The first thing God created was light, because in his eyes “light was good,” Genesis 1:3-4. But then he “separated the light from the darkness,” creating an opposite to light, and a clear distinction between the two, which he must’ve had reason for.
John gives the reason in 1 John 1:5 when describing God, that “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.” So in God himself there is a clear separation between light and darkness as well – which John sees special significance in, because he sees that separation between light and darkness in God describing us too – as either “walking in the darkness” or “walking in the light,” verses 6-7. So there’s a clear distinction made between light and darkness in us too.
And because light and darkness are such total opposites by God’s design, it’s obvious, then, if we’re walking in the light or in the darkness. Which John touched on back in John 3:19, when he wrote that “Light has come into the world” – referring to Jesus (1:1-9) – “but men loved darkness instead of light.” So when Jesus came into our world it was like another Genesis creation, where light and darkness were separated again, but this time describing the two opposites in us humans, those who “hate the light” (20) and those who “come into the light” (21).
The difference between the two can “be plainly seen” too, verse 21, in “whoever lives by the truth,” because living by the truth is so noticeably and extraordinarily different that it can only be of God’s making (21). And that’s John’s point in 1 John 1:6 too, that “living by the truth” we’re “in fellowship with God,” and being in fellowship with God means we’re “walking in the light as he is in the light” (7). We’re “lit up” like him. So, obviously, it can “be plainly seen.”
But how do we know we’re walking in the same light as God? It’s when we’re “walking as Jesus walked,” 1 John 2:6, because, verse 5, “if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.” God’s love “lights up” in us. So anyone who recognizes that Jesus is the Light sent by God to open up the way to “eternal life” (1:2) and sets out to walk in that light by walking as Jesus walked, obeying his word, will come to love as God loves.
And there’s our proof we’re walking in the light – and especially in where that love is shining at its brightest in us too: it’s in “Whoever loves his brother”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 