After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way. 2 Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. 3 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
4 Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.” 6 He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish. 7 That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. 8 The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards[a] off.
9 When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. 10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” 11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. 14 This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. (John 21:1-14)
In the resurrection and post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, one of the things the gospel-writer is showing us is that Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man – that He is divine, and that He resurrected from the grave bodily. He is showing us that Jesus has a resurrected, divine, and physical body. When Jesus appeared to Mary in the garden, she thought He was the gardener – that’s earthy and physical. Jesus enters the locked room with his disciples and also has His physical scars that could be touched and felt. Here in John 21, we see that Jesus is divine in His all-knowing command to the disciples to cast the net on the right side where Jesus knows and ordained a large school of fish to be caught. Yet we also see that He is not a ghost as He dines with His disciples on the meal of fish and bread that He prepared for them.
This reality of the divine and bodily resurrection of Jesus shows us what the new creation is like. It is not something of man according to the flesh. It is not carnal and according to our lusts. But it is also not disembodied spirituality. Nor is it gnostic escapism cloaked in heavenly minded-piety. It is rather a renewal of all things. It is death and decay overcome, not just by the soul, but by the whole man through the God-man, Jesus Christ. Jesus defeated death both spiritually and physically. And as we were crucified with Him, and died with Him, so we also are raised with Him, to walk in the newness of life.
Book Ends
Another thing the gospel-writer is doing in our text is wrapping up this incredible piece of theological literature with resurrected bookends. In John 1 the Word that was with God in the beginning that through Him all things were created became flesh and dwelt among us. In John 21, that Word made flesh resurrected in the flesh, and dined with the disciples beginning His work of new creation.
We also saw Jesus begin to call His disciples in John 1. Simon Peter was one of the first called, and He is here in chapter 21. Also Nathanael was in called in chapter 1 and is here in chapter 21. I find it interesting that Nathanael is mentioned along with Thomas here in chapter 21. John is certainly contrasted the absence of Thomas in chapter 20 with now the presence of Thomas, having believed, here in chapter 21. But Nathanael and Thomas had very similar stories. If you remember back in chapter 1, Philip went and told Nathanael that they had found the Messiah, and Nathanael’s response was “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip told Nathanael to “come and see,” much like was the call for Thomas to come and see the wounds of Christ. Then in chapter 1 when Nathanael goes to see Jesus, Jesus tells Nathanael that He saw him when he was under the fig tree – in other words before he came to Jesus. And right there Nathanael professes, “You are the Son of God!” And then Jesus gave Nathanael basically the same response He gave Thomas upon Thomas’ confession, saying, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe?” Which of course was much like Jesus’ response to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me?” And so here both Nathanael and Thomas are, specifically mentioned along with Simon Peter – ones who have been forgiven of much, who have been transformed and changed by the Lord Jesus, who in turn love Him dearly, and were privileged with a few others to dine with Him this early morning during His last days on earth. How precious Christ is to those who have tasted and seen that He is good amidst the backdrop of their sin and unbelief. How kind and benevolent Christ is to continue to grace us with His presence and to have the privilege of communion and fellowship with Him, despite all of our sin.
They Caught Nothing
So here are these disciples who decide to go fishing together with Peter. Some commentators say that this fishing venture is Peter and these disciples going back to their old life before Christ, unsure of what to do. Others say that there is no reason to ascribe such motivations to them as they could simply be hungry for fish, or needing to make some money while waiting for further direction. Nevertheless they find themselves out all night with nothing to show for it.
One of the things Christ is teaching His disciples in their night long toil with nothing, is that which He taught them in chapter 15, that apart from Him, they could do nothing. Without Jesus they can do nothing, and have nothing to show for themselves but failure. This is a lesson the disciples would need to learn for the work that was laid out for them as apostles. They would be endowed with the power of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God would greatly empower their preaching, as we see in the book of Acts, that thousands would be converted at once. This is not their doing, and not something they could do apart from the Spirit of Christ.
