1 John 1:5-10 Walking in the Light

Recap : Jesus

Intro: How will you describe someone?

Excursus: “Light” in the Gospel of John

The first occurrence of the metaphor “light” in John appears in 1:4: “In him [the Word] was life and that life was the light of men.” “Light” and “life” in this verse relate to the self-existing life of the Word [Logos] dispensed at creation, whereas the rest of the occurrences in John relate to salvation. Another consideration is that “the life” here is equated with “the light of human beings.” The question that naturally surfaces is why John introduces the metaphor “light” at this point. It would be easy to understand John to say that the Word’s life was the life of human beings. Why did he not simply say, “That life was the life of human beings?” This is no mere academic question. Besides the need to understand John 1:4 itself, we need to understand how John uses “light” because his Gospel develops an elaborate theology around the metaphor of light. This usage in the Gospel, in turn, will likely shed light on John’s usage in 1 John.

That light represents the source of life would seem to fit best with the biblical data. John identifies the self-existing life of the Word as the light of human beings (i.e., the Word’s life = human beings’ light). Light, in turn, represents the source of human beings’ life: “In the Word was life, and that life [which is in the Word] is the light [i.e., the source of life] of human beings.” John 1:3 would essentially be emphasizing the agency of the Word in the creation of all that exists, and 1:4 would be insisting that the Word, who is life in himself, is the Source of all derived human life (cf. Col 1:16–17). Understood in the context of creation, “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5) would refer to light (the source of life from the Source of life) giving derived life in creation: “And God said, ‘Let there be light’ ” (Gen 1:3, NIV, emphasis author’s). Since the Word was with God in the beginning (John 1:1) and shares the same essence with God (John 1:2), he shares the same self-existing life as the Father. The Word’s self-existing life is, in turn, the light (i.e., the source of life) of human beings. In effect, God’s command in Gen 1:3 to reveal light was a command, given power by the self-existing life of his Word, to create derived creaturely life (with the self-existing life of his Word as the source of this creaturely life). Note the care with which John frames his theological proposition: Human beings derive their life from the self-existing life of the Word, yet the life of human beings is derived and not identical to the self-existing life of the Godhead.

If the above interpretation is correct, the question now is whether John uses this metaphor in the exactly same way throughout the rest of his writings. The answer is apparently yes and no. In John 1:7–8 “the light” now appears to refer to Jesus, the incarnate Word, concerning whom John the Baptist bears witness. Likewise, Jesus is clearly the referent of 1:9: “The true light, which gives light to every human being was coming into the world.” In other words, the external referent of the metaphor (the person or thing of which the metaphor says something) has changed. Yet the essential content of the metaphor, that is, what the metaphor is supposed to tell us about its referent, remains the same: Jesus is the light, that is, the Source of life.

Another issue is introduced by the adjective “true” (aléthinos), which is added to “the light.” John 1:9 is one passage in John where “the notion of ‘true’ or ‘genuine’ shades off into ‘ultimate,’ because the contrast is not simply with what is false but with what is earlier and provisional or anticipatory in the history of God’s gracious self-disclosure.” John’s point is that the incarnate Word was the light, the true light, the Source of genuine and ultimate life, that is, the Source of eternal life. In other words, even the content of the metaphor “light” is changed because we are now dealing with “the true light,” that is, the true light is the source of the true life. Therefore John 1:9–11 refers to the incarnation (revelation) of this Source of life (“who gives light” [photiei; in the sense of reveals eternal life] to all human beings,” 1:9) and his rejection by the fallen world of human beings (despite the fact that they have their existence through him, 1:10). Yet as many as received91 him (the true light, i.e., the Source of eternal life), he gave to them the power to become children of God (1:12).

