One of the remarkable things about the writings of the Apostle John is the way he combined great simplicity in his style and vocabulary with immense depth and significance of thought. Those features appear prominently in 1 John 1:5 (ESV): 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.

There are three primary questions to be tackled in expounding this verse. First, who, exactly, is the “him” from whom this message was received? Second, to what does the figurative description of God as “light” refer? Third, what end was served by adding the negation that there is no darkness in God? On the basis of the answers to those questions a pair of concluding observations will be drawn.

The Source of the Message

The first question—regarding the source of this message—should be answered from the immediate context. In 1 John 1:1–4 the Apostle relates the source of the proclamation about eternal life to his own experience. It was what he had heard and seen and touched, that life which had been made manifest. These descriptors point to Christ. John had heard, seen, and touched Christ, who was the ultimate revelation of life.

This means, then, that John heard the message from Christ that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Yet this is not something that we read either in John’s own Gospel, or in any of the Gospels. It may be possible that 1 John 1:5 is similar to Acts 20:35, in that both record one of the Lord’s sayings that were not included in the Gospels. However, in light of John’s introductory emphasis on his experience with Christ, it is more likely that this is John’s own summary of what he learned from his interactions with Christ.

In other words, God is light and in him is no darkness at all are not necessarily words that the Lord Jesus uttered while on earth. But it was nonetheless the message that he delivered. Because as John recollected what he had heard, and seen, and handled that message was the overall effect. The person, life, and character of Jesus were a revelation of God; they revealed precisely God’s existence as pure light with no fleck of shadow.

At this point, it may be well to pause for a practical implication. If John could summarize observed events in a proposition about God, then it shows that the narratives of Scripture are legitimate sources of declarations about God. To put it another way, because John here engages in theological reflection, this text joins other passages in Scripture to push us in the direction of developing a system of dogmatics.

It is true, as Geerhardus Vos famously observed, that “[t]he Bible is not a dogmatic handbook but a historical book full of dramatic interest” (Biblical Theology, 17). Without in any way detracting the truth of that remark, it must be admitted also that the Bible itself contains the impetus for coherent, rationally ordered theological reflection on its history. Vos already perceived that both Biblical and Systematic Theology transform the Biblical material, although they do so according to different principles (Ibid., 15–16). But neither transformation is illegitimate, something alien imposed on Scripture. The transformations of Biblical material wrought by theology are the results of lines of development set down in Scripture itself.

Therefore to pit narrative against proposition, the history of special revelation against dogmatics, story against summary, is contrary to the moves the Bible itself makes. John, who had not only heard the story, but actively lived as part of it, could summarize the message of Christ’s earthly ministry in the proposition: God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

The Content of the Message

And this brings us to the second question. In speaking of God as light, what does John have in mind? The first point to keep in mind is that this is a figurative description. John is not saying that God is the material light, as though God came streaming out of the lightbulb every time we flipped the switch. That’s clear enough from Paul’s description of God as dwelling “in unapproachable light” and the praise of the Psalmist that God covers himself “with light as with a garment” (Psalm 104:2). As Hugh Binning beautifully put it:

The light is, as it were, a visible appearance of the invisible God. He hath covered his invisible nature with this glorious garment to make himself in a manner visible to man. It is true, that light is but, as it were, a shadow of that inaccessible light, umbra Dei. It is the dark shadow of God, who is himself infinitely more beautiful and glorious. (Works, 301)

Given that “light” is a figure, to what does it point? There are several possibilities.

In the Old Testament “light” can speak of knowledge or wisdom (Psalm 119:105; Proverbs 6:23), of glory or beauty (Ecclesiastes 11:7; Isaiah 60:1), of joy or good fortune (Job 30:26; Psalm 97:11), of life itself (Job 18:5; 33:30), and also of holiness or moral uprightness (Job 24:13; Isaiah 2:5).

