1 John 1:5

In God, says John, there is no darkness at all. Throughout the New Testament darkness stands for the very opposite of the Christian life.

(i) Darkness stands for the Christless life. It represents the life that a man lived before he met Christ or the life that he lives if he strays away from him. John writes to his people that, now that Christ has come, the darkness is past and the true light shines ( 1 John 2:8 ). Paul writes to his Christian friends that once they were darkness but now they are light in the Lord ( Ephesians 5:8 ). God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of his dear Son ( Colossians 1:13 ). Christians are not in darkness, for they are children of the day ( 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5 ). Those who follow Christ shall not walk in darkness, as others must, but they will have the light of life ( John 8:12 ). God has called the Christians out of darkness into his marvellous light ( 1 Peter 2:9 ).

(ii) The dark is hostile to the light. In the prologue to his gospel John writes that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it ( John 1:5 ). It is a picture of the darkness seeking to obliterate the light--but unable to overpower it. The dark and the light are natural enemies.

(iii) The darkness stands for the ignorance of life apart from Christ. Jesus summons his friends to walk in the light lest the darkness come upon them, for the man who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going ( John 12:35 ). Jesus is the light, and he has come that those who believe in him should not walk in darkness ( John 12:46 ). The dark stands for the essential lostness of life without Christ.

(iv) The darkness stands for the chaos of life without God. God, says Paul, thinking of the first act of creation, commanded his light to shine out of the darkness ( 2 Corinthians 4:6 ). Without God's light the world is a chaos, in which life has neither order nor sense.

(v) The darkness stands for the immorality of the Christless life. It is Paul's appeal to men that they should cast off the works of darkness ( Romans 13:12 ). Men, because their deeds were evil, loved the darkness rather than the light ( John 3:19 ). The darkness stands for the way that the Christless life is filled with things which seek the shadows because they cannot stand the light.

(vi) The darkness is characteristically unfruitful. Paul speaks of the unfruitful works of darkness ( Ephesians 5:11 ). If growing things are despoiled of the light, their growth is arrested. The darkness is the Christless atmosphere in which no fruit of the Spirit will ever grow.

(vii) The darkness is connected with lovelessness and hate. If a man hates his brother, it is a sign that he walks in darkness ( 1 John 2:9-11 ). Love is sunshine and hatred is the dark.

(viii) The dark is the abode of the enemies of Christ and the final goal of those who will not accept him. The struggle of the Christian and of Christ is against the hostile rulers of the darkness of this world ( Ephesians 6:12 ). Consistent and rebellious sinners are those for whom the mist of darkness is reserved ( 2 Peter 2:9 ; Jd 13 ). The darkness is the life which is separated from God.