The Peter Question

At the end of the book of John we see the exchange that Jesus had with Peter. This was an important moment for Peter. Up until this point, no one has addressed Peter’s sin of denying Christ three times before going to the cross. You can just imagine the nervousness pumping through Peter. He was devoted to Jesus all those years. He was even bold enough to claim that he would never leave Jesus (Matthew 26:33). But Peter not only deserted Christ, he denied even knowing who He was. And now here is Jesus; back from the dead. They are on the shore, having just finished breakfast, probably a fire crackling in the sand, and Jesus walks up to Peter: “When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15–17)

You can just imagine the guilt that is burdening Peter. You know that he is so sorry for being so foolish. We have all been there too, haven't we? Where we told God, “I promise I will never do that again!” And what do we end up doing? We have all felt regret, guilt and anxiety before God about our sin. Maybe ours are not as public as Peter’s. Yet we still know what that feeling is like. But notice how Jesus decides to address this. He doesn’t come up to Peter and ask “Hey, are you sorry?” Nor does Jesus say, “Do you have something to tell me?”. Or who could have said something like, “Peter, have you learned your lesson?”. No, nothing like that at all. Instead Jesus questions Peter’s love for Him. This is quite profound in many respects. For starters, Jesus asks Peter this question of his love three times. This is probably to symbolize Peter denying Jesus three times. Now Jesus is getting Peter to profess his love to God three times in repentance. Another tidbit to highlight is that Jesus does not call Peter, “Peter, but “Simon”. This was to cut Peter to the heart. The name and title Peter was given to Simon because he was going to be the rock that Jesus was going to build His church on. Now Jesus is almost questioning this title. As if to say, “Simon, did you really live up to the name Peter?” You could say that Jesus was peeling away the layers to Peter taking him down to his bare bones. Exposing the flesh of his heart to correction and change.

The next interesting point is that each of the three questions are different. The first time Jesus ask’s Peter if he loves Him more than “these”, referring to the other disciples that were there. Jesus was asking Peter in a sense; do you love me more than these other followers love me. And Peter said that he did. Then He just asks Peter directly, do you love me? As if Jesus was saying, “Ok Peter, no more comparisons. Let me just ask you straight out. Do you love me?” Then He asks Peter a third time and it looks similar to the second time He asked him. But if you look at the Greek, there is a change in the verbiage for the word love. See the first two times Jesus asked Peter, He used the word agape for love. Peter responded with the affirmative but used the word fileo for the word love in his response. So when Jesus asks Peter a third time He asks using the word fileo as opposed to the word agape. In the third question Jesus was questioning Peter’s response and ensuring his devotion to Him. As if to say, “OK Peter, you say you fileo me, do you really fileo me?”

Now after all three of Peter’s answers, Jesus gives Peter a command, or a job if you will. He is to tend to the flock of God, i.e. God’s people. What is interesting to note here is that Jesus takes Peter’s word, forgives Peter and then tells Him to serve just as He was always planning on doing. He doesn’t make Peter show or prove he is truly sorry. If this was us, we would not trust so easily. We would want some reassurances. We probably will say “Hey, prove that you are sorry and do this, this and that.” Or maybe say something like, “That’s fine, but its gonna take some time for me to trust you again.” Not Jesus! No, He takes Peter at His word and accepts Him back. Immediately!

But even more startling than this is that Jesus never asked Peter if he was sorry! Instead He asked Peter if He loved Him! There is a big difference between the two.  This is the most important point of all. Let us not overlook it.  See people can be sorry, but still not care. Sometimes people just say sorry because they think it's a quick fix to change what they did wrong. People could feel sorry, not because they feel bad about what they did, but because they got caught. People can also be sorry and then a few days later go back to being how they were. Jesus cut through any facade Peter would have put up. He wanted to get to the heart of the matter.  He wanted to know if Peter really loved Him or not. The lesson here is that Jesus isn’t looking for us to be sorry. He is looking to see if we truly love Him. That matters more than just  being sorry. If we truly love Jesus, then we will genuinely be sorry too. If you hurt someone you love, you will regret it and feel bad. But if you could care less about the person, sorry doesn’t amount to much. And so this question asked of Peter is also being asked of us: do we love Jesus? Love Him more than we love other people in our lives? Love Him more than anything else we may like? Because that is all that matters. We are not to just be sorry. We are to repent and love Him above all. That shows true devotion to Him. Really caring about Jesus and who He is. Loving Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. If you do, then you will regret your sin and seek forgiveness. Because you love Him so much, you hate the fact that you let Him down. So ask yourself, honestly, in your heart of hearts: Do you love Christ? Because that is really all that matters.