What Does 1 John 1:5 Mean?

This, then, is the message we have heard from him, and we declare to you, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

1 John 1:5 · SDV

Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.

Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

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.

THE KEY

The verse does not say God merely overcomes darkness; it says darkness is not in God at all.

THE MEANING

God is light, with no darkness at all in him. The verse meets you now with a whole, undivided source: nothing shadowed is hidden inside God. What comes from him brings things into view.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that darkness is part of God’s nature, or that God holds a hidden, shadowed side.

THE ROOT

φῶς

phōs

GROWS FROM

⁨φα-⁩/⁨φω-⁩ (pha-/phō-)

To shine, give light, or appear.

The Greek word belongs to a family of words for shining and appearing. Its branches carry light into visibility: the verse names God as the source in whom nothing is hidden by shadow.

ALSO GROWS

phōs: light

φῶς

This is the word John uses to name God’s nature, not merely something God possesses.

phainō: to shine, appear

φαίνω

This branch connects light with what comes into view.

phaneroō: to make visible, reveal

φανερόω

The same word family links shining with disclosure, illuminating how God’s light leaves nothing concealed within him.

σκοτία

skotia

GROWS FROM

σκοτ-

skot-

Darkness; being dark.

The Greek denies even a single darkness in God. The contrast is not simply between a stronger light and a weaker shadow: the verse says the shadow has no place within him.

ALSO GROWS

skotos: darkness

σκότος

This related noun names the same dark condition that the verse excludes from God.

skotizō: to darken

σκοτίζω

This branch makes darkness an obscuring of what light would otherwise make visible.

THE PATTERN

God’s light brings what is hidden into view, while darkness has no share in its source.

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

Genesis 1:3 · SDVLight appears at God’s word, making visible what was not yet seen.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not take hold of it.

John 1:5 · SDVThe light shines within darkness, which cannot overcome or contain it.

Every good giving and every complete gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no shifting and no shadow cast by turning.

James 1:17 · SDVThe Father of lights has no shadow or changing darkness in him.

THE THREAD

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we share in common one with another, and the blood of Jesus, the Anointed One, his Son, cleanses us from all falling short.

1 John 1:7 · SDV

The same Greek word for light, ⁨φῶς⁩ (phōs), names God’s nature here and the sphere people walk in there. The next verse carries the image into present life: walking in that light brings fellowship and cleansing.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us