1 John 4:17-21; The Passion History – Part 4: The Praetorium
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts our fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” Fear and love. Now there are two concepts that we don’t typically think about in conjunction. What is the relationship between fear and love of which John writes?
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve dwelt with God and with each other in perfect love and without fear. That harmony was ruined, of course, when the serpent tempted our first parents to believe that God was not loving, and they began to fear that He was holding out on them. What had changed? Nothing had changed about God, but everything had changed concerning our first parents. They thought differently about God, and they doubted His love and goodness. They thought differently about God’s Word and God’s Will. They began to resent Him and to believe that He meant them harm. They began to hate Him, and they began to fear Him, and, consequently, they began to resent, fear, and hate each other. Because they lost their love for God, they had no love for each other. It was a transgression of the First and only Commandment, “You shall have no other gods.” What does this mean? “You shall fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” That first and only commandment is summarized in this way: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” For, all the Law of the God is fulfilled in this: Love.
In his first epistle St. John famously provides us a definition of God saying, “God is love.” Three simple, clear words to define our God who is literally undefinable. The problem is that, if God is love, we need to know what love is, and we don’t often do so well understanding that. Part of the problem is language itself, particularly the English language. In English we have only one word for love, but in the Koine Greek of the New Testament there are four different words for love, each conveying a particular nuance and aspect of love: Love for family. Love for humanity. Love between a husband and a wife. And selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional love. It is that last kind of love that St. John says is our God. The word is agape, a selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional love – the kind of love that God shows and is, and the kind of love we His children are called to show both to God and to neighbor.
St. Paul devotes an entire chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter thirteen, the great “love” chapter, to describing God’s love, agape love, by what it does: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” All of these actions go out from a person towards others. They are inherently selfless (not concerned with the self but with others) and sacrificial, and they are unconditional, always acting regardless of the circumstances, risk to self, and without expectation of being repaid. This is agape. This is the love that God is. This is the love with which God so loved the world in giving His Son over to death on the cross. Truly, Jesus is God’s love for the world in person and in action.
Jesus is the love that perfects us. Jesus is the love that makes us confident for the day of judgment. Jesus is the love that casts out fear of punishment. Let me say a bit more about each of these defining statements.
Jesus is the love that perfects us. In paradise, our first parents had a perfect relationship with God and with each other. When Satan planted a seed of doubt within their hearts, however, that relationship was ruined. No longer could they perfectly love God or each other, for they were turned in on themselves and feared missing out, not having what they needed or desired, because their love was poisoned, corrupted, and perverted. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to be the perfect man for us, in our place. Jesus perfectly loved God His Father and He perfectly loved us His brothers and sisters, His Bride. Greater love has no one that this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
Jesus is the love that makes us confident for the day of judgment. In love, in Jesus, God fulfilled His own Law and righteousness which our first parents and we their children failed to keep thus bringing death into the world and God’s wrath upon us all. Our God who is holy and whose righteousness demands perfect holiness, obedience, and love, has so loved us that He has done what was necessary to make us holy, to fulfill perfect obedience and selfless love. Having received God’s love in Jesus we are confident and have no fear of the day of judgment, for God has already judged His Son guilty in our place and has judged us innocent in His holy, innocent blood.
Jesus is the love that casts out fear of punishment. In love, in Jesus, God has fulfilled the Law’s demands and has set us free from the fear of punishment for our sin and guilt. Jesus bore the fulness of God’s wrath against our sinful disobedience upon the cross. Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath against our sins to the bitter dregs, until it was finished and there is no more. We need not fear punishment, for there is no sin left to punish. God has reconciled us to Himself in His Son, the propitiation that He put forward for our sins.
And so, God is love. That is an ontologically true fact. However, God’s love is made known in Jesus, and Him crucified. That is how God has loved the world, and it is the love with which we love one another and so show ourselves to be His children. “And this commandment we have from Him: whoever loves God must also love His brother.”
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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