Down an Unfamiliar Road

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXXI) 07/28/22

^4:18         Where God’s love is, there is no fear because God’s perfect love takes it away. On the contrary, it is His punishment that makes a person afraid.

A gifted young lady named Charlotte was a portrait artist and writer of humorous verse. Then, in her early thirties, she suddenly became ill with a debilitating disease that left her an invalid. It not only affected her physically but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Being confined to a nursing home at the early age of forty-five, her ill health often brought the horror of having a useless life while the circle of friends around her was full of untiring service for God.

During her illness, a well-known preacher, Cesar Malan of Switzerland, came to visit her. He asked her if she had peace with God. She faced many inner struggles because she felt worthless and resented the question. She refused to talk about it because she was convinced it was of little value. But a few days later, she called Dr. Malan and apologized. She said she wanted to clean up her life before becoming a Christian. Malan answered, “Come just as you are.” That day she gave her life to the Anointed One and penned these stirring words: 

Just as I am – without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
– O Lamb of God, I come!

Just as I am – though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without,
– O Lamb of God, I come!

Just as I am – Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe,
-O Lamb of God, I come![1]

That’s how God viewed lost humanity. But His agápē drove Him to send His son to tell us it was alright. We did not need to clean up our lives for Him to love us. Instead, we could come to Him, just as we are.

Stephen S. Smalley (1931-2018) notes that the Apostle John goes on in verse eighteen to explain more fully what happens when the experience of mutual love is completed by the fact that we “can have confidence on judgment day.” John does so by negatively stating the truth that we can share the Anointed One’s confidence before God, here and hereafter. Real love, he claims, results in spiritual boldness that “flings fear out of the door.” The train of thought which began in verse sixteen is thus achieved. God is love; the person who lives in love remains in God, and God in them; in this mutual indwelling, love finds its complete expression; and, as the believer imitates Jesus more closely, their angst, at last, is banished.[2]

Edward J. Malatesta (1932-1998) points out that verses seventeen and eighteen describe two characteristics that accompany perfect love in believers: (1) confidence on Judgment Day and (2) freedom from anxiety. The last two lines of each verse give the reasons for the respective affirmations. That is, “to be like Jesus completed in love” and “fear of punishment makes that impossible.” The only remedy is that when love is perfected in us, it evicts apprehension.[3]

John Painter (1935) points us to what the prophet Zephaniah had to say about the great and terrible day of the LORD.

            “

“That terrible day of the Lord is near.
                    Swiftly it comes—
                A day of bitter tears,
                    A day when even strong men will cry out.
                 It will be a day when the Lord’s anger is poured out—
                    A day of terrible distress and anguish,
                A day of ruin and desolation,
                   A day of darkness and gloom,
                A day of clouds and blackness

                    A day the trumpet calls and battle cries.

                Down go the walled cities

                    A day of trumpet calls and battle cries.
                Down go the walled cities
                   And the strongest battlements!

                “Because you have sinned against the Lord,
                    I will make you grope around like the blind.
                Your blood will be poured into the dust,
                    And your bodies will lie rotting on the ground.”

                Your silver and gold will not save you
                    On that day of the Lord’s anger.
                For the whole land will be devoured
                    By the fire of his jealousy.
                He will make a terrifying end
                    Of all the people on earth.[1]

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[1] Zephaniah 1:14-18

[4]

                   

The fact that the Apostle John should deal with despair in the face of judgment day is natural, given the tradition in the First Covenant[5] and beyond in Judaism and the Hellenistic world. However, the issues have become somewhat weightier with the mention of the day of judgment.[6] The dismay mentioned here seems to be more than dread of being shamed. The noun and the verb used can express awesome reverence or raw terror. The imagery of the day of judgment suggests the latter.[7]

William Loader (1944) says that while the Apostle John focuses on our relationship with God, his observations about uneasiness and love invite application to all human relationships. Love builds trust. Where trust grows, terror diminishes. Where worry diminishes, there is more room for love and life. Love gives life. Distress brings death. Trepidation has its place in the face of danger. It alerts us. But for John, the ultimate human misgivings of not being loved, not being of value, not belonging, and being lost, both in this life and beyond, are met with a gospel of hope. We are loved and valued; we belong; we are not lost. We need no longer choose faintheartedness and the rigidities and depression that flow from it. Instead, we may choose to believe that God is love and begin a process of letting go of fearfulness and allowing love to reach its fulfillment in us.[8]

Colin G. Kruse (1950) says that when people are anxious about God’s punishment, it signifies they are not yet perfected in love. Perfection in love here involves a love for God, which is based upon our sense of God’s love for us, and this love relationship with Him and other believers is what removes our anxiety as we face the day of judgment. The author has already underlined the greatness of God’s love for believers in several places in this letter. In 1 John 3:1, he wrote: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are;” in 3:16: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus the Anointed One laid down His life for us;” and in 4:16: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.” When the realization of God’s love for us in the Anointed One penetrates our minds and spirits, then we are perfected in love so that apprehension of God’s judgment is removed.[9]

Since perfected love means our love has gone through the process of yielding to God’s agápē so that we can love others as He loved us, why are so many of our songs and sermons focused on loving God instead of loving others with God’s love for us? Believe it or not, there are some 160 such hymns. However, few, if any, are well-known to regular churchgoers. For example, one such song has lyrics like this:

            Father, make us loving, gentle, thoughtful, kind;
                Fill us with Thy Spirit, make us of Thy mind.
                Help us love each other more and more each day,
                Help us follow Jesus in the narrow way.

Refrain

                We would learn of Jesus,
                Help us here below,
                Follow in His footsteps,
                Who hath loved us so.

                Father, we would ever, live as in Thy sight;
                Thou dost know our longings after what is right.
                Fill our hearts with kindness as we onward go,
                Teach us to be loving; Thou hast loved us so.

                Help us to remember, Thou art ever near;
                Teach us lovingkindness, tenderness, and cheer.
                There is much sorrow in this world below;
                Father, make us loving; Thou hast loved us so.[10]

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[1] “Just as I Am” written by Charlotte Elliott in 1835, with music by William B. Bradbury (1816-1868), first appearing in the Christian Remembrancer, of which Elliott she became the editor in 1836. The final verse is from Elliott’s Hours of Sorrow Cheered and Comforted (1836).

[2] Smalley, Stephen S., Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 51, op. cit., pp. 259-260

[3] Malatesta, Edward J., Interiority and Covenant, op cit., p. 296

[4] Zephaniah 1:14-18

[5] See Isaiah 2:12-22

[6] Cf., 1 John 2:28

[7] Painter, John. Sacra Pagina: 1, 2, and 3 John: Vol. 18, loc., cit.

[8] Loader, William: Epworth Commentary, op. cit., p. 57

[9] Kruse, Colin G., The Letters of John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary (PNTC)), op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[10] “Father, Make Us Loving,” Words by Flora Kirkland (1901); Music by Isaac H. Meredith (1872-1962)

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXX) 07/27/22

^4:18         Where God’s love is, there is no fear because God’s perfect love takes it away. On the contrary, it is His punishment that makes a person afraid.

Amos N. Wilder (1895-1993): The elder Apostle John presents one after another all levels of Christian attainment: the secure conviction that God is Love and the only Love; unshaken confidence in the hora novissima[1] when “people will run into the caves in the mountainside, and into the tunnels in the earth, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of His presence.”[2] Now perfect love drives out fear. And yet these ideals do not seem unreal or fanatical since they are firmly grounded in faith and the victorious life of the church. This epistle describes the moral character and human greatness that the perennial foes of mankind, in particular anxiety, are dwarfed or banished. Since apprehension shrinks away while love unites, there can be no despair in love; at least perfect love gets rid of it. Since it is the love and reverence for God which are chiefly in view, despair has to do with a person’s punishment as an aspect of His discipline. But as the preceding verse made clear, the uneasy one is the person who is not perfected in love and, therefore, the dread in them drives them away from God.[3]

Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) feels that since the Apostle John has just finished talking about having confidence when contemplating the coming day of judgment, he decided to expand on the cause for fear in that day. He shares an interesting story as an illustration to provide more clarity. He tells of a believer who was influential in his local church. But he and some other elders had a heated argument, and he felt uncomfortable worshipping with them. So, he decided to move and join a church elsewhere. After a good number of years, he became ill and was about to die. The members who quarreled with him back at his old church heard the sad news. So, they agreed that most of the trouble that started the argument years ago was their fault. They made plans to see him, offer their apologies, and ask forgiveness. They hoped it would cheer him up and make him feel better. But when his wife went to the bedroom and told him those men were there, he refused to see them. He said to his wife, “I could not do that! How could I go out and face God in eternity and refuse to forgive people who came to me with outstretched hands?” In other words, he settled the matter long ago, so there was no need to open the wounds again. Therefore, he would let himself off the hook by refusing to meet with them, accepting their apology, and offering forgiveness.