Each of these would be an understandable usage. Because we need physical light to see, it is a short step to using “light” for the conditions necessary for understanding. Again, light is the precondition for beholding anything beautiful: it is thus in some sort the original beautiful thing. It is natural to humans to use light as a symbol of joy and hope, because happiness feels like radiance and makes us glow, whereas grief and bitterness feel like a darkness of soul. The association of death with absence, finality, and gloom also makes light a natural way to speak figuratively about life. Finally, the concealment of darkness suggests deeds that need to be concealed, whereas light has nothing to be ashamed of (cf. Ephesians 5:7–14; 1 Thessalonians 5:4–10).

Because John uses such a polyvalent and fruitful term, we should not seek to reduce his meaning too narrowly. Ultimately these various points are connected in Scripture. The God in whose light we see light (Psalm 36:9) is the God of knowledge, glory, life, joy, and holiness. Those things cannot ultimately and finally be separated; they are united in God, and will eventually be united and perfected in the experience of God’s people.

Thus in the surrounding context John implicitly references knowledge by speaking of a message and proclamation, and explicitly mentions life and joy. Yet if there is one point on which particular emphasis falls, it is the question of holiness—practical purity in the moral sphere. For John goes on to say, If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth (1 John 1:6).

The behavior of those summoned into the apostolic fellowship with Father and Son must be in keeping with the nature of God. God is light, and therefore those who have fellowship with him must practice the truth and walk in the light.

In what follows, however, there is a most remarkable juxtaposition. Fellowship with the God of light does not require sinless perfection. It requires, rather, honesty about our sin. 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. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:7–9).

While we attempt to conceal our sins, to deny even to ourselves that we have them, we are locked into darkness. But honest recognition opens the shutters to our heart, and lets the light of God flow in. God in no way compromises his nature as light by entering into fellowship with us. Through the blood of Christ, communion is accomplished and we are brought into the light—into all that the light represents.

The Clarification of the Message

John said more than just that God was light. He immediately strengthened the statement by adding that God was unmixed light, pure light, light with no darkness at all.

This negation that God has a dark side ought to be understood in the moral terms John accents. God does nothing wrong, desires nothing wrong, is not wrong in any way at all. He has no deficiencies, no shortcomings, no vulnerabilities that can exploited. He is the opposite of sin, untemptable and enticing no one (James 1:13).

This ethical understanding should not be separated from a more comprehensive idea. After all, in God there is no darkness at all also in the sense of ignorance, sorrow, death, or disgrace either.

In fact, it is possible to go a step further. The fact that God is light with no mixture at all points to the fact that God is unadulterated deity. He is nothing but himself, he is his own definition (Exodus 3:14). In other words, as the Belgic Confession says, “there is one only simple and spiritual being” (art. 1). Or as the Westminster Confession has it, God is “without body, parts, or passions.”

In other words, God has no ingredients. He is not made up of this and that, but only himself. We distinguish attributes, because they mean different things to us. But these are not detachable qualities that God might or might not have. Because God is what he is and nothing else, ultimately the qualities we distinguish are simply God himself considered from a different point of view. In our limited partiality, we have to do this; but the affirmation that God is light reminds us of the limitations of our point of view.

This doctrine of divine simplicity is also important in that it highlights for us the wonder of fellowship with God. Because the God of undiluted deity is a God of absolute holiness. What amazing virtue there is then in the blood of Christ, to allow us to fellowship with such a God in honesty, in spite of the reality of ongoing sin!

Moreover it highlights the sufficiency of God. Because God is what he is absolutely, he is not glorious or holy or wise or any of the other things that light can represent by participation. That is to say, God did not attain knowledge, or become holy, or achieve glory: no, that’s what he is. He is the origin of them all.

We have seen, then, that it was possible and appropriate to summarize the message of Christ’s life in the simple but inexhaustible statement that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. This statement teaches us about God’s simplicity, and thereby also presents him as the first truth, the highest good, the source of life, the fountain of joy, the wellspring of glory, the absolutely Holy One of Israel who also sanctifies his people.

The Value of the Message

Hopefully what has already been said gives some pointers to the value of the great message Christ brought us, that God is light. But two additional observations can be made from the fact that this message about God comes to us precisely through the life of Christ on earth.

