The first letter of the apostle John describes Jesus in several different ways. He begins the letter by saying, “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life — and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us” (1:2; LSB). Jesus is the word (Greek: logos), who appeared to humankind in human form. John develops this same theme of Jesus as the logos in the prologue to his Gospel (John 1:1–18), where the logos existed with God from the beginning of time itself and became flesh. The logos was and is eternal life and this eternal life is something that he shared with humanity. We experience this eternal life even now when we abide in God and keep his commandments.
Shortly thereafter, John moves to another image to describe God/Christ, “And this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1:5). This idea is not something that John came up with, for the idea is found throughout the Old Testament (e.g., Ps 27:1). In a dark world full of evil and chaos and death, God is the light that shines in the darkness. We are either lovers of the light who always want to continue to walk in the light of God (John 3:21; 1 John 1:7) or we are lovers of darkness who would rather stay there to continue performing shameless deeds (John 3:19–20).
Finally, John boldly declares that God is love, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:7–8). It is impossible to be one with God and hate one’s brother, who is in God. It is an inherent contradiction to logic and, even worse, contrary to God’s character.
Theology is inherent to ethics or, to put it simply, knowing who God is directly relates to what he expects of us. We should always conduct our lives in accordance with God’s character. If we know who God is and understand his character from what he has revealed to us, this is far better than a list of specific commandments. I hope that we can continue to abide in life, light, and love, for to do these things is to abide in God himself.
