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Introduction to the Epistles of John

Authorship of the Epistles of John

Section titled “Authorship of the Epistles of John”

Key:

  • EJohn = The Epistles of John
  • GJohn or GJ = The Gospel of John

1 John is anonymous. However there are several factors strongly suggesting that its author was the beloved disciple, John, the son of Zebedee (Mark 10:35). The opening paragraph shows that the author of 1 John is an apostle (1:1-4). Only the apostles can be said to have seen and touched and heard Jesus Christ in the flesh. Only they are the authoritative witnesses of Christ (“we have seen and testify,” verse 2; cp. John 21:24).

Second and Third John are partially anonymous. They claim to be from "the presbyter" which suggests some sort of ecclesiastical authority. Since he does not identify himself by name, it would seem that he was a venerable figure well-known to recipients. We may assume that the author of 2 and 3 John was also the author of 1 John.

Technically, author of 1 John could be different from author of 2-3 John. However, there is a very close thematic and literary relationship between GJohn and EJohn.

  • Knowing the truth (GJ 8:32; 1J 2:21; 2J 1)
  • A new commandment (GJ 13:34; 1J 2:7-8; 2J 5)
  • Anti-docetic emphasis on Christ coming in the flesh (GJ 1:14; 1J 4:2; 2J 7)
  • Antichrist (1J 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2J 7)

“Style, content, and vocabulary [of 2 John] are typical of John’s Gospel and 1 John … It seems difficult to dissociate 2 John from either John’s Gospel or 1 John” (Hagner’s NTI, 729).

There is also a close relationship between 2 John and 3 John.

  • Both from “the Elder.”
  • “Whom I love in the truth” (2J 1; 3J 1).
  • “[My/your] children walking in the truth” (2J 4; 3J 4).

These links suggest all three epistles were written by same author.

Shared words across GJohn, EJohn, and Rev:

  1. “Truth, true” (55x in GJohn; 28x in EJohn; 10x in Rev)
  2. “Love” (verb and noun) (44x in GJohn; 62x in EJohn; 6x in Rev)
  3. “Life” (36x in GJohn; 13x in EJohn; 17x in Rev)
  4. “Sin” (noun and verb) (25x in GJohn; 27x in GJohn; 3x in Rev)
  5. “Light” (23x in GJohn; 6x in EJohn; 3x in Rev)
  6. “Walking in light/darkness” (4x in GJohn; 3x in EJohn)
  7. “Witness” (verb and noun) (22x in GJohn; 17x in EJohn; 14x in Rev)
  8. “Commandment(s)” (10x in GJohn; 18x in EJohn; 2x in Rev)
  9. “Overcome/conquer” (1x in GJohn; 6x in EJohn; 17x in Rev)
  10. “Lie, liar, false” (2x in GJohn; 7x in EJohn; 5x in Rev)
  11. “The world hates you” (3x in GJohn; 1x in EJohn)
  12. “[Little] children” (4x in GJohn; 15x in EJohn; 3x in Rev)
  13. Paraklētos (4x in GJohn [Spirit]; 1x in EJohn [Christ])

Shared theological concepts linking GJohn and EJohn

  1. Opening of 1 John (vv 1-4) alludes to Prologue of GJohn (1:1-18)
  2. Jesus as “the Word” (Logos) of God (GJ 1:1; 1J 1:1; Rev 19:13)
  3. Anti-docetic emphasis on the “flesh” of Christ (8x in GJohn; 2x in EJohn)
  4. “We have passed from death to life” (GJ 5:24; 1J 3:14).
  5. “No one has seen God” (GJ 1:18; 1J 4:12).
  6. “Jesus laid down his life for us” (GJ 10:11-18; 15:12-14; 1J 3:16).
  7. God’s work/commandment is that we believe in Jesus (GJ 6:29; 1J 3:23).
  8. Jesus is “the Savior of the world” (GJ 4:42; 1J 4:14).
  9. Water and blood (GJ 19:34; 1J 5:6).
  10. Eternal life (GJ 3:16; 1J 5:13).
  11. The light vs. the darkness motif ().
  12. The new commandment to love one another (GJ 13:34; 1J 2:7-8; 3:11; 2J 5).

The author is clearly an apostle

  1. He employs the apostolic “we” in contrast with the addressees (1J 1:1, 3; 4:6, 14).
  2. Author has authority to determine that certain people are “liars,” “deceivers,” “antichrists,” and “false prophets” (1J 1:18, 22; 4:1; 2J 7).
  3. 1 John 1:1-4: author is an eye-witness and testifies of what he has seen (cp. GJ 1:14; 19:35; 21:24)
  4. 1 John 4:6: “We [apostles] are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us.”
  5. 1 John 4:14: “We [apostles] have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”

