---
title: 1 John 1:5
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-john-1-5/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-john-1-5.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 1 John 1:5
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 1 John 1:5

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): "God is light"
- NWT (2013 revision): "God is light"

## JW Usage

JWs read "God is light" devotionally and morally — light symbolises truth, righteousness, and Jehovah's pure character against the moral darkness of the world. The verse plays no special role in JW doctrinal disputes; it is simply quoted as a description of God's holiness. The Watchtower's reading does not turn on the verb here because the identity statement does not threaten any Watchtower position.

## Protestant Usage

John writes ho theos phōs estin — "God is light" — using the bare predicative copula. The verse is one of three Johannine identity-statements (with "God is love" at 1 John 4:8 and "God is spirit" at John 4:24) where the simple "is" carries the full weight of the claim. Together they form the short list of declarative things the New Testament says God simply IS — not "represents" or "shows" but is. The verse matters apologetically as a control case: the NWT renders "is" as "is" here without difficulty.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders the verb "is" — exactly the literal Greek copula — in this verse and at the parallel "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Both are doctrinally low-pressure for the Watchtower, and the rendering is unproblematic. The contrast with the Last Supper passages, where the same estin gets swapped to "means," is the point: the rule the NWT applies to the copula scatters with doctrinal pressure, not with grammar.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [When 'Is' Becomes 'Means'](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/is-to-means-broader-pattern.md) — The NWT's Pattern of Paraphrasing the Greek Copula [NWT Translation]