This is the irresponsible type of thinking that some people have of removing the fear of judgment day. Such reasoning does not pass the test of Scripture. Jesus said, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that someone has something against you? Leave your gift there and make peace with that person. Then come and offer your gift.”[4] Even worse, while he thought he was letting himself off the hook, he left fellow believers on the hook to answer why they did not apologize and receive forgiveness? But our Lord has an answer for that too. He taught, “If your brother or sister in God’s family does something wrong, go and tell them what they did wrong. Do this when you are alone with them. If they listen to you, you have helped them be your brother or sister again. But if they refuse to listen, go to them again and take one or two people with you. Then there will be two or three people who can tell what happened. If they refuse to listen to them, tell the church. And if they refuse to listen to the church, treat them as you would someone who does not know God.”[5] [6]

F. F. Bruce (1910-1990) says that the day of judgment need not frighten anyone who has appropriated the assurance of Jesus’ words, “Anyone who hears what I say and believes in the One who sent Me has eternal life. They will not be judged guilty. They have already left death and have entered into spiritual life.”[7] Also, “He has given Him authority to judge everyone because He is the Son of Man.”[8] All such terror is rejected by “perfect love” in which the members of God’s family live. “Fear has to do with punishment,”[9] But “punishment” is the portion of those who, through disobedience, is “condemned already,” not of those who, believing in the Son of God, are “not condemned.”[10] [11]

Rudolf Schnackenburg (1914-2002) believes we should do all we can to banish angst. But that is not because love has a higher value in religion than uncertainty. The Apostle John is not thinking about religious psychology; as Swiss Lutheran minister and psychoanalyst Oskar Pfister (1873-1956) said, what the Apostle John says here in verse eighteen is “worthy of the highest admiration.” He then declares: “So the gate to Christian belief is shut to tormenting fear for all time.”[12] Those, at last, are clear words, free of any misunderstanding, worthy of being quoted and repeated.[13]

Instead, according to Schnackenburg, for John, fear is the product of observing that Christians have not yet realized all the potential of their fellowship with God. There is still much of the unredeemed state about them. They show too little joy over being children of God[14] and too little confidence in the power that comes from God.[15] Anxiety is alien to the children of God and must be dismissed. But this does not mean the Gnostic’s theory of liberation from the material world and its hindrances. Nor is it a rationalistic desire for peace of mind. Rather, they should remove every impediment that hinders them from the perfect response of love and the fellowship God has given them.[16]

Donald W. Burdick (1917-1996) states that here such dismay exists, there can be no love, and vice versa, for “perfect love drives out fear.” This is true because of what being scared is and what love is. “Being afraid,” the most self-centered of all emotions, can be analyzed as a heightened awareness of self occasioned by what is deemed to be “a threat” to oneself. Love is quite the opposite. It is instead a diminishing of self-concern and a heightened awareness of others. Thus, the two emotions work contrary to each other. The more uneasiness there is, the less love there is; the more one is occupied with love, the smaller the panic.[17] So when you call on God to help relieve your terror, ask Him for more love.

John R. W. Stott (1921-2011) says that the Apostle John now reveals that the love that spells confidence also banishes being afraid. There is no cowardness, that is, no submissive timidity in love. Consequently, as the New English Bible (NEB) puts it, “there is no room for fear in love.” The two are as incompatible as oil and water. We can love and reverence God simultaneously.[18] That is why we cannot instantaneously approach Him in love and hide from Him in angst.[19] Indeed, it is by love for God that a false cringing horror of God is overcome. The reason why perfect love cannot coexist with anxiety is now given: apprehension has to do with punishment. Interestingly, the Greek noun kolasis appears only twice in the Final Covenant, here by John in verse eighteen (“torment”) and by Jesus (“everlasting punishment”) in His parable of the Sheep and the Goats.[20]

That is to say, fear introduces the category of penalties, which is quite alien to God’s forgiven children who love Him. Or the phrase “brings bad with it;” may signify unfounded concern, sometimes the very punishment it is afraid of.[21] In other words, “despair has something of the nature of punishment;” to be scared is to begin to suffer chastisement already. Once assured, as we are in verse seventeen, that we are “like Him” as God’s beloved children, we cease to be afraid of Him. It is evident, therefore, that the one who has misgivings is not made perfect in love.[22]

David E. Hiebert (1928-1995) says that the words “and the one who be dismayed is not perfected in love” restate the Apostle John’s nonpersonal principle, “There is no fear in love,” in personal terms. The conjunction “and” implies that something further needs to be said about the believer whose life is harassed by terror. The phrase “the one who fears” pictures an individual whose life is habitually beset with uneasiness. Love “is not yet perfected” in them. So, they are unable to attain their intended goal in their life. Therefore, the believer is the sphere in which God’s agápē works. So, to remove all dread, the believer must be brought into an enduring fellowship with God.[23] This is so true! Sometimes we are our biggest obstacle in obtaining the level of spiritual living God is looking for in our lives. We may blame it on everything else, but as the Prophet, Nathan, told King David, “You are that person.”[24]

Simon J. Kistemaker (1930-2017) looks at verse seventeen for practical purposes. He notes that TV viewers can witness courtroom sessions almost daily. We have become accustomed to the judge, jury, defendant, plaintiff, and lawyers. We hear the verdict and the innocent acquitted and the guilty sentence. Often, we witness the expressions of uncontrolled emotions. These emotions depict, from time-to-time anxiety and fear. At other times joy and happiness. Every human will have to appear before the judgment throne of the Anointed One. Feelings of guilt and remorse will fill the hearts of all those who have refused to obey God’s commands, believe His Word, and accept the Anointed One as Savior. Their hearts will be filled with anguish,[25] for they realize that the Judge will sentence them to everlasting punishment because of their unforgiven sins. Those who have lived in fellowship with the Father and the Son have nothing to fear. Their hearts are filled with joy and love. And they will hear the word “acquitted” from the lips of Jesus. He will say to the Father, “I have paid it all.”[26]

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[1] Hora novissima: Latin term for “last hour.”

[2] Isaiah 2:19 – Authorized Revised Version (ARV)

[3] Wilder, Amos N., The Interpreter’s Bible, op. cit., 1 John, Exposition, p. 286

[4] Matthew 5:23-24

[5] Ibid. 18:15-17

[6] Lloyd-Jones, Martyn: Life in the Anointed One, op. cit., pp. 541-542

[7] John 5:24

[8] Ibid. 5:22, 27

[9] A verbal parallel to this clause is provided by Philo where, speaking of the effects of shame and fear in one who has broken the eighth commandment, he says, “for it is only disgraceful actions which cause shame, and the other is a sign of his thinking it deserving of punishment.” Philo, The Special Laws, IV. I. (6)

[10] John 3:18

[11] Bruce, F. F., The Epistles of John: A Verse-by-Verse Exposition. Kingsley Books, Inc. Kindle Edition

[12] Pfister, Oskar: Das Christentum und die Angst. Eine religion psychologische, historishe und religion psychologische Untersuching, Published by Artemis Verlag, Zurich, 1944, 1,4888ff

[13] Hans-Josef Klauck (1948), Universitát Wurzburg, Deutschland

[14] Cf. 1 John 3:1

[15] See ibid. 2:13ff; 4:4; 5:4

[16] Schnackenburg, Rudolf: The Johannine Epistles, op. cit., pp. 224-225

[17] Burdick, Donald W., The Epistles of John, op. cit., p. 79

[18] Cf. Hebrews 5:7

[19] Cf. Romans 8:14-15; See 2 Timothy 1:7

[20] See Matthew 25:46

[21] Cf. Job 3:25

[22] Stott, John. The Letters of John (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries), op. cit., pp. 169-170

[23] Hiebert, David E., Bibliotheca Sacra, op. cit., January-March 1990, pp. 85-86

[24] 2 Samuel 12:7

[25] Revelation 6:15-17

[26] Kistemaker, Simon J., New Testament Commentary, op. cit., p. 341

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXIX) 07/26/22

^4:18         Where God’s love is, there is no fear because God’s perfect love takes it away. On the contrary, it is His punishment that makes people afraid.

James B. Morgan (1850-1942) observes that the argument of the Apostle John in verse eighteen is plain and forcible and needs only to be stated that it may be perceived. Let us notice his views:

1. The nature of love. It is self-evident. A child who perfectly loves its parent has no forbidding fear of them. On the contrary, it can come to them with confidence knowing there is nothing to be afraid of in their presence.

2. More firmly, the same view is presented in the operation of love. Reverence for God, understanding it in the evil sense of terror, is natural to mankind. But let love for Him be conceived, and it counteracts that dread.

3. The very nature of anxiety further confirms this view. We avoid the person whom we are scared of. Their presence is painful – no need to expose oneself to it except out of necessity.

4. Finally, the operation of distress is to destroy love. As one element is introduced, the other is destroyed. If apprehension is allowed to predominate, love will be overcome.

What a powerful argument for the cultivation of love. Would we now be happy in God and love to meet Him at last with joy? Then let us love Him. Let us see God in His Son to repose our faith and hope in Him. Let us cultivate this feeling since we regard Him as our friend. This will elevate, purify, and strengthen that love towards oneself. Then, in the end, we will await judgment day without being afraid.[1]

American theologian and author James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888) brings several passages to show that the spirit of the Gospel is not a spirit of fear and that Jesus came to deliver us from all dismay.[2] But, should we not be afraid because life is full of danger and evil? And if the Bible contains passages that teach us not to be uneasy, does it not have other passages which teach that we ought not to be overly concerned?[3]

So, how are these facts and statements, asks Clarke, reconciled with the assertion that it is the duty of Christians not to be afraid? First, we may say that a distinction can be made between suspicion as an ulterior motive and terror as a ruling motive of human action. Fear is the ruling reason for degrading conduct because it is essentially selfish. But misgivings, when controlled by reason, subordinate to hope, joined with courage, become caution, watchfulness, and modesty. A Christian may have qualms but is never governed by fright.

The work of the Anointed One is to deliver us from all excessive fear, states Clarke, and to leave calmness, sober watchfulness, and profound peace in its place. But this work is not done suddenly; it is progressive work. Consider the apprehension of sin and of its consequences. The primary purpose of Christianity is to save us from sin and, thereby, from its effects, which are moral and spiritual death. And it keeps us, not by stirring up uneasiness but by inspiring faith and courage. It assures us that “sin shall not have dominion” over us. God’s law shows us our duty but gives us no power to do it. The purer and higher the standard, we feel less able to reach it. We need the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father!”

Once we are delivered from the fear of sin by the power of the Gospel, we are also freed from misgivings about God. However, there is a concern about reverence for God, which is always right and we must always cherish. Heathenism is a religion of terror; Judaism is the religion of conscience; Christianity is the religion of affection. Where God is regarded as an Almighty Ruler, the chief duty is implicit, unquestioning obedience. The principal task is righteous conduct, where God is a Judge. Where God is as a father, the chief responsibility is childlike trust and love. There is gradual progress in the conception of Deity. Beginning with power, it ascends to justice and terminates in love. And when perfect love is attained, it casts out all anxiety.[4]

William Sinclair (1850-1917) says that the more perfect this disposition of perfected love becomes, the less any form of anxiety can share in it. Even if regarded as directed to an earthly object, if its character is pure and divine, not even a lack of exchange can disturb its calmness. Where it is a well-grounded emotion with a perfect being, its serenity is complete in proportion to its sincerity. When love is perfect, fear dwindles to nothing and is expelled. Love, seeking to be perfect, and finding despair alongside it, will diligently seek out the cause of the dismay, perfect itself by getting rid of the reason, and so get rid of the angst. Being scared in such a connection implies some ground for worry and suffering punishment (not “torment”) by being uncertain,[5] the presence of which are grounds for alarm. It would imply some corresponding imperfection of love.[6] [7]

Albert Barnes (1872-19d51) notes that love is not an affection that produces dread. There is no fear in our love for a parent, child, or friend. If a person had perfect love for God, they would have no uneasiness over anything – for what would they have to dread? They would have no terror of death, for they would have nothing to be afraid of beyond the grave. It is guilt that makes people afraid of what is to come, but those whose sins are pardoned and whose hearts are filled with God’s agápē have nothing to panic over in this world or the world to come. The angels in heaven, who have always loved God and one another, have no distress, for they have nothing to worry about in the future. Likewise, the redeemed awaiting the resurrection, rescued from all danger, and filled with God’s agápē, have nothing to be frightened of; knowing this love operates on earth to deliver the soul from all apprehension of what is to come.