Church tradition

  1. The Muratorian Canon quotes 1 John 1:1-3 as by the author of GJohn, but then later mentions only two Epistles of John.
  2. Irenaeus: “The Gospel, therefore, knew no other son of man but Him who was of Mary, who also suffered; and no Christ who flew away from Jesus before the passion; but Him who was born it knew as Jesus Christ the Son of God, and that this same suffered and rose again, as John, the disciple of the Lord, verifies, saying: ‘But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have eternal life in His name’ [John 20:31] — foreseeing these blasphemous systems which divide the Lord, as far as lies in their power, saying that He was formed of two different substances. For this reason also he has thus testified to us in his Epistle: ‘Little children, it is the last time; and as you have heard that Antichrist does come, now have many antichrists appeared; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but [they departed], that they might be made manifest that they are not of us. Know therefore, that every lie is from without, and is not of the truth. Who is a liar, but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is Antichrist’ [1J 2:18-22]” (Adv. Haer. 3.16.5).
  3. Irenaeus continues a few paragraphs later: “Their doctrine is homicidal, conjuring up, as it does, a number of gods, and simulating many Fathers, but lowering and dividing the Son of God in many ways. These are they against whom the Lord has cautioned us beforehand; and His disciple, in his Epistle already mentioned, commands us to avoid them, when he says: ‘For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Take heed to them, that you lose not what you have wrought’ [2 John 7-8]. And again does he say in the Epistle: ‘Many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit which separates Jesus Christ is not of God, but is of antichrist’ [1 John 4:1-3]. These words agree with what was said in the Gospel, that ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’ [John 1:14]. Wherefore he again exclaims in his Epistle, ‘Every one that believes that Jesus is the Christ, has been born of God’ [1 John 5:1] knowing Jesus Christ to be one and the same, to whom the gates of heaven were opened, because of His taking upon Him flesh: who shall also come in the same flesh in which He suffered, revealing the glory of the Father” (Adv. Haer. 3.16.8).
  4. Tertullian quotes 1 John as by John (Scorpiace, ch. 12).
  5. Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. AD 350) is the first to include 7 Catholic epistles in an official canon list: James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude.
  6. “By the end of the fourth century, Greek and Latin canon lists routinely included seven Catholic epistles without any hesitation” (Gallagher and Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity, 46).
  7. “Never is any of the three Johannine epistles attributed to anyone other than to John the son of Zebedee” (Carson and Moo, 671).

Superscriptions or subscriptions in Greek manuscripts

  1. “John’s First [Epistle]” (Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus)
  2. “First Epistle of the Holy Apostle John” (Mt. Athos)

“Of the 143 witnesses … only two lack the name ‘John’ … These writings never circulated without being closely associated with John” (Yarbrough, 13).

Authorship of 2–3 John

Section titled “Authorship of 2–3 John”

Both claim to be from “the Elder.”

  1. This doesn’t refer to age but to office.
  2. An apostle can also be called an elder (Acts 11:30; 1 Peter 5:1).

Some have argued John “the Elder” is distinct from John the apostle, the son of Zebedee, but it is more likely that they are the same.

  1. Eusebius invented this in order to dismiss Revelation (which he didn’t like because of its millennialism) as not by the apostle John.
  2. Eusebius claimed that Papias made the distinction, but it is possible to interpret Papias as speaking of John the elder and John the apostle as the same person.
  3. Here is what Papias said: “If, then, any one came, who had been a follower of the elders, I questioned him in regard to the words of the elders—what Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I did not think that what was to be gotten from the books would profit me as much as what came from the living and abiding voice” (apud Eusebius, H.E. 3.39.4).
  4. After quoting Papias, Eusebius adds: “It is worth while observing here that the name John is twice enumerated by [Papias]. The first one he mentions in connection with Peter and James and Matthew and the rest of the apostles, clearly meaning the evangelist; but the other John he mentions after an interval, and places him among others outside of the number of the apostles, putting Aristion before him, and he distinctly calls him a presbyter” (H.E. 3.39.5).

The external evidence for 2-3 John is not as plentiful as it is for 1 John.

  1. These letters are not quoted as frequently as 1 John.
  2. Irenaeus quotes 2 John 7-8 and attributes it to John (Adv. Haer. 3.16.8).
  3. The Muratorian Canon quotes 1 John 1:1-3 as by the author of GJohn, and then later mentions only two Epistles of John, which has scholars scratching their heads. Perhaps, having already mentioned 1 John, the two are 2-3 John?
  4. Clement of Alexandria “knows of more than one Johannine epistle” (Carson and Moo, 671), but it isn’t clear that he knows of three specifically.
  5. Origen (d. AD 253) is the first church father to mention all three Johannine epistles: “Why need we speak of him who reclined upon the bosom of Jesus, John, who has left us one Gospel, though he confessed that he might write so many that the world could not contain them? And he wrote also the Apocalypse, but was commanded to keep silence and not to write the words of the seven thunders. He has left also an epistle of very few lines; perhaps also a second and third; but not all consider them genuine, and together they do not contain a hundred lines” (apud Eusebius, H.E. 6.25.9-10).

Date of the Epistles of John

Section titled “Date of the Epistles of John”

Most scholars think EJohn were written after the GJohn (ca. AD 80-90). Reasons:

  1. EJohn seem to have been written to churches that already know GJohn.
  2. Certain doctrines, especially Johannine Christology (deity, only-begotten), seem presupposed.
  3. Some scholars suggest EJohn were written to correct a misreading of GJohn.

Jerome says John died 68 years after the passion of our Lord, which would be AD 98. Therefore, EJohn must be dated before AD 98.

Eusebius (H.E. 3.23.1-2) says that after the death of Emperor Domitian (AD 96), John returned from exile on the island of Patmos and lived out the rest of his life in Asia Minor (probably Ephesus).

Similarities with the 7 churches of Rev 2-3 support this.

A reasonable time frame for EJohn is somewhere in the 90s.