1 John 4:18 … No fear in LOVE (05/16/17)
“There is no fear in Love – and perfect Love casts our fear” ~ unknown (1 John 4:18)
I think if I were forced to pick just a handful of verses from the entire Bible to share with folks (Christian & non-Christian alike), this verse would undoubtedly make that very short list … Indeed, for anyone sincerely interested in coming to a fuller comprehension of the deeper meanings of the Scriptures (and certainly for all of those wishing to properly & fully worship the same) 1 John 4:18 is truly a crucial verse to know & understand … And this is so for a number of reasons — Please consider:
First, it is so because 1 John 4:18 (like the over-arching Way of Christ taught & lived by Jesus himself in the Gospels) essentially mandates not only that we love others with our thoughts (i.e. our gratitude & our prayers for others’ Peace & Joy), our words (i.e. our apologies for self & our encouragements of others), and our emotions (i.e. our empathy for those in pain and our revelry for those in celebration), but that we first & foremost have the courage to dramatically & courageously LOVE others fully (i.e. humbly) with our actions (a la Matthew 18:3-4 & John 13:15-17 & Matthew 7:21-14 & Matthew 24:12-14 et al) …
Second, remember as well that God is composed of “perfect Love” (the Greek “agape” here – meaning unconditional regard & affection, and the same Greek “agape” we find in Matthew 5:43-48), and that such Love knows no fear whatsoever. As such, we cannot be called to ever “fear God” (as many traditional worshippers & preachers incorrectly advocate) but rather are to humbly “revere” Him – as the actual Old Testament Hebrew often advocates we do (see the Hebrew “yare” in Exodus 34:30, Leviticus 19:14, Leviticus 19:32, Leviticus 25:17, Leviticus 25:36, Psalm 33:8, Ecclesiastes 3:14, Ecclesiastes 8:12-13 et al – Strong’s #3372) …
Third, the latter half of this verse is crucial as well (the half that states “for fear has to do with punishment, and thus whomever fears [and thus whomever punishes] has not reached perfection in Love”) – specifically because it strongly implies that there is no Hell in the Universe of a God of perfect Love; seeing as how Hell is quite clearly a punishment, and that a God of perfect Love can express neither fear nor the punishment that ensues therefrom.
Yes, conservative Christians tend to respond by saying that it is the willing sinner who somehow chooses to burn in Hell for eternity – that it is not God’s fault that sinners decide to suffer forever, and yet this argument is obviously ludicrous; if for no other reason than A) it presumes that sinners are objectively & fairly aware of that eternal consequence (which they are most certainly not), and B) that sinners thereby purposefully choose to burn forever rather than kiss the celestial bottom of their Divine Despot (which only the very few clinically diagnosed masochists – and the even fewer unassailable Saints — in human history would ever do).
No, there is no easy out here for the non-Loving, conservative (a.k.a. evangelical) Christian. Their God either directly condemns the billions of “unworthy Souls” to an eternity of suffering (which Jesus very clearly notes He does not do – see John 5:22 et al) or at the very least He is guilty by implication; having first & foremost Himself created this unjustly warped system, and at the very least thereafter passively allowed billions of mostly innocent Souls to burn forever as a patently unjust consequence thereof … This latter conundrum should make conservative Christians (especially those who consider themselves to be “biblical literalists”) extremely thankful for 1 John 4:18, seeing as how it alone provides them a scriptural “out” for their now suddenly not nearly so wicked God.
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