John 21:18-19

John 21:18-19

[18] Verily,  I say  When  young,  thou girdedst  thyself,  and  walkedst  whither  thou wouldest:  but  when  thou shalt be old,  thou shalt stretch forth  hands,  and  another  shall gird  and  carry  thee whither  thou wouldest  not.  [19] spake he,  signifying  by what  death  he should glorify  God.  And  when he had spoken  he saith  unto him,  Follow 

What does John 21:18-19 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

Jesus then gave the last of the many important statements that He introduced with a strong affirmation. It was a prediction of the type of death that Peter would die.
Jesus contrasted the freedom that Peter had enjoyed in his youth with the constraint that he would experience in later life. He was describing crucifixion. The phrase "stretch out your hands" ( John 21:18) was a euphemistic reference to crucifixion in the Roman world. [1] This stretching took place when the Roman soldiers fastened the condemned person"s arms to the crosspiece of his cross. This often happened before they led him to the place of crucifixion and crucified him. [2]
Peter had been learning how his self-confidence led to failure and how he needed to depend on Jesus more (i.e, "You know ..."; John 21:15-17). Jesus reminded Peter that as time passed he would become increasingly dependent on others even to the point of being unable to escape a martyr"s death. Therefore, Jesus implied, Peter should commit his future to God rather than trying to control it himself as he had formerly tried to do.
"The long painful history of the Church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led." [3]
Peter later wrote that Christians who follow Jesus Christ faithfully to the point of dying for Him bring glory to God by their deaths ( 1 Peter 4:14-16). He lived with this prediction hanging over him for three decades (cf. 2 Peter 1:14). Clement of Rome (ca. A.D96) wrote that Peter died by martyrdom (1Clement John 5:4; John 6:1). [4] According to church tradition, Peter asked for crucifixion upside down because he felt unworthy to suffer as Jesus had. [5] There is little corroborating support for this tradition, however. Traditionally Peter died in Rome about A.D67 A.D.
Jesus then repeated His former command for Peter to follow Him (cf. Mark 1:17). This is a present imperative in the Greek text meaning "keep on following me."
"Obedience to Jesus" command, Follow Me, is the key issue in every Christian"s life. As Jesus followed the Father"s will, so His disciples should follow their Lord whether the path leads to a cross or to some other difficult experience." [6]
Was Jesus saying that the Rapture would not occur before Peter died? Other New Testament writers who wrote before Peter"s death wrote as though the Lord could return for the church at any moment (e.g, Philippians 3:11; Philippians 3:20-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18; cf2Thessalonians2). Probably we should understand references to future events such as Peter"s death as being contingent on the larger purposes of God including the Rapture (cf. Acts 27:24). One writer believed that Peter and the early church did not understand Jesus" words here as meaning that Peter would live a long life but only that he would die a martyr"s death. [7] If John wrote this Gospel late in the first century, as seems likely, Peter may already have died when the first readers read this story.