This means, says Barnes, love that is complete or allowed to exert its proper influence on the soul. As far as it exists, it tends to deliver the mind from alarms. If it existed in any soul in a perfect state, that soul would be entirely free from all apprehension regarding the future. It is true; that people suffer from concern about poverty, grief, bereavement, sickness, death, and future woes. God’s agápē furnishes evidence of true devotion’s deliverance from all these distressing apprehensions. However, anyone whose mind lingers on the uncertainty of coming wrath shows that love has not accomplished its complete work in their hearts. Perhaps it never will feel complete until we reach the heavenly world, although there are many whose minds are so full of love for God that they feel entirely delivered from fear.[8]

Harry A. Ironside (1876-1951) says we should notice that perfect love is not something we find. No Christian has ever manifested perfect love, no matter how devoted or mature. There is some selfishness, jealousy, envy, and self-seeking in the heart of every child of God. Sometimes people imagine that they have gotten beyond all this, but circumstances soon reveal that they have not. When we look for perfect love, we find it in our blessed Lord Jesus the Anointed One, and we see that it was manifested when He, in infinite grace, gave Himself on the cross for guilty sinners such as we.

You see, says Ironside, there should be no forboding in love. That could not be displayed if it were a question of our love. Every honest Christian would continually panic if they thought their final acceptance depended upon their inward perfection in love. He would say to himself, “Well, I have trusted the Lord Jesus the Anointed One, and I hope everything is turning out all right at last, but my love is sometimes so cold, it is sometimes so low, that I really fear when the Lord makes an examination, He will find so much in me contrary to His mind that I will not be accepted at all.” But, thank God, we are turned away from ourselves and our experiences and directed to the full manifestation of perfect love on the cross. God says, as it were, “There you see love triumphant.” Love manifested in its fullness, reached the deepest depths, and lifted the poorest of sinners, utterly lost and ruined and undeserving. So, you can depend on it; He will never give you up. Remember, Jesus loved His disciples during His ministry on earth and will love them to the very end.[9] [10]

Greville P. Lewis (1891-1976) notes that “the fear of the Lord” is prominent in the First Covenant, but this represents an elementary stage in religious experience. Jesus told His disciples to only reverence God since He held their destiny in His hands, but they were then in the kindergarten of discipleship;[11] the Apostle John admits that dread is a response to God’s “punishment.” At the earliest stage in one’s spiritual life, the sinner is halted in their career of sin by the realization that they are rebelling against an almighty and holy God and that if they continue to do so, they must suffer the consequences. But the mature Christian’s perfected love has helped them outlive any distrust of God.

John does not say we should “love God” out of concern for what He will do with us, says Lewis. Instead, love God to your fullest, and you will never again shrink from Him in fright, for “there is no fear in love.” Being alarmed is essentially self-centered. It asks, “What is going to happen to me?” and trembles at the thought of the answer. But when our love for God is perfected, self is forgotten, and only devotion and admiration remain. So we are often justified in panicking over any undiscovered and, therefore, an unsanctified impulse that might lead to action which would add another wound to the Anointed One of the Cross and grieve the heart of our Father.[12]

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[1] Morgan, James B., An Exposition of the First Epistle of John, op. cit., Lecture XXXVI, p. 364-365

[2] 2 Timothy 1:7, Romans 8:15; John 14:27

[3] Matthew 10:28; Philippians 2:12; 1 Peter 1:17; Proverbs 3:7

[4] Clarke, James Freeman: Biblical Illustrator, op. cit., Vol. 22, pp. 144-145

[5] See Luke 16:24

[6] Cf. 1 John 3:19-21

[7] Sinclair, William: A New Testament Commentary for English Readers, op. cit., p. 489

[8] Barnes, Albert: New Testament Notes, op. cit., p. 4869

[9] John 13:1

[10] Ironside, Harry A., The Epistles of John and Jude, op. cit., pp. 171-172

[11] Luke 12:4-6

[12] Lewis, Greville P., The Epworth Commentary, The Johannine Epistles, op. cit., p. 110

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXVIII) 07/25/22

^4:18         Where God’s love is, there is no fear because God’s perfect love takes it away. On the contrary, it is His punishment that makes a person afraid.

Henry A. Sawtelle (1832-1913) says that the phrase “perfect love drives out fear” refers to the presence of divine love in our hearts and perfected there. In its completeness, it fills the soul, thereby shutting out despair in us prior to such love. Two spheres cannot occupy where there is only space for one. But how does perfect love in us expel dismay? In the experience of it, we feel entirely united to God, as if it were a part of Him. We look out upon the world, opposition, death, judgment itself, from God’s being that encircles us, from the canopy, the fortification of His divine person. In the consciousness of this union, we need not dread evil any more than God be uneasy about Himself.[1]

Sawtelle continues by pointing out that when it comes to the use of the word “torment,” there are only four places in the Final Covenant where this word occurs: Here, in verse eighteen, the Greek noun kolasis (“torment”), and Matthew 25:46 (“punishment”); and as the Greek verb kolazō in2 Peter 2:9 (“punishment”), and Acts of the Apostles 4:21 (“punish”). It is the punishment of the great day,[2] with which fear is connected and which it already takes possession of as if it were a part of itself. Distress is the anticipation of punishment; it contains a foretaste and partakes of it before it even arrives. There can be nothing of this, nothing of painful apprehension in perfected love, and, therefore, the statement in the first sentence of this verse must be true. The last sentence of this verse says that such fright is only present when perfected love is absent.[3] As we can see, the KJV translators chose the word “torment” to emphasize the severity of the punishment in the lake of fire.[4]

John James Lias (1834-1923) believed that the Apostle John has before his eyes the ideal condition of perfect union with God to which the believer is ever growing. No apprehension exists, nor can it exist in that condition, for there is no longer cause for anxiety. But, of course, John is not speaking of that reverent, respectful awe that hesitates to offend,[5] but of the dread of reprimand, rebuke, or rejection. If we ask, how is it that “reverence and godly-fear” are taught to us from Scripture if misgivings are opposed to love? We will find the reply in the following words – “because fear has no torment.”[6]

So, says Lias, if we imagine that fear and love may co-exist in the same person is not to misrepresent the Apostle John. He does not say that there can be no anxiety in the mind of the person who has love in their heart. What John says comes closer to the statement that apprehension is not love. He says that concern is not contained in love. Dread of offending God must always be felt. Despair over the consequences of sin cannot be avoided, even where there is much love in the heart. But, when love is allowed to diminish panic, the more a person is filled with love, the less they are inclined to be concerned. That’s why John says here, God’s gentle agápē dissolves the tears of fear.[7]

William E. Jelf (1836-1849) has an enlightening thought in verse eighteen. He says that having qualms does not harmonize with love, and perhaps it is the only energy of our moral nature with which fear is not connected. Being frightened of judgment is different than being afraid of the Judge. The feeling of love does not give rise to nor is it accompanied by uneasiness; it is the negation of worry. It cannot be said to use the argument “Who then is the one who condemns?”[8] for the notion of condemnation is not suggested by love but is foreign to it. It feels that God will give us all good things, and when this agápē is perfectly developed, if any hesitation arises from or in the other parts of our moral nature, love drives it out of our souls.

True Christian love, says Jelf, which, when developed, becomes perfect love which is founded on God’s agápē for us, and, as God loved us before we loved Him, the existence of agápē implies that we have no cause to fear Him: as far as God’s agápē is concerned we should have no aversion if we love Him. This is proof of the statement that perfect love excludes animosity, giving us the freedom to speak. Therefore, as we love Him, we must have realized His prior love for us, and in proportion, as we recognize His agápē for us, dislike for Him is out of the question.[9]

Alfred Plummer (1841-1926) hears the Apostle John giving proof here in verse nineteen of the statement in verse eighteen that perfect love will give us boldness by showing the incompatible natures of love and fear. Love moves towards others in the spirit of self-sacrifice: hostility shrinks from others in the spirit of self-preservation. It is generally understood that neither God’s agápē nor dread of God is specifically meant. In all relations, perfect love excludes angst and prevents love from being perfect. And the two vary in reverse: the more perfect the love, the less possible the anxiety, and the more apprehension, the less perfect the love.

But, says Plummer, being as sure as any physical law, the principle that perfect love excludes all fear is an ideal that has never been proven. Like the first law of motion, it is verified by its approximations. No believer’s love has ever been so perfect as to banish concern, but all believers experience that as their love increases, their despair diminishes. It is worthy of note that John here abandons his incompatible method. He does not go on to state anything about those that do not doubt. And rightly so, for the absence of dismay proves nothing: it may be the result of ignorance, presumption, indifference, unbelief, or chronic wickedness that keeps a person from having no anxiety about appearing before God on Judgment Day.

The Apostle Paul teaches the same doctrine, says Plummer; “So, you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His children. Now we call Him ‘Abba, Father.’”[10] The submissive distress, which perfect love excludes, is therefore altogether different from childlike awe, which is necessary for creating the Creator’s image to love their Creator. Even obedient fright is necessary as a preparation for perfect love. “Respect for the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,”[11] and it is also the beginning of love. Every sinner must begin by reverencing the God against whom they have sinned. Johann Bengel (1687-1752) gives us these various stages, notes Plummer: The condition of mankind is varied: (1) without terror and love; (2) with trembling without love; (3) with nightmares and love; (4) without misgivings with love – agápē love towards God. This is also the case of Hagar, who Abraham evicted from his household.[12] In the case of Sarah, it would be like number (2) above; with Abraham, it would be (4).[13] [14]

Erich Haupt (1841-1910) notes that the Apostle John is certain that love must drive out fear; however, it appears from this that uneasiness causes terror. To explain this idea, we are directed to the words of our Lord, “They will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”[15] We, therefore, perceive that torment is the punishment, not merely the feeling of condemnation; the objective condition, not the subjective sense of it or pain. As this is required by the Greek verb aperchomai (“to go away”), so still more is it demanded by the antithesis to eternal life: as it would be highly forced to speak of going away or entering a feeling. Hence, the state of eternal life is not the description of a subjective feeling but an appointed condition. Similarly, in our passage, torment must not be understood as a mere painful feeling, for it was surely not necessary to emphasize that angst is a sentiment of distress.

