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Who is the Author?
The epistle has traditionally been ascribed to John the apostle, though the author’s name does not appear in the letter. Yet it is plain from the tone of the letter that the writer possessed spiritual authority. He placed himself among the eyewitnesses to the incarnate life of the Lord Jesus (1:1–2). Early Christian writers, including Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, cited the epistle as John’s,1 and leaders in the early church assumed that John the apostle wrote this letter. Evidence supporting apostolic authorship includes the similar vocabulary between the Gospel of John and this epistle. Such terms as “light” and “eternal life” feature in both writings. The author claimed that he was a companion of Christ during his earthly ministry (1:1–4). His description of his readers as “dear children” (2:1) indicates a person of sufficient authority to address his audience in this manner. All of these features point to apostolic authorship. Some who question apostolic authorship favor an authorship by “John the elder,” mentioned in Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History3.39). But some feel that the term “John the elder” is merely an alternate way of referring to John the apostle.2 Moving forward with the understanding that John was the author, we can trace who John was as a person and how he’s portrayed in the Gospels.
When John and his brother James, the sons of Zebedee, began to follow Jesus, they were apparently quite young and enthusiastic. Once when the disciples were passing through Samaria on the way to Jerusalem, James and John went on ahead to find lodging in a village. When the Samaritans, who hated the Jews as much as they were hated by the Jews, learned that the party was traveling to Jerusalem, they refused them shelter. Furious, James and John confronted Jesus. “Lord,” they asked, “do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54).Their nickname was appropriate: “Thunderers.” Another time the disciples saw a man driving out demons in Jesus’s name, but the man was not one of their company. “We tried to stop him,” John reported, “because he was not following us” (Mark 9:38). John was again corrected by Jesus because his zeal had missed the spirit of his Master. A final Gospel incident (Matt. 20:20–28) completes John’s portrait. He and his brother whisper privately to their mother. Shortly after, she approaches Jesus. Could the places of authority at Jesus’s right and left hand be reserved for her sons when the Lord takes power in his kingdom? Jesus explained to the mother and her two sons that he did not have the authority to grant such a request. Later, the other disciples heard of the pair’s attempt to gain advantage, and they reacted with understandable anger. Then Jesus explained to the Twelve that greatness in his kingdom is not found in authority but in servanthood, a servanthood far removed from the self-concerned attitude of James and John.3 But when we come to John’s writings, we meet a different man—a man whose favorite word was love, a man who was gentle, so selfless that he hardly mentioned himself or his feelings, except as they related to the needs of the men and women to whom he ministered. We meet a man who was transformed, who demonstrated in his own personality the Bible promise that we can be changed by beholding Jesus (2 Cor. 3:18). John emphasized the love Jesus had for him even in the days before he matured; thus, he calls himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”4