God is light: the apostolic witness and the test of walking

First John does not name its author. It has no opening greeting and no closing, so it reads more like a written sermon than a letter. From the second century the church assigned it to the apostle John, the author of the fourth Gospel, and the case rests on the close likeness of vocabulary and themes in the two: light and darkness, life, the Word, truth, love, abiding. The writer also speaks as an eyewitness of Jesus (1:1-3). Some modern scholars suggest that a leader in a 'Johannine circle', such as the 'elder' who wrote 2 and 3 John, wrote all three letters and perhaps shaped the Gospel. Others defend the apostle. The letter is usually dated to the last decades of the first century, perhaps the 80s or 90s, and the tradition connects it with Ephesus.

The reason for writing becomes clear as the letter goes on. A group had left the community (2:19), and they were teaching that something about Jesus or about sin did not matter. The letter insists that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (4:2-3; 2 John 7) and rejects any claim to know God that goes with disobedience and hatred of fellow believers. Irenaeus, in the second century, linked John's writing with opposition to Cerinthus, a teacher who separated the divine Christ from the human Jesus, though we know Cerinthus only through his opponents. 'Docetism', the idea that Christ only seemed to be human, is often used as a label, but the label comes later and fits the situation only roughly.

The readers are Christians who have been shaken by this division. The author wants to confirm what they have received, and says so: 'We write these things so that our joy may be complete' (1:4).

First John is a pastoral sermon in written form, and it is built by repetition, not by outline. The author takes up a theme, leaves it, and returns to it from a new angle, so that commentators often call the structure a spiral. In chapter 1 the main device is a string of 'if' clauses. The three that begin with 'if we say' (verses 6, 8 and 10) state claims that the author rejects. The three that begin with 'if we walk' or 'if we confess' (verses 7 and 9) state the true alternatives. Reading the passage means keeping these two sets in view together.

The prologue echoes the opening of the Gospel of John, and the two should be read side by side. John 1:1-18 begins with the Word 'in the beginning'; 1 John 1:1-4 begins with 'that which was from the beginning'. The words 'life', 'light', 'seen' and 'testified' recur. First John, however, writes of the Word as a message to be heard and a person who was touched. The emphasis on touch and sight is not decoration. It answers those who were willing to speak of a Christ without a real body.

Two cautions apply.

• First, the sharp contrasts (light and darkness, truth and lie) are the author's style, and they state what a settled way of life looks like. They do not mean that the believer is never in need of forgiveness, as verses 8 to 10 say plainly.
• Second, 'walk' in Hebrew and Jewish thought is a picture of a whole way of life. To walk in the light is a manner of living, not a claim of sinlessness.

Verses 1–2

'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have gazed upon and touched with our own hands: this is the Word of life.' The sentence stretches over two verses before the main verb arrives in verse 3 ('we proclaim'). The author piles up the senses: hearing, sight, a long careful look (the Greek verb suggests steady looking), touch. The subject is neuter in Greek ('that which'), and covers both the person and the message about him. 'The Word of life' is the message that gives life and the person who is life (compare John 1:1, 4). Verse 2 interrupts to say that this life 'was revealed' in history, that the apostles saw it and testified to it, and that it is the eternal life 'that was with the Father'. The phrase says that the one who appeared was personally distinct from the Father and was with him from eternity.

Verses 3–4

The purpose of the proclamation is 'fellowship'. The Greek koinonia means sharing in something in common: a partnership, a participation. The readers are to share in the apostles' fellowship, and the apostles' fellowship is 'with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ'. The ground of Christian community is not common interest. It is a common relationship with the Father through the Son. The writing is done so that 'our joy may be complete', a phrase that echoes John 15:11 and 16:24.

Verse 5

'And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.' The 'message' is what Jesus himself taught. The statement is double: positive (God is light) and negative (no darkness at all). In the Bible light is a picture of truth, holiness, life and the revealing presence of God (Psalm 27:1; 36:9; Isaiah 60:19-20; John 8:12). Darkness means falsehood, sin and death. God is wholly good, wholly truthful and wholly open.