To look at it another way, the Apostle John said this terror has been shown to be the “fear of punishment” since the death penalty is already included and involved. If we remember the saying of the Gospel, those who don’t believe are condemned already.[16] Such condemnation implies that Light shined on those in darkness, but they did not comprehend its meaning. In John’s thought, condemnation is consummate in eternal separation from God. It is perfectly clear that John might have exhibited this proposition: that where dread is, love cannot be perfected. Therefore, dismay must be driven out.[17]

Clement Clemance (1845-1886) notes that since Love implies attraction, fear repulsion; therefore, being scared does not share any space in our hearts with love. Love in verse eighteen means the principle of love in general; it must not be limited to God’s agápē to us, or our love to God, or our love of fellow Christians. Love and distress coexist only where love is not yet perfect. Perfect love will absolutely exclude fright as surely as perfect union excludes all separation. Self-interested love is apprehensive; pure and unselfish love has no dismay. Yet nothing but perfect love must be allowed to drive out timidity. Otherwise, says Clemance, this text might be used to take the most unwarranted liberties with Almighty God and those around us. Attempting to end worrying without achieving perfect love is irreverent and presumptuous.[18]

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[1] See Romans 8:1

[2] See 1 John 4:17

[3] Sawtelle, Henry A., An American Commentary, Alvah Hovey Ed., op. cit., p. 53

[4] See Revelation 19:20

[5] Cf. Psalms 19:9; 111:10

[6] First Epistle of St. John with Exposition, op. cit., pp. 339-340

[7] First Epistle of St. John with Homiletical Treatment, op. cit., pp. 340-341

[8] Romans 8:34

[9] Jelf, William E., The First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., p. 65

[10] Romans 8:15

[11] Proverbs 1:7; 9:10

[12] Galatians 4:30

[13] Bengel, Johann: Gnomon of the New Testament, op. cit., loc. cit.

[14] Plummer, Alfred: Cambridge Commentary, op. cit., pp. 152-153

[15] Matthew 25:46

[16] John 3:18

[17] Haupt, Erich: The First Epistle of John, op. cit., pp. 279-280

[18] Clemance, Clement: First Epistle of John, Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 22, Exposition, op. cit., p. 105

To gain a better understanding of this Points to Ponder, I would suggest that you read it slowly or in two sittings. Although we use the word understanding often, sometimes it doesn’t mean what we think it does. Psychologists tell us that understanding is the procedure of attaining knowledge about oneself or other people or comprehending the meaning or significance of something, like a term, idea, argument, or occurrence.

It begins with the mind, says Linda B. Glaser at Cornell University Department of Psychology, because the mind that thinks our thoughts is a special place for understanding to grow. But is it distinct from the brain? Is there a soul directing our thoughts, or are they determined entirely by the output of our biology? Could that bug in your garden be thinking deep thoughts, or are humans unique?

Some psychologists say that the mind would function just as it does without a body. Others say the mind is extraordinary – it’s not just a fascinating and complicated machine. Trees and tables, and billiard balls can be explained by physics and biology. Still, you need to add something extra, some non-physical property, to explain human consciousness that brings understanding.

Rhode Island counseling psychologist Will Meek explains that our brains perform so many functions that sometimes it becomes a confusing mess. For example, how often have you had mixed thoughts, feelings, ideas, solutions, and memories clamoring for your attention while trying to stay focused on something? Cognitive psychologists have attempted to make sense of this for many years.

Meek offers three types of minds for us to consider. Perhaps we’ve used all three reading this post. But, once we get a good sense of them, they should become more understandable and easier to work with.

Engaged Mind

It is the state of being immersed in, or connected to, what we are doing in the present moment. When we are fully present in a conversation, skiing down a mountain, crying after hearing about a friend having cancer, or taking the first bite of the best slice of pizza in the world, when our thoughts and attention are fully connected to what is happening here-and-now, that is an understanding mind.

Automatic Mind

Our brain is constantly conducting an enormous range of tasks. For example, we become aware of any changes in our environment or any pains or bodily sensations that deserve noticing. We effortlessly make evaluations and judgments about things being positive or negative, categorize our experiences, and make decisions about things we need to do and must remember. We have scenes from our past triggered and have feelings and sensations about things that might occur in the future. This non-stop flow of information is part of human understanding, and we spend many of our lives swimming in this stream.

Analytic Mind

Since we are self-aware creatures, we can intentionally step back from our current thoughts, feelings, and experiences to observe them, manipulate information in our minds, and solve problems. All the complex reasoning we can do is called an analytic mind. Since there are many, the analytical mind can work. For instance: Observe: We can observe other people and the workings of our minds. Reflect: We can replay events in our memories and arrive at new perspectives. Solve: We can take immediate issues and problems and find solutions or understanding. Plan: We can plan deep into the future and create backup options. Focus: We can sustain attention on something important. Imagine: We can use our imaginations to run through how something may play out so we can understand so we can react appropriately.

Psychologist Jesse Marczyk of the Psychology Today Blog says that understanding per se is to be distinguished from the awareness of understanding. While understanding per se refers to the actual connections among your mental representations, the perception of understanding refers to your mental representations. The sense of understanding is an awareness and understanding of one’s thought processes – you’re thinking about your thinking. Much like understanding per se, the consciousness of understanding comes in varying degrees: one can feel as if they don’t understand something as though they do understand it completely and anything in between.

With this distinction made, we can consider some good questions: what is the connection between understanding per se and comprehension? What behaviors are encouraged by the reaction to understanding? What functional outcome(s) are those behaviors aimed at achieving? Finally, given these functional outcomes, what predictions can we draw about how people experience various degrees of emotion as they formulate their understanding?

The University of West Alabama, in their Psychology and Counseling News, tells us that the way we interpret and respond to the world around us makes up who we are and contributes to understanding our quality of life. The study of emotional psychology allows researchers to dive into what makes humans react as they do to certain stimuli and how those reactions affect us both physically and mentally. While the study of emotional psychology is vast and complex, researchers have discovered quite a bit about what constitutes our emotions and behavioral and physical reactions to them.

We know that emotions have helped humans survive. According to Emotional-Psychologist and former professor at the University of California San Francisco, Paul Ekman, who developed the “wheel of emotion,” said, “It would be hazardous if we didn’t have emotions. But, on the other hand, it would also be a very dull life. Because our emotions drive us.” That is why we must be able to understand emotions, as they play a vital role in how we behave.

Ekman argues that emotions are fundamentally constructive. They are influenced by what is suitable for our species and what we learned during our upbringing. Therefore, they guide our behavior in a way that should lead us to a positive outcome. However, emotions can become destructive if the feelings we’ve learned are the correct response no longer fit our situation or subconscious emotions cause reactions we cannot understand. Emotional awareness is being in touch with your feelings and turning your understanding into action. Being able to do this with others is also referred to as emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. The term was coined by researchers Peter Salovey of Yale University and John D. Mayer of the University of New Hampshire, Durham, and made popular by Dan Goleman, an author, psychologist, and science journalist. In his 1996 book, they are defined as the ability to recognize, understand and manage our emotions, and recognize the influence of others.

Those with emotional intelligence open themselves to positive and negative experiences, identify the emotions, and communicate them appropriately. Emotionally intelligent people can use their understanding of their affections and the sentiments of others to move toward personal and social growth. Those with low emotional intelligence may be unable to understand and control their feelings or those of others. It could leave others feeling bad when they don’t understand their emotions, feelings, or expressions.

Since everything said so far about the mind, emotions, reactions, and understanding applies to our spiritual life, what does God’s Word say about understanding? The ancient believer Job had some enlightening thoughts about understanding: He said, “Behold, reverence for the LORD, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.”^[1]Then he added God’s question, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me if you understand.”^[2]

Perhaps King David learned from this grand patriarch. As a Psalmist, he says, “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together, they have become corrupt; none does good, not even one.”^[3] But for the faithful, David said, “When I thought how to understand, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into God’s sanctuary; then I understood what will happen to the wicked.”^[4] That helped him later after he learned that “Reverence for the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those practicing it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!”^[5]

One of David’s subjects, who wrote the longest Psalm, stated: “Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart.”^[6]Further on, he learned that “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.^[7] Added to this, we have David’s wise words, “Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; His understanding is beyond measure.”^[8]

It is possible that David’s son Solomon was taught these things by his kingly father. He begins his wise thoughts by saying, “Making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understand; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand reverence for the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. Then you will understand righteousness, justice, and equity.”^[9]Solomon adds, “Discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness.”^[10]

Then Solomon turns to the personal side of understanding by saying, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your understanding. In all you do, acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”^[11]

Solomon concludes, “Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.”^[12]So, “Do you hear wisdom calling? Does not understanding raise her voice?”^[13] Remember, “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.”^[14] “Isn’t it better to get wisdom than gold! To get an understanding is to be chosen above silver. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears and understands the word. He bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and another thirty.”^[15] That’s why, “Whoever restrains his words has gained knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.”^[16] We know that “Fools take no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”^[17] Think of this, “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.”^[18]

But the First Covenant preachers and prophets are not silent about understanding. Jeremiah asks us, “Do people gain anything from their hard work? I saw all the hard work God gave us to do. God gave us the ability to think about His world, but we can never completely understand everything He does. And yet, He does everything at just the right time.”^[19] Jeremiah goes on to share a word from the LORD “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth ”^[20] Listen and learn, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it?”^[21]To which Isaiah adds, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable.”^[22]

But the Final Covenant writers also have something to say about understanding. Luke tells us that as Jesus began teaching, “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”^[23]And the Apostle Paul joins in by saying, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.”^[24]That’s why sinners are “Darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, due to their hardness of heart.”^[25] That’s why he told young Timothy, “Understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.”^[26] So, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”^[27]