Indeed this lesson that we can do nothing apart from Christ is a lesson we continually need to be taught today. How easy it is to slip into self-dependency and reliance upon the flesh, and how unfruitful it truly is. All of our efforts to build for the kingdom of God, to end abortion, to raise up a godly generation of children, to do this that and the other good and noble endeavor will all prove fruitless if we are building it with our own hands. All of it will come crumbling down if it is accomplished by our own might and ingenuity. But if it is the work of the Spirit of God, then there is nothing nobody can do to stop it. If God does it, it will bear much fruit. And as we rightly work hard toward these things, God wants us to do it as Christians, which means we recognize we can do nothing apart from Christ, and in all our endeavors we depend upon the Spirit of God to bring true fruit, so that we might readily acknowledge and give thanks, glory, and praise to God in all things, taking no credit or glory for ourselves. If we try to rob God of His glory by doing things apart from Him, neither of which we can do, He will tear us down, because He will be glorified. So, it is good to learn these lessons and be taught by Christ who loves us that apart from Him we can do nothing.
We note, that in order to teach us this most vital lesson, sometimes Christ allows us to tarry in the dark for a time, as He allowed the disciples to work with no productivity the entire night. Sometimes, in order to cause us to see, Christ will first put us in the dark for a time. Sometimes, if we try to work apart from Him, Christ will just turn out the lights so that we are unable to work, fumbling around being humbled by our utter lack of ability to do anything. Things we may feel confident doing in the light, all it takes is the lights to go out for us to feel completely unqualified, which is what we are, and is the lesson we are being taught. All of it, all true fruit and success is the work of the Spirit of God. As the disciples are early in their ministry, this is one of the first and most elementary lessons we are to learn. How important it is to learn this lesson early; for the more we build in the flesh, the more that will come tumbling down – the higher we build our towers of self-dependency, the harder they fall. This is because dependency on Christ is the very foundation of all things in the Christian life.
“Day was Breaking”
Though sometimes the Lord lets us tarry through the night to teach us dependence upon Him, He does so because we are His and morning is coming. In verse 3 it was night that they were on the boat and caught nothing. In verse 4, the day was breaking and Jesus was standing on the shore. The dark of night and the morning light are like little deaths and resurrections. And Jesus stands on the shore as the dawn breaks because He is standing there as the resurrected Lord, the Dawn of eternity, the Lord of Light and Life, the one who was dead, but is now the Living. The sun continues to rise because Jesus is alive from the dead.
It is good to rise early in the morning, to be reminded of the resurrection, and to commune with the resurrected Christ. So just as the day was breaking, is an indicator of the spiritual place of the disciples in this text. They had a long difficult and lonely night, but shortly they will be dining with Christ with the haul of a lifetime.
Confession
Before they even know that it is Jesus standing on the shore, Jesus calls out to them in verse 5, saying, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.” Now of course this is yet another question that Jesus asks that He already knows the answer to. Per usual, He asks it not for His own sake, but for theirs. This is confrontation and confession. It was good for them to face the reality that they caught nothing and accomplished nothing on their own through the night. And so they did the only noble and right thing which is to plainly and honestly answer the question without excuse or justification, and to own up to their own empty-handedness and insufficiencies.
This is hard to do for sinners like us. It can be very difficult at times to admit we were wrong and to confess our sins. It is even harder to do without excusing, explaining, or justifying it. But it is the right and Christian thing to do that we can do with help of the Holy Spirit. We absolutely must confess our inadequacies because it is when we readily acknowledge our empty-handedness that our hands can be filled by Christ. It is those who are humbled who are ready to be used. It is when we confess our sins that we may experience the overflowing joy of our salvation in the forgiveness of sins. If we toil apart from Christ with nothing to show for it but refuse to confess it and continue to toil, we will continue in darkness. But the sooner that we come to the end of ourselves the sooner Christ will give us all of Himself.
The beautiful thing is that with Jesus, sin is done when sin is done. Jesus confronts them with His question, they quickly and simply answer, “no,” then Jesus immediately blesses them, telling them where to cast their net, and empowering their work.
