race. John 6:33; John 6:51; Hebrews 2:9. Jesus taught about His broken body represented by broken bread right after He had fed the five thousand. John 6:33. The broken fish that Jesus gave to the multitudes symbolized His salvation by His grace. Matthew 4:19.

Jesus asked His disciples if they had caught any food. In other words, Jesus asked them if they were taking care of themselves and their own salvation by grace. When they answered "No," they admitted that they had failed to take care of themselves. Jesus told them to cast their net on the right side of the boat, and they would catch fish. In other words, Jesus told them that they needed Him to take care of them. Now these experienced fishermen would probably have paid no attention to a stranger on the shore who told them how to fish. But they obeyed Jesus because they sub-consciously knew that He was Jesus. When they caught a huge load of fish, John immediately remembered that Jesus had done this before when He had called them to be His disciples. Luke 5:1-11. John told Peter that the man on the shore was Jesus. Peter, being the impetuous and impatient man that he was, threw on his coat and dived into the water to swim to Jesus because he knew that his friends would take much longer to get the boat to land.