In 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) John begins his message. Where does he start? With this great fact that “God is light” and not, as we might have expected, with the fact that God is love. All the emphasis would no doubt have been on His love had the manifestation been made in regions of unsullied purity and light. As however the manifestation has been made in this world, so filthy with sin and full of darkness, the first emphasis must be laid on light.
As to light — who can define it? Men have formulated theories to account for the light of creation, but they cannot really explain it. Who then shall explain the untreated light? We know that light is necessary if life is to exist in any but its lowest forms. We know that it is healthful, that it illuminates and exposes all things, and that if it enters darkness flees. In God there is no darkness at all, for darkness stands for that which is removed from the action of light, that which is hidden and sinful.
Not only is God Himself light but, as verse 7 tells us, He is “in the light.” Once God had said “that He would dwell in the thick darkness” (2 Chron. 6:11Then said Solomon, The Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. (2 Chronicles 6:1)); and the fact that Solomon built Him a house did not alter it, for His presence was still found in the Holy of Holies, where all was dark. This was altered by the coming of the Lord Jesus, for God stepped into the light in Him. The God, who is light, is now in the light.
F. B. Hole