John 21:22,23 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jesus saith, If I will that he tarry Without dying; till I come With power and great glory, to execute the judgment I have threatened on mine enemies. Till then he certainly did tarry, and who can say when or how he died? What is that to thee Or to any one else? Follow thou me Mind thou thine own duty, and endeavour to prepare for thine own sufferings, and pry not, with a vain curiosity, into the secret events which may befall him or any other of thy brethren. Then As this answer was not rightly understood; went this saying abroad among the brethren That is, among the other followers of Christ; (our Lord himself taught them to use that appellation, John 20:17;) that that disciple should not die; and the advanced age to which he lived gave some further colour for it; yet Jesus said not unto him Or of him; He shall not die Not expressly. And St. John himself, at the time of writing his gospel, seems not to have known clearly whether he should die or not; but, If I will, &c. He only said the words expressed before, which, if St. John understood, he did not think proper to explain.