The text has two words in it that make up all there is of religion, love and fear. All pagan religions of the world are founded on fear of their gods. Christianity is the only religion in the world whose substance is love.
There are scholars who claim the love spoken of in verse seventeen is not our love toward the Lord, but the love of the Lord toward us. The absuridity of this interpretation found in the declaration made in the verse is “love is perfected with us.” From and beyond the beginning of time the Lord’s love has always been perfect. The second problem is the interpretation is out of harmony with John’s statement “the one who abides in God, and God abides in him” (1st John 4:16). That is to say, he who loves God, and abides in that love, dwells in God. In verse nineteen John tells us “We love, because He first loved us.” The love in this verse proceeds from the human heart. “There is no fear in love” is not a reference to the Lord’s love, but our love toward Him.
The reason our love is made perfect is so we “may have confidence in the day of judgment.” Here, John is speaking of what a person feels when he gives serious thought to the day of judgment and the confidence the true believer in Christ has when he gives serious thought of the day of judgment. The confidence is a sign of assurance that our love for the Lord has reached a state of perfection in our heart. We have nothing to fear because our love for the Lord overcomes the fear that is in the heart of the non-believer. All dread and tormenting fear have been excluded from the heart. John sees this as the test of perfect love, a love that is pure and unmingled, so that we can look forward to the descending Judge without fear. We do not fear the descending coming of the Judge because we know He will not condemn us.
There are four possibilities of the love and fear spoken of by John.
First, there are those who have neither fear nor love. They are hardened sinners. They do not love the Lord or fear Him. The second are those who fear without love. This fear can be used to lead a person to the Lord. He is looking for a way out of the state of fear he is in. The third are those who have both love and fear. A majority of the professing Christians are in this mixed state. Their motivation to serve the Lord is mostly out of fear and not love. The fourth are those who love without fear, which John calls perfect love.
When John wrote this passage he was speaking from the depths of his own experience. He knew the possibility of having love without fear filling his soul. He has experienced the perfect love that cast out fear and does not repress it or hold fear down. His love for the Lord casted out fear.
What is this fear John speaks of?
It is the fear Adam and Eve experienced when they disobeyed the command not to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The new born emotion in the heart of Adam and Eve following their disobedience was fear. Prior to their disobedience they found joy in and looked forward to their conversations with the Creator. When they heard the voice of the Lord they were overcome by fear and tried to hide themselves from the Lord.
Our love for the Lord casts out this fear of the Lord that took control of the heart of mankind when Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord.
In this passage, John does not say the person who has a mixed love is a sinner. What he does say, is the one whose love is mixed does not have perfect love. His love is not pure. There are elements in it which give it a mingled character.
According to John there are degress in Christian love and it is possible for a person to live a Christian life with an imperfect love and it is also possible for a man to dwell on the earth, living in a body surrounded by various temptations and to be perfect in love, to have pure love.
What is perfect love?
It begins with the celebrated,
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! Then follows with “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). This is the definition of perfect love which John speaks of in the New Testament.
Someone might say, “This is an impossible demand.” Why is this command viewed as impossible? “Because the carnal mind is enmity against the Lord, because it is not subject to the law of the Lord and it can never be.
Does the Lord give impossible commands? In this epistle John says the commands of the Lord are not grievous, oppressive, or beyond our power to obey. The Lord has given mankind the ability to obey or disobey His commands. He has also attached to His commands a promise of aid in the keeping of His commands. The biggest command in the Bible, the all-including command of love toward the Lord and toward our fellow men there is a promise of grace to help us keep the
command.
What is the promise?
“Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:6). In this verse it is clearly stated the Lord does not give people impossible commands. When He commands us to love Him with all our heart, He sends down the Holy Spirit to perform spiritual surgical upon the heart so that we may love Him. He cuts away the carnality from the human nature and removes the depravity from the heart and gives the ability to fulfill this greatest of commands.
The doctrine of spiritual circumcision in the New Testament is found in Colossians 2:11-12). “The removal of the body of the flesh,” the old nature which is corrupt in its unregenerated state of
rebellion against the Lord is illustrated in the rite of circumcision and the ordinance of baptism, but is accomplished by a spiritual circumcision and Spirit baptism. This is the gateway into perfect love.
This love is said to be perfect because it is pure. It is not perfect in degree. We say we love the Lord more today than we did yesterday. We love Him more today because we have a larger capacity for love.
One of the elements of our happiness in this world and in the world to come is our growth in our relationship with the Lord. The more we know about Him the more we love Him.
One of the popular objections against the doctrine of Christian perfection is the doctrine the Lord lays a line in our relationship with Him that we can not go beyond. A state of love that casts out all fear. A love that enables us to reach out to our enemies and love them, the love Jesus spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount, a love Jesus spoke of when He said we are to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, is an attainable one. It is wrought in the soul by the power of the Holy Spirit. We may receive that love in this life by a full surrender of ourselves to God and claiming Jeus Christ as our Savior and Lord.
