Perfect love casts out fear

1 John 4 (NASB) from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. ⁴ You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. ⁵ They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. ¹³ By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. ¹⁴ We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶ We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷ By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. ¹⁹ We love, because He first loved us. ²⁰ If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. ²¹ And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

Verses 7 and 8 in today’s text say: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Love, both our love for God and our love of others, is certainly a very important part and expression of our faith. As important as love is though we need to understand that our love is not what saves us or justifies us in God’s sight. Rather it is an expression of our faith. It is our response to God. John says: “We love, because He first loved us”        John also includes this qualifier regarding love:     ^“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.  We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”   So the love that John is speaking of cannot be separated from God. It is in response to Him and through Him that we are able to express this love.

1 Corinthians 13 is one of the most often quoted and copied chapters in the Bible. It is even quoted and used as a measure or gauge by non-believers. It says:

 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, ⁵ does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, ⁶ does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part; ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. ¹² For now we see in a mirror ^]dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. ¹³ But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

We must understand though that the chapter divisions were placed in the Bible by people who printed it later to make it easier to read. To understand what is said here we need to read it in the context in which it was written. Chapter 12 speaks of spiritual gifts given to believers for use in the body. It ends with these verses:

Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it. ²⁸ And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues. ²⁹ All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they? ³⁰ All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? ³¹ But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way.     Chapter 14 begins saying: Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts but especially that you may prophesy.

So this love too, the standard of love described in 1 Corinthians 13, is a love that can only be expressed by and through those who know God and confess Christ.  In today’s text John begins by saying:    “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.”   Jesus Himself says in John 14:15-17:

 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. ¹⁶ I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; ¹⁷ that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.     Only those who love Christ, only those who confess Jesus Christ, have the spirit of God. To confess Jesus Christ is more than to acknowledge Him and more even than to just love Him. To confess Jesus Christ is to say that He is the Messiah, the Lord and Savior, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the Son of God. That is the confession that causes the expression and the manifestation of the love that John is talking about.

The text says:  ^“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” Fear, which causes anxiety, stress, worry, doubt and countless other negative emotions is prevalent at terribly high levels in our society today. Causing fear is one of the primary schemes of the devil. In Revelation 21:6-8, Jesus says: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. ⁷ He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. ⁸ But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”      The cowardly or fearful and unbelieving head up this list,

God, through His angel, says: “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10-11)  Perfect love casts out fear. The perfect love which moved God, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

The world does not know that love. Neither can the world judge that love in us if they do not confess Jesus Christ. Yet it is the love we are called to, not by the world but by Jesus Himself. We are called to love in response to God’s love, as an expression of God’s love and we are empowered to love by the indwelling and abiding Holy Spirit of God. 

 God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this, love is perfected with us.      Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ; Holy Spirit, may it be in my life today.      Amen.