1 John 1:5

II. PRINCIPAL PART THE FIRST

1 John 1:5 to 1 John 2:28

IF YE WALK IN THE LIGHT (1 John 1:5 to 1 John 2:2)—OBEDIENT TO HIS LAW IN GENERAL (1 John 2:2-6), AND TO THE COMMANDMENT OF BROTHERLY LOVE IN PARTICULAR (1 John 2:7-14), NOT MISLED BY THE LUSTS (1 John 2:15-17) AND THE LIES OF THE WORLD (1 John 2:18-23) YE SHALL ABIDE BEFORE CHRIST

1. Leading thought: God is Light

5This then Isaiah 9:0 the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you,10 that God is light, and in him is no darkness11 at all.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1 John 1:5. And is not like οὖν (igitur, Beza) or δὲ (Episcopius); for it is neither an inference, nor even a delicate antithesis; it simply connects with the preceding, as does καὶ—γράφομεν, 1 John 1:4, with ἀπαγγέλλομεν, and while ταῦτα points to the contents of the now opening Epistle, καὶ connects with the exordium, in which preparation is made for what follows, and αὕτη ἡ points to the subsequent words [ὅτι ὁ θεὸς κ. τ. λ.—M.].

This is the message.—Contrary to the usual position of the words (αὕτη ἐστίν, 1Jn 2:25; 1 John 3:11; 1Jn 3:23; 1 John 4:3; 1Jn 5:11; 1 John 5:14, cf. John 17:3), ἐστιν is emphatically placed first to denote the existence and reality of the message. The poorly authenticated reading ἐπαγγελία is very awkward, the word denoting not annunciation (Oecumen., Beza, de Wette contrary to the grammatical usage of the N. T.), either here or elsewhere (1 John 2:24; 1 John 3:11; cf. var. 2 Timothy 1:1; Acts 23:31), and if taken in the sense of promise would have required here an enlargement of the thought. Calov: non jubemur tantum in luce ambulare ac mundari sanguine Christi, sed utriusque etiam gratia nobis promittitur, illius per Spiritus Sancti illuminationem, hujus per expiationis Christi applicationem; quia utraque fruimur per beatam cum Deo et Christo communionem. [Huther thinks that the reading ἐπαγγελία in the sense of promise might be justified on the ground that every announcement of the New Testament is fraught with promise, and cites Spener, who says: “Promise, as the sequel indeed conceals a promise. God is not only a light in Himself, but He is also the light of believers. And that is the promise.”—M.].—ἀπαγγελία, which occurs no where in the New Testament, as Socinus and Episcopius read, is an arbitrary correction. The outwardly best authenticated reading is strongly supported by the context, for it seems to rëecho in the following ἀναγγέλλομεν: the message of Christ is announced again by His Apostles. Erasmus: “Quod filius annunciavit a patre, hoc Apostolus acceptum a filio renunciat nobis.”

Which we have heard from Him.—The Apostle alludes to 1 John 1:1. He thinks of the first disciples, and more particularly of the Apostles. Hence both the ἀγγελία, the ἀκηκόαμεν, and the contents of the message: ὁ θεός κ. τ. λ̓.., suggest the reference to Jesus, the Christ; this is also rendered necessary by the preposition ἀπό, which indicates the Prophet-speaker, the Person of the Master, on whose lips the Apostles hang as hearers and disciples. John uses ἀκούειν παρά, John 8:26; John 8:40; John 15:15, but there it is the Father who speaks and the Son who hears; this (παρὰ) presupposes the nearness, the being together, and had to be used when the Son was hearing the Father, the other (ἀπό) denotes distance, and could hardly have been used in the aforecited passages; παρὰ points also to familiarity ἀπό only to derivation in general αὐτοῦ denotes, with reference to 1 John 1:3 : τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, Christ; the assertion that αὐτοῦ, as distinguished from ἐκεῖνος, which always relates to Christ, invariably refers to the Father (Paulus, Baumgarten-Crusius) is incorrect. The sense then is: From Him, the Incarnate Son of God, whom we have heard, etc., 1 John 1:1, we have received the message concerning God the Father (Düsterdieck, Huther). Socinus, who takes the relation of God and Christ not as conjunctio esseritiæ, but only as conjunctio voluntatis et rerum aliarum omnium, understands a Deo et Christo, i.e., a Deo per Christum, thus representing Christ as the mere mediator and not as the author of the message.

