John 21:24

This is the disciple that beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his witness is true.

This is everything short of an absolute identification of the apostle John as the author of this Gospel. This attestation, here at the end of it, is thought to have been inscribed by the elders of the church in Ephesus; and their unqualified affirmation that the disciple who witnessed the things reported in this Gospel is one and the same man who wrote them down destroys the allegation that some person other than an eye-witness wrote them. The eye-witness and the author are here declared to be the same person; and, by a process of elimination, there is no other person in the first century who could have qualified as an eye-witness who heard the whispers at the last supper, counted the water-pots at Cana, hauled ashore the 153 fish from the sea of Tiberius, and heard the words of Jesus to Mary and to himself from the cross.

Hendriksen's comment on this verse is significant. He said:

"This is the disciple, etc. ..." "This" cannot refer to Jesus, for he was no disciple. It must. indicate either Peter or John. But Peter was no longer bearing witness, being dead when this was written ... Neither is it possible to introduce another person here, for "this" clearly means someone just mentioned. Only John is left. That person must therefore be John. Accordingly, the passage must mean: "This disciple, John, who is still bearing witness (the present participle is used) and he is the one who has written (aorist participle) these things."[13]

The persons who appended this corroborative testimony did not identify themselves; but the most learned opinions of a thousand years have invariably ascribed them to the elders at Ephesus. As Westcott said, "The words were probably added by the Ephesian elders, to whom the preceding narrative had been given both orally and in writing."[14] Their testimony affixed at the close of this Gospel is not diminished by the absence of their names; for, whatever their names, they were the ones who certified the Gospel as absolute truth and circulated it among the churches of the first century.

[13] William Hendriksen, op. cit., p. 493.

[14] B. F. Westcott, op. cit., p. 306.