John 2:23–3:21 must also be examined in this development of John’s theology of light. John’s point here is that human beings are incapable of true faith in Jesus unless they are begotten from above by the Father through the Spirit. These human beings are [spiritually] dead to God, even though they are [physically] alive, and they are in need of new life, eternal life (hence the necessity of regeneration). In John 3:3 and 5, Jesus makes clear that regeneration from above is the prerequisite for seeing or entering the kingdom of God (seeing “the kingdom of God” [basileian tou theou] is equivalent to having “eternal life”). Jesus explains further in John 3:14–16 that his death and exaltation on the cross (which is the ultimate expression of the amazing quality of God’s love for the fallen world of human beings) was necessary in order that everyone who believes in him should have eternal life. Those who believe in Jesus are saved (i.e., have eternal life), and those who do not believe in Jesus are already judged (3:17–18). The nature of this judgment is made clear by 3:19: “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world and yet human beings loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (author’s translation). In other words, Jesus, the Light, the Source of eternal life, has been revealed to fallen human beings, and yet they preferred death to the eternal life Jesus revealed because they loved darkness and, as a result, were evildoers.99 These evildoers hate the Source of life and will not go to him for life lest they are exposed and convicted as evildoers (3:20). Those who practice the truth, however, go to the Source of eternal life, in order that God’s work in them (cf. John 6:28–29) should be revealed (3:21). Those who do not believe in Jesus are already judged, not only because they sin, but because they are sinners, that is, they are dead to God. In short, the imagery of death and the necessity of new life in the Nicodemus story of 3:1–15 and the contrast of “the light” and “the darkness” in the extended comment in 3:16–21 have the same reference points: lack of eternal life, the necessity of receiving eternal life, that faith in Jesus, the Source of eternal life, is the way to receive eternal life, and that both the revealing of this eternal life (in Jesus) and the actual reception of this eternal life are a gift from God.

John 8:12 grants further confirmation for the above analysis of the import of “light.” This verse comes on the heels of 7:37–39, where Jesus had promised that those who believe in him would receive the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is likened to “streams of living water [that] will flow from within him (the one who believes in Jesus).”104 Since Jesus is the Source of eternal life and the Source of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1:32–34; also chaps. 14–16), it is Jesus who gives the Spirit (who will be given on the basis of Jesus’ death and exaltation, 7:40), who will be an internal Source of eternal life to the believer, keeping the believer nourished by the ultimate Source of life, Jesus Christ (cf. the vine imagery [the vine = the source of the branches’ life] in chap. 15). In response to division over his words and unbelief, Jesus reiterates and develops his point from 7:37–39 using different imagery in 8:12ff. His point is the following: “Since I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” When we explain the imagery, the result is thus: “Since Jesus is the Source of eternal life to human beings, whoever believes in him will not live in spiritual death but will live in the eternal life he reveals.” Other passages using the metaphor “light” should be interpreted similarly.107

Excursus: “Light” in 1 John

In 1 John 1:5 we immediately notice two strange features in the usage of “light” in comparison to John’s Gospel. First, the subject of the sentence is God, rather than Jesus. Second, the predicate noun is “light,” rather than “the light.” On the other hand, the familiar contrast between “light” and “darkness” occurs.

“God is light” means that God has the quality of being a Source of life. Further, in emphasizing that in him “there is no darkness at all” (i.e., no lack of life),John asserts that God is fullness of life itself (the ultimate Source of life).

John draws two sets of implications from this affirmation that God (as Jesus revealed him) is fullness of life itself without even a trace of deficiency (of life). The next two uses of “light” appear in the first set, which consists of a contrasting pair of declarative statements. Since “light” occurs in contrast with “darkness” in terms of “walking,” the nuance of “light” becomes walking in111 “the fullness of life (revealed by Jesus, the Source of life),” and the nuance of “death” becomes walking in “the realm/state of death (without Jesus’ revelation of life).” The negative declaration maintains that claims to fellowship with God are inconsistent with living in the state of death. The positive declaration asserts that only by living in the fullness of life (revealed in Christ), as God is fullness of life himself, will one have fellowship with God and the forgiveness of sins through the atoning death of Jesus his Son.

