What do we make of these verses?

Noted, but what I see is that Jesus didn’t confirm of deny that John would never die. The disciples inferred from His words, and rightly so in my opinion, that John would never die. I don’t see that John corrected the record in John 21 either like he didn’t outright confirm or deny what Jesus meant. That’s mysteriously open ended.

We are right to examine this text as a possible contender to substantiate the claims of Matthew 16:28; Mark 9:1; and Luke 9:27. Any other verses come to mind?

These are all references to the Transfiguration, which would prefigure the glorious appearance of Christ at His Second Coming.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me!” Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?” So Peter seeing him said to Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!” Therefore this saying went out among the brethren that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?” This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true." John 21:18-24

The context is real - not speculative. We may be free to play with words - but Jesus wasn't. Every word He uttered is a living word and every word lasts forever.

John did correct the record (what was said in the churches) because that is what we are told. He cited a mistaken claim and then expressed the Lord's words as they were spoken. I have highlighted them in red. The first is by Christ Himself and then as witnessed by John, when he corrected a mistaken claim in his canonical gospel.

I am not inferring anyones motive as to why the early apostolic church mistakenly made the claim regarding John not dying before the Lord would come. That is a psychological construct. Who ever said we should attach motive to that which John thought necessary to correct? You have it by his hand - and so it is given as it was written (in Greek). The earliest papyri for John's gospel is P52 dated to approximately 130AD. The original gospel was written in the last decade of the first century - likely about 94AD. All the Apostles were martyred and only John remained. So in writing as John did he was making a spectacular disclosure concerning his death as implicitly occurring after the Lord would come. Otherwise Jesus was mocking Peter having just told him how he would die as an old man.

I realise that in writing in this way I am in effect giving a weight to the threads own words when he wrote:


Despite that brethren often seem to want to imply a personal narrative to what others state plainly with no narrative content other than a rational and literal form to cite the Scripture - I haven't done that. I have simply made a point that is far more weighted to the original question was by citing Matthew 16:28 Mark 9:21 and Luke 9:7.

Assuming of course that one can see that the original question:

"do you think Jesus was referring to the Second Coming?"

There is of course an easy answer to the John 21 passage - just as there is to the other three gospels that were cited. I have NOT offered my opinion. And I won't be doing either. I simply wanted to make a case for the force of words and demonstrate that unless we can remove ourselves from speculation we will never arrive at any truth at all.

I hope @Going_Nowhere senses what is being said.

John added "yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" meaning he added nothing new to what Jesus had already said, which was neither confirmation or denial that he would never die. So John did not correct the record, he merely pointed out that it's better (in his opinion) to not try to infer or deduce what Jesus meant when He wasn't explicit about it. That's John's opinion since his fellow apostles and brethren clearly disagreed with him when their view was clearly not less valid than his.

Apparently John was alone in the minority about what Jesus said. I think we should consider that carefully.

Look, I don't want to argue but I am pretty hard-headed when it comes to the literal rendering of scripture so let's skip the back and forth and save some time on this one!

What's your source that says John died in 94 ad anyway? Just curious.

Agreed, pretty obvious to me.

Amen and they witnessed it later

“For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:”
‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭1:16-19‬ ‭KJV‬‬

also Stephen witnessed this before his death

“But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”
‭‭Acts‬ ‭7:55-56‬ ‭KJV‬‬

It’s a matter of understanding the kingdom is present in heaven even now but will later be revealed to the world

John corrected a mistaken claim in the churches that he would not die. How can it be possible to endlessly argue over a plain meaning that is upheld in the text that expresses the meaning?

“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me!” Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?” So Peter seeing him said to Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!” Therefore this saying went out among the brethren that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?” This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true." John 21:18-24

I didn't say that John died in 94AD. I said that his Gospel was likely written in 94AD. That too was plainly stated as well.

You said:

That's John's opinion since his fellow apostles and brethren clearly disagreed with him when their view was clearly not less valid than his.

Then show the Scripture that renders what John said in his canonical Gospel an option by showing the contrary option by the other Apostles.

This interpretation is precluded by Jesus' own words, "SOME of you will not taste death before..." All the disciples were still alive at the time of the transfiguration.

Yea but only some of them witnessed his majesty ( the kingship or royalty of his transfiguration )

they all weren’t with him only some

This is my last response to this particular subject then maybe we can move on to something that matters.

quoting the reference verse to you one more time, if that will help to take another look at it.

John 21:20-23
20Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? 21Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? 22Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. 23Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?

As you can see here, John was of the opinion it’s better to not speculate on what Jesus meant. However, his brethren, his fellow disciples and apostles, actually disagreed with him as evidenced by his addition to the scripture “Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die.”

John is not insisting he holds the correct view here, but rather he takes a neutral stance that neither confirms nor denies if Jesus meant that to imply John will never die. According to his own admission, the rest of his brethren disagree with him making his view a minority opinion and the least inspired given that he is obviously outnumbered

Maybe you still see it differently and that’s okay, but the plaintext of the passage remains the same. Read it again, pray about it, revisit it in a month. I can’t tell you how many times I didn’t understand something in the Bible until I allowed time for it to sink in before reading it again.

Three things:

1. Jesus didn't say "some of you will not taste death". He referred to a specific subset of those whom he was speaking to at the moment.
He said "there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” (Matt 16:28)

2. The transfiguration was a vision (Matt 17:6)

3. Peter associates the 2nd coming of Jesus with his experience on the mountain when he saw Jesus transfigured (1 Pet 1:16-19)


On the "holy mountain", Peter, James, and John were given a vision of the future, in which they saw Jesus in all his glory and power at His 2nd coming. They saw the Son of Man coming in His kingdom before they died. This is why the mountain top experience is mentioned as the following event to this statement in all the Synoptics.

*edit for 3rd point

the reference is 2 Pet 1:16-19

The "some" applies to Peter, James, and John, who saw the brightness of the glory of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. There were many instances when Christ spoke enigmatically.

Pathetic.