Not only that, but to the congregations scattered throughout the area, Paul had this to say, “From the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.^[28]And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in the Anointed One, Jesus.”^[29]

Finally, the Apostle Peter adds, “As Paul does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. Some things in them are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”^[30]And the Apostle John declares, “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are Him who is true, in His Son Jesus the Anointed One. He is the true God and eternal life.”^[31]

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[1] Job 28:28

[2] Ibid. 38:4

[3] Psalm 14:2-3

[4] Ibid. 73:16-17

[5] Ibid. 111:10

[6] Ibid. 119:34

[7] Ibid. 119:130

[8] Ibid. 147:5

[9] Proverbs 2:2-6, 9

[10] Ibid. 2:11-16

[11] Ibid. 3:5-6, 13-18

[12] Ibid. 4:7

[13] Ibid. 8:1

[14] Ibid. 14:29

[15] Ibid. 16:16

[16] Ibid. 17:27

[17] Ibid. 18:2

[18] Ibid. 20:25

[19] Ecclesiastes 3:9-11

[20] Jeremiah 9:23-24

[21] Jeremiah 17:9

[22] Isaiah 40:28

[23] Luke 24:45

[24] 1 Corinthians 2:12

[25] Ephesians 4:18

[26] 2 Timothy 3:1

[27] Ibid. 2:7

[28] Colossians 1:9

[29] Philippians 4:7

[30] 2 Peter 3:16

[31] 1 John 5;20

Have you ever sung the song, “O What a Mighty God We Serve?” Well, God’s strength is very different from the energy we usually consider. We tend to include things like bombs and explosions when we think about force. We point to nuclear power plants and giant engines that make a lot of noise. We list dictators and tanks and soldiers. We point to football players so jacked up on steroids that they have no discernable necks. And because this is our image of courage, when we look at Jesus’ ministry to the poor, the sick, and the suffering, we do not see anything we would label as strong in it.

However, the sunrise offers us a near-perfect analogy for how to understand what God’s strength is really like. If you live near the ocean, no doubt you’ve seen the sun rise over the water. Some rays of light from that sun traveled almost 100 million miles through the great vacuum of space, trickled through the clouds over the water, and find their way through the open blinds into a house or apartment. Imagine those rays of light filtered through those blinds landing on the face of a newborn baby girl lying in her crib. Feeling the warmth of that light caressing her cheek, she was ever so gently roused from her sleep, cooing in the way newborns do when they’re not screaming their heads off.

At that exact moment, other rays of light from that same sun that traveled almost 100 million miles trickled through those same clouds, landing not on the face of that newborn baby girl but on the water’s surface. And as those rays of light hit the water, they eventually cause the molecules of that water to vibrate with increasing intensity. Essentially, that light caused the water to boil, so by the end of today alone, some 52 cubic MILES of water will be transformed from a liquid into a vapor and rise to enter the atmosphere.

Once in the atmosphere, that water will then get swept up by air currents and move across the globe, falling in the form of rain, snow, sleet, and hail. In some places, it will cause flooding and mass devastation. In other areas, it will etch new landscapes out of solid granite. And everywhere, it will provide the water needed to sustain some of the 8.7 million species of plants and animals that call earth home. Which is all to say, while we can look at the light gently landing on a baby’s face and say it’s not that strong, we can only say that because we don’t have the complete picture in view. Our perspective is too limited.

In the same way, God’s strength – as displayed in acts of mercy and compassion, as demonstrated ultimately in Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the cross – may look to us as tiny and insignificant. But while it may look to us to be the very definition of weakness.  It’s that mercy, that compassion, that self-sacrificial love that is the very definition of strength.

Likewise, it takes strength to love your enemies. It takes courage to reach out to those who aren’t like you. It requires a strong effort to forgive those who have wronged you. It’s that mercy, that compassion; it’s that self-sacrificial love that can wrestle power from the forces of evil that hold our world. It’s that mercy, that compassion; it’s that self-sacrificial love that can make the kingdom of God a reality here on earth. Now that’s power!

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXVII) 07/22/22

^4:18         Where God’s love is, there is no fear because God’s perfect love takes it away. On the contrary, it is His punishment that makes a person afraid.

Daniel D. Whedon (1808-1885) notes that the Apostle John writes that where God’s agápē is, there is no fear because God’s perfect love takes away all anxiety. His punishment (“torment” – KJV) makes a person afraid. So, His agápē is unperfected in the one who is still apprehensive. The dread of penalty arising from conscious guilt shows us not to be perfect in love. Here, we have something of a subjective measure of what is sometimes called “Christian perfection.” When there exists within our hearts the consciousness of the total divine acceptance, so complete that we have no uneasiness at the thought of meeting Him at the judgment, we may trust that our love is perfected, maintaining this consciousness, and justified by the external life, is the highest aim of life.[1]

Charles John Vaughan (1816-1897), better known as Dean Vaughan of Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff, Wales, says that fear has a place in the Gospel if we look for it. The object of dismay may be either a thing or a person.[2] For one thing, we become uneasy over something which, being possible, is also undesirable or dreadful. We do not become scared of that which is impossible; we are not distressed over that which is pleasant or neutral. Our Prayer Book, commenting in the Catechism upon the Lord’s Prayer, bids us to call three things evil, not pain, not sickness, not loss, not grief, not even natural death, but just these only: (1) sin and wickedness; (2) our ghostly enemy; (3) everlasting death. These three things then, are the proper objects of Gospel reverence.

Another thing, the fear of God as a Spirit, even the dread of God as a Person, is essential to one of a high order. To feel that there is One above me, a living Being, to Whom I am accountable if it be but as my Judge, to Whom I am something if it be but as a malefactor and a victim – something is elevating in the very conception. But this, if it stops here, is the religion of nature, of fallen nature, of the thing, made and corrupted crouching beneath the hand of its maker. Though this kind of fright is a higher thing than indifference, it is no part of the Gospel. From this kind of misgiving, the convinced person, if they yield themselves to the Anointed One’s teaching, will pass on into a higher.[3]

Charles Ellicott (1819-1904) mentions that at first, John’s name does not call up before us the fiery zeal that stirs some followers of the Anointed One to noble deeds, or the steadfast faith that worries others about meeting danger, or the calm endurance that lifts others above pain and trial. Mostly, John represents love in its softer aspect to our minds. We often forget that he was a Boanerges (son of thunder).[4] We picture him to ourselves as the tenderest of disciples and the most unselfish; at once, the readiest to sympathize with and comfort others in distress and the most quickly responsive to the affection shown by others for him.

Like John, when we think of the other Apostles, we tend not to look at all sides of their character. There are the necessary complements to courage and resolution. So often, when we see people being soft and gentle, like John, we fail to remember that there must be a stronger side to their characters; just as, on the other hand, when we see men who are cast in a sterner mold, we frequently forget that there may often be, indeed, that there must be warm springs of feeling within their hearts which we cannot see, to account for that strict or even rigid performance of duty which we can see. This is true not only of the Apostles but also of our fellow believers. So, when loving our brothers and sisters in the Anointed One, look at all sides before judging or complimenting, but never look when loving them.

Ellicott also concludes that the more perfect this disposition of sympathy becomes, the less anxiety can share in it. Even when directed to an earthly object, if it is pure and divine in its character, not even the thought of tradeoffs can disturb its composure. Where it is a well-grounded sympathy with a perfect being, its serenity is complete in proportion to its sincerity. When love is perfect, fear dwindles to nothing and is expelled. Love, seeking to be perfect, and finding doubt alongside it, will diligently seek out the cause of anxiety, perfect itself by getting rid of the reason, and thereby getting rid of apprehension. A persistent concern often implies grounds for alarm and anticipation of punishment (not “torment”).[5] Such a ground for terror would imply a proportionate imperfection of love.[6]

Dr. John Neville Figgis (1866-1919) says that this principle, that “perfect love drives out fear,” is a universal principle and belongs to all human beings. It is shown most completely in spiritual matters, but despair indeed has no place wherever love rules. Our ability to have love drives out suspicion and is measured in proportion to our love being steadfast and strong. It begins with trust and confidence in Him. This is true worship, even though we do not say a word or do any action because it is an acknowledgment of His goodness and kindness, an expression of the soul’s feeling of safety when under His care.

So, think how sweet this confidence in God is; how it sheds new light and a new glory over our exhausting duties in this world; how much more firmly we can plant our feet in difficult times of trial. This life is a very weary thing at times for us all. There is so much hardness in the world, so much meanness and dishonesty, so much suffering – and to express it all that in one word is difficult, so much sin – that even the most contented believer is tempted sometimes to murmur, to ask what good are they to the world, and what will face them when leaves.

Therefore, unless we have complete confidence and belief in God’s care for us and His power and wisdom in caring for us; unless we can always fall back, in times of trial, upon the sure belief that God has brought us into the world for our good and His glory; that He is guiding us through the world for the same interest and wise reasons, we cannot have complete peace of mind.

Nevertheless, it is amazing how few Christians know how little and how weakly they trust in God. Most believers take it for granted that they have a sure trust and confidence in Him that they never even ask themselves the question. But delay no longer. It’s too important. Look into the depth of your emotions and assess your feelings towards God. You should look to Him with trust and confidence to eliminate any fear for yourself – any panic arising from the past – and dim apprehensions for the future. Whether, like a happy child, your souls dwell in faith and trust on what little we know of God; whether it is so with you – or otherwise; whether you think of Him with discomfort; whether you turn away from the idea as unwelcome of one day being brought face to face with Him; whether like a thundercloud in a calm sky the thought of God and of a judgment to come flies by in your mind before you can stop it.

