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“This 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
“God is light” expresses all the excellence and glory of Deity. It is to be taken in its widest sense, as including the divine essence and the three Persons therein, for though the Father be primarily in view, yet the Son and the Spirit are equally possessed of the divine nature, and therefore are equally “light.” “God is light” is a word to search and awe us, for we “were sometimes darkness” (Eph 5:8), such being our woeful condition by nature. But it is also a word to gladden and warm us, for light shines for the benefit of others, as darkness is wrapped up in itself. Thus there is the Gospel in this word, for it tells us that Deity has been pleased to reveal and make Himself known unto men. “Light maketh all things visible on which it falls and from which it is reflected, but it becomes itself visible only in a radiant point or disc, like that of the insufferable sun, from which it floods the world. So God is unknown except in the person of Christ” (G. Smeaton). That is why Christ designated Himself “the light of the world” and why prophecy pointed to Him as “the Sun of righteousness” (Mal 4:2), for where He is unknown, men “sit in darkness” and “in the region and shadow of death” (Mat 4:16).
“The supreme thing in the physical world is light. Apart from this there could hardly be a world at all, for all life and movement depend on it. It was the first of God’s creations, and it is the last thing that will fade before the approaching glory of the New Jerusalem. And yet of all things light is the most mysterious. The distance of the sun from the earth can be measured, the rate at which light travels across space can be gauged, and the rays can be passed through the prisms, divided and analysed. But the sun itself still dwells in light inaccessible. No eye can search its burning depths, and no mind can wrest from it its profound secret” (L. Palmer). “God is light”: “He is all that beauty and perfection that can be represented to us by light. He is self-acting, uncompounded spirituality, purity, wisdom, holiness and glory; and then the absoluteness and fullness of that excellency and perfection” (T. Reynolds).
- From A. W. Pink's First John, 1 John 1:1 - 3:1, chapter 7 pgs 69-70, 1951-1952
Scope of the verse: “God is light.”
“God is light” tells us very much more than the former statement. God is not only the light, but light itself—absolute, essential, infinite—the Source of all light. Scripture speaks of God in a peculiar and immediate relation to light. The pillar of fire was the symbol of His presence with Israel in the wilderness. Daniel tells us “His throne was like the fiery flame” (7:9). Habakkuk declared, “His brightness was as the light” (3:4). The Psalmist avers, “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment” (Psa 104:2), on which Spurgeon remarked, “The concept is sublime: but it makes us feel how altogether inconceivable the personal glory of the Lord must be: if light itself is but His garment and veil, what must be the blazing splendour of His own essential being?” Perhaps the nearest we can come in framing an answer to that question is to employ the words of 1 Timothy 6:16—“dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see.” In James 1:17, He is denominated “the Father of lights.”“God is light” expresses all the excellence and glory of Deity. It is to be taken in its widest sense, as including the divine essence and the three Persons therein, for though the Father be primarily in view, yet the Son and the Spirit are equally possessed of the divine nature, and therefore are equally “light.” “God is light” is a word to search and awe us, for we “were sometimes darkness” (Eph 5:8), such being our woeful condition by nature. But it is also a word to gladden and warm us, for light shines for the benefit of others, as darkness is wrapped up in itself. Thus there is the Gospel in this word, for it tells us that Deity has been pleased to reveal and make Himself known unto men. “Light maketh all things visible on which it falls and from which it is reflected, but it becomes itself visible only in a radiant point or disc, like that of the insufferable sun, from which it floods the world. So God is unknown except in the person of Christ” (G. Smeaton). That is why Christ designated Himself “the light of the world” and why prophecy pointed to Him as “the Sun of righteousness” (Mal 4:2), for where He is unknown, men “sit in darkness” and “in the region and shadow of death” (Mat 4:16).
“The supreme thing in the physical world is light. Apart from this there could hardly be a world at all, for all life and movement depend on it. It was the first of God’s creations, and it is the last thing that will fade before the approaching glory of the New Jerusalem. And yet of all things light is the most mysterious. The distance of the sun from the earth can be measured, the rate at which light travels across space can be gauged, and the rays can be passed through the prisms, divided and analysed. But the sun itself still dwells in light inaccessible. No eye can search its burning depths, and no mind can wrest from it its profound secret” (L. Palmer). “God is light”: “He is all that beauty and perfection that can be represented to us by light. He is self-acting, uncompounded spirituality, purity, wisdom, holiness and glory; and then the absoluteness and fullness of that excellency and perfection” (T. Reynolds).
- From A. W. Pink's First John, 1 John 1:1 - 3:1, chapter 7 pgs 69-70, 1951-1952