Verses 6–7

The first claim is: 'If we say we have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.' The claim fails because it separates profession from conduct. Truth, here, is not only something believed but something done. The alternative is: '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.' Two results follow: fellowship with one another, and cleansing by the blood of Jesus. The 'cleansing' is in a present tense that suggests an ongoing effect. The mention of 'blood' brings in the sacrifices of the Old Testament, especially the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), where blood removed the defilement of sin from people and sanctuary. The writer will say in 2:2 and 4:10 that Jesus is the atoning sacrifice.

Verses 8–9

The second claim is 'If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.' This is not a boast about outward conduct but a denial of any need of forgiveness. The reply is 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' To 'confess' (homologeo) is literally to say the same thing as another, so to agree with God's verdict on our sin. God is 'faithful', true to his promise of forgiveness (see Jeremiah 31:34), and 'just', because Christ's blood has dealt with the penalty. The passage does not say to whom confession is made, and it speaks of a continuing habit of acknowledging sin, not a once-for-all act.

Verse 10

The third claim goes further: 'If we say we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and His word is not in us.' To deny sin contradicts what God has said about everyone in his word and is therefore a charge against God. The section will go on in 2:1 to say that the purpose of the letter is that the readers may not sin, and that, if anyone does sin, there is an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

The passage teaches the character of God: he is light, entirely holy and truthful, and fellowship with him cannot coexist with a life in the darkness. It also teaches that fellowship is possible, because of the person and work of Jesus. The Christian doctrine of salvation here is a restoration to fellowship with a holy God, grounded in the cleansing blood, and shown in a way of life.

The passage holds together two truths that are easily separated. Believers are not sinless: those who say so are deceiving themselves. And believers are not indifferent to sin: those who walk in darkness while claiming fellowship are liars. The solution the letter offers is not a standard of moral achievement but a pattern of response. Believers walk in the light, which includes being honest about their sin, and they confess, and they are cleansed. This is the shape of the Christian life under grace, and the rest of the Bible bears it out. David's confession in Psalm 32:5 and 51 is answered by forgiveness, and Proverbs 28:13 says that whoever conceals sin will not prosper and whoever confesses and forsakes it will find mercy.

The prologue also teaches the Christian doctrine of the incarnation as something that can be known by the senses, and the doctrine of apostolic witness. The church's message rests on those who saw and touched, a point the New Testament makes repeatedly (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:21-22; 2 Peter 1:16). The letter's final purpose, joy that is complete, is also a theological claim: the God of the gospel intends his people to have joy.

The prologue is one of the strongest New Testament statements that the eternal Word became a human being who could be touched. The 'Word of life' was 'from the beginning', was 'with the Father', and was revealed so that eyes and hands could meet him. The same person is called 'His Son, Jesus Christ' (1:3), and so the author joins the eternal and the historical in a single person. The Gospel of John records the same kind of touch: the risen Jesus invites Thomas to touch his wounds (John 20:27), and in Luke the risen Jesus tells the disciples to touch him and see that he is no ghost (Luke 24:39). The author is saying that what the Gospel records is what he and the others witnessed.

The passage also shows what Christ has done. The blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin (1:7), and he is the one to whom forgiveness is bound (1:9). This is the fulfilment of the Old Testament sacrificial system. The Day of Atonement, in which the high priest took blood into the holy place for the cleansing of the people (Leviticus 16), is the background for the New Testament's wider teaching that Christ's blood does what the animal blood could only picture (Hebrews 9:11-14; 10:1-4). Revelation 1:5 uses the same idea of Christ freeing us from our sins by his blood. The link between the prologue and the Gospel is again plain: Jesus is called the light of the world (John 8:12), and in this letter he is the one in whom the God who is light draws near.