It would be very unwise to turn away from the question simply, says Nisbet. But, if you decline to question yourself, remember it is a matter that will not be continually put off. It is a question that waits for an answer – but not forever. On the contrary, the longer the time goes by, the more difficult it will be when you come to answer before the Judgement Seat of God, as you must do one day![7]

Brooke F. Westcott (1825-1901) says that the thought of boldness necessarily calls up its opposite, fear. There is natural uneasiness in humans, but love tends to expel it. dismay finds no place in love and cannot co-exist with perfect love, which occupies the “whole heart.” The Apostle John expressed these ideas generally and remain faithful, but they must be processed mentally from the context. Human love is the simple desire for the highest good of another or others and the expression of a spirit of self-surrender. Worry, therefore, – the shrinking from another – cannot be an essential element in love. Here the reader at once feels that the abstract principle has found a typical embodiment in the self-sacrifice of the Anointed One, towards the imitation of which Christians strive through His Spirit.[8]

William Lincoln (1825-1888) states that God’s agápē, if we are Christians at all, has gotten hold of us, has reached us; and then as He is, so are we, but we still do not fully accept that. There is no need to discuss the word perfection here. The word perfection is used invariably in the First and Final Covenants for a response of the soul to any revelation of God. Here in John’s epistle is the revelation of God’s agápē and, therefore, perfection, the complete comprehension of that characteristic of God. When we see that God loves us as much as He loves His Son Jesus the Anointed One, how can I be afraid of anything?[9]

Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910) says that the love which drives out any alarm is not some emotional situation towards an unknown God; nor is it the result of human willingness to put away from themselves their hatred and alienation and set themselves in a new position towards God and His mercy. On the contrary, it rises in the heart due to knowing and believing God’s love for us. As such, it is the conqueror of distress. Whatever comes our way, nothing can separate us from God’s agápē.[10] We are bound to Him by that everlasting loving kindness He drew us to Himself. The heart is freed from the burden of “a fearful time of waiting for the judgment”[11], and from the dark thought, God is mighty and righteous; therefore, God may strike! We forgot that “It was our suffering He took on Himself; He bore our pain.”[12]

Therefore, says Maclaren, we must remember that “perfect love drives out fear.” As inconsistent as love and apprehension are in themselves, in practice, they may be united because of love’s imperfection. Many professing Christian people live all their days with a burden of dread shivering on their shoulders and icy cold dismay in their hearts just because they are not close enough to the warm love of Jesus the Anointed One. They could have kept their hearts comfortable by remaining steadfast under the quickening influences of His agápē, to have shaken off their dread as a sick person does a minor headache. So be careful; a little love, like a gentle wind, doesn’t have strength enough to drive away thick, blinding fog. You must see that you only choose the sane, sound way of getting rid of irrational Fear[13] – (FALSE EVIDENCE ACCEPTED as REAL).

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[1] Whedon, Daniel D., Commentary of the Bible, op. cit., p. 276

[2] Cf. Proverbs 28:14

[3] Vaughan, Charles John: The Church Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., Fear and its Antidote, Vol. 12, (Inserted in a Revised Version on p. 303)

[4] Mark 3:17

[5] Cf. 1 John 3:19-21

[6] John Ellicott, Charles. Ellicott’s Bible Commentary for English Readers, pp. 16259, 16287

[7] Nisbet, James: The Church Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., Vol. 12, p. 303-304

[8] Westcott, Brooks F., The Epistles of St. John, op. cit., pp.159-160

[9] Lincoln, William: Lectures on the Epistles of St. John, op. cit., pp. 133-134

[10] Romans 8:38-39

[11] Hebrews 10:27

[12] Isaiah 53:4

[13] Maclaren, Alexander: The Biblical Illustrator, op. cit., 1 John 4, pp. 141-142, 148

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXVII) 07/21/22

^4:18         Where God’s love is, there is no fear because God’s perfect love takes it away. On the contrary, it is His punishment that makes a person afraid.

This gives saints delight, says Owen, that the commandments of the Anointed One are not grievous to them. Jacob’s lengthy service was not burdensome to him because of His love for Rachel.[1] No saint’s duties should bring them grief because of their passion for the Anointed One. On the contrary, they do everything with delight and satisfaction. That’s why they yearn for the advantages of walking with God. It gives them joy in doing because there’s no fear in love, but perfect love drives out all anxiety.[2] When their soul undergoes training to be obedient to love, it expels that apprehension that incapacitates the spirit. When love and life work together, there is freedom, liberty, and a big heart. It creates a lot of distance between them and those weak and bandaged souls on the broad way to destruction[3] who do not know what it’s like to be adopted by God as His children.[4]

John Bunyan (1628-1688), author of Pilgrim’s Progress, writes that the God to whom we confess all, we will now more perfectly than ever see that He does love us and freed us from sin’s bondage, even before we confessed and acknowledged Him; and His children will have their soul so full of the ecstacies of life and glory that now they are in, that they will be swallowed up in that measure and manner, that neither dismay, nor guilt, nor confusion can come near them, or touch them. Their Divine Judge is their Savior, their Husband, and Head, who, though He will bring every one of them for all things to judgment, will keep them forever out of condemnation and anything that trend that way. “Perfect love drives out fear,”[5] even while we are here; much more than when we are with our Savior, our Jesus, who transitioned from death to life.[6]

Johann Bengel (1687-1752) says fear recoils from the thought of God and the day of judgment. The conditions of mankind vary. They may have neither despair nor love, dismay without love, dread with love, or love without suspicion. In love — Towards God. Perfect – To this reference made perfect in verse seventeen. Has torment — As being distrustful; imagining and resolving all things to be adverse and hostile to itself; and fleeing from and hating them. The terror of punishment – Distress about God includes punishment – the consciousness of deserving it.[7]

Thomas Pyle (1674-1756) says that we not only may safely believe but depend upon our reward with the utmost assurance, joy, and satisfaction. Therefore, to be hesitant, fearful, and unsure about the certainty of one’s future happiness is a sign either that a person does not have a “grateful apprehension” of the mercy, truth, and God’s agápē, through the Anointed One, or, is not truly conscious of having performed the duties of their calling.[8]

Leonard Howard (1699-1767) states that perfected love will lack nothing, nor will it be discouraged at the prospect of any danger in the service of His beloved Son. To fearful believers, this is a constant “rank and check”[9] and argues that their love for God is fragile and has not yet conquered this uneasy passion.[10] How many Christians, including yourself, are hesitant to advance in their faith because of the uncertainty of failing? This can only mean they depend on themselves to succeed rather than trusting God to help them grow and mature.

James Macknight (1721-1800) believes that the love which the Apostle John calls perfect is love for mankind valued according to God’s will and exercised regularly, as opportunities allow, in the same manner, God exercises His agápē for us. This agápē, though not perfect in its degree or measure, may be called perfect because it proceeds from a correct principle and routinely leads the person in whose heart it lives to do to their neighbor everything they have the power to do.[11]

John Brown of Haddington (1722-1787) says that our love for Him and each other is unaccompanied by anxiety. What fear might that be? Do we have misgivings about failure? Is our angst based on weakness so we cannot offer love to those around us, especially those who have offended us? No. Dismay is associated with punishment. The believer has been fully forgiven of sins. The one who knows the Anointed One in true fellowship lives for Him and does not need to be afraid of future punishment. The person who experiences panic “has not been perfected in love.” In other words, those who are scared of being punished don’t have a complete or mature relationship with their fellow believers. This includes believers who are not growing in the Anointed One. The growing, maturing believer can look forward to the future with joy rather than hesitation.

Brown then says that perfected love is accompanied by a holy relationship-love for Him and His children and being cautious of not offending either one. We know that we have passed from spiritual death to living in the Spirit who is in us. This kind of love leaves out distrust, despair, and total dismay at the thought of meeting Him as though He were an enemy, not a friend. So, the stronger and more assured our love is by His agápē for us, the more effective it will reject feeling like a scared servant terrified of Him.[12] What bothers many Christians is that while they are careful not to offend their heavenly Father, the world goes unpunished for their lack of reverence and law-breaking attitude regarding the morality and ethics of His Word. Don’t worry; you know that your future life will be far different than theirs.

Thomas Scott’s (1747-1821) commentary on Matthew’s Gospel mentions where Jesus said, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”[13] Scott also notes that the Apostle Paul calls them “transforming themselves” into the apostles of the Anointed One, as ministers of righteousness. These good words and fair speeches might deceive the hearts of the simple, which is unbelievable.[14] They learned this from the devil, that grand juggler, who can soon transform himself into an angel of light. In his First Epistle, the Apostle John tells us of many petty antichrists, even then gone out,[15] who professing the Anointed One’s name oppose His reality as both Son of God and son of man.[16]

Charles Simeon (1759-1836)  (1759-1836) tells us to guard against that kind of confidence founded on vain delusions. There are some who, from impulses, visions, or other delusive imaginations, develop confidence that they will never be questioned. But this is not the confidence of love. Love is jealous of itself and is glad to have its actings scrutinized with the utmost exactness. Love affects the honor of God and is infinitely more anxious that God be glorified than to conceal one’s defects. Getting rid of fear is not at all the object of love but the effect of it. Let the one goal of everyone’s soul be to glorify God; with the growth of love, will peace and joy be multiplied, both in time and eternity.[17]

Gottfried C. F. Lücke (1791-1855) says Christian brotherly love implies perfect keeping of the divine commandments,[18] that is when like the Anointed One’s love, full of confidence on the day of judgment, and conscious of its innocence, approaches God without fear.[19] But, in general, the Apostle John continues in verse eighteen that terror (of God) is incompatible with (true Christian) love. True love and terror exclude each other because love and cheerful confidence are inseparable. For the terror (of God in judgment) is grounded on the consciousness of merited punishment. Still, the terror of punishment annihilates the perfect and cheerful love which is full of confidence.

This proposition, says Lücke, is perfectly understood when we recall that John makes Christian brotherly love identical to loving God and considers the former as a necessary manifestation of the latter so that perfect brotherly love is, at the same time, perfect love to God. Saying that fear has torment does not mean, as some suppose, dismay itself is punished, but there is punishment in uneasiness; worry is combined with the consciousness of punishment.[20]

Albert Barnes (1798-1870) talks about the relationship between love with fear. He says love is not an affection that produces anxiety. There is no anxiousness in our love for a parent, a child, or a friend. When a person has perfect love for God, there would be no fright of anything – for what would they have to dread? They would have no dismay about death, for they would have nothing to dread beyond the grave. It is guilt that makes people apprehensive about what is to come, but those whose sins are pardoned and whose hearts are filled with God’s agápē have nothing to dread in this world or the world to come. The angels in heaven, who have always loved God and one another, have no uneasiness, for they have nothing to dread in the future; the redeemed at rest awaiting the resurrection, being protected from all danger, and filled with God’s agápē, have nothing to dread; and as far as that same love operates on earth, it delivers the soul now from all apprehension of what is to come.[21]

Richard Rothe (1799-1867) notes that when the Apostle John speaks about “fear,” he is not referring to the ordinary emotion of fright, anxiety, despair, dread, horror, or panic. Instead, he is talking about distress over eternal punishment that will come to all who do not accept Jesus as God’s Son and receive Him as their Lord and Savior. That’s why he used the Greek noun Phobos, which includes all these things. Therefore, none of these torments can survive in God’s perfected love. All believers should have another “concern” about God and His Word. It is expressed in the Greek noun eulabeia,[22] which means reverence or veneration. That should be in all our hearts for the One who loved us so much.[23]

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[1] Genesis 29:20

[2] 1 John 4:18

[3] Cf. Matthew 7:13-14

[4] Owen, John: On Communion with God, Ch. 10, p. 278

[5] 1 John 4:18

[6] Bunyan, John: Practical Works, Vol. 1, op. cit., p. 281

[7] Bengel, Johann: Critical English Testament, op. cit., p. 322

[8] Pyle, Thomas: Paraphrase, op. cit., p. 398

[9] In old English, Rank – is slang for something horrible, in bad taste, or smells unpleasant. Check – is understood as a reassessment of whether to go forward.

