Jesus said to him, “If I desire that he stay until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.”
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 22. Jesus saith: so I will have him remain, [3] and so forth That is, in case I will have him remain; or, as it is in the Greek, if I will have him remain, what is that to thee? It is thy duty, and thy concern, to follow me. Witham.—When Christ told Saint Peter to follow him, he meant, that he should go like himself to the death of the cross; but when he says of Saint John, So I will have him to remain till I come, he insinuates that his beloved disciple should not undergo a violent death; but remain in the world, till he should visit him by death, and conduct him to glory. It may likewise be understood of the Revelations, in which our Saviour manifested himself in his glory to this his beloved disciple. In the Greek, it is, if I will have him to remain; and this is the true reading, according to Estius, and Jansenius, bp. of Ghent, authorized by many Latin copies. Others refer these words of Christ to his coming to destroy Jerusalem: an epoch which Saint John survived.