Is John One of the Two Witnesses?

SKtheChoG | September 26, 2025

Editor's Note: What follows is a summary of a recent episode of The Week in Bible Prophecy with Graham Keelan. I found the information so intriguing that I wanted to summarize it in article. I encourage you to watch the full episode embedded below the article.

Who are the Two Witnesses? Probably the most popular position is that they are Moses and Elijah. Another theory that is almost as popular amongst Bible Scholars is that they are Enoch and Elijah. But here is a new possibility that does seem to have some Biblical support.

John 21:21-24

When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” 

This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true. 

Why is this included at the end of John's Gospel? Maybe Jesus was being more literal than we think? Notice that in verse 24 it says ‘This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things.’

It also says the early church thought John would not die. There is another Church tradition that they tried to martyr John by boiling him in oil but that he didn't / wouldn't die. Tradition says that John was the only Apostle that didn't die a martyr.

Yet Jesus seems to have told him and his brother James that they would die martyrs:

Matthew 20:20-23

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.”  Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

The cup that Jesus drank was suffering and execution. The Lord the two that they would drink from the same cup. How can this be if John died a natural death?

In Revelation 10 John describes an Angel with a little scroll. The angel cries out and seven thunders sound, but John is told not to write down what he heard. Instead he is told to eat the scroll (which tastes sweet like honey but becomes bitter in his stomach). John is told he must prophesy about many people and nations and languages and kings. 

We are then immediately introduced to the Two Witnesses in Revelation 11. The Two Witnesses are tasked with Prophesying for 1,260 days (vs 3) and they are given the power to send fire from their mouths to kill any who would seek to harm them (vs 5).

In the Gospels John and his brother James are called the Sons of Thunder.

Mark 3:17

James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder);

Also, James and John specifically asked Jesus if they could call down fire from Heaven (but Jesus rebuked them). 

Luke 9:54

And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”

Since John was a friend of Jesus, did Jesus agree with the request - just on a very delayed basis? 

In Revelation 4 a voice from Heaven says, “Come up here!” and John is taken to Heaven where he writes down what he sees. I'm Revelation 11, after the Beast kills the Two Witnesses and their bodies have laid in the street for Three days a voice from Heaven says “Come up here!” and they are taken up to Heaven as the world watches. 

Revelation 4:1

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

Revelation 11:12

Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them.

Bible scholars have assumed that the Two Witnesses represent the Law and the Prophets but what if they represent the Apostles and Prophets?

Ephesians 2:19-21

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

There was actually a myth in the early centuries of the Church that claimed that Saint John's was assumed into heaven. The myth is said to have begun when Constantine the Great inquired about John’s body and discovered that his tomb was empty.(1) (Rats! No relics!) The belief was prevalent enough that Augustine wrote about it in a work called Tractates of the Gospel of John.(2) Is it possible that the Assumption of John was no myth at all? Was John actually assumed into Heaven where he would await his final assignment - being one of the Two Witnesses (along with Elijah)? 

1. https://catholicismcoffee.org/was-saint-john-assumed-into-heaven-e7a5e5cf9b6c 

2. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701124.htm