Podcast: 1 John: Love as the Cure for Fear

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And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 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 is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also 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. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
-1 John 4:14-21

“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” So the writer of Hebrews puts it. For some people, this is a very scary thought. For others, it doesn’t concern them that much at all. Oddly enough, it’s usually the people who should fear the most that are not at all afraid. You go talk to people on the streets, and most of them will be utterly confident that God is okay with them, even though they don’t even bother to consider their own sin and how God will react to it.

I’ve been in a couple of conversations recently about our security in salvation with people whom I believe to be true Christians. Of course, I will not be the one to judge that, but I have confidence in their faith. And they often fear that day, even though they know that Jesus has paid that price for them. I wish I had studied this passage earlier. Maybe I could have given them a better answer.

This section almost seems like a summary of the entire letter so far. It’s true that John tends to write almost in a swirl of thought – he goes through his argument, and then he goes through it again in a slightly different manner, and then again, adding a bit more. So in this way, almost every section of the letter is a summary of everything else, but here he begins again with the reminder that he was a witness. This is HIS testimony, what he knows as truth because he was there.

And the summary of that truth is as simple as we can make it. “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”

We should linger here for a little while, because this truth is so simple that we often try to add to it just so that it appears big enough to be real. I am currently reading a supposedly Christian book that is a call to service of the poor and needy. A worthy call that is, and yet that service is constantly spoken of in this book as part of the Gospel. That is the temptation, to see the Gospel as something tangible and generous and charitable on our part, and not just on God’s. That is the result of the Gospel, yes, but it is not the Gospel.

In truth, the charity of the Gospel comes from God and Him alone. We are sinners. We do not deserve eternal life. We blow off our sin because we are so used to it, but God does not. He demands that we be good people, and instead we chase after our own selfish desires. The good news of the Gospel is that the punishment we owe has been paid by Jesus. He died the death that we should have died. When we confess Him (and by confessing, we don’t mean something we merely say, but something we believe in faith, and it is not that we just believe that there was a guy named Jesus, but that He is the Son of God, come from heaven to live as a man, to die on our behalf, to rise on the third day, and who is at the right hand of the Father even now), when we confess Him, we are saved. The good news is that we can never earn God’s favor, but that He gives it to His children without cost or obligation.

This is what shows His love for us. And here’s the cool thing about it, that love is exactly why we should not fear judgment, if we are in Him. God loves us so much that He gave His Son’s life for us. Do you now think that He would withhold that love on the Day of Judgment? John Calvin wrote, “Therefore no one can come with a tranquil mind to God’s tribunal, except he believes that he is freely loved.”

Brothers and sisters, we are freely loved. God the Son died for us. We need not fear His wrath again! It is for those who are outside of God that need to fear this day, but we do not. The love of God, expressed in the Cross, perfected in us, drives away our fear.

Now, that is the good news. Let us add nothing to it. Let us not mistake it again. This good news, once applied within us, now produces its affects in how we love one another. God loves the Church, and God’s children, who have God in them, will love the Church too. It is the natural result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and those who do not produce this natural result of the Gospel may not truly be God’s children.

Jesus uses the analogy of a vine. He is the vine, and we are His branches. Those branches that are in Him will bear fruit. But a branch laying on the ground by itself will have no fruit. God loves the Church, and if we are in Him, then we will love the Church as naturally as a branch of the true vine bears fruit.

We love because He first loved us.

Again, I would like to quote Calvin: “Faith in Christ, makes God to dwell in men, and we are partakers of this grace; but as God is love, no one dwells in him except he loves his brethren. Then love ought to reign in us, since God unites himself to us.”

Do you see? It is not that we are saved by our love. So often is John quoted in an effort to try to tell people that we have to do this and we have to do that. That’s not what John is saying. He never speaks of loving others in any sense except as the natural effect of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He is telling us how we can be sure that we are God’s children, not telling us what we need to do to become God’s children.

This letter is written to reassure Christians of their salvation in Christ, and John uses love as a proof of that. Is God’s indwelling Spirit turning you away from yourself and toward God and others? Do you see the evidence of God’s love in your life? If so, then do not fear. Look to His love, proven by the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, to drive out fear. If His love has had its complete result in us, then we will not fear, for we will be reassured in all times by His love.

If you do not see these evidences of God’s love in your life, then there may be cause for fear. But don’t react to this by running out and trying to love people. This is not a work that will earn us God’s love, but rather it is a natural outgrowth of God’s love. It is God’s saving love for us that must come first. John’s message over and over has been this – look to your heart. Does it testify against you, or do you see the Spirit’s work within it to conform you more to the image of Christ? If it is the former, then turn to the Cross. Repent of your sins. Seek God’s forgiveness and have faith in Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection. We are saved by faith, and not works. It is a free gift that we could never earn.

If your confession and faith are true, you will begin to see fruit of that repentance in your life. It is as natural as good fruit from a good vine.