Apparently people didn’t start using last names until around the time of the Crusades. So when Revelation reads,“He (Jesus) made it (His revelation) known by sending his angel to his servant John” (Rev. 1:1), it prompts some scholars to ask, “John who?”
To me, it only makes sense that if Jesus wanted to give a more detailed and authoritative account of what His Church would someday face, He would entrust this critical information to someone who was highly respected by all believers.
John the Apostle was just such a man, and the only one of the Twelve still alive. Years before, he had stood at the cross where Jesus was crucified. He was the one to whom Jesus entrusted the care of Mary, His mother. It was also John who, along with Peter, discovered that the tomb of his Lord was empty.
There are respected scholars, however, who say the vocabulary and writing style of John’s gospel and three epistles are markedly different from that of Revelation, and that therefore, this must be some John whose identity we can no longer trace.
But we should also factor into the discussion that at the time, John was a prisoner serving as a part of a Roman penal colony on the rough little island of Patmos. So there probably wasn’t a lot of time to polish his words. It’s also likely that John was dictating to someone (a fellow prisoner?). Even the eloquent Apostle Paul did that (see Romans 16:22). The presence of a second person could explain some of the differences.
For my money, when the text refers to Jesus as “the word of God” (Rev. 19:14) or regularly calls Him “the Lamb” (Rev. 5), it sounds very much like the Apostle John in his earlier gospel.
Finally, the early Church assumed John the Apostle was the “I, John” of Revelation chapter 1, verse 9. It wasn’t until Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria (A.D. 190-264) raised questions that anyone thought differently.
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