Jesus is the Light
And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
John expressed his love for these little churches as he refused to give up on them in the midst of the false teachings that infiltrated the communities. He wrote these letters for his own joy, knowing that the readers would return to fellowship in the knowledge and love of Jesus. His reproof was gentle, but firm, treating these believers as children who require correction with mercy. He reiterated the text of his gospel, written shortly before the letters, that Jesus was the source of eternal life (John 3:16), no matter what those who denied the teachings said as they sought to divide the early Ephesian church.
John then set up a contrast with with the readers would have been familiar: darkness and light. From the beginning of the Scriptures, darkness and light have served as symbols for good and evil, knowledge and ignorance, life and death. The Creator’s first words, “Let there be light” opened the world to an existence from nothingness. God said the light was good (Genesis 1:1-5). On the fourth day of creation, God illuminated the world with the sun, moon, and stars, ensuring that darkness would be dispelled both day and night (Genesis 1:14-19). The believers to whom John wrote knew the Jewish scriptures well, and knew the imagery of dark and light from the Law to the Prophets and the wisdom literature. John built on that knowledge, perhaps reminding them of Isaiah’s words that there are always people “unwilling to hear the instruction of the LORD, who say to the seers, ‘Do not see,’ and to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy to us what is right” (Isaiah 30:10). Perhaps John counted on the people thinking about Isaiah’s words later in the scroll where he said, “your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears share hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or to the left’ ” (Isaiah 30:20-21).
Clearly, John knew the power of symbolic contrast; light and dark represent truth/lies, fellowship/separation, and cleansing/sin just in verses 5-10 of this letter. God is light and God is the source of light. God is Truth and God is the source of Truth. Light and truth are within the very nature of God, the Holy One. The Psalmist wrote,
For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
Evil may not dwell with you.
The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
You hate all evildoers.
Psalm 5:4-5
When John reiterated “God is light, and in him there is no darkness,” he set down the foundation for the rest of the letter and the primary argument against the false teachers. Jesus, as the true light come into the world (John 1:9), was unmistakably the promised Messiah, and teachers who said otherwise had no fellowship with him because of their lies and deceit. John’s words were unequivocal and firm, and might have sounded harsh if he hadn’t added the reassurance that those who walk in light (Truth) have fellowship with each other and find salvation (cleansing from sin) because Jesus died as the perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, as announced by another John (the baptizer) and recorded in John’s gospel (John 1:29). It’s entirely possible that the churches around Ephesus knew of the letter to the Hebrews, written two decades before this letter wherein the author wrote,
For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”
When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Jesus, as the Word and the Light, is the source of salvation by his death and resurrection. It is only that message that allows us to walk in fellowship with each other in Truth and complete joy. The churches in and around Ephesus needed that reminder as false teachers tried to divide the believers. We in the 21st century often need that reminder as well. Any doctrine that does not teach the necessity of Jesus for salvation and fellowship is deceptive and part of darkness.
Resources
The ESV Bible. Crossway, 2001, www.esv.org/.
Book of First John Overview – Insight for Living Ministries
Books of 1-3 John Summary: A Complete Animated Overview
1 John | Commentary | Ray Van Neste | TGCBC
John H Walton & Craig S. Keener (Editors). NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Context Changes Everything), Hardcover, Red Letter: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture. Zondervan, 23 Aug. 2016.
Harris, W. Hall III. “From the Series: 1, 2, 3 John Comfort and Counsel for a Church in Crisis: The Author’s Opponents and Their Teaching in 1 John.” Bible.org, 28 July 2004,https://bible.org/seriespage/3-author-s-opponents-and-their-teaching-1-john.
Defaulting to Grace 