Perfecting Love

13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love Him because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, [b]how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.1 John 4:13-21

The term “perfected” is used three times in this section. It was used at the end of verse twelve to introduce and link these two sections together. Remember perfect is not flawlessness but complete. Christians practice loving one another because God is the source of love and love is His nature. And because He manifested His love in sending Christ.

Another term connecting the previous point on love with this one is the use of the word “abide.” It is used four times in verses 13-16. Three times the phrase “abide in Him, and He is us” is used showing the mutual indwelling between God and believers.

Mutual Indwelling

 Mutual Indwelling Involves the Trinity

The first of three ways a Christian can be assured that he has a reciprocal abiding in God involves the other two members of the Godhead or Trinity. First, we have this assurance “because He has given us of His Spirit” (4:13b). This is a reference to the Holy Spirit. Notice John is not talking about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit or the Son in the heart of the believer. It is easier to determine what the giving of the Spirit is not than what it is in this context. It is not the baptismal measure of the Holy Spirit. This promise was given to the apostles and not all Christians is general.

Furthermore, it is not in reference to those who had one or more of the gifts of the Holy Spirit imparted to them. Those who had gifts did not necessarily have love or necessarily abiding in God and God in them (1 Cor. 13:1-3). Some claim it is the revelation given by the Holy Spirit. This may be a possibility sense verse sixteen mentions the testimony of the apostles concerning the mission of Christ. In that case the Jesus’ promise to the apostles could be the point. But only if the “us” is in reference to the apostles instead of the beloved little children which made up John’s audience (John 15:26,27).

John is talking about salvation in the immediate context. The “gift of the Holy Spirit” is given at baptism (Acts 2:38b) which is the seal of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13). This is a more likely the meaning of this verse. Perhaps, Paul has reference here to what Paul described in Romans 8:16: “the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, The Holy Spirit is the reason Christians have the assurance of God dwelling with them.”

Secondly, “that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world” (4:14b). The reason they have this second confidence is based on what the apostles “have seen and testify “(4:14a). The “we” is not in reference to Christians in general, but the witness of the apostles who have seen, heard, and touched the evidence (1:1-3). Their firsthand, eyewitness accounts of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the grounds for our belief that God the Father had sent the Son to be the Savior of the lost world. The only other time the phrase “Savior of the world” is used in the Bible is John 4:42. Jesus is the only one who could possibly be the Savior of the whole world.

 Mutual Indwelling Involves Confessing Christ

The second reason Christians can be assured that “God abides in him, and he in God” (4:14b) is the promise that “whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God” (4:14a). This confession is not of one’s sin as in chapter one and verse nine. It is our confession unto salvation. Paul describes this in Romans 10:9,10: “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Jesus promised, “therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32).

 Mutual Indwelling Involves Dwelling in Love

The third and final reason God gives for the mutual indwelling is his dwelling in love. Using the same two verbs in verse sixteen (“we have known and believed the love that God has for us,” 1:16b), Peter told Jesus concerning he and the other apostles “also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:69). The basis of our dwelling in love is twofold. First, we have been recipients of God’s love through the salvation which has been brought to us through the Son of God. As Christians we know that God loves us. We have experienced salvation. The second basis of our dwelling in love is because “God is love” (4:16). John makes three declarations about the nature of God in his writing: “God is spirit” (John 4:23,24); “God is light” (1:5); and now for a second time in this chapter “God is love” (4:8,16).

Love Made Perfect

Three times in verse seventeen and eighteen John mentions “perfect.” This was the second point John made in verse twelve as another reason for loving one another. Love is made complete or whole when we love others like God loves.

• Perfect Love Has Confidence to Face Judgment

John speaks with conviction that “love has been perfected among us” (4:17a). As a result of mature love, “we may have boldness in the day of judgment” (4:17b). Because we know that the Judge we face is love and has proven His love, abides in us, and we love the brethren gives us all the confidence we need to face the throne on Judgment Day. On that day, we will face Him as our Father not just the Judge. We will come before Him as sons not condemned sinners. The term “boldness” means “confidence to speak up freely in public”. John used the same word in 3:21 where Christians can have confidence in God even though the heart condemns or judges them. The first use of the term was in 2:28 where John first mentions boldness in facing judgment.

How is it that Christians can possess such confidence in the day of Judgment? As God is in Heaven right now “so are we in this world” (4:17). Just as we have confidence God knows our hearts, we can have confidence that He knows who we are while still in this world.

• Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

Fear has been a consequence of sin since the Garden of Eden when Adam declared he and Eve were hiding from God because they were afraid (Gen. 3:1f). Now John assures us “there is no fear in love” (4:18a). Why? Because “perfect love casts out fear” (4:18b). Fear and love cannot coexist in the life of the believer. As light dispels darkness, so love exiles fear. Keep in mind the fear under consideration is not the righteous reverential awe all children of God should have for the heavenly Father.

Why does love banish fear? “Because fear involves torment” (4:18c). Fear and love are totally incompatible with each other. Love brings the opposite of torment. The only other time the Greek word for “torment” (kolasis, Greek) is used is in reference to “everlasting punishment” in Hell (Matt. 25:46). In the immediate context it is Judgment Day. John has just assured us that perfected love will give us confidence to face Judgment Day. Jesus promised His disciples, “most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John 5:24). The loving work of Christ has removed the fear of death (Heb. 2:14,15; Ps. 23:4) and of Judgment Day. In fact, our relationship with Christ removes all anxieties of day-to-day life (Matt. 6:31-33).

John reinforces the argument by stating the mutually exclusive relationship between fear and love in the negative statement: “but he who fears has not been made perfect in love” (4:18d). Those Christians who continue in a state of fear have not experienced mature love or completeness of love.

Mankind has many fears or phobias. Those with perfect love will not suffer from krisisphobia which is the fear of judgment. Paul had confidence at the end of his life “there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Tim. 4:8).

Loving God Perfected in Loving Another

■ Recognizing God Loved Us First

For the second time John tells us “we love Him because He first loved us” (4:19). Please note that the word “Him” is left out of the original Greek. Therefore, John could be saying “we love [the one another] because God loved us first.” God did not wait around in Heaven for us to stop loving the world and start loving Him again. God’s love for us is the origin and initiation of our love for our brethren. If our love is like His love, we will not wait for the other person to love us first. We will love them first.

■ Involves Loving the Visible and Invisible

John has no problem pointing out and calling Christians liars. Using the pattern found in chapter one John writes, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar” (4:20a). “If a man says…” is found in six previous place in this letter (1:6,8,10; 2:4,6,9). This makes seven.

Why is this man a liar? Because “he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (4:20b). Our vertical relationship with each other is connected to our horizontal relationship with God. How can one love the Father and not love His children who are our brothers and sisters. This would be so unnatural. “It is by practicing a real and self-sacrificing love for one another that we learn to love the one who sacrificed himself for us” (Boice 121).

■ Requires Loving One’s Brother

John comes to the climactic commandment and truth about love: “he who loves God must love his brother also” (4:21b). The first commandment to love God and second commandment to love one another must coexist in the heart of the Christian (Deut. 6:4; Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:36ff).

– Daniel R. Vess