1Jo 4:20-21 | KingComments | STEP | . There is another assurance to recognize whether a person abides in God and whether God abides in such a person. That assurance is the confession “that Jesus is the Son of God”. This confession is not a profound or inconceivable truth, but it is the confession of each true believer. There is no believer without this confession, regardless of his age. It is a great truth. The humiliated Man Jesus is the Son of God. He was that not only when He was on earth; He still is. He who does not believe that is not a child of God. God has fellowship with those, who have exactly the same thought about Jesus as He does. Such people feel fully at home with God. That is what God desires. The word ‘confess’ also indicates that wonderfully. Confessing means ‘saying the same’ and in this case it implies: saying the same thing as God. You also find that thought in “if we confess our sins” ( ). In that way we declare that God is right about everything He has always said about our sins. You have acknowledged and accepted His thoughts about His Son and about yourself and about the world. If you are aware that you have been far away from God and now have been brought in such a circle of glory, then you will surely ascribe all honor to God. . John speaks with certainty about what he and all believers – “we”, this word is put in front and therefore has emphasis – “have come to know and have believed”. It is beyond all doubts that false teachers want to cause about it. You can make this statement your own too. You have known and believed “the love which God has for” you. “Come to know” means that you have realized, and “have believed” means that you have accepted. Once again that wonderful expression sounds “God is love”. It makes you want to shout it out loud: God is love! You have experienced it, you have been saved by His love. You have seen the manifestation of His love by sending His Son and in the propitiation the Son has become for your sins. Because of that, you have life from God. The Son is your life. That implies that you abide in love and therefore you abide in God and that God abides in you. . That love can be with you, as well as it is with each other believer, not otherwise than “perfected”. If God is love and He abides in you and you in Him, there is no lack in that love. You can note that if you think of “the day of judgment”. Do you think that when that day comes the judgment of God will be different than it is now? Of course not. Therefore you are looking forward to that day with confidence. You do not need to have any fear for the Judge, because you are in the world “as He is”. And how is He? He is in the glory, surrounded by glory, without having anything to do with sin. You know that He has finished the work and that you have Him as your life. As a result, you are as He is, although you are not there yet where He is. Here it is not about your position in Christ before God. Your position in Christ before God is addressed by Paul in the letters he has written. John shows that the Lord Jesus is with God and in full fellowship with God in a realm and place that harmonize with the love of God. In that place there is no thought that’s related with sin, for it has been completely propitiated. And what He is you are in the world. You are living in a realm where everything is against God, but as far as you are personally concerned you are as He is. There is full fellowship with God, harmony and rest and peace. You have been brought into fellowship with Divine Persons. There is no need for you to fear judgment. John already spoke twice about confidence. In chapter 2 it is about the confidence at the coming of the Son: how you can then face Him without any hindrance ( ). In chapter 3 it is said that you now already have confidence in respect to your relation toward God to ask Him in confidence for what you need ( ). When John for the third time speaks about confidence (boldness), then it is indeed in relation to chapter 2:28, but he now uses the expression “the day of judgment”. In that way he draws your attention to the moment that all things will be exposed in the true light. At this moment, many things may still be unclear or in confusion to you, but on the day of judgment it will become apparent how things are in reality. Then the perfection of the love of God will only become even clearer. The day of judgment has not come yet, but the confidence definitely is here already. . The thought of fear does not belong to confidence, for fear does not go together with love. Love is the full expression of Who God is, and God has no fear at all. Now you know the perfect love and that perfect love is in you, the fear has been cast out. You see that God in His love has removed everything that hindered you to live in fellowship with Him. That life in fellowship with Him is just as perfect on earth as it is in heaven where we will be soon with Him. The circumstances will then be different, but not the new life that you now already have. It is not imaginable that someone, after everything what John has explained in this letter, would still fear God concerning the eternal punishment. You will without a doubt agree that fear for a judging God has been completely removed because of what you have seen of His love. John uses a powerful word when he says that love ‘casts out’ fear. There is a power in love working that causes fear to lose the fight. He who fears, “is not perfected in love”. He who fears has not comprehended the love of God because he doesn’t partake of it (cf. ). Such painful fear for punishment doesn’t fit in the sphere of confidence of love in which God’s children may be. You may wonder how this is consistent with Peter's call to fear God ( ). But Peter does not refer to the fear for the eternal judgment, but he refers to the appropriate reverence for Him Who is full of majesty. You will agree with me that this is an aspect that you also must take into consideration. John does not mean to say that you should not have respect for God now. Confidence and respect go together very well. . In this verse John concludes the section about love with a summary: “We love, because He first loved us.” Thereby he doesn’t say whether it is about our love toward God or our love toward the brothers and sisters. Both aspects should not and cannot be separated. That you are able to love is because He first loved you. He is the source. John does not go into details Who “He” is. It can be the Father and it can be the Son. It doesn’t matter. Both the Father and the Son are God and therefore both the Father and the Son are love. The Father has proven that by giving His Son for you and the Son has proven that by giving Himself for you. Therefore it cannot be otherwise than that he who knows this love also love. . Now you have seen what love is up to , from you read about the test of love. Someone may claim to love God, but how can you know whether this is really true? Well, you have discovered again and again in this letter that God’s nature is reflected in your brother and sister and that they are in the same relation toward God as you are. He who says that he loves God will love all who have the Son of God as their life. Life expresses itself. What is claimed must be visible in the brotherly love. You cannot see God, but you can see your brother. The word ‘seen’ means that you have seen something very well, that you have given full attention to it. This is how the disciples have seen the Lord Jesus ( ), which caused them to learn to know Who the Father is. This is how you also should look at your brother for whom Christ has died. Someone with whom is hatred instead of love for his brother, while he says to love God, is a liar. As it has been noted more often, such a person is in the Christian company. In that company he calls the others ‘brother’, but that is a lie. He says of himself that he is a brother, but he is not. Life and love are missing, they are not present in him. . Such a person also does not care about the commandment that the Lord Jesus has given that we should love one another. He does not have love in him nor does he see anything in the other that he finds worth loving. The commandment to love the brother is only possibly to be followed by those who love God because they have known and believed God’s love. Remember that it is a commandment and not a kind request that you can deal with at random. If you love God, you must love each brother and sister without exception. Now read 1 John 4:15-21 again. Reflection: Why is it that there is no fear in perfect love?

