Revelation 1:2

ὂς ἐμαρτύρησεν, i.e. who bears witness in the piesent work. The past tense is used, as constantly in Greek—e.g. in St John’s own Epistle, I. Revelation 2:14—of the act of a writer which will be past when his work comes to be read. The “witness “John is said to bear is that contained in this book—not, as some have imagined, in his Gospel.

There is, however, some evidence to the identity of authorship of the two, in the resemblance between the attestations to the authority of this book in these three verses, and to that of the Gospel in Revelation 21:24. The two may be conceivably presumed to proceed from the same persons, probably the elders of the Church of Ephesus.

τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ. His Word made known to man, especially as revealed to St John himself; not the personal Word of God of St John’s Gospel Revelation 1:1 and Revelation 19:13, as He is immediately mentioned under another name.

τὴν μαρτυρίαν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. See Revelation 22:16 for a similar description of the special Revelation of this book. Both “the Word “and “the testimony “are repeated in Revelation 1:9, and here they refer to the general Revelation of Christian truth for which the Seer was in exile.

ὅσα εἶδεν. These words exclude two possible senses of ἐμαρτύρησεν, that the writer bare witness by writing a gospel, or by suffering for the truth: possibly also they imply a limitation of what goes before, as if all “the Word” and “the testimony” were too great to be told, and the Seer had done what was possible in recording all he saw.