Folks, Jesus made several predictions about his return happening within the lifetime of those hearing his words. Sadly, many of his followers in our day and age don’t believe him or worse yet, think he was mistaken. If Jesus was wrong on this claim, then he is a liar and thus not God and has no credibility for anything else he claimed or was claimed about him.
Liberal theologians and some atheists believe Jesus made claims about returning within the lifetime of his hearers, not because Jesus was correct, but because they believe he was wrong. Christopher Hitchens used to beat up premil folks with this all the time. He tried it on Doug Wilson and got smacked.
Conversely, many evangelical Christians don’t believe Jesus because it doesn’t fit their presuppositions about what Jesus meant to say. Instead of taking Jesus at his word, they try to weasel out of it.
In the last chapter of John’s Gospel, is an account of Peter and Jesus at a beach in Galilee. Immediately following the “feed my sheep” story is the last documented squabble amongst the disciples. It involves, Jesus, Peter, and John.
21 Peter seeing him [John] saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? 22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. 23 Then 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?
John 21:21–23.
Prior to these verses, Jesus had told Peter that “… when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.” This is understood to indicate that Peter would die of crucifixion. Tradition further states that said crucifixion of Peter was conducted with him upside-down.
Peter then looks at John and says, Hey Jesus, what about him?
At this point in John’s narrative, C.S. Lewis fans would expect to hear Aslan say, “it’s not your story” and end the discussion.
But that isn’t how the discussion ends. Instead, Jesus says that if I want John to live until I return, what business is that of yours?
Folks, as you know, John was the only one of the Twelve that was not martyred. John did in fact live until the destruction of the Temple and siege of Jerusalem were completed. He got to see the fulfillment of the Apocalypse that he had authored and the end of the Old Covenant age. The Kingdom of God came into its fullness and John lived to see it.
At the time of authoring the Gospel, John knew it was a possibly but not a certainty that he would live to see the end. In his epistle, John wrote it is the last hour. (I John 2:18.) John knew it was about to happen.
This account reminds me of Simeon and Anna at the circumcision of Jesus (Luke 2:25 – 38). God allowed both Simeon and Anna to see the salvation of God. In a similar way, John got to see the beginning of the next chapter of redemption. God’s promise to Abraham to bless all nations through the seed of a woman became a reality in his lifetime.
So, yep, John did tarry until Jesus came. How cool.