[10] Howard, Leonard: The Royal Bible, op. cit., loc. cit

[11] Macknight, James: Literal Paraphrase, op. cit., p. 95

[12] Brown, John of Haddington: Self-Interpreting Bible, op. cit., p. 1328

[13] Matthew 7:15

[14] 2 Corinthians 11:13; 16:18

[15] 1 John 4:1

[16] Scott, Thomas: Theological Works, op. cit., p. 230

[17] Simeon, Charles: Hor Homileticæ, op. cit., Discourse 2460, p. 512

[18] See 1 John 4:21

[19] Ibid. 3:19-20

[20] See Matthew 27:46; 2 Maccabees 4:38

[21] Barnes, Albert: Notes on the N.T., op. cit., p.4869

[22] See Hebrews 5:7; 12:28

[23] Rothe, Richard: The Expository Times, op. cit., June 1894, p. 422

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXVI) 07/20/22

^4:18         Where God’s love is, there is no fear because God’s perfect love takes it away. On the contrary, it is His punishment that makes a person afraid.

In his epistle to the people of Thmuis, Phileas points to all the examples and signs and illustrious tokens given to us in the divine and holy Scriptures. “The blessed martyrs who lived with us did not hesitate but earnestly directed their soul’s eye to the God who is sovereign and willingly embraced the death their devotion cost them while remaining steadfast to their vocation. For they learned that our Lord Jesus the Anointed One endured mankind’s lost state on their behalf, that He might destroy all sin and furnish us with the provision needful for our entrance into eternal life.[1] For this reason, these anointed cross-bearing martyrs sought the more excellent gifts and endured every kind of pain and all the various devices of torture not merely once but continuously; and though the guards showed their fury against them with threatening words and violence, they would not swerve from their resolve, because perfect love drives out fear.”[2] [3]

Augustine (354-430 AD) agrees with the Apostle John’s words. So, if you do not want to be afraid, see whether you have that perfect love that throws anxiety out the door. But expelling apprehension before achieving such perfection could be a matter of pride puffing up, not love building up.[4]

Leo the Great (440-461 AD) thinks that the apostles wanted to ensure that no other so-called truth would creep in and false doctrines taught. So they recruited more students to join those already learning and increase the loyalty of that love that drives out all fear, not dreading the rage of persecutors.[5]

Gregory the Great (540-604) places his admonishment on those who are frightened of retribution and those who have contempt for it. He says that when it comes to those who worry about punishment and try to live as innocently and unprovocative as possible should be treated differently than those who have grown so hard in their wickedness that not even retaliation can correct their attitude. Those who fear revenge are to be told under no circumstances to desire temporal goods as being of any great importance, seeing evil people have them. Furthermore, they should not avoid present evils as intolerable, realizing that, for the most part, good people are afraid of retaliation.

Instead, Gregory says they are to be admonished to be terrified of punishment if they desire to be truly free from following their sinful tendencies. And rather than continue in this uneasiness of reprisals, grow up by the nurture of kindness and goodness and how great they are to the grace of love. For it is written that God’s perfect love drives out despair because it involves punishment.[6] It is also said that the Spirit we received is not a spirit that enslaves us again and causes us to fear. On the contrary, our Spirit makes us God’s chosen children. And with that Spirit, we cry out, “Abba, Father.”[7]

If, notes Gregory, the fear of punishment still restrains us from giving in to our law-breaking tendencies, that no true spirit of liberty possesses our soul. If we were not afraid of reprisals, we would doubtless sin. Therefore, the mind bound by the bondage of terror does not know the grace of liberty. For good should be loved for itself, not pursued because of the compulsion of penalties. Those who do not do what is good because they are not afraid of their conscience being tormented hope that such misgivings will go away so they can commit what is unlawful with boldness. As such, it appears clearer than daylight that the longing for innocence is lost before God in the eyes of those who have an evil desire to sin.[8]

Christian scholar Bede the Venerable (673-735 AD) offers this advice: “God’s agápē is such that it makes it possible to imitate God’s goodness to the point where we start to do good toward our enemies and even to love them. The fear that love casts out is spoken of in the psalm: ‘The reverence of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’[9] The new convert is afraid that the strictness of the righteous Judge will condemn them, but love casts this kind of distress out and assures them on the day of judgment.”[10]

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) states that Love is never without anxiety; instead, it is godly reverence. Love is never without desire, but only lawful needs. Therefore, love perfects serving by infusing devotion; it perfects the law of wages by restraining greed. The burden of intolerable submissive fright becomes tolerable, and uneasiness remains pure and family-like. Though we read: “Perfect love drives out fear,” we understand that suffering is never absent from apprehension no matter the cause being put into effect. So, too, self-interest is restrained within boundaries when love interrupts, for then it rejects evil things altogether, prefers better things to average benefits, and cares for the good only on account of the better. In like manner, by God’s grace, a person will respect their body and everything about it for their soul’s well-being. They will love their soul for God’s sake and will love God on their behalf.[11]

John Calvin (1509-1564) looks at the Apostle John’s statement “there is no fear” and commends the excellence of this blessing by saying that we are continually pressured until God delivers us from misery and anguish by His agápē. The meaning is that as there is nothing more miserable than to be harassed by continual uneasiness, by knowing God’s agápē, we obtain the benefit of a peaceful calmness beyond the reach of despair. It now appears what a singular gift of God it is to be favored with His agápē. Moreover, from this doctrine, John will draw a message. But before he calls us to duty, he commends to us this gift of God, which by faith removes our doubt.

Calvin then explains how the Apostle John amplifies the greatness of the grace he is speaking about. Since it is a miserable condition to endure continual torments, there is nothing more to be wished for than to present ourselves before God with a quiet conscience and a calm mind. Some say that servants are afraid when their Master calls out loudly because they suspect it’s for punishment. Even if they don’t do their duty unless forced to do so does not matter. In the following clause, John gives this exposition: they are scared because they have not perfected their love by not willingly submitting to God’s will. That they would rather free themselves from any service does not harmonize with the context.[12] The Apostle reminds us that it is owing to unbelief when anyone fears, that is, has a disturbed mind. But when we know God’s agápē, it tranquilizes the heart.[13]

Then in another place, Calvin says there is nothing objectionable in John’s statement: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love expels dismay: because uneasiness has torment.”[14] There is a vast difference between suspicious unbelievers and believers. The wicked do not hesitate to offend God, provided they could do so with impunity, but knowing that He is armed with power for vengeance, they tremble with anxiety upon hearing of His anger. And they are fearful of His fury because they think it is impending over them, and every moment they expect it to fall on their heads. But believers, as has been said, dread the offense even more than the punishment. They are not alarmed by the dread of punishment, as if it were impending over them,[15] but are rendered more cautious of doing anything to provoke it.[16]

French theologian Theodore Beza (1519-1605) and others consider “love” as suggestive on account of the preceding “we.” But this is no particular criterion, and here so much the less, since “we, us, ourselves” has an emphatic reference to the subsequent personal pronoun “he.” And as no clear sentiment or context is produced, it appears reasonable to adhere to the interpretation of the Latin Vulgate of verse seventeen, where “fiduciam habeamus” (“might have confidence”) is subjunctive.[17] Then agápē is being put to as God’s agápē. And accordingly, in verse nineteen, we find a similar sense: “Nos ergo diligamus Deum, quoniam Deus prior dilexit nos” (“Therefore, let us love God, for God first loved us”). We find this same reading in the Syriac Version: “We will then love El Elyon because He has first loved us.”[18]

John Trapp (1601-1669) says that while love drives out doubt, being scared can be tormenting. As King Solomon said, “Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety.” Also, early church teacher, Tertullian, stated that “dread inspires hated.”[19] That hatred sets the soul on a rack,[20] as if it were, and leaves it in torment.[21]

John Owen (1616-1683) points out that John remembers hearing Jesus say, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”[22] Therefore, love is dependent upon obedience. That’s why Love is the foundation of all their duties. Our Savior transformed obedience into loving God and our neighbor;[23] on the same ground, Paul tells us, “That love is the fulfillment of the law.”[24] Where love is the motive for any duty, it is complete in the Anointed One. How often do the Psalms express with admiration this principle of walking with God! “Oh, how I love Your law! I meditate on it all day long,”[25] and, “Because I love your commands more than gold, more than pure gold.”[26]

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[1] Philippians 2:6-11

[2] 1 John 4:18

[3] Phileas: Fragments of his Epistle to the People of Thmuis

[4] Augustine; (Bray Ed.), James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude, op. cit., loc. cit., Sermons 348.1

[5] Leo the Great: Ibid., Sermons 76.5

[6] 1 John 4:18

[7] Romans 8:15; See also 2 Corinthians 3:17

[8] Gregory the Great: The Book of Pastoral Rule, Part 3, Ch. 13, p. 555

[9] Psalm 111:10

[10] Bede the Venerable, Ancient Christian Commentary, Vol. XI, Bray, G. (Ed.), James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John

[11] Bernard of Clairvaux: On Loving God, op. cit., Ch. 2 p. 9

[12] Calvin, John: Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, Footnote 88: Most commentators regard love here as that which is in us, and not God’s agápē as apprehended by faith. — Ed.

[13] Calvin, John: Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, op. cit., loc. cit.

