Who was John the Apostle in the Bible?

Son of Zebedee, and brother of James. James and John were fishermen, but when the Lord called them, they forsook all and followed Him. The Lord surnamed them BOANERGES, 'sons of thunder.'

John, Peter, and James were the three selected to be with the Lord on the mount of transfiguration, and in the garden of Gethsemane. In the Acts of the Apostles John was with Peter when the lame man was healed, and they were both cast into prison. They boldly declared that they could not but speak the things they had seen and heard. John was associated with Peter in visiting the Samaritans, who had received the word preached by Philip, and through the laying on of their hands the Holy Spirit was given. Acts 8.

We know more of John than we know of any other author of the Gospels. He was one of the two sons of Zebedee. Zebedee was probably a prosperous fishermen on the shore of lake Galilee and he employed hired servants (Mark 1:19-20). John and James' mother was Salome (Math. 27:55-56; Mark 15:40). She bade the Lord Jesus to have her two sons sit on His right and His left hand in his kingdom (Math. 20:20).

John's calling to be a disciple of the Lord is described in the synoptic Gospels (Math. 4:21-22; Mark 1:19-20; Luke 5:10-11). John and his brother James were full of zeal for the Lord Jesus. This is probably why he named them Boanerges (the sons of thunder, Mark 3:17). Luke reports two occurrences where John shows great zeal (Luke 9:49.54).

John was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and the younger brother of James. Though his father was a fisherman, it appears from the Gospel narrative that they were in good circumstances. Some of the ancients speak of the family as wealthy, and even as nobly connected. But these traditions are not reconcilable with the facts of scripture. We read however, of their "hired servants," and they may have owned more vessels than one. And Salome we doubt not was one of those honoured women who ministered to the Lord of her substance. And John had a house of his own (Luke 8:3; John 19:27) We may safely infer from these facts; that their position was considerably above poverty. As many have gone to extremes in speaking of the apostles as poor and illiterate, we think it well to notice the few hints of scripture on these subjects.

John, the son of Zebedee, and brother of James, who was martyred by Herod Agrippa, A.D. 42-44. (Acts 12:2.) John outlived all his apostolic brethren, and is believed to have fallen asleep at Ephesus, about A.D. 98-100.

John's definite call to discipleship is recorded in Matt. 4:21 f. and Luke 5:1-11. The Lord gave to him and his brother the joint name of "Boanerges" (Mark 3:17); so that writers concerned with the question of the authorship of the Apocalypse have to consider the fitness of the designation of a son "of thunder" in that connection, as also when investigating the authorship of the Epistles which go under John's name.

The "disciple whom Jesus loved," spoken of in the Gospel attributed to John the Apostle, is generally supposed to be a designation of himself (see, further, note on John 13:23). To the disciple so described our Lord when dying bequeathed the care of His mother (John 19:26). This Apostle is, besides, spoken of as one of the "pillars" of the Church at Jerusalem (Gal. 2:19; cf. Acts 15, A.D. 51). The last glimpse we have of him in the New Testament is as an exile in the island of Patmos during the reign, Eusebius (ii. 18) states, of Domitian. Before that time, according to Tertullian (Præscr. Hæret.), while the Apostle was in Rome, he was cast into a cauldron of boiling oil, from which he emerged unhurt. Ecclesiastical tradition carries on the story of his life, when released from Patmos, by representing him as prominently connected with the churches of Asia Minor, with Ephesus in particular (Irenæus). Zahn supposes that he removed from Palestine during the fatal Jewish war of the year 69, whilst Blass, comparing Acts 15 with John 21 there, considers that he must have finally left Jerusalem by at least the year 54. His residence in Asia Minor has been questioned, on insufficient grounds, by Keim, Scholten, H. Holtzmann, Harnack, Bousset, and Schmiedel, from its not suiting their theory as to the authorship. Amongst other familiar incidents related of that period of his life are the stories of his reclaiming a notable backslider (Eusebius iii. 33), and of his meeting a Gnostic in a public bath, when he at once rushed out of the place. Irenæus's account (iii. 3, 4) gives Cerinthus as the name, but Epiphanius (xxx. 24) says that it was Ebion. The last-named writer states that the Apostle remained unmarried. John is generally reported to have passed away in Ephesus by a natural death soon after the year 98 — i.e., after the accession of Trajan (so Irenæus, ii. 22, 5). Eusebius (vii. 25) states that his grave was shown there, another account is that two graves were shown at Ephesus connected with the name John (see, further, note on John 21:22 f.).

The day came, when, engaged in his secular pursuit, and with his brother James, mending their nets after a night of fruitless toil, the Lord addressed to him, and to James, having first spoken to Peter and Andrew, words similar, or the same, which none of them could resist. From being fishermen in the ordinary acceptation of the term, He could make them fishers of men (Matt. 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20; Luke 5:1-11). Their path in life now began to open up before them. Galilean fishermen, possessed of no learning such as the scribes and other educated ones of the nation would recognise (Acts 4:13), they were called to a work on which none of the Sanhedrin, or great doctors of the law, had ever entered: "fishers of men" — a term very comprehensive, for it could include work amongst Gentiles as well as amongst Jews. John had held intercourse with the Lord before his brother James had met Him; for though related after the flesh, they seem, John at least (John 1:38), not to have been earlier acquainted with Him. James, however, was just as ready to follow Him, and that definitely, abandoning at once his secular occupation for a new and untried life. Another day arrived, when, not by the shore of the lake, but on the Mount of Beatitudes, the Lord selected John, James, and others to form the company of the Twelve, whom He named Apostles (Luke 6:13).

