Yikes! We can read that and think, well, I’ve sure had plenty of ‘unloving’ moments, so I guess I don’t know God.
Sigh. Grumble. Grumble. Cry.
Right?
But to read and study 1 John, we have to first understand John as a person. He considered himself Jesus’s favorite and repeatedly refers to himself in the book of John as ‘the one Jesus loved.’ Seems pretty bold, huh?
Actually, John just had a deep, deep, DEEP understanding of who he is in Christ. He is, I think, one of the best pictures of a disciple walking in his identity in Christ. And so yeah, he comes across a little arrogant sometimes, a little over-confident, but if we read his words in the context of his full and complete confidence in who he is in Christ, then we can see why he makes the bold statements that he makes.
And the more I study him, the more I can see his style of writing, where what feels like a super bold (and condemning) statement is usually explained in more context if we continue reading and also if we make connections from earlier statements to later statements. And always those statements are rooted in an understanding of either who God is or who we are in Christ, as believers with His spirit and new nature.
I’ve been meditating on chapter 4, specifically verses 16 through 18 because I have been consumed with quite a bit of fear and anxiety lately. It started with verse 18—and again, we can read this and think, gosh, I’m fearful. I guess God’s love is not perfected in me. Sigh. Sigh. Grumble. Grumble. Cry.
First, we need context. Let’s start in verse 12. It says, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
It feels like this means love is perfected in us, if/when we love one another.
We love >> then God abides >> then love is perfected
But keep reading...
John explains how we know that we abide in Him and He in us: we have his Spirit (v. 13), we have the gospel testimony (v. 14), and we confess Jesus as the son of God (v. 15).
Now we get to what I’ve been meditating on—verses 16 through 18:
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love, abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment because as He is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
After we know that we abide in Him (i.e. we have his Spirit, we believe the gospel testimony, we confess Jesus as the son of God—in other words, we’re born-again believers), THEN we have come to know and to believe the love God has for us (v. 16).
Now we see that God is love and to abide in love is to abide in God and to have God abide in us.
THEN is love perfected—“by this...” (v. 17).
So when John says (v. 18), whoever fears has not been perfected in love, it means he who is fearing/fearful is not abiding in God nor God in Him. There’s a disconnect.
When we disconnect, we fear. When we fear, we expect punishment. When we expect punishment, we have forgotten the love of God—what we first came to know and believe.
The more deeply we’re rooted in our identity in Christ, the more fully we accept His love for us, the less likely we will be to walk in fear.
