The Holiness of God

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare we unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. - l John 1:5

John has just said, "These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full." So how is it to be full? Well, "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is . . ." What would you have expected there? I suggest that most of us would have expected, "God is love" or "God is mercy" or "God is compassion"; but the startling and astonishing thing is that he says, "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." And we may say to John, "You have been saying that we are to be given an amazing joy, and then you confront us with that?"

But that is precisely what he does say. We must not start with the knowledge of God, though that is absolutely essential. Nor must we start with God as a source of philosophy. We must not even start with God as love.

Now we can see at once how by putting it like this we give an utter contradiction to what has been so popular especially since 1860. The great message that has been preached for a hundred years is, "God is love." That is the thing that has been emphasized, and we have been told that our fathers, and especially the Puritans with their preaching about justice, and righteousness, and repentance, and sin, and punishment, and death, had been entirely contradicting and denying the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have been told that God is love - that is what we needed, and there He was to meet us. Yet what an utter travesty of the Gospel that is! This is the message: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."

- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Fellowship with God, pp. 106-107

Last edited by Tom F; Mon Sep 27, 2010 1:30 PM.
Tom F.