The Zeal of Peter
So they cast their net at the instruction of Christ and they are unable to haul in the net because it is so full of fish. And during this commotion the disciple whom Jesus loves tells Peter that it is the Lord who is there who has done this – and as soon as Peter hears this, he puts his clothes back on and jumps into the sea to get to Jesus, leaving the fish and the disciples to struggle. Don’t you just love Peter? I think every Christian loves Peter because in one way or another they see a little bit of themselves in Peter, not in terms of personality, but in terms of their relationship with Christ. I love Peter because His love for Christ makes me love Christ. And here, Peter, displaying total dependency on Christ and harboring no self-trust just throws himself into the sea, saying it is Christ or nothing.
A Full Net
You can tell this is written from the perspective of John who is on the boat, because once Peter jumps in the sea, the camera doesn’t follow him, it stays with the disciples on the boat who are trying to haul in this large catch. This large catch is what I’d like to draw your attention to next. Verse 6 says, “they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of the fish.” Verse 8 says they were dragging the net full of fish. But not only was there a large quantity of fish, they were also quite large fish, a high quality as well. Verse 11 says, “Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them.”
As we consider the large catch of large fish we ought to understand that this is not simply a miracle for miracles’ sake. This is, again, a theological point John is making. When we consider this large catch of fish at sea we note that it is consistent with certain biblical themes. Sometimes in the Old Testament the seas are representative of the nations or the ends of the earth. Think of Jonah who was thrown into the sea and then into the great fish to be taken to the nations – Nineveh. Think of Isaiah 42 that says the Lord will bring justice to the nations and the coastlands wait for His law! Think of Psalm 72, “May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth! May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute.” Or think of the prophetic vision in Ezekiel 47 where Ezekiel sees a trickle of water flowing out of the temple which grows into a great river that flows into the sea and turns into fresh water where every living creature will live. And then it specifically says in Ezekiel 47:10, “Fishermen will stand beside the sea. From Engedi to Eneglaim it will be a place for the spreading of nets. Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea.” Think also of when Jesus called His disciples in Matthew telling them, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Then Pentecost comes, and what happens? Peter preaches and three thousand souls are added to their number that day – a great catch. It started out with one big fish catching God’s runaway prophet, and it ends with Christ’s apostles catching large amounts of large fish. If you run from God you might get caught by a great fish. But if you follow Christ, you’ll be the one doing the catching.
Putting all these things together we can see that this great catch of fish in John 21 is typological of the mission of God in all the earth beginning through His apostles and growing with His Church. This catch of fish was practice for catching men. They haven’t seen nothin’ yet.
One of the things Jesus is showing us is that He plans to catch a lot of fish. He plans to save a lot of people. Though at times, when we focus on ourselves and our own times, we can feel like we are in the great minority, the truth is, that when all the catch is brought in it will be so great a number. It will be a bigger catch than we ever could’ve imagined. And He will to the sea, to the ends of the earth, and He will do so through placing His fisherman all along the water throughout the earth, to bring in His people and save them. The resurrected Lord directs His fisherman so that He may resurrect fish from the depths of the sea onto shore. “But how can this be? How is this possible? We are so outnumbered!” It will be done by the power of Christ. They disciples couldn’t reel in the net for there was too great a quantity, so likewise it will not be the strength of our flesh, but by the power of Christ that it is accomplished.
This leads me to note also that Jesus shows us here that not only does He have a great mission for His disciples, but Jesus has also appointed a successful mission. Christ has ordained a GREAT commission, not a small commission. Christ has ordained a Great Commission that will be obeyed, and will be successful. Christ is not a loser. He has not given a commission which will be left undone. He has not ordained a mission doomed to failure, left up to the flesh of sinners who would fail on their own. Rather, He shows us that He will accompany us by the power of His Spirit to give success to what He has commanded.