The first has to do with the value of the Gospels for our theodicy. It is not uncommon to have people object to the Christian doctrine of God because of a perceived darkness in God’s character. Statements like, “I don’t see how a loving God could do or allow animal suffering” (or childhood cancer, or war, or many other downsides to life in a cursed world) reflect a sense that God does have a dark side. It may take an intellectual form, or it may appear more viscerally or existentially. It may come in the form of a challenge from unbelievers, or as doubt from one who confesses Christ. On multiple fronts, then, there is often a demand to justify God.

The question of theodicy is far too large to be addressed here. However without entering into the intricacies of the discussion, one point can be made. John learned that God is light and in him is no darkness at all by hearing and seeing the Lord Jesus. Exposing people to the Gospel narratives, then, provides an indirect way to teach them the same lesson. Particularly when accusations against God, or resentment of him, arise from a context of intense suffering, an explanation of the truth or a challenge to false thinking are not always received well, if at all. Of course Paul and Job will remain important tools in dealing with theodicy, the problem of evil, and so forth. But exposure to the Gospel accounts may well lay a solid foundation for resolving the questions. Christ is the revelation of God, and it is in Christ that we see that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

The second observation, quite closely related, is that what people need to hear is Christ. This is true of non-believers and professing Christians alike. It is through Christ that we know God, have fellowship with him, are cleansed from sin, and walk in the light. Different aspects of Christ’s person, life, work, and words (both Old Testament and New) may be drawn upon in different circumstances; but what everyone constantly needs all of the time is nothing else but Christ. The complexity of ministry finds its unity and simplicity in the presentation of Christ.

For Further Study

With regard to the doctrine of simplicity check out this helpful episode of Christ the Center. There is also an outstanding recent study from Steven J. Duby, Divine Simplicity: A Dogmatic Account (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), which deserves far more widespread reading and recognition than its high cost seems designed to secure. Richard Muller’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, v.3: The Divine Essence and Attributes (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003) contains an extremely valuable overview of the doctrine of simplicity from an historical standpoint. Heinrich Heppe’s summary drawn from the Protestant Scholastics in Reformed Dogmatics: A Compendium of Reformed Theology (London: Wakeman Trust, n.d.) is a valuable supplement to Muller. A fine older explanation with practical application can be found in John Preston’s, Life Eternall (London: R.E., 1631).

On 1 John 1:5, Hugh Binning’s “Fellowship with God” as found in The Works of Hugh Binning (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1992) is both beautiful and edifying. Our need for The Whole Christ is well expressed in Sinclair Ferguson’s recent book by that name (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016).

The theme of God dwelling with his people in joy-full (Ps. 16:11) fellowship is a vital vein that runs throughout the single story of the Bible stretching from Genesis to Revelation. We can simply refer to this theme as the Immanuel Principle—God with us. While the Bible is a large book written over the course of hundreds of years with many different genres and styles, by tracing this principle throughout Scripture we can begin to see its big picture (some people like to call this its meta-story). We can begin to see what God has done and is doing in the world, and where we fit in all of this. The Bible isn’t just a book filled with timeless truths and proverbial wisdom; it is, as Vos put it, “a historical book full of dramatic interest.” And the Immanuel Principle is the driving force of that drama.

In Revelation 21-22 John is shown a climactic vision of the new heaven and new earth descending as the final dwelling place of God with his people. He hears an accompanying royal proclamation from the throne knighting this new creation: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3). While you’re not going to read about this in any newspaper or hear about it on the evening news, the truth is that history has been and continues to move toward this appointed end: the maximal enjoyment of union and communion between the triune God and the church forever.

In fact, this consummative picture at the end of the Bible is the fulfillment of the purpose given to the creation and the mission given to Adam at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 1-2. There it is laid out in blueprint form that God’s image bearers would expand Eden (God’s dwelling place) by being fruitful and multiplying until they filled and subdued the whole earth (Gen. 1:28). Everything was “very good” in these opening chapters, but nothing had yet been perfected—a higher, escalated life of union and communion with God in a holy and glorified realm had not yet been reached (see 1 Cor. 15:42-49). Even though sin appears to fatally puncture this Immanuel vein in Genesis 3, God continues his pursuit of creation’s goal, restoring what sin ruined unto its consummation, according to the riches of his grace.