And announce to you again.—Next to the note of Erasmus, as quoted above, we cite the admirable exposition of Bengel: “Quæ in ore Christi fuit ἀγγελία eam apostoli ἀγγέλλουσι; nam ἀγγέλιαν ab Ipso acceptam reddunt et propagant.” ἀναγγέλλειν is not exactly = ἀπαγγέλλειν, the latter denotes to continue announcing [rather to bear tidings from one person (ἁπὸ) to another—M.], the former to announce anew, back, again, as in John 4:25; John 16:25, where, however, ἀπαγγελῶ is the more authentic reading. As our Lord conversed with the Syrophœnician woman as the Messenger of God Reporting what the Father had told Him before, so the Apostles report what the Lord had told them before (John 20:21).

God is light.—This is the substance of the ἀγγελία. But Christ did not say so, although He called Himself the Light, John 12:12; Jno 15:46; and speaks of the children of the Light (John 8:36), even as James refers to the Father of the Lights, τῶν φώτων, James 1:17, see the note above ad loc. But Christ, as the Son of God, is ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης καὶ χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσες αὐτοῦ (Hebrews 1:2), and this it is which John and his fellow Apostles (1 John 1:1) had heard, seen and gazed upon, so that the sum-total and centre of the message of Christ, as well as His personal manifestation and revelation in the flesh, may truly be expressed in the words “God is Light.” Christ reveals this, but no philosopher is able to find it; without Christ the wise men of the world pass it by. It is not a light, as Luther translates, as if there were other lights beside and out of Him. The Being of God is Light. Neither is it in the light, as if it were only surrounding Him, nor as the Light. It is not secundum similitudinem (Bullinger), but secundum substantiam. Light is His garment (Psalms 104:2); Ezekiel (1 John 1:0.) and Habakkuk (1 John 3:3, sqq.) beheld the glory of the Lord as fire, pure and bright as lightning. He is not only the Author of light, to whom belongs His first creative fiat (Genesis 1:3), but the Father of all light (James 1:17), a mighty sphere of light surrounds Him (1 Timothy 6:16); and the marvellous light wherein Christians walk is God’s (1 Peter 2:9). This sentence is parallel to the sentence: “God is Love” (1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16), with the same fundamental thought, although in the one instance the expression is figurative, and in the other literal, and the figurative expression lays peculiar emphasis on one side of the Divine Being, and this, on account of the antithesis in the following verses (1 John 1:6-10), is also holiness, perfect pureness, but not omniscience, as Calov maintains, although in Daniel 2:22 light is the symbol of the omniscience of God; it may include, however, the wisdom of God. [Alford:—“Of all material objects, light is that which most easily passes into an ethical predicative without even the process, in our thought, of interpretation. It unites in itself purity, and clearness, and beauty, and glory, as no other material object does; it is the condition of all material life and growth and joy. And the application to God of such a predicative requires no transference. He is Light, and the fountain of light material and ethical. In the one world, darkness is the absence of light; in the other, darkness, untruthfulness, deceit, falsehood, is the absence of God. They who are in communion with God, and walk with God, are the light, and walk in the light.”—M.]