‏ 1 John 4:20-21

Perfect Love

1Jn 4:15. There is another assurance to recognize whether a person abides in God and whether God abides in such a person. That assurance is the confession “that Jesus is the Son of God”. This confession is not a profound or inconceivable truth, but it is the confession of each true believer. There is no believer without this confession, regardless of his age. It is a great truth. The humiliated Man Jesus is the Son of God. He was that not only when He was on earth; He still is. He who does not believe that is not a child of God.

God has fellowship with those, who have exactly the same thought about Jesus as He does. Such people feel fully at home with God. That is what God desires. The word ‘confess’ also indicates that wonderfully. Confessing means ‘saying the same’ and in this case it implies: saying the same thing as God. You also find that thought in “if we confess our sins” (1Jn 1:9). In that way we declare that God is right about everything He has always said about our sins. You have acknowledged and accepted His thoughts about His Son and about yourself and about the world. If you are aware that you have been far away from God and now have been brought in such a circle of glory, then you will surely ascribe all honor to God.

1Jn 4:16. John speaks with certainty about what he and all believers – “we”, this word is put in front and therefore has emphasis – “have come to know and have believed”. It is beyond all doubts that false teachers want to cause about it. You can make this statement your own too. You have known and believed “the love which God has for” you. “Come to know” means that you have realized, and “have believed” means that you have accepted.

Once again that wonderful expression sounds “God is love”. It makes you want to shout it out loud: God is love! You have experienced it, you have been saved by His love. You have seen the manifestation of His love by sending His Son and in the propitiation the Son has become for your sins. Because of that, you have life from God. The Son is your life. That implies that you abide in love and therefore you abide in God and that God abides in you.

1Jn 4:17. That love can be with you, as well as it is with each other believer, not otherwise than “perfected”. If God is love and He abides in you and you in Him, there is no lack in that love. You can note that if you think of “the day of judgment”. Do you think that when that day comes the judgment of God will be different than it is now? Of course not. Therefore you are looking forward to that day with confidence. You do not need to have any fear for the Judge, because you are in the world “as He is”. And how is He? He is in the glory, surrounded by glory, without having anything to do with sin. You know that He has finished the work and that you have Him as your life. As a result, you are as He is, although you are not there yet where He is.

