In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:14)
This verse clearly states that the Lord Jesus, who is life to us, is the light. The life is the light.
Again therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall by no means walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. (8:12)
Light of life is a very special term in the Scriptures. The previous verse says that the life is the light; this verse tells us that the light is the light of life.
First John 1:1 says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life.” “That which was from the beginning” is the Word of life. We know this because this Epistle was written by the writer of the Gospel of John, who wrote in the first verse of that book, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In the beginning of his first Epistle, it seems as if John was telling the believers, “That which was from the beginning, which I wrote about in my Gospel, is the Word of life.” In the second verse, he adds a parenthetical: “And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and report to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.” The word life here is a proper noun and could be capitalized: “And the Life was manifested.” Again, from John’s Gospel we know that life here is the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. John continues in verse three: “That which we have seen and heard we report also to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” To convey the sense that John had in writing these words, we can paraphrase his words: “We declare to you the life, but you will have the fellowship. What we declare is the life, but what you will have is the fellowship. If you receive the life, which we declare to you, you will have the fellowship.” Hence, the fellowship comes from the life. In verse 4 John says, “And these things we write that our joy may be made full.” John continues in verses 5 through 7a: “And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and are not practicing the truth; but if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.” In this opening word from 1 John, we see four matters: life, fellowship, joy, and light. According to these seven verses, when we receive the divine life through the apostle John’s fellowship, we have the fellowship of life, which causes us to be full of joy and brings us into the light.
The life spoken of in this passage is the Word that was in the beginning and has been manifested to us. Concerning this life, John writes that the apostles first heard it, then saw it with their eyes, then beheld it, then handled it with their hands. After handling it, the apostles declared it to the saints. This shows us how real and available this life is to us. Once we receive this life, we have the fellowship of life. If we have the fellowship, we will be full of joy. Not only so, because this life brings us into God, who is light, we will be in the light. If we are in the fellowship of this life, we are in fellowship with God, and if we are in fellowship with God, we are in the fellowship with the light. In other words, if we have this life, we have fellowship, joy, and light. In this message we will consider the significance of these four matters.