The first epistle of John is a wonderful letter, giving us insight into God and His beneficent Person as it relates to men.
God is Light
For example, John wrote in (1:5), “This is the message which we have learned from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is not darkness at all.” There are many truths impacted by this declaration. First, we rejoice in God’s light, as it is the illumination of eternity! (cf. Revelation 2:23). While hell is described as a horrendous place of eternal darkness (cf. Jude 13), heaven is place of light, without the need of outer illumination.
However, the chief point of John in his epistle is that for us to walk as God would have it (“in the light”, cf. 6), we must have fellowship with God. Or, explained differently, walking in darkness severs our fellowship with God (6).
God is Love
In 1 John 4:8 the apostle also writes, “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Another declaration about God. It helps to establish God’s nature, especially as we read what love is like in Paul’s discourse of 1 Corinthians 13. “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (13:4-8).
This does such a good job of describing God, but it also indicates the importance of the concept in our faith, and the type of people we are to be! As John put it, our love for God is the litmus test regarding our fellowship with Him. “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked” (1 John 2:4-6).
God is Life
Finally, John wrote, “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). The Supreme Being in the universe, the One who created us, and all things material, is the One who is from eternity, the One true God. As Jesus wrote, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End” says the Lord, “Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8). God is eternal, and so is the Giver of eternal life. We must come to Him to have eternal life!