In a previous post I summarized the biblical-theological case for Eden being a temple-garden. Within it the Lord placed man with the mission of working and keeping it (Gen. 2:15). This man, Adam, was invested as the Lord’s priest-king, and as such was commissioned to extend the boundaries of the garden, so that God’s dwelling place would encompass the whole earth. This is most clearly seen in the dominion mandate: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28). God’s goal for creation is made known in blueprint form in the creation account, namely that Eden would expand and the whole world would become his dwelling place. “This would be accomplished especially by Adam’s progeny born in his image and thus reflecting God’s image and the light of his presence, as they continued to obey the mandate given to their parents and went out to subdue the outer country until the Eden sanctuary covered the earth.”[1] From this we can understand why the new heaven and new earth is described in Revelation 21-22 with terms reminiscent of Eden. The eschatological goal of creation is pictured as completed with the earth having become a fit dwelling place for God. But how does it get there?

It does get there, Scripture assures us of that, but the path it takes is at times complicated and mysterious[2] because of the entrance of sin. “The biblical meta-story reveals that the process from blueprint to final reality is suddenly interrupted with tragic consequences for the whole of creation.”[3] Rather than guarding the garden-temple as God’s vice-regent and casting out the unholy serpent that opposed his word, Adam submitted himself and the entire human race whom he represented to the serpent.[4] Adam failed to bring about God’s eschatological goal for creation as he had been commissioned.[5] The holiness of the garden-sanctuary was compromised, it was not longer a fit dwelling place for the Lord. Subsequently, Adam was stripped of his priestly status and expelled from the sanctuary complex. His immediate access to God was lost and God’s blueprint was jeopardized, for “the very ones meant to extend God’s dwelling place throughout the earth are excluded from his presence.”[6]

So has God’s plan failed because of Adam’s disobedience? Has the Immanuel principle been forever lost? The Lord comes in judgment to pronounce curses upon the three guilty parties: the serpent, Eve and Adam. But in cursing the serpent he also holds out the prospect of hope, declaring the first gospel message, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). In the end, the serpent’s plot will not prevail; the Lord will see to it that his eschatological goal is one day realized. So begins the drama of redemption. God will restore what sin has ruined and bring it to its appointed end through a Savior. All hope now rests on this promised seed of the woman who will set things straight and bring the Immanuel principle to his fullest realization for the people of God.

But this promised seed does not immediately come. The rest of the Old Testament is occupied with preparing the way for his arrival through types and shadows, including the tabernacle and temple. It’s within this drama and new context of sin that the tabernacle narrative is to be understood as it uniquely contributes to the progressively unfolding plan of God to dwell with his people in union and communion forever. Beale writes, “The tabernacle sets the dwelling place of God in a sinful context.”[7] So we are left with both puzzlement (how can a holy God dwell with a sinful people in a sin-cursed world?) and hope (the seed of the woman will conquer) as man moves westward from God’s presence.

In our next article we’ll continue the story with a look at the Immanuel Principle in the patriarchal period.

[1] G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, 622.

[2] See Beale, Hidden But Now Revealed: A Biblical Theology of Mystery.

[3] T. Desmond Alexander, From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An Introduction to Biblical Theology, 26.

[4] Note the corporate language of Adam’s fault in Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 7 and 9.

[5] “When Adam failed to guard the temple by sinning and letting in a foul serpent to defile the sanctuary, he lost his priestly role, and the cherubim took over the responsibility of ‘guarding’ the Garden temple: God ‘stationed the cherubim… to guard the way to the tree of life’ (so Gen. 3:24; see also Ezek. 28:14, 16)” (Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 70).

[6] Alexander, From Eden to the New Jerusalem, 27.

[7] Beale, God Dwells Among Us, 52.

