Scripture Daily

Context No. 1388 of 4322 · 1 John

Context · Reflection

1 John 4:13-21: in context

13By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world. 15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God. 16We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 17In this, love has been made perfect among us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, even so we are in this world. 18There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love. 19We love him, because he first loved us. 20If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21This commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should also love his brother.

John writes about the love of God and its effect on us. God is love, he says, and whoever remains in love remains in God, and God in him. We love because he first loved us. And he draws out what this love does: perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. Where God's love has done its work in us, we can have boldness even in the day of judgment. And he ends with a test: anyone who says he loves God but hates his brother is a liar, for the one who does not love the brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen.

Two truths anchor the passage. The first is that God's love comes first: we love because he first loved us. Our love for God, and our love for others, is not something we generate on our own and offer up to him; it is a response, an echo, of a love that reached us before we did anything. He loved first, and our loving is the answering of it. That takes the pressure off the exhausting attempt to work up love by our own effort; the source is his love toward us, and we love out of the overflow of having been loved. The second truth is that this love drives out fear: perfect love casts out fear. Fear before God, the dread of punishment, the anxious wondering whether he is against us, cannot survive where his love has been truly received, because love and that kind of fear cannot occupy the same heart. The more we know ourselves loved by God, the less we are ruled by fear of him, until we can face even the day of judgment with boldness, not because we are impressive but because we are loved. So the answer to fear is not to try harder to be unafraid; it is to receive more deeply the love of the God who loved us first, and to let that love do its work of casting out the fear.

Do I try to work up love and courage by my own effort, or do I receive more deeply the love of the God who loved me first, letting his perfect love cast out the fear that still rules me?

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