Of three distinct and interesting moments in John's life have we spoken: viz. that of his first meeting with Christ, and the evening that he then spent in His company; next of his call to leave his father to follow the Lord; and last of his selection to be one of the Apostles. As a saint, as a disciple, and as an Apostle he thus comes before us. And as an Apostle he, with James his brother and Peter, formed that inner circle of the Twelve, privileged to witness the raising of the daughter of Jairus, the Lord's transfiguration on the mount, and His agony in the garden. Surnamed by the Lord, in company with his brother James, Boanerges — i.e. sons of thunder (Mark 3:17) — burning zeal for his Master characterised him. Of this we have two examples, both related by the Evangelist Luke, whilst the former of them is also noticed by Mark (9:38-40). Seeing one casting out demons in Christ's name, he told the Lord, "We forbad him, because he follows not with us" (Luke 9:49). The Lord's answer was at once a rebuke for John, and instruction for Christians in all time. "Forbid him not: for he that is not against you is for you." So far wrote Luke, in quoting whom we have followed the better-attested reading. But Mark has preserved still more of Christ's words on that occasion. "Forbid him not," he writes: "for there is no man, which shall do a miracle in My name, that can lightly speak evil of Me" (Mark 9:39).

The evangelist Mark, in enumerating the twelve apostles (Mark 3:17), when he mentions James and John, says that our Lord "surnamed them Boanerges, which is, Sons of Thunder." What our Lord particularly intended to convey in this title, is not easily determined. Conjectures there have been many. Some suppose that it was because these two brothers were of a more furious and resolute disposition, and of a more fierce and fiery temper than the rest of the apostles. But we see no ground for such a conjecture in the Gospel history. Doubtless, on one or two occasions their zeal was intemperate. but that was before they understood the spirit of their calling. More probably our Lord so surnamed them, as prophetic of their burning zeal in openly and boldly proclaiming the great truths of the gospel, after they became fully acquainted with them. Certain we are, that John in company with Peter, in the early chapters of the Acts, displayed a courage that feared no threatenings, and was daunted by no opposition.

John is supposed to have been the youngest of all the apostles, and, judging from his writings he appears to have been possessed of a disposition singularly affectionate, mild, and amiable. He was characterised as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." On various occasions he was admitted to free and intimate intercourse with the Lord. (John 13)

John was one of the apostles at Jerusalem who, when Paul went thither, gave to him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that they should go to the heathen. Gal. 2:9. He was afterwards banished to the Isle of Patmos, probably under the emperor Nero or Domitian; it is not known with certainty which, nor at what date. There he had the visions recorded in the Revelation. He also wrote the Gospel and the three Epistles bearing his name, which are generally judged to have been written after the other Gospels and Epistles.

John in his gospel calls himself 'the disciple whom Jesus loved;' at the last Passover he leaned upon the bosom of Jesus, and to his care did the Lord when on the cross commend His mother.

There is a widely spread and generally received tradition that John remained in Judaea till after the death of the virgin Mary. The date of this event is uncertain. But soon after he proceeded to Asia Minor. Here he planted and watched over several churches in different cities, but made Ephesus his centre. Thence he was banished to the Isle of Patmos towards the close of Domitian's reign. There he wrote the Revelation. (Rev. 1:9) On his liberation from exile, by the accession of Nerva to the imperial throne, John returned to Ephesus, where he wrote his Gospel and Epistles. He died about A.D. 100, in the third year of the emperor Trajan, and about one hundred years of age.*

When he left Jerusalem finally we do not know, nor of any apostolic journey, save that to Samaria, could we with authority speak. He was not at Jerusalem on the occasion of Paul's first visit to the metropolis after his conversion near Damascus (Gal. 1:19). Neither was He in the holy city at Paul's last visit to it, of which we have mention in the Acts. He was there, however, in the interval. For, when Paul and Barnabas went up thither from Antioch in Syria about the circumcision of converts from the Gentiles, John, with Peter and James, gave them the right hand of fellowship, and acknowledged the sphere in which those two had been specially called to labour (Gal. 2:9). Tradition makes John to have ultimately fixed his abode at Ephesus, where he ministered till strength failed him. But this, if true, must have been after Paul's decease; for Timothy, it would seem, was labouring there till near the martyrdom of his father in the faith. Then, although one cannot speak of any special evangelistic or missionary work undertaken by the son of Zebedee after that visit with Peter to Samaria, he evidently had converts; for Gaius, his correspondent (3 John), was one; yet not the only one, since John writes him, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth" (3 John 4). Joy then he had in the fruits of personal labour, carried on, we may well be assured, very unostentatiously, no chronicle numbering his converts, nor recounting interesting details of his work. With that joy, however, he had, in common with many another faithful servant, opposition to encounter, and even persecution to endure. In his case opposition came from one Diotrephes, and persecution from the emperor Domitian, under whom he was banished to Patmos. He lived long, and died, it is supposed, in the reign of the emperor Trajan. Peter, his partner in fishing, and his companion in service, was martyred; John, it is supposed, died a natural death. This would harmonise with the Lord's words about him addressed to Peter (John 21:22-23). Peter's martyrdom distinctly foretold, John's exemption from a martyr's death could be as clearly deduced.