1 John 1:5

This verse provides a basis for what follows in 1 John 1:6-10 and, in a sense, the whole rest of the letter. One commentator regarded this verse as the main burden of the epistle. [Note: Yarbrough, p. 46.] It gives the standard against which the three following Christian professions fall short.

The "message" is the truth that Jesus Christ, the first "Him," revealed to the apostolic eyewitnesses.

The figure of light that John used to describe God emphasizes His ability to reveal and His ability to deal with what the light of His holiness reveals (cf. John 1:4-5; John 1:7-9; John 3:19-21; John 8:12; John 9:5; John 12:35-36; John 12:46; Revelation 21:23). John elsewhere described God as spirit (John 4:24) and as love (1 John 4:8). All three comparisons of God stress his immateriality and essence. God exposes and condemns sin (called "darkness" in John 1:5; John 3:19; John 12:35 [twice], and in 1 John 1:5-6; 1 John 2:8-9; 1 John 2:11 [twice]). The light figure emphasizes these qualities in God: His splendor and glory, His truthfulness, His purity, His self-communicative nature (cf. Psalms 27:1; Psalms 36:9; Isaiah 49:6; John 1:9), His empowering activity (cf. John 8:12; John 12:35; Ephesians 5:8-14), and His right to demand (cf. John 3:19-21). The light-darkness motif was common in both the Hellenistic and Jewish thought life of John’s day and culture. [Note: Dodd, pp. 18-19; John R. W. Stott, The Epistles of John, p. 70; Theodor H. Gaster, The Dead Sea Scriptures, pp. 46, 49-51.] For John these concepts were mainly ethical (cf. Ephesians 5:8-14).

"Whatever other qualities this metaphorical designation may include, it clearly involves the intellectual and moral-enlightenment and holiness. Just as light reveals and purifies, so by His very nature God illuminates and purifies those who come to Him. His nature determines the conditions for fellowship with Him." [Note: Hiebert, "An Expositional . . .," 145:331.]

"As darkness has no place in God, so all that is of the darkness is excluded from having fellowship with God." [Note: Barker, p. 310. See Westcott, pp. 16-17 for a good discussion of God being light.]

John frequently clarified and emphasized his propositions by restating them in terms of what they are not, as he did here.