In 1 John 1:5 and 7, BDAG lists God as being the transcendent light. This is important because God is the One who illuminates and grants understanding to those whom He wishes to understand. This is the message that was heard from Him. God is the great, amazing, transcendent light. John 1:4 states that the Word contains the life, and the life was the light of men. This seems to imply that light is the source of life. This is consistent with the writings of John because God is Light, and those who are in the Light, and walk in the Light, are those who possess life. This light grants life and illuminates the understanding of unbelievers. The light refers to the eternal life revealed by Jesus, rather than simply the Source of life, for two reasons. First, the sense of revelation is implicit in the “the light,” the source of eternal life, “had come into the world.” The coming of the Source of life reveals life. Second, “the light” is contrasted with “the darkness,” yielding a contrast of the presence or absence of light. The presence of light(which is the Source of life) means the presence of life, while the absence of light means the absence of life(i.e. death)(The New American Commentary, Daniel Akin, 67).
Let's look at some of the historical background and how classical Greek used this word light to better understand this passage.
1. The confession “God is light” has parallels in many
different religious and philosophical traditions in antiquity. The Psalmist
declared, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear(Psalm
27:1)? Philo, the Alexandrian, mystic, Jewish, philosopher, expanded the image:
“God is light, and not light only, but the archetype of every other light; or
rather, more ancient and higher than any archetype”(De Somniis 1.75; Dodd, 19).
Likewise, in the Corpus Hermeticum of the second to fourth centuries one reads
Hermes words to his son Tat: “See how the good has been fulfilled, my child,
when truth arrives. For envy has withdrawn from us, but the good, together with
life and light has followed after truth”(13:9; Boring, 540).
2. Gnostics believed that there was a dichotomy between
matter and spirit. Matter was evil inherently while spirit was inherently good.
They believed that they could escape the flesh by gaining all the knowledge
that they could. To dispel this heresy, John had to prove that Christ was 100%
God and 100% man. Christ had perfect fellowship with the Father even though He
was in human form. Thus, John proved that the body was not evil inherently(The
Letters of John and Jude, Barclay, 11).
3. “To walk” was a common Semitic idiom for “to live.” In
Genesis 17:1 God commands Abram, “I am God Almighty; Walk before ME and be
blameless”(see also 1 Kings 2:4; 2 Kings 20:3). The elder’s instruction to walk
in the light closely resembles the language of the Qumran scrolls: “…walk in
perfection in his sight…love all the sons of light…and detest all the sons of
darkness”(1 QS 1.8-10; Martinez, 3).
4. A famous section in the Rule of the Community traces the
two ways to good and evil spirits: “In the hand of the Prince of Lights is
dominion over all the sons of justice; they walk on paths of light. And in the
hand of the Angel of Darkness is total dominion over the sons of deceit; they
walk on paths of darkness”(1 QS 3:13-4:26; Garcia Martinez, 6).
Now, this passage is not without its exegetical problems. They are listed here:
K. Problem 1: Can believers lose
fellowship with God? Or is lack or fellowship with God merely the problem of an
unbeliever?
1. The
issue at stake here is whether fellowship with God is something that can be
measured in any way by practice. Does the outward life have to match the inward
change? Or is it possible to live nominally, consistently as a Christian and
still have fellowship with the Father?
2. A
man’s verbal profession is not necessarily to be believed. It must be tested
both in itself, in its relation to the fundamental truth that God is light, and
in its bearing upon his behavior(The Epistles of John, Stott, 72). This is the dominant theme of the Epistle. John
supplies searching tests by which to judge one who professes and calls himself
Christian. Having stated that God is light by His very nature and as a result
has fullness of life in Himself,, John is able to deny the claims of fellowship
with God to those who live in the darkness of death. The persons who reject
Jesus as the incarnate Son of God are the target of these writings of John and
are still living in the darkness of death.
Opposed: Since “God is “Light” it
follows that a Christian cannot truly claim communion with Him while living in
the darkness. As john warned, If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk
in darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. John knew, as does every
perceptive pastor, that Christians sometimes feign spirituality while engaging
in acts of disobedience. Ten times John used darkness to refer to sin.
So how do we apply this knowledge we've gained from this?
Informative application(dealing
with God’s nature).
1. When
we say that God is Light we are not saying that He is simply an illuminator,
but a life saver as well. God is not a
being of darkness, that’s simply a point we make for emphasis because no
Christian will say that God is evil by any stretch of the imagination. What we
are trying to get at is that we must relearn what it means to come before a
holy God, to stand before a searing light of holy righteousness that burns
iniquity, and cleanses the lips of the unclean, as in Isaiah. This light is
what purifies that which proceeds out of a man. Once illuminated, it is no
longer death that proceeds out of man, but the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ which is the power of salvation to those who believe. This is the
message of the light of God.
2. Directive
application(dealing with change outwardly).