It has been rightly observed by many that there is an eschatology—a goal of higher, escalated life that the creation is to move toward—already in Genesis 1–2. While everything was “very good,” it had not yet been brought to its perfection in consummate glory as it will one day be in the new creation. Geerhardus Vos taps into this vein of thinking in reflection on the apostle Paul’s understanding of the Genesis account:

The tree of life and the other tree and the primeval paradise and the fall and death and the expulsion from the garden on account of the sin committed, all these are present in the scriptural narrative, and a single glance at Rom. v is sufficient to convince of the fact, that in the most fundamental manner they support (qua history) the entire eschatology of Paul. . . . The only reasonable interpretation of the Genesis-account (e mente Pauli) is this, that provision was made and probation was instituted for a still higher state, both ethico-religiously and physically complexioned, than was at that time in the possession of man. In other words the eschatological complex and prospect were there in the purpose of God from the beginning.[1]

The eschatological goal embedded in the creation from the beginning included at least three components: a people in a place under a potentate. In Genesis 1–2 you have Adam with the task to multiply (a people) in the limited locale of the Garden that was to be expanded (a place) under God’s rule (a potentate). While that was very good, the eschatological picture of the perfected creation is found in Revelation 21–22. There you have the bride of Christ ransomed from every nation (a people) in the cosmic expanse of the new heaven and new earth (a place) under God’s uncontested rule (a potentate). This final picture was God’s intended goal from the beginning.

The Old Testament from the beginning has an eschatology and puts the eschatological promise on the broadest racial basis (Genesis 3). It does not first ascend from Israel to the new humanity, but at the very outset takes its point of departure in the race and from this descends to the election of Israel, always keeping the Universalistic goal in clear view.[2]

With that in mind, it’s interesting to reflect on how the Lord achieves that goal through his work in redemptive-history, especially as he aims for this universal consummation through a particular people (Abraham), place (Canaan) and potentate (David).

The eschatological goal for the land (or place) is universal—the whole earth is to be a fit dwelling place for God. However, as we come to the patriarchal epoch beginning with Abraham we will begin to see God aiming for the universal through the particular. The universal land-promise is going to be particularized in Canaan without losing its ultimate trajectory toward the universal. The arrow that God fires at his universal target must first pierce the particular.

The same is true of his other promises of a people and a potentate. The people of God are going to be particularized in Abraham and his descendants even though the Lord is desirous of blessing all the nations (Gen. 22:17–18). And even later we will see God’s universal reign particularized in David’s throne over a limited locale on earth even though the Lord’s ultimate intention is to bring the entire cosmos under the dominion of the king he will appoint (Ps. 2).[3]

We recognize then that God’s plan of redemption has a universal direction and goal. In the Old Testament the particular and universal are not mutually exclusive or contradictory. The movement of God’s purpose always starts with the particular on its way to the universal.

The question then is how does the particular promise reach its universal goal? How is the particular universalized? Answer: the Christ! Take note of this insight from Richard Bauckham,

God’s purposes could not in fact move directly from those he singled out in Old Testament times to the universal goal of his purposes. They had to be focused definitively in one more particular act of singling out an individual: Jesus the Jew from Nazareth. Jesus, in a sense, repeats the particularity of each of the three chosen ones we have studied [Abraham, Israel and David]. He is the descendant of Abraham through whom all the families of the earth will be blessed. He assumes for himself his nation Israel’s own destiny to be a light to all the nations (Luke 2:31–32). He is the new, the ideal, David, the only one truly able to be the human embodiment of God’s rule over all. But when we see Jesus’ particularity in these ways, in the categories established by the Old Testament, then we at once see also his universality… The whole of New Testament thought is unified around the universal relevance of precisely the particular human being Jesus.[4]

God aims for the universal through the particular. The particular was never meant to be an end in itself, but through it God will realize his universal, eschatological purposes. God calls out a single man, Abraham, in order to bless all the nations; he sends him to a single strip of land, Canaan, in order to possess the whole earth (Rom. 4:13)!

[1] Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1994), 304.

[2] Geerhardus Vos, “Heavens, New (And Earth, New),” in The Collected Dictionary Articles of Geerhardus Vos (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2013).

[3] For a very helpful discussion of this idea of God aiming for the universal through the particular see Richard Bauckham, “From the One to the Many,” in Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 27–54.

[4] Bauckham, Bible and Mission, 48.

Panel Members

• Jim Cassidy
• Jeff Waddington
• Camden Bucey

Links

• D.A. Carson on the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament:
  • Lecture 1
  • Lecture 2
  • Lecture 3

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington, Jim Cassidy