Peter was told by the Lord something about his own future,—­how in faithful service for his Master he would be persecuted, and “by what manner of death he should glorify God.”  By this his crucifixion is apparently meant.  As John listened, perhaps he wondered what his own future would be.  He was ready to share in service with Peter.  Was he not also ready to share in his fate, whatever it might be?

“Follow Me,” said Jesus to Peter.  They seem to have started together away from the group.  John felt that he must not be thus separated from his friend and his Lord.  Though he had not been invited to join them, he started to do so, as if the command to Peter had been also for himself.  “Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned back on His breast at the supper, and said, Lord, who is he that betrayeth Thee?” As Peter at the supper beckoned unto John to ask that question concerning Judas, is it not possible that John now beckoned to Peter to ask Christ concerning himself?  However this may be, “Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, what shall this man do?” or, as it is interpreted, “Lord—­and this man, what?” It is as if he had said, “Will John also die a martyr’s death, as you have said I shall die?” It is not strange that he wanted to know the future of his friend.  But he did not receive the answer he sought, for “Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?”

These words may mean that John would live to old age and escape martyrdom, which became true.  But this was not the meaning which Christians of his day put into them.  They had the mistaken idea that Christ, having ascended to Heaven, would soon come again.  They also believed that John would live until Christ’s second coming.  “This saying therefore went forth among the brethren, that that disciple should not die.”  John was unwilling to have this mistake concerning Christ’s words repeated over and over wherever he was known.  So he determined to correct the false report by adding what is the twenty-first chapter of His Gospel, telling just what Christ did say, and the circumstances in which He uttered the words to Peter concerning John.  His testimony is this:—­“Jesus said not unto him, he shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?  Follow thou Me.”

Peter became the suffering; John the waiting disciple, “tarrying” a long time, even after his friend was crucified, and all his fellow-Apostles had died, probably by martyrdom.

But after all that John wrote to correct the mistaken report concerning His death, tradition would not let him die.  It affirmed that although he was thrown into a caldron of boiling oil at Rome, and though he was compelled to drink hemlock, he was unharmed; and that though he was buried, the earth above his grave heaved with his breathing, as if, still living, he was tarrying until Christ should return.