The three other occurrences of “light” in 1 John (2:8, 9, 11) all relate to Jesus. The message of 2:8 is that the fulfillment of the love commandment (“a new commandment,” entolēn kainēn) is now a reality113 not only in Jesus but in John’s Christian readers (cf. John 15:12–14). John writes to his readers this new commandment, which is now a reality in them because “the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining” (1 John 2:8b, NIV).

Although Jesus is clearly involved, does “the true light” refer to Jesus himself or to “the light brought by Jesus”? Since the only other occurrence of the exact term in John 1:9 refers to Jesus, it may do so in 1 John 2:8b as well. Yet one could argue that since “the true light” is said to be “already shining,” that is, shining from the past to the present, the reference cannot be to Jesus directly but must be to the eternal life Jesus had revealed. In addition, “the true light” is contrasted with “the darkness” so that the contrast is likely between the realm of death (cf. 2:16–17) and the self-manifesting activity of eternal life that Jesus has revealed. Furthermore, this reality grounds the realization of the love commandment in John’s readers (lit., “in you,” en humin). The love commandment is being realized in his readers precisely because the eternal life that Jesus has revealed is operative in them.

The explication of 2:8 in 2:9–14 supports the understanding that “the true light” is the eternal life revealed by Jesus. In 2:9 John is asserting that those who claim to have eternal life while yet hating Christians are really still in the state of spiritual death. On the other hand, those who love other Christians are living in the eternal life that Jesus has revealed, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble (2:10). John underscores the state of the one who hates Christians in 2:11: he is in a state of death, he lives in the state of death, and he does not even realize his own spiritual deadness because the state of death has taken away his ability to see his real condition. On the other hand, John declares that the reason he writes to his original readers is that the eternal life revealed in Jesus is truly operative in them (2:12–14).

In summary, John uses “light” and even “the true light” to refer to a different referent in 1 John than in his Gospel. Yet the essential content conveyed by “light” remains the same: inherently, light is a source of life; when light is revealed, it reveals life. God is fullness of life himself (1:5), and therefore those who would have fellowship with him must have the fullness of life themselves. Since human beings are in a state of death, they may have fellowship with God only by faith in Jesus, who reveals himself as the Source of eternal life and gives that life to them. This eternal life revealed by Jesus has been revealed from the time of his incarnation even until the time of John’s writing of this epistle (2:8b). Because of the reality and self-manifesting activity of this eternal life, John can declare that those who do not love other Christians do not have this eternal life, whereas those who love other Christians are living in this eternal life.

The apostolic witnesses declare (a message that they heard from Jesus himself) that God is light, fullness of life itself, and has no lack of life in him at all. While light could mean, and does in other contexts, what is good, true, holy, or pure, here it is the idea of life, eternal life, the life of God, that grows out of this metaphor. This message is the enduring apostolic message. John grounds the qualifications necessary for fellowship with God in the very nature of God as light having fullness of life in himself.

Daniel L. Akin

The IF section

1 John 1:6 ESV

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

Fellowship with God: God is Light [this is a message about the character of God]

Contrast: God is Light there is no darkness in him

Ilustrated this with the story of Einstein.

So John writes three conditionals:

v.6 ‘if we claim to have fellowship with him

v.8 ‘if we claim to be without sin’

v.10 ‘if we claim to have not sin’

Best explanation for verse 7, is

John 3:19–21 ESV

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

This suggests that ‘walking in the light’ involves a willingness to be open towards God and his revelation in Christ, while ‘walking in the darkness’ involves a refusal to do this.

The consequences of the Light.

The first consequence is, we have fellowship with one another. As people walk in the light with God, they have fellowship with one another.

This statement comes as something of a surprise. We might expect the consequence to be that people who walk in the light would have fellowship with God. After all, that is what is denied to those who walk in darkness. However, the author says the first consequence is that we have fellowship with one another. This is not to say that those who walk in the light do not have fellowship with God, but rather to assert that those who do have fellowship with God as they walk in the light will also have fellowship with one another. Or, to put it another way, there is no real fellowship with God which is not expressed in fellowship with other believers. It would appear from what is to come later in this letter that this unexpected statement about the consequence of walking in the light is made to rule out the claim of the secessionists who say they do have fellowship with God while not sharing fellowship with other believers (in this case, with those of the author’s persuasion).

