The two expressions which we have in 1 John — “God is light” and “God is love”—are parent truths. Following the divine revelation from beginning to end, they are the two lines by which the texture of the divine counsels has been woven. All is light and love, for all is serving the display of God Himself — perfect in purity and perfect in goodness. I would now trace the expressions of the truth, “GOD IS LIGHT,” as they show themselves in the divine revelations.
At the beginning we get the strongest expression of the holiness and righteousness of God: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:1717But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2:17)). Here the Lord attaches to the first committing of evil nothing less than complete separation from Himself, for He is the living God. What a strong assertion, at the very outset, of the purity of God, of the great truth that “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:55This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5))!
Thus does God at once display Himself, and everything afterward is but a brightening of this. We see also that “love” will have its way, but “light” will not give way. In all revealed counsels, in all places and dispensations, it asserts its equal place.
The Claims of Light – The Desires of Love
When sin enters, we see this: “It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel” is now said by the Lord God to the serpent about the woman’s seed. All the claims of “light” shall be honored, and all the desires of “love” shall be gratified. Such is the interpretation of this first promise of God after sin had entered. Man shall be redeemed, the serpent’s head shall be bruised, because “God is love,” but the penalty of sin shall be endured, or the heel of the woman’s seed shall be bruised, because “God is light.”
And because “God is light,” from henceforth we see Him a stranger in the place which sin and death have entered. Man’s habitation has become defiled, but He visits the earth for the blessing and guidance of His people, because He is “love.” God could not rest on a soiled footstool, and so we find, when He is about to assume Canaan for His dwelling-place, that the sword of Joshua rids it of its old corrupters. Cities are made a curse to the Lord. The fruit of cattle, fields and trees are purified by various ordinances. All, after its manner, is thus cleansed, before the Lord can dwell there.
Holiness to the Lord
So, when all is settled in the land, “holiness to the Lord” is read everywhere. He is Himself withdrawn into that place which is called “the holiest of all,” and the way into that sanctuary is marked by testimonies to the unmitigated holiness of the Lord. All tells of “love” in providing a way at all — but the character of the way equally tells us of “light.” The least stain must be removed; the touch of a grave, or even a bone, though by accident, sent the worshipers to the purifying water before they could approach the Lord (Num. 19). “Love” provided this water, but “light” required that it be used. And so, the place, the ordinances that furnished it, the worshiper who used it — all still told that “God is light.”
The Witness of the Law
I would now observe that the law, which was established at the same time, bore the like testimony. For if man will approach God by the law, he must still learn that “God is light”; therefore, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. 3:1010For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. (Galatians 3:10)). If man will stand before Him in himself, as on Mount Sinai, and not at the door of the sanctuary, he must bring with him that “light” of holiness which alone is worthy of the divine presence. Nothing less could answer the requisition of Him who is “light.”
This is the strong witness of the law to that great truth we are following through the Scriptures. The voice of the words from the top of Sinai and the voice of the sanctuary at the foot of it equally, though differently, uttered this truth: “God is light.”
Later, Israel’s captivity becomes the witness in its day. The people had not continued in the “all things” of the law. The dispersion of the tribes tells us that “God is light,” as the exile of Adam from Eden had told it before. Iniquity and transgressions must estrange from God. If Israel walked in the darkness of corrupted nature, they must walk outside the presence of God.
Such was the testimony of all the prophets against a disobedient people. And such, again, the witness of John the Baptist, in due time; all is harmony. He summons them to repent and never to count on taking the place of “children unto Abraham,” that is, of the people of God. But we now reach the testimony of another witness (the most affecting of all) — the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Life and Ministry of Jesus Christ
All He did was a reflection of God; all, too, was “light” and “love.” They were mingling their beams and forming that perfect element in which He lived and moved on this earth. Here dwelt “the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” and all that emanated was either “light” or “love.” He consented to be bruised in His own heel, because of righteousness, because “God is light,” but He undertook to bruise the enemy’s head, because of grace, because “God is love.” This was declared in His death more particularly, but generally, too, in all His previous life. All told of “light” and of “love,” or reflected “righteousness and peace,” “mercy and truth.” But how gloriously the cross of Christ publishes the truth that “God is light” and that “God is love”! To understand the cross is to understand that it does bear this witness to us as sinners. But in His teaching, the Lord bore the same testimony. If we look at His life or His ministry, we may say that “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”
The Witness of the Holy Spirit
When our Lord’s witness to “light” and “love” was over, the Holy Spirit held up exactly the same, though in a different form. His teachings by the apostles in their epistles unfold new mysteries, but all assert these truths. The thought of “the doctrine of Christ” admitting any darkness or evil was a stranger to the mind of the Spirit. “Know ye not,” says Paul, “that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? ... that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3-43Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:3‑4)). So, also, he interprets the grace that brings salvation as that which teaches the denial of ungodliness and worldly lusts, and the living soberly, righteously and godly in this present world (Titus 2). Though now it is grace and salvation, and not law that is published, it is with equal sureness a witness that “God is light.”
I would only add that the epistle from which we take the words “God is light” and “God is love” weaves those two truths together. All the thoughts of the Holy Spirit seem to pass and repass between them. Consequently, it is there written, “Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother” (1 John 3:1010In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. (1 John 3:10)). And why so? Because “God is light” and “God is love,” therefore he who does not righteousness cannot be of Him who is “light,” neither can he who loves not his brother be of Him who is “love.”
The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
Such, then, is the teaching of the Holy Spirit. But as the Son, not only by His teaching, but in His life and person, bore witness to this truth, so does the Holy Spirit in the same twofold way. His teaching through the apostles does this, and so does His indwelling in the saints. The saints are His temples now. But He dwells in those temples as a “Holy Spirit,” grieved by any practical contradiction of the truth that “God is light” (Eph. 4:3030And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. (Ephesians 4:30)).
How perfect all this is! The Son and the Holy Spirit, each in the day of His manifestation, maintain the same blessed testimony, both by deed and word. And we have only to add that the glory, by and by, will tell the same most precious and excellent truth — that “God is light” and that “God is love”—striking that note with such a hand as shall cause it to vibrate forever. The rest itself of all who have trusted in Jesus will tell that “God is love”; the entrance into that rest and the element that surrounds it, that “God is light.” The earth, which will be the footstool in the age of the glory, must be purged of its corrupters before the glory can return and dwell there. And when it is thus purged, it will be kept clean. “I will early destroy all the wicked of the land,” says the Lord of the earth in the days of its glory, “that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord” (Psa. 101:88I will early destroy all the wicked of the land; that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord. (Psalm 101:8)). And so as to the upper house — heavenly glory—nothing can approach that can in any way defile. “They shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations unto it” (Rev. 21:2626And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. (Revelation 21:26) JND). Beyond the sphere which the glory fills must recede all that is unclean, all that is the contradiction of “light,” for the darkness will then be outer darkness.
Thus, indeed, from the garden of Eden up to the glory, we get the constant witness, in all the ways of His hand and in all the revelations of His mind, that “GOD IS LIGHT, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”
E. Dennett (adapted)