Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
1 John 4:17-18
17 In this, love has been made perfect among us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, even so we are in this world. · WEB
The fear being driven out is named precisely, and it is not reverence but the dread of a coming verdict.
Verse 17 names what the perfected love is for: boldness in the day of judgment. The letter has used that word twice already, of standing at his coming 1 John 2:28 and of an unaccusing heart 1 John 3:21, and here it reaches its widest application.
The reason given is compressed almost to obscurity: because as he is, so are we in this world. The letter has been saying this in pieces all along — born of him, children now, resembling him at his appearing 1 John 3:2. Someone whose life already carries the family likeness is not facing a stranger's tribunal.
Verse 18 then states the principle. There is no fear in love; perfect love casts out fear. The verb is forcible, the word used of throwing something out of a house.
The kind of fear is fixed by the next clause and should not be widened past it: because fear has to do with punishment. What is expelled is the dread of sentencing. Scripture elsewhere commends the fear of God as reverence, and this letter is not contradicting that; it is speaking of the specific terror of a person who expects to be condemned.
And the last clause is gentler than it sounds. He who fears is not made perfect in love — a diagnosis, not a rebuke. A frightened reader is not being told his fear is a further failure. He is being told what the fear indicates: that the love has not yet finished its work in him, which is something done to a person rather than by him.
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