John 1:5 5And this is the message which we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.
After the brief prologue, John moves to one of the central premises of his epistle and begins to explain what the “word of life” is all about and how it affects the readers. We get a glimpse into what one of his sermons may have been like. In modern terms, we might say this is the first movement in his inductive sermon about life in Jesus. He begins with the metaphor of light as a description for God. As with all metaphors, we need to imagine to what aspect of light John intended with this description.
John refers to God as light and love in this epistle. Yet, these are different entities. Light is energy produced by atoms. Love is a relationship. To say that God is light and God is love refers to two different situations. Light is often viewed as the source of life. Life on earth depends on light from the sun or some other source of energy. Light illuminates things in the dark and shows a safe direction for a journey. God also provides life and gives direction in the dark. Light is often used to describe God’s holiness, presence, and splendor in the Bible (the burning bush in Exodus 3, the vision of God’s throne in Isaiah 6, and other similar experiences of God). God reveals the essence of holiness to us as his people. He gives us energy to live a holy life in the midst of a dark world. All that exists derives its being from God.
John received this message from him. The closest person in the context is Jesus Christ in verse 3. Jesus as the Light of the world revealed the Father. John received his message from Jesus, who was the perfect representation and revelation of the awesome, true, and eternal God. The readers could put their hope in what John wrote because of its source. The world could not access or know this message without God revealing it (1 Corinthians 1:21) because it is lost in darkness. The light of the gospel shows the way of escape from this darkness. The readers could be totally assured that what John wrote was true because it came from the one and only true God.