And darkness in Him is none whatsoever.—This second negative member, stated with marked emphasis (οὐκ ἒστιν οὐδεμία, similar to John 15:5, see Winer, p. 521. [“The two negations produce one negation, which is the more frequent case, and serve, originally, to make the principal negation more distinct and forcible, and exhibit the sentence as negative in all its parts.”—M.]), rejects any and every darkness, i.e., impureness [or absence of all admixture.—M.]. Oecumenius: ἢτοι τὴν ἂγνοιαν, ἢ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν. Rather both: neither an untruth or a lie, nor any sin is in Him. The fulness of the reference contained in this expression is brought out by Lorinus in the following passage cited by Huther: “Deus lux est, quia clarissime se ipsum percipit, omniaque in se ipse, utpote prima et ipsissima veritas; quia summe bonus, ac summa et ipsissima bonitas; fidelis absque ulla iniquitate, justus et rectus, quia fons omnis lucis in aliis, i.e., veritatis atque virtutis, non solum illustrans mentem, docensque quid agendum sit, verum etiam operans in nobis, ut agemus et sic radiis suis liberans mentem ab ignorantiæ tenebris, purgans a pravitate voluntatem.”—John’s speculation or mysticism is so thoroughly ethical, that he is solely concerned with the practical working out of the truth: “God is Light.” As he connects this sentiment with the preceding by καὶ, namely, the fellowship with the Father and the Son, so he develops the nature of this fellowship-life in the sequel (1 John 5:6-21). Now, since the nature of this fellowship and of the life in it depend upon the nature of the Father, he begins with the leading thought (1 John 1:5) and with reference to errors in a sentence of two members, the one positive, the other negative. [Huther: “John properly makes the truth that God is Light, as the chief substance of the ἀγγελία of Christ, the starting-point of his development; for it is the essential basis of Christianity, both as to its objective and subjective substance, and it involves both the consummation of sin and the redemption from sin by the incarnation and death of Christ; both the necessity of repentance and faith and the moral problem of the Christian life.”—M.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Monotheism and the absolute personal existence of God are with John two chief points, which may be also identified here, although one side only is made prominent. Of the two sentences, “God is Spirit” (John 4:24), and “God is Love” (1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16),—the former denoting the Being of God physically, the latter ethically; the former describing the nature and substance, the latter the character of God,—the second only will have to be connected with the sentence, “God is Light,” and thus be further defined by a metaphorical expression. Spirit and Love are indeed correlative fundamental ideas, since Spirit denotes “free self-glory in self-consciousness and spontaneity over a substantial fulness of real vital powers,” and Love “free self-surrender with conscious and intentional conservation of the essential original determinateness both of oneself and of others” (Plitt). But the phrase “God is Light,” declares “the superiority of God to all sensuous wants” (Köstlin), the holiness of God, and thus defines further the character of God, His Love, and this as a holy Love, while it enables us to take the Love of God as contemplating also the communication of His Holiness. We may add, “God is—eternal Life” (John 1:20) as a correlative, so that His Love as well as His Holiness are live. There is no manner of darkness in Him. He is not a God in process of being coming to Himself in the history of creation, the world or in the spirit of man, as Plato maintains: He is operative prior to all the ὒλη of Plato, or the dark Urgrund of Schelling, as a self-conscious, holy, loving and living God. Nor has sin, evil, its original beginning in Him, as was taught by the Gnostics in their doctrine of emanations. [Wordsworth: “A sentence opposed to the error of most of the Gnostics, who asserted the existence of two hostile Deities, one a God of Light, the other of Darkness. Irenæus I., 25. 28, ed Grabe. Theodoret, Hæret., fab. prœm. Epiphan., Hæres, XXVI., cf. Ittig. Hæres, p. 34; note in his Comment. on John 1:5; and Bp. Andrewes, III., pp. 371–376. Almost all the Gnostics adopted the theory of dualism, derived from the Magians, and afterwards developed by the Marcionites and Manichæans.”—M.]

2. God is Light—must not be taken as a notice, a truth without reality, a reality without efficiency. As the sentence “God is Spirit” (John 4:24) is immediately followed by “and those who worship Him, must worship Him in Spirit and in truth,” so this sentence must be taken as a principle, the application of which is contained in the sequel. The sentence is through and through ethical and practical. John wants no science without practice. He does not allow an enlightenment of the mind without a corresponding bias and purifying of the will.

3. The question “Whence comes sin, evil into the world?” the Apostle here decides very distinctly in a negative form: in no event from God. Evil though connate, is not co-created.

4. Nothing must be taught or announced that does not rest upon or does not agree with the testimony of Christ. Those who pretend to know eternal truth which maketh free, different from Him, do not know it better, and are not servants, but adversaries and rebels.—It is at once Apostolical and Protestant to go back to the beginning of the Gospel in Christ. We are much more the Apostolical Church than the Church of Rome with its claims to Apostolicity.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

