06.33. The Epistles and Revelation of John

Chapter 32 The Epistles and Revelation of John The last of the General epistles are the first, second and third of John, to which for the purpose of this concluding chapter of part I, we shall add the book of Revelation written by the same author. But how do we know that the so called First Epistle of John was written by that apostle? His name is not prefixed to it, indeed, but it has always been attributed to him nevertheless, from the earliest times, and this, as much as for any other reason, because of the remarkable similarity of its style and contents to the fourth Gospel. It is very evident, in any event, that it must have been written by an eyewitness of the earthly life of our Lord (1 John 1:1-4; 1 John 4:14, etc.), although the nature of the doctrinal errors it condemns indicates that the date of its writing must have been in an advanced period of the development of the church, possibly the last decade of the first century.

Those doctrinal errors seem to have been of a threefold character--all centering in the Person of our Lord. There were those who already denied the deity of Christ, others who denied His humanity, and still a third class who denied the union of the two natures in the one Person from the beginning of His life in the flesh. The first are attacked in such passages as 1 John 2:22; 1 John 4:15; 1 John 5:1; the second in 1 John 1:1; 1 John 4:3; 1 John 5:6; while the third are met in the harmonization of these apparent contradictory teachings.

But, of course, while the offsetting of these errors may have been the governing reasons for the writing of the epistle, yet its contents include much more. The theme of the whole as stated by the writer himself in 1 John 1:1-10, is that of “Fellowship with God,” and it is beautiful, indeed, to observe the manner in which the theme is wrought out. Three definitions of God are given. Light, Righteousness, and Love, and it is shown that fellowship with him involves one’s walking in the light, doing righteousness, and experiencing and manifesting love. The whole idea is worked out more fully in the author’s Synthetic Bible Studies, “I John.” The epistle is not addressed to any particular church or individual, but there are internal reasons for regarding it as meant for Gentile Christians chiefly, and doubtless in the region of Asia Minor where John himself labored. See 1 John 2:7; 1 John 2:12-14; 1 John 2:20-27. The second epistle is addressed to “the elect lady,” although some would render it “the elect Kyria,” making the last word a proper name. She was some Christian mother of prominence in the church, dwelling at Ephesus it may be, and probably a widow, since no mention is made of her husband. The letter is addressed to her and her children for the purpose of encouraging them in the truth and strengthening them against false teachers. While it is not stated therein that it was written by John, or even an apostle, but “the elder” or “presbyter,” yet there has never been any question in the church as to the identity of its source with that of the first epistle. Indeed, nearly three-fifths of its contents are identical in substance with that epistle, leading an able expositor to say in substance, that “both epistles (the second and the third), present such an affinity with the first, both generally and in particulars, as to lead us to attribute them to the same writer. This affinity cannot be explained as an imitation. Moreover the little that is peculiar to the whole three as distinct from the Gospel of John, is not of a character to warrant the supposition that they have come from a different hand, and is far outweighed by the points of resemblance.”

Gaius, or Caius, was the name of the individual saint to whom the third epistle was addressed. Perhaps he was the same one mentioned in Romans 16:23 and 1 Corinthians 1:14, and yet the name was not an uncommon one, and he may have been another person altogether. It has always been attributed to the apostle John, practically without any dispute. Its contents also are of interest outside of their immediate application, from the insight they afford of the church life in the closing years of the apostolic age. The Apocalypse, or Revelation, states in Revelation 1:1 that its human means of communication to man was John, and although it is not stated that this was the apostle John, yet any other supposition has never seriously been contended for. There was an hypothesis, as old as the fourth century, that it might be ascribed to a “Presbyter John,” perhaps a contemporary of the apostle, and living in the second century, but it is now, I believe, regarded as altogether untenable. But while there is practically no dispute as to the author, there is nevertheless, quite a difference of opinion as to the date when Revelation was written. The text of the first chapter informs us that the author was an exile on Patmos in the Aegean Sea at the time of some (Roman) persecution, and it seems impossible to determine absolutely whether this was in the reign of Nero in the sixties, or that of Domitian in the nineties. Irenaeus, one of the Christian fathers, who died A.D. 170, explicitly places it in the latter reign, while Tertullian, 50 years subsequently, assigns it by tradition to the former. A strong argument in favor of the tradition is the difference in language or style between the Revelation and the Gospel of John, so great as to be “explained only by the Gospel having been a later work by many years,” for the Gospel is in smooth and beautiful Greek compared with the Revelation which is very rugged, “Hebrew and Greek constructions being intermingled very strangely.” The Gospel, it is thought, and this is true also of the three epistles of John, must have been penned after a long residence in Ephesus “amid the influence of Greek culture and civilization,” while the Revelation bears more of the marks of the Galilean fisherman. The reference also to Jerusalem and the temple in Revelation 2:1-29, seems to imply their existence when Revelation was written, which would place the date before 70.

Much may be said, however, in favor of the later date which, in my opinion, is the correct one. One argument is the advanced stage of ecclesiastical development as shown in the condition of the churches addressed in the first three chapters. Another is the use of the phrase “The Lord’s Day,” as distinguishing the first day of the week, which was the designation of the earlier time. A third is the evidence of a more general state of persecution which these same epistles to the churches present as compared with what we know to have been the case in the sixties.

We cannot undertake to give anything of an outline of this mysterious book (Revelation), for which the reader is referred to the author’s earlier work alluded to above. But it may be well to add this, that the more study and reflection he bestows upon it, the more is he persuaded that, excepting the first three chapters, the book is largely Jewish in its application, and is to find its fulfillment in a comparatively brief period of time, known in the prophet Daniel as the last of the seventy weeks, or the culmination of the present age. The Jews will have been restored to their own land in that day, though still in an unconverted state, and the Gentile nations of the Roman world will be gathered against them under the leadership of the Anti-Christ. The judgments depicted in the book are those which are to fall on Israel in part, on those Gentile nations, and on that Wicked One who is at the head of them. It is at the close of these events that the Millennium is introduced upon the earth as indicated in Revelation 20:1-15.