John 21:24 - Exposition

This is the disciple who testifieth concerning these things —whether those narrated in the twenty-first chapter or in the entire Gospel. He is still testifying. He has not yet departed. He still proclaims his gospel of the love of God, his memories of "the Word made flesh," of "the Light of the world," his doctrine of the "eternal life which was with the Father, and has been manifested unto us." And wrote these things —compare "these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full" ( 1 John 1:4 )— and we know (as a matter of fact, οἶδαμεν ) that his testimony is true ( ἀληθής ), "veracious." We know him; we believe in his representation; we know without any shadow of doubt upon our mind that what he has said answers to the fact. It does not need that any of the elders should have seen the Lord to justify the use of οἶδαμεν . Meyer supposes that these words, notwithstanding their plural form, simply show that John identifies himself with his readers, and, from the peculiar delicacy of his mind, hides himself and his individuality among them or behind them. Alford compares it with John 1:14 , "We have seen his glory," and 1 John 4:14 , 1 John 4:16 ; 1 John 5:18 . Chrysostom and Theophylact read, in place of οἶδαμεν οἶδα μέν ," I indeed know that his testimony is true." This ingenious method is rejected by modern scholars, on the principle that the writer would not thus have passed from third person to first. This does not seem to be insuperable: Paulus adopted this solution. The chief difficulty of admitting that these words are a note by the Ephesian presbyters, and of ignoring Chrysostom's suggestion, is that verse 25 contains an unquestionable reintroduction of the first person in the οἶμαι . This difficulty is, however, surmounted by Meyer, on the supposition that the last verse is not Johannine. Meyer and Tischendorf (who excludes it from his text) suppose it to have been a gloss by later hands, one which departs from the gravity and dignity of an apostle by its strong hyperbole. Still no codex but the Sinaitieus omits it, and the omission may be due to the loss of the last folio, on which it may have been written; while every other codex contains it. Godet thinks the writer was one of the elders who had joined in the previous authentication, and refers to "the strange notice which Tischendorf records from a manuscript in the vatican, that Papias was the secretary to whom John dictated the entire Gospel," and imagines that the hyperbolic style of sores of the extant fragments of Papias might account for the extravagance of the statement it contains. Lange and Alford regard the whole verse, together with verse 24, as Johannine, and suppose that John here speaks in propria persona when the fullness of his memory baffled all expression. Some treat the οἶμαι , etc., as a possible saying of John's which was added by the authors of both verses. We think that the presence of the οἶμαι (a very unusual word in the New Testament) is possibly accounted for by the recollection which some of those who had often heard the beloved apostle speak may have had of his way of describing the superlative richness of the life of our Lord, and that the brief appendix by those who bore this testimony to the veracity and authenticity and apostolic origin of the whole narrative is of priceless value. Undoubtedly it asserts with perfect clearness that John the son of Zebedee was the author of the Gospel. If, nevertheless, the work be that of a forger, who secured an accomplice in his deed of imposition, he is a moral anomaly; for, while acting so unworthily, he was nevertheless glorifying the doctrine that God is true, and that every lie is of the devil ( John 8:44 ), and has produced a work which turns from end to end on a realization of the truth. The words on which so many speculations have been raised are—