One of the reasons this is important is because when we understand this, this frees us and enables and motivates us to just do our duty and to just keep doing our duty. We are here taught that no matter what, we are to never stop doing our duty. The disciples toiled all night to no success, and when day broke they could’ve just rowed in and hung up their nets. Instead, they kept doing their duty, and when they were told to toss the net on the other side of the boat they didn’t scoff as if they were too good to just do their duty. No, they just did what they were told. And when you continue to carry out your marching orders from Christ, when you do not abandon your post, when you continue to do your duty, and remain at your post, you never know at what moment your nets will be fuller than you can even lift. When we understand the guaranteed success of the great commission by the Spirit of God through His people, we understand then that a great commission empowered by the Spirit does not require us to perform incredible feats of strength and greatness, but just for us to stay at our post and to continue to do our duty. And if you will do that in dependency on Christ, then you never know at what moment all of those difficult struggles of normal mundane motherhood duties faithfully executed will turn into a great catch in the salvation of your children and the many fruits they may return to you. So moms, keep changing diapers, keep making meals delicious, keep homeschooling; Dad’s, keep leading family worship, keep working hard to provide, keep pouring yourself into your wife and children. You never know when all of a sudden your nets will be filled.
This also leads us to be taught that Jesus always provides. Even when one moment we have nothing, the next moment we may have more than we can even carry. God is not short on supply. He owns all the fish in all the water, He can bring them to us. Do your job, trusting and knowing it is God who provides. It is always God who fills our nets.
Unbroken Net
Notice as well what verse 11 says, “And although there were so many, the net was not torn.” So there are so many fish that John would’ve expected the net to break, and so He is impressed that the net did not tear. This also shows us the success of the mission. If what we catch men with is the Word of God, the gospel of our salvation, then the net will not be broken, for the Word of God cannot be broken. If we would seek to be fishers of men with some other net than the gospel net, then we can be sure that it will not be strong enough to hold. Only the gospel is strong enough to save a great multitude of people.
The unbroken net also shows us what Jesus taught in chapter 6, that all who come unto Him, not one will be lost. All whom the Father has given to the Son will come to the Son and not one who is given to the Son will be lost. Not one will be plucked out of His hand. This again shows us the success of the mission. This also shows us that the gospel is not only the only strong and sufficient net to save, but it is that which also keeps us. It is the gospel that saves us, that sanctifies us, and that keeps us.
Dining with Jesus
This breakfast that Jesus invites His disciples to is a beautiful picture of this gospel. The gospel is like breakfast food. We do not eat it once and then are set for the rest of our lives. It is the very meal and sustenance which we feed on for nourishment and strength and continued perseverance each and every day, and apart from it, we famish.
Just as Jesus does for His disciples here, in the gospel, Jesus is the one that prepares the feast for us. He spreads the table and invites us to come and eat. The gospel is not us preparing a meal for Jesus, it is Jesus preparing a meal for us.
This means that in the gospel, it is Jesus who serves us. Jesus, as He has done before, takes the bread and gives it to them, so too the fish. If we would be saved by Jesus, we must be served by Jesus. We must not be too proud, self-righteous, or filled with fake piety that we would not come and eat what Christ has prepared and served for us. Sometimes it takes a long night in the dark at sea to realize our great hunger and need to come and eat. Being fed by Christ teaches us that we are His children and depend upon Him. That is why we are to come to the table and be fed, to be taught that we are to depend on Christ.
When I read this passage in John 21, I can be tempted to just wish how I could be there on the shore with the disciples, with Jesus, eating this early morning breakfast prepared by Jesus, and fellowshipping with Him. Oh how I can long for that experience. Maybe you think that too. But Church, we do have that fellowship with Christ. Each morning He invites us to come and eat, to open His Word, to eat of the Bread of Life, and commune with Him. He has given us one another, we who are filled with His Spirit, and we have dinner tables and food and bread to break together in the presence of Christ. And that is how the world is changed.
So come, and have breakfast. Break your fast, for Christ is not distant and gone, He is risen and He is here with us. So therefore, we come and dine with Him, with one another, He has prepared this table for us. So give thanks to the living God.
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