Here it is not about your position in Christ before God. Your position in Christ before God is addressed by Paul in the letters he has written. John shows that the Lord Jesus is with God and in full fellowship with God in a realm and place that harmonize with the love of God. In that place there is no thought that’s related with sin, for it has been completely propitiated. And what He is you are in the world. You are living in a realm where everything is against God, but as far as you are personally concerned you are as He is. There is full fellowship with God, harmony and rest and peace. You have been brought into fellowship with Divine Persons. There is no need for you to fear judgment.

John already spoke twice about confidence. In chapter 2 it is about the confidence at the coming of the Son: how you can then face Him without any hindrance (1Jn 2:28). In chapter 3 it is said that you now already have confidence in respect to your relation toward God to ask Him in confidence for what you need (1Jn 3:21).

When John for the third time speaks about confidence (boldness), then it is indeed in relation to chapter 2:28, but he now uses the expression “the day of judgment”. In that way he draws your attention to the moment that all things will be exposed in the true light. At this moment, many things may still be unclear or in confusion to you, but on the day of judgment it will become apparent how things are in reality. Then the perfection of the love of God will only become even clearer. The day of judgment has not come yet, but the confidence definitely is here already.

1Jn 4:18. The thought of fear does not belong to confidence, for fear does not go together with love. Love is the full expression of Who God is, and God has no fear at all. Now you know the perfect love and that perfect love is in you, the fear has been cast out. You see that God in His love has removed everything that hindered you to live in fellowship with Him. That life in fellowship with Him is just as perfect on earth as it is in heaven where we will be soon with Him. The circumstances will then be different, but not the new life that you now already have.

It is not imaginable that someone, after everything what John has explained in this letter, would still fear God concerning the eternal punishment. You will without a doubt agree that fear for a judging God has been completely removed because of what you have seen of His love. John uses a powerful word when he says that love ‘casts out’ fear. There is a power in love working that causes fear to lose the fight. He who fears, “is not perfected in love”. He who fears has not comprehended the love of God because he doesn’t partake of it (cf. Mt 25:25 ; 30). Such painful fear for punishment doesn’t fit in the sphere of confidence of love in which God’s children may be.

You may wonder how this is consistent with Peter's call to fear God (1Pet 1:17). But Peter does not refer to the fear for the eternal judgment, but he refers to the appropriate reverence for Him Who is full of majesty. You will agree with me that this is an aspect that you also must take into consideration. John does not mean to say that you should not have respect for God now. Confidence and respect go together very well.

1Jn 4:19. In this verse John concludes the section about love with a summary: “We love, because He first loved us.” Thereby he doesn’t say whether it is about our love toward God or our love toward the brothers and sisters. Both aspects should not and cannot be separated. That you are able to love is because He first loved you. He is the source. John does not go into details Who “He” is. It can be the Father and it can be the Son. It doesn’t matter. Both the Father and the Son are God and therefore both the Father and the Son are love. The Father has proven that by giving His Son for you and the Son has proven that by giving Himself for you. Therefore it cannot be otherwise than that he who knows this love also love.

1Jn 4:20. Now you have seen what love is up to 1Jn 4:19, from 1Jn 4:20 you read about the test of love. Someone may claim to love God, but how can you know whether this is really true? Well, you have discovered again and again in this letter that God’s nature is reflected in your brother and sister and that they are in the same relation toward God as you are. He who says that he loves God will love all who have the Son of God as their life. Life expresses itself. What is claimed must be visible in the brotherly love. You cannot see God, but you can see your brother.

The word ‘seen’ means that you have seen something very well, that you have given full attention to it. This is how the disciples have seen the Lord Jesus (1Jn 1:1), which caused them to learn to know Who the Father is. This is how you also should look at your brother for whom Christ has died.

Someone with whom is hatred instead of love for his brother, while he says to love God, is a liar. As it has been noted more often, such a person is in the Christian company. In that company he calls the others ‘brother’, but that is a lie. He says of himself that he is a brother, but he is not. Life and love are missing, they are not present in him.

1Jn 4:21. Such a person also does not care about the commandment that the Lord Jesus has given that we should love one another. He does not have love in him nor does he see anything in the other that he finds worth loving. The commandment to love the brother is only possibly to be followed by those who love God because they have known and believed God’s love.

Remember that it is a commandment and not a kind request that you can deal with at random. If you love God, you must love each brother and sister without exception.

Now read 1 John 4:15-21 again.

Reflection: Why is it that there is no fear in perfect love?