The second consequence is the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin. As people walk in the light with God, the blood of his Son Jesus ‘purifies’ them from their sins.

When the author speaks of the ‘blood of Jesus’ he is referring to his violent death on the cross, and it is this death which provides purification18 from sins for those who walk in the light with God. By his use of the present tense for the verbs ‘to walk’ and ‘to purify’, the author represents both the walking and the cleansing as ongoing activities. One lesson that may be learned from this second consequence is that walking in the light does not mean that those who do so never sin, but that they do not seek to hide that fact from God. They ‘walk in the light’ with him, and the result of their doing so is that the blood of his Son Jesus purifies them from their sins. Purification from sin, when unpacked, is virtually equivalent to forgiveness of sins, as the use of these two concepts in parallel in 1:9 indicates (the two concepts are also found in parallel in Jer 33:8: ‘I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me’). That the concomitant of walking in the light is being purified from every sin suggests that walking in the darkness might best be interpreted here, not simply as walking in ignorance, but as walking in sin.

A Note on Truth

The word ‘truth’ (alētheia) occurs nine times in 1 John. In 1:6 it appears as part of the expression ‘to do the truth’, which is the opposite to ‘doing evil’. In 1:8 and 2:4 it is found in the expression ‘the truth is not in us/him’, where it is related to lying. In 2:21 the ‘truth’ is something which the author’s readers ‘know’, that is, the truth of the message which was heard at the beginning by the eyewitnesses and handed on to the readers. 1 John 2:21 asserts that ‘no lie comes from the truth’, and the idea here is that christological errors propagated by the secessionists are not of the truth, that is, they are not in accordance with the message handed down from the beginning. In 3:18 the readers are urged to love ‘with actions and in truth’, and here ‘in truth’ means ‘truly’. Loving in truth is virtually synonymous with loving in action. It is by loving ‘in action and in truth’, the author says in 3:19, that ‘we know that we belong to the truth’. To ‘belong to the truth’ appears to have personal overtones: it means belonging to God. The final two uses of the word ‘truth’ relate to the Spirit. In 4:6 the Holy Spirit is called ‘the Spirit of truth’ and distinguished from the spirit of error, and in 5:6 the Holy Spirit is one who bears witness along with ‘the water and the blood’, and, the author adds, ‘the Spirit is the truth’. At a minimum this constitutes a guarantee of the truthfulness of the Spirit as witness alongside ‘the water and the blood’, but it may also imply that, as truth is personified in Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, so it is personified in the Spirit (and in God; cf. 3:19) in 1 John.

From this survey of the use of the word ‘truth’ in 1 John, it is clear that the Johannine understanding of truth (involving ‘doing the truth’, not lying, understanding the message of salvation, acting truly in love, belonging to the truth, and truth personified in the Spirit) is different from Greek notions of truth (that which conforms to reality or logical facts). It is also different from the OT idea of truth as faithfulness and loyalty. There exist some parallels in gnostic writings where the enlightened are said to be indwelt by truth, and in the Dead Sea Scrolls where there are references to the sons/men of truth (1QS 4:5–6; 1QpHab 7:10), and where the Holy Spirit is associated with the truth (1QS 4:21)

Colin G. Kruse,

The Letters of John A Note on Truth

The Johannine idea of truth, then, is quite different from the intellectualist conception of the Greeks, for whom the truth was the reality, the essence of being, that is revealed to the spirit. In hellenistic dualism, this reality is transferred to the sphere of the divine, and consequently cannot be attained except by escaping from the world, and fleeing to the realm of light; but the cosmic dualism underlying this conception is liable to cut the world off from God. For John, on the other hand, truth is found in the word of the Father turned to mankind, incarnate in Christ, illuminated through the action of the Spirit. What men are required to do with respect to the truth is not to win it by intellectual endeavour; it is to receive and enter into it in faith, to submit to it and to live by it.

1 John 1:9 ESV

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.