[14] 1 John 4:18

[15] Ibid. Latin, “cervicibus suis impenderet,” – our necks are under persecution: we labor and have no rest,” and in French: “comme si l’enfer Leur etoit desia present pour Les englouter;” — indicates that they fear punishment as if hell were already present to engulf them.

[16] Ibid. John: Institutes, op. cit., pp. 600-601

[17] Subjunctive means it influences the verb, causing some doubt

[18] Cf. 1 John 5:10

[19] Tertullian: The Apology, translated by Wm. Reeve, published by Griffith Farran & Co., London, 1889 Edition published in 1900, p. 105

[20]A rack was a bedlike open frame suspended above the ground that was used as a torture device. The victim’s ankles and wrists were secured by ropes that passed around axles near the head and rack’s foot. When the axles were turned slowly by poles, the victim’s hips, knees, shoulders, and elbow joints would be dislocated. 

[21] Trapp, John: Commentary upon all books of New Testament (1647), op. cit., p. 478

[22] John 14:15

[23] Matthew 22:37-39

[24] Romans 13:10

[25] Psalm 119:97

[26] Ibid. 119:127

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson CXV) 07/19/22

^4:18         Where God’s love is, there is no fear because God’s perfect love takes it away. On the contrary, it is His punishment that makes a person afraid.

On the human level, only total acceptance of another person will remove the anxiety of rejection. For example, in marriage, a love relationship free of apprehension is one where there is a total embrace commitment of one’s mate. Complete forgiveness is also necessary for a transparent relationship.[1] God desires that His children have confidence in His love. He does not want them to dread Him. Despair paralyzes our fellowship with God. God loves us with everlasting love, an unconditional love. Nothing constrains or cancels His love so we can feel confident in our union with Him. 

Therefore, perfected love in the believer is a love that resides in God’s agápē, in mutual friendship with the Lord. Love rejects dismay in its sphere of influence. Being scared is at variance with and contrary to God’s agápē. Worry has its payback. Uneasiness is an unsettling passion that tortures itself. Love drives out this terror. When God’s agápē develops in us, it expels panic caused by God’s immediate exclusion or retribution.  Unloving Christians experience self-induced misery because they know they must face sinful tendencies at the Judgment Seat of the Anointed One. The believer who loves other Christians has no apprehension about meeting the Lord.  

The Greek concept of “torment” is literally to cut short, punish, and correct.  Unfortunately, the translation “torment” (KJV) is too intense for the Greek noun kolasis. The misgivings here are from the believer’s life being at variance with God’s love and thus subject to corrective discipline. The one habitually characterized by submissive cowardice is the opposite of the one applying God’s love to their life so that they become mature in owning God’s love. The mere absence of distress proves nothing. Some people operate in bold defiance, hopeless ignorance, presumptuous unbelief, and inexcusable indifference. This is not agápē which displaces misgivings. 

So, we can say there is no doubt that people have a phobia about judgment. They are afraid to render account to God. A person that grows into the maturity of God’s agápē banishes being alarmed from their life. Anxiety paralyzed Adam in Genesis.[2] Apprehension is the soul’s first penalty.  It is the thing we suffer first when we step out of line with the Lord.  It is the awareness that we are not in unity with the Lord. The principle that love removes unnecessary concern is true on the human level. Children who are assured of their parents’ love learn not to dread them.  A wife who knows her husband loves her is not afraid of him.  Love banishes any misgivings. When you know God loves you, you are no longer afraid of God, the future, death, eternity, or judgment. However, there is uncertainty if you do not know God’s agápē.

We must recognize that suspicious doubt comes from our hearts, not God. Conviction is the watchman of our soul that warns us that we are in dangerous territory. It alerts us that our soul is not right with God. Love gives no warning signal to our soul because we know we are in fellowship with the Lord. Distress imprisons us in anxiety and worry. It limits our lives. Apprehension immobilizes some people. They will not fly in a plane because of uneasiness. Others will not venture into new business due to anxiety. Despair keeps them from living for God as well. They do not enter into abundant living because Satan imprisoned their soul in hopeless dismay. Remember, FEAR is: False Evidence Appearing Real.

The love that builds confidence[3] also gets rid of doubts. God’s love is friendly toward the believer because of the Anointed One. The believer’s love should be agreeable toward fellow Christians because of their family relationship to the Anointed One. Other Christians are worthy of being loved because of the Anointed One. If a person dreads the thought of judgment day, their life is not guided by God’s perfected agápē that expresses itself in concrete action.  In other words, they have no basis for assurance concerning their welfare when facing the Anointed One’s Judgment Seat. “Love” here also has the additional thought of “acceptance.”

So, again, dread is a feeling of anxiety caused by imagined danger. Horror can paralyze believers, making them incapable of doing God’s will. We conquer suspicion when we remember that God loves us.[4] That is the way people act who do not know the future. They don’t want to learn the outcome. They would rather remain in the dark. Uneasiness is a real thing, often based on unreal issues.[5]

Therefore, Love that accomplishes its purpose expels distress. It releases us from the fearfulness of bondage. It frees us to engage others. Hate is not necessarily the opposite of love. Faintheartedness can be the opposite of love. Love gives, but fright keeps. Love moves toward others, but alarm moves away. Anxiety is afraid of loss. Love is concerned with giving. Love does not tremble in dismay. Love does not live a defensive life, always avoiding and never risking. On the contrary, love always reaches out to others.   

COMMENTARY

A formerly enslaved Greek who became a Christian under the Apostle Paul’s ministry named Hermas (circa 50-150 AD)[6] reflects on what the Apostle John says here in verse eighteen about having reverence for God and not fearing the devil. To respect the Lord means not doing the devil’s bidding. For there are two kinds of respect: If you do not wish to do that which is evil, have respect for the Lord, and you will not do it; but, again, if you want to do that which is good, reverence the Lord, and you will do it. That’s because respect for the Lord is strong, great, and glorious. Reverence the Lord, and you will live for Him, and as many as respect and keep His commandments will live for God. Why did Solomon say that those who keep His commandments will live for God?[7] Although all creation revers the Lord, creation does not keep His commandments. Only those who respect the Lord and keep His commandments have God’s life, but there is no life in those who do not keep His commandments.[8]

Clement of Alexandria (150-216) comments on the Apostle John’s statement that perfect love drives away all fear by saying; thus, their love is perfected.[9] So, this agápē of which John speaks is not human, but divine love is known as agápē. You cannot develop it, nor buy it, or earn it. It is God’s gift to all who believe in His Son Jesus and are born again. This agápē cannot be misused because it does not function under such circumstances. But it can be abused when left untouched in a believer’s heart.

Tertullian (155-220 AD) uses the scorpion as a metaphor for heresy, and the cure for its sting is the Anointed One’s Gospel. So, says Tertullian, if they try to shame you for the name of the Anointed One, you should be happy; because glory and the Spirit of God rest on you: if only none of you suffer as a murderer, thief, evildoer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters; yet, as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but glorify God because of it.[10] John urges us to lay down our lives even for our brethren,[11] affirming that there is no fear in love: For perfect love drives out dread, since doubt has consequences; and they who are afraid are not perfecting their love.[12] What suspicion would it be better to understand than that which gives rise to denial? What love does to be perfect, but that which puts terror to flight and gives the courage to confess? What penalty will God appoint as the punishment for such uneasiness? Only that those who deny Him will pay by their soul’s everlasting torment in hell?[13]

Tertullian also tells us that the teaching of the apostles was indeed in everything according to the mind of God: they forgot and omitted nothing of the Gospel. Therefore, we are told to shine as sons of light[14] and not hide as sons of darkness. We are commanded to stand steadfast,[15] and certainly not to act an opposite part by fleeing; and to be assured, not acting like a fugitive or oppose the Gospel. He points out weapons, too, which persons who intend to run away would not require. And among these, he notes the shield,[16] that we may be able to extinguish the devil’s fiery darts when doubtless we resist him and sustain his assaults in their utmost force. Accordingly, John also teaches that we must lay down our lives for the brethren;[17] much more, then, we must do it for the Lord. This cannot be fulfilled by those who flee. Finally, mindful of his Revelation, in which he heard the doom of the fearful (and so) speaking from personal knowledge, he warns us that we must put away all apprehension. “There is no fear,” says he, “in love, but perfect love drives out distress.”[18] Worry has torment – the fiery lake, no doubt. Anguish will keep a believer from perfecting – namely, God’s agápē. Who will flee out of panic of persecution? Only those who have not loved.[19]

Furthermore, we find that historian Eusebius of Caesarea (260-339 AD) speaks of Phileas, the first bishop of Thmuis, a town in Lower Egypt, distinguished for his service to his country, his eminence in philosophical studies, and his proficiency in foreign literature and science. He tells us further that, along with another person of considerable importance named Philoromus, a noble Christian, a colonel, and the emperor’s treasurer-general in Alexandria, had his tribunal in Thmuis, where he sat everyday hearing and judging cases. But after his arrest, he too was brought to trial for his faith; he withstood the threats and insults of the judge. All the pleas of relatives and friends to compromise his Christian belief failed, and he was condemned to lose his head. Jerome also, in the passage already referred to, names him a true philosopher and, at the same time, a godly martyr; and states that on assuming the position of a bishop over his native district, he wrote an exquisite book in praise of the martyrs.

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[1] Ephesians 4:31-32

[2] Genesis 3:9-10

[3] 1 John 4:17

[4] Ibid. 4:16, 19

[5] See Joshua 1:9; Psalm 23:4; 27:1; 46:1-3; John 14:27; 2 Timothy 1:7

[6] Romans 16:14

[7] Ecclesiastes 12:13

[8] Shepherd of Hermas, Commandment Seven

[9] Clement of Alexandria, Fragments of Clemens Alexandrinus, Trans. William Wilson, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2, Comments on the First Epistle of John, p. 1165

[10] 1 Peter 4:12

[11] 1 John 3:16

[12] Ibid. 4:18

[13] Tertullian: Scorpiace (Antidote for the Scorpion’s Sting), Ch. 12

[14] 1 Thessalonians 5:5

[15] 1 Corinthians 15:58

[16] Ephesians 6:16

[17] 1 John 3:16

[18] Ibid. 4:18

[19] Tertullian: De Fuga in Persecutone, (Flight into Persecution), Translated by Sydney Thelwall, ⁋ 9