Writer of 1 John saw love as the very nature of God
Corollary: To love is to know God
Claiming that you know God doesn’t mean that you do. That is one of the lessons of the First Epistle of John, probably written to the Christian church as a whole late in the first century.
For the author1 of 1 John, God is light and God is love, and to truly know God you must walk in light and walk in love.