This is a revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the events that must soon take place. He sent an angel to present this revelation to his servant John,
Revelation 1:1
This letter is from John to the seven churches in the province of Asia.
Revelation 1:4
I, John, am your brother and your partner in suffering and in God’s Kingdom and in the patient endurance to which Jesus calls us. I was exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching the word of God and for my testimony about Jesus.
Revelation 1:9
I, John, am the one who heard and saw all these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me.
Revelation 22:8
I love that my quotes from Eusebius, Dionysius and others sparked numbers of you to think about the authorship of John for yourselves. Forget what the “experts” have to say. Just think about the process of it all for yourself and ask the Lord Himself for clarification on the difficult portions and you will find clarity comes to you. Yes, it is true that we need to understand how the readers of John’s writings in the First Century AD would have understood what he wrote. It is valuable to pick up on quotes from the Church Fathers and others living in those first centuries after Jesus walked among them. But don’t go overboard with everything they had to say. I do agree with one thing Eusebius had to say. “what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice.”
Clearly our best option is to simply wait and ask John himself.
I don’t agree with the conclusion that there are two John’s on the basis of the debate over the use of commas by Eusebius. Neither do I agree with his statement on the basis of something he heard somewhere about there being two graves in Ephesus marking John’s final resting place. Therefore he came to the conclusion that there were two Johns in Ephesus – John the disciple and John the elder. On reading Eusebius conclusion I was prompted to read through John’s letters (1,2,3) again. In 1 John he uses “children” twenty times in 102 verses and a further three times in 2 and 3 John. John begins both 2nd John and 3rd John with a reference to himself as the elder in each opening verse. It is clear that he considers the believers he is discipling as his spiritual children and himself as their elder. The predominant word John uses in his letters is [teknon] the general Greek word for children, offspring or children in training. But he also uses the word [paidia] meaning little children, a growing child or a toddler able to speak as opposed to [nēpios] – a child not yet able to speak. Clearly John sees himself as the elder, the teacher of those who are being discipled, learners. How very appropriate. I suggest you do the same and read the letters of John in one sitting for yourself. I think you will come to the same conclusion.
This letter is from John, the elder. I am writing to the chosen lady and to her children, whom I love in the truth—as does everyone else who knows the truth because the truth lives in us and will be with us forever.
2 John 1:1-2
This letter is from John, the elder. I am writing to Gaius, my dear friend, whom I love in the truth. . . . I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth.
3 John 1:1, 4
Is it as clear to you as it is to me that John was the disciple of Jesus, an apostle of Jesus, an elder to those he taught and discipled and an exile on Patmos who suffered from his faith (trust in Jesus)? Do you see that John, the disciple, apostle, elder and exile, is the perfect candidate to have authored the Gospel along with the three short letters and Revelation? I don’t agree with those who think John the Disciple and Apostle is a separate person from John the Elder. I think they are all one and the same person who authored all the works attributed to John. It is the most reasonable conclusion to come to.
John:
- John the Disciple
- John the Apostle
- John the Elder
- John the exile from Patmos
- John of Ephesus
are all one and the same person.
In the following Gem I will address the issue of the difference between the Greek of John and that of Revelation. This is a far more valid point which needs addressing than does the persona of the enigmatic figure of John the Elder. I agree with what Don and Des had to say in the comments on the last Gem and I will expand on it in the next Gem. Much has been said about the issue of John using a scribe or amanuensis. Earl F Palmer believes John most likely had an amanuensis (scribe) for Revelation. Gordon Fee thinks it is more likely that he had to write Revelation himself without scribal help. It is also more than likely that the critics rejected Revelation because the content wasn’t in accord with their thinking, and therefore they would want to find any reason, no matter how small, for rejecting it. You can detect the hint that no one really knows as Des suggested tongue in cheek.
Perhaps no conjecture hazarded by an ancient writer has been so widely adopted in modern times. A conjecture it still remains for no fresh light has been thrown on the enigmatic figure of John the Elder.
Henry Barclay Swete
Some modern critics have gone further and ascribed all the works of John the Apostle to John the Elder.
Ian
The denial of the Apostolic origin of the Fourth Gospel, a Gospel of “beauty and richness”, some scholars have difficulty in ascribing to a “fisherman from Galilee”.
Earl Palmer
Many have difficulty believing that John and Peter, both simple fishermen, could write some of the best idiomatic Greek of the New Testament. How could that be?
Ian
I will shed some more light on this in the following Gem. This Gem has grown too long already to add a new topic.