Unbelievers cannot share in the
fellowship of the Father because of the simple reason that they are not at
peace with God. Fellowship is a characteristic of those who are at peace with
God and unbelievers simply do not have that. This is what Christ was getting at in Matthew 7. Many will say that they
are followers of Christ. There will be many people who call on the name of the
Lord and perform many good things in His name. The issue is not what we say,
but the issue is do our lives pass the test of practice? John makes simple
statements: If our lives do not match the tests of an unbeliever, than we have
no fellowship with the Father.
3. Living in the light brings
us into fellowship with one another. Because
we have been baptized into unity of Christ, and unity of the body, we have a
responsibility to be the light bearers that were set on a hill. We are told to
let our light shine before men in such a way that they might see our good
works. Living in the light of Christ brings us into fellowship with the church.
4. So how do we live in
this changed life? We end the same that we would begin. God is light, and not
darkness, and through Him we have fellowship. Because God is Light, there is no evil
present within Him. Because God is Light, He demands honesty of us. Those who
do not practice righteousness are not only unable to understand what is said
about Christ, but they are also unable to understand what walking in the Light
means. Because believers are in the light, we have been granted understanding
through the cleansing agency of the blood of His Son. This should be the
complete motivating goal in the lives of believers today. We must live with the
desire to do what’s right, but we must also do it because God has commanded us
to.
And lastly, my own thoughts as I worked through this passage.
N. Καὶ ἔστιν αὕτη ἡ ἀγγελία ἣν ἀκηκόαμεν ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀναγγέλλομεν ὑμῖν, ὅτι ὁ θεὸς φῶς ἐστιν καὶ σκοτία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδεμία
John jumps into this section with
an impressive, and forceful statement. o yeov fwv estin. This is the
message, Καὶ ἔστιν αὕτη ἡ ἀγγελία ἣν ἀκηκόαμεν ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀναγγέλλομεν ὑμῖν, that mankind has known from the beginning, what they’ve
heard, seen, and touched. This is what John was referring to with the term Word
of Life in the section before this. This is what was revealed. This is the
statement that God is the revealer of life and the Life. This is how our Bible begins. God said, “Let there be
light” and there was light. This light was a type of Light. The light in
Genesis refers to light that reveals the need for life, while the Light of God
reveals the nature of the One who is Holy and capable of giving the Light of
Life. This is the Light that illuminates mankind and brings understanding of
sin and compels them to bow in repentance and worship Christ as both Lord and
Savior. I do not believe that oti should be translated as
because(causal) because the message is not given to us “as a result” that God
is light. It is given to man to tell man that God is light. It is not cause and
effect, but an ever present fact. This is the message! You’ve heard it! Here’s
the announcement! God is light!
One of the keys to this passage is
the message that God is Light is something that was heard by us from God
Himself. kai estin
auth h aggelia hn akhkoamen ap’ autou. John is
writing to his readers to tell them that this is not something that the
Apostles have drummed up as some fantastic story to serve as a crutch to get
through life. This is not a feel good story that helps man explain some
unexplainable issues. This is a message that the Apostles heard from Christ
directly and that message is simple, yet profound. God is a specific Light. He
is distinct Light. He is transcendent light, light that is in the element and
sphere of the divine(BDAG 1072). He is the light that illuminates the soul and
spirit of man. There are several implications that light and darkness carry,
just from a cultural sense. Often times, light equals intelligence, while
darkness equals ineptitude. This can be seen simply by the slang we use today
when we refer to some people on both sides of the fence. We call smart people
pretty bright, while people who cannot understand are left in the dark. In
entertainment, almost all moral evil is portrayed as darkness, while light is
portrayed as moral good. In 2 Corinthians Paul writes that the glory of God is
a knowledge of light that shines in the hearts of man. In the Gospel of John,
light is invariably revelation of truth.
A parallel can be seen in how
Isaiah uses the word light and tells people that they have become so dull to
the things of God that they have now confused light with darkness. Paul also
employs this metaphor often in his epistles(Eph. 8:14; Rom. 8:11-14; I
Thessalonians 5:4-8; I Corinthians 4:5)(The Epistles of John: Stott, 71).
The effect of the light is not
only to make them see, but to enable them to walk(Ibid., 72). This is
ultimately where the true contrast lies in John’s first epistle: the one who
does truth is the one who walks in light, and is of the Light, while the one
who does not practice truth does not walk in light, and is of the darkness. So
ultimately, the issue boils down to the fact that truth is not contrasted with
error, but rather, truth is contrasted with wickedness and unrighteousness.
Ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐν τῷ σκότει περιπατῶμεν, ψευδόμεθα καὶ οὐ ποιοῦμεν τὴν ἀλήθειαν·
In verse 6 John begins his first
of three false teacher scenarios. I believe that it is the most drastic of
false claims that can be made by a false teacher: fellowship with the Father. “Ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐν τῷ σκότει περιπατῶμεν…” I say this because mankind does not have fellowship with
the Father if they are not dead to sin. It should be known that this is not a
message to those who are “carnal Christians.” This is a message to false
teachers who are unbelievers. John is a writer of contrasting information. Many
times he uses contrasts, not to refer to the same groups of people, but to
refer to different states of people. For John, there was no third condition or
third comparison. John took sin seriously. John was to the point. Man was either light, or they were
darkness. John insists on certain things. 1. He insists that to have fellowship
with the God who is light a man must walk in the light and that, if he is still
walking in the moral and ethical darkness, of the Christless life, he cannot
have that fellowship. This is precisely what the Old Testament had said
centuries before. God said, “You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am
Holy”(Leviticus 19:2l cp. 20:7,26). He who would find fellowship with God is
committed to a life of goodness which reflects God’s goodness. C.H. Dodd
writes: “The church is a society of people, believing in a God of pure
goodness, accept the obligation to be good like Him. This does not mean that
man must be perfect before he have fellowship with God; if that were the case
all of us would be shut out. But it does mean that he will spend his whole life
in the awareness of his obligations, in the effort to fulfill them and in
penitence when fails. It will mean that he will never think that sin does not
matter; it will mean that the nearer he comes to God, the more terrible sin
will be to him(The Letters of John and Jude: Barclay, 29).
2. He insists that these mistaken
thinkers have the wrong idea of truth. “ψευδόμεθα καὶ οὐ ποιοῦμεν τὴν ἀλήθειαν·”
He says that, if people who claim to be specially advanced still walk in
darkness, they are not doing the truth. Exactly the same phrase is used in the
Fourth Gospel, when is speaks of him, who does the truth(John 3:21). This means
that for the Christian truth is never only intellectual; it is always moral. It
is not something which exercises only the mind it is something that exercises
the whole personality. Truth is not only the discovery of abstract things; it
is concrete living; it is also acting. The words which the New Testament uses
along with truth are significant. It speaks of obeying the truth(Romans 2:8;
Galatians 3:7); following the truth(Galatians 2:14; 3 John 4); possessing the
truth(2 Timothy 3:8); of wandering from the truth(James 5:19). There is such a
thing as might be called discussion circle Christianity. It is possible to look
on Christianity as a series of intellectual problems to be solved and on the
Bible as a book about which illuminating information is to be amassed. But
Christianity is something to be followed and the Bible a book to be obeyed. It
is possible for intellectual eminence and moral failure to go hand in hand for
the Christian the truth is something first to be discovered and then to be
obeyed. I believe the words ean are both condition
statements. If you do this, but don’t do this, then you are not this because
He(God) is this. I believe that oti is a content related
adverbial referring to what we say. If we say that we have fellowship with God,
we will look like light, and not darkness, because we will be practicing
light(Ibid., 29-30).
ἐὰν δὲ ἐν τῷ φωτὶ περιπατῶμεν ὡς αὐτός ἐστιν ἐν τῷ φωτί, κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων καὶ τὸ αἷμα Ἰησοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ καθαρίζει ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἁμαρτίας
John transitions from verse
6 to verse 7 with these thoughts in mind. If we say we have fellowship with
Him, but walk in darkness, we are lost. This then begs the questions: What puts
us into a state of fellowship with Christ? Here are some thoughts. “ἐὰν δὲ ἐν τῷ φωτὶ περιπατῶμεν ὡς αὐτός ἐστιν ἐν τῷ φωτί, κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων” “1. Truth is the creator of fellowship. If men
are really walking in the light, they have fellowship one with another. No
church can be exclusive and still be the Church of Christ. That which destroys
fellowship cannot be truth. 2. He who really knows the truth is daily more and
more cleansed from sin by the blood of Jesus.” “καὶ τὸ αἷμα Ἰησοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ καθαρίζει ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἁμαρτίας.” “The meaning is that all the time, day by
day, constantly and consistently, the blood of Jesus Christ ought to be
carrying out a cleansing process in the life of the individual Christian. The
Greek for to cleanse is kayarizein which was originally a ritual word,
describing the ceremonies and washings which qualified a man to approach his
gods. But the word, as religion developed, came to have a moral sense; and it
describes the goodness which enables man to enter into the presence of God. So
what John is saying is, “If you really know what the sacrifice of Christ has
done and are really experiencing its power, day by day you will be adding
holiness to your life and becoming more fit to enter the presence of God.” Here
indeed is a great conception. It looks on the sacrifice of Christ as something
which not only atones for past sin but equips a man in holiness day by day.
True religion is that by which every day a man comes closer to his fellow-men
and closer to God. It produces fellowship with God and fellowship with men¾and we can never have the one without the
other(Ibid., 30-31).” I believe the adverbial marker ean here is a conditon statement referring to the fact that if we are in the
light, we have fellowship with God. I believe this can be tied together with
what is written in Romans when Paul says in Romans 5:1 that we have peace with
God as an accomplished reality, rather than something that is on the way. wv, I believe, is a manner statement telling us the way that we should walk. We must
walk in the light as Christ is the Light.
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