What Does 1 John 1:5 Mean in the King James?
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 analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
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.And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.THE THREAD
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.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.
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