God is Light. 1. Whence do you know it? 2. What does it mean? 3. Whither does it point?—Whatever right and true views you may have of God the Father, you have them from Christ, no matter whether a messenger of salvation, a servant of the Church have announced them to you, whether they were told you by your mother or commended by the counsel of a friend, whether Christian hands brought them to you in the Bible, or the Holy Ghost excited them in your heart.—Nothing gladdens the hearts of men more than light; but how have they abused the Word and deprived it of its best part, and try to make it chime in with unholiness in thought, in word and in deed!—The world’s light dazzles without illumining, shines without producing a spring with blossoms or an autumn with fruit.—The world’s light may be useful, build you in this life bridges of honour, bring wreaths to artists and fame to the wise, make account of order in the land and in the streets, rejoice the heart in the social circle and refresh the mind, but also undermine and destroy the salvation of your soul. But it cannot carry a shine of consolation into the night of life, still less into the night of death; it cannot help the soul to find love and the life which death cannot destroy.—The world’s light sets like the sun in the sky; but the Light which is God the Lord, shines through all the night of sin, of life, of death.—Try every light, whether God be in it.—If He, the Holy One, is absent, that light is no light worthy of the name, but a false light, a will-o’-the-wisp.—Do not look for salvation in any light of science or civilization, if it denies the holy light. Fear only the darkness in which God the Father is not found.

Starke:—Teachers should not pronounce any thing in things Divine but that which they have heard from the Lord in His Word; for if the Apostles themselves were firmly tied by it, how much more are they bound to cleave to it? The thoughts of man, being fallible, are not sufficient for the foundation of the faith.—Because God is Light, and in Him is no darkness whatsoever, it is wholly impossible that He can be the Cause of sin, which is the greatest darkness.—God is all Light, Wisdom, Holiness, Consolation and Joy; who would not desire to be united with Him?

Lange:—Because God is Light we have often to sigh in our fellowship with Him: “Lord, cause Thy face to shine upon us, and be gracious unto us.”

Spener:—God is Light. 1. Holiness and Righteousness, showing that He not only has no evil within Himself, but also cannot suffer sin or evil in His creatures. 2. All wisdom and Allwisdom. 3. Glory and salvation.

Heubner:—Christianity has showed to all men the light-nature of God in Christ in the clearest brightness; that He is through and through perfect Knowledge, Omniscience, Wisdom, Love, Grace, Holiness and Happiness, and delights in the happiness of His creatures. Why does John specify this as the chief announcement? 1. Because it is of the first importance and indispensably necessary for sinful man to know that it is not by the hostile and malicious purpose of an omnipotent Being that he has been cast into this misery, that God did not plan his ruin, and that it does not come from Him, because He is pure and good. 2. Because salvation, a restoration of happiness may be expected from this God who desires all men to be happy. This belief is man’s first support [holding-point] of salvation. And this His Will God has proved most strongly in fact—through Christ.

Besser:—John convicts of falsehood three classes of spirits by declaring the vanity of the boast of fellowship with God on the part of such as walk in darkness instead of walking in the Light, of such as comfort themselves with the assurance of being perfectly pure instead of relying upon the continual cleansing of the blood of Christ, and lastly, of such as, instead of confessing their sins, deny their sinfulness. Worldly-mindedness, boast of sanctity and self-righteousness are exposed by John to the condemnatory light of the truth, and accompanied by an exhortation to a sincere, humble and penitent walking in the Light.

[Bp. Hall:—Divine Light and reflections. Sermons, Works, 5, 419.—M].

Footnotes:

1 John 1:5; 1 John 1:5. ἒστιν αὒτη, B. C. G. K., Cod. Sin., al. [Syr., Theoph., Oecumen., Tischend., Buttmann, Wordsw. καὶαὒτη ἐστὶ, A., Vulg., Lachm., Rec.; this is altered from the original reading.—M.]

[10]Instead of ἀγγελία, A. B. G., al. [Griesb., Scholz., Lachm., Tischend., Wordsw.—M.] we find ἐπαγγελία in C., and in Cod. Sin., over ἀπαγγελία, the following correction, probably emanating from the transcriber himself: ἁγαπη τῆς ἐπαγγελίας; but a later hand has added ἀγγελία as the right reading.

[11][ἀναγγέλλομεν, renuntiamus, announce again, Report (Lillie). Declare, E. V., is too weak, it denotes a repetition of an announcement already made and known, brought out by the preposition ἀνα. See the notes of Bengel and Erasmus in Exegetical and Critical.—M.]