CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
1 John 4:15. Son of God.—St. John was jealous of the double truth of the person of Jesus—His Divinity and His humanity.
1 John 4:17. Made perfect.—Or reaches its purpose and end. The sign of its being fully developed in us will be the removal of fear in relation to the “day of judgment.” We shall no more fear it than Jesus did. Enter into sonship, and all thought of judgment day passes away from us. Children are not afraid of their father.
1 John 4:20-21.—A recapitulation, in a vivid form, of the truth and the duty contained in 1 John 4:10-11. The love of our neighbour cannot be separated from the love of God, of which it is a distinguishing and essential mark. Sight is the great provocative of love. The difficulty of our loving God as an unseen being is met by the manifestation of God in His Son. This commandment.— Matthew 22:37-39.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 1 John 4:15-21
The Triumphs of the Perfect Love.—There is considerable repetition of statement in this epistle, the repetition of a man who has a few main truths which he holds tightly, and loves to brood over. He delights in the sound of them, and so goes over them again and again. The additional thought here is, that when our love—our love to God, and to our brother—has grown into such strength that it can fairly be called “perfect,” that is, perfect within the measures of the human, it proves to have a splendid power in our lives, elevating us to meet all occasions, freeing us from all fear, giving us grand inspirations, and even making us bold to meet the testings of the judgment day. Then, as if it were to him an absolutely essential point, he urges again on attention that the love he means is only that love which comes by the conviction and persuasion of God’s love in Christ to us, and finds its natural and befitting expression in self-sacrificing love to the brethren. 1 John 4:18 is “proof of the preceding statement that perfect love will give us boldness, by showing the mutually exclusive nature of love and fear. Love moves towards others in the spirit of self-sacrifice; fear shrinks from others in the spirit of self-preservation. The two are to be understood quite generally; neither love of God nor fear of God is specially meant. In all relations whatever, perfect love excludes fear, and fear prevents love from being perfect. And the two vary inversely: the more perfect the love, the less possibility of fear; and the more the fear, the less perfect the love. But though as certain as any physical law, the principle, that perfect love excludes all fear, is an ideal that has never been verified in fact. Like the first law of motion, it is verified by the approximations made to it. No believer’s love has ever been so perfect as entirely to banish fear; but every believer experiences that as his love increases his fear diminishes” (A. Plummer, D.D.).
I. Love’s triumph in the judgment day.—What can there possibly be to condemn in a life ruled and toned by love? That can be answered by asking another question—What was there to condemn in that human life which was lived by the Lord Jesus, and was ruled and toned by love? It is inconceivable that the Lord Jesus could fear any attempt to appraise, or test, or judge His human life. Then, in the degree in which we have the perfect love, it can be said of us, “As He is, so are we in this world,” and therefore we need fear judgment no more that He did.
II. Love’s triumph over the inward distress of fear.—“Perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.” It worries us, causes fretting and anxiety, because it keeps our thoughts circling round self and self-interests. There is no fear in love, because it takes us out of ourselves, and makes us spend ourselves in the service of others. And anxiety about them is altogether different from fear, which concerns ourselves. “If we live in this serene atmosphere of pure sympathy with God and man, Christ is in us, and we in Him, because God is love itself. Sharing His nature, therefore, we must be like Him; and the more completely we allow this Divine love towards our Father and our brothers to transform our whole being, the more we shall be like our Judge, and the less cause we shall have for dread.” “The more perfect this disposition of serene sympathy becomes, the less share can any form of anxiety have in it. Where it is a well-grounded sympathy with a perfect being, its serenity is all the more complete in proportion to its sincerity.”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
1 John 4:15. The Divinity of Christ a Test Doctrine.—“Jesus is the Son of God.” Compare 1 John 4:2, which demands the confession that “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,” or took upon Himself a veritable human body. But this comparison brings to view a distinction not always recognised. Belief in the humanity of Christ is absolutely demanded as a condition of being a Christian at all; but no such absolute demand is made in relation to belief in Christ’s Divinity. What is said about that is that it is essential to the higher Christian life, it belongs to the higher experiences; the man who can see in Christ the Son of God enters into the more advanced privileges; God dwelleth in him, and he in God. When this distinction is set before us, we remember that our Lord’s disciples had Him first in a human fellowship, and apprehended Him, and believed in Him as the Messiah-man Christ Jesus. It even appears that they only very slowly grew into the idea of His Divine Sonship. St. Peter was manifestly in advance of them all with his confession. But none of them entered into the higher life of relations with Christ until they did fully grasp the truth of the Divine Sonship. To be saved men must believe in the human Saviour, in Christ “come in the flesh.” To be sanctified, to attain the higher life, men must believe that “Jesus is the Son of God.” So the test of the regenerate life was—and perhaps, if we stated things aright, we should see that it still is—believing that Christ is “come in the flesh.” And the test of Christian attainment is the sign of the cultured soul-power that can grip the truth, that “Jesus is the Son of God.”
1 John 4:16. God is Love.—There is one form of worship that is universal and involuntary, and that is the resemblance which the deity and the devotee are certain to bear to one another. They who worship an idol are like to the idol in the beginning, for they fashion it after the model of something in themselves; but they grow more and more like to it afterwards, by sharing and copying the qualities with which they fancy the false god to be endowed. No man is better than what he burns incense to, but every man takes on more and more of the character of his favourite divinity. How came human parents by their love? Through the being made in the image and likeness of God. Parental love is a valuable salvage from the wreck of the Fall. This is our subject—the divinity of Love, and the love of Divinity.
I. The strong representation, “God is love.”—There is a most vital difference betwixt the conduct of any being and the character of any being; and there is a yet further distinction between character and essence. This emphatic language—the calling the Being the attribute—is a dignity reserved for this one attribute alone. I read that “with God is terrible majesty,” but I have no recollection of being told that “God is majesty.” (See, however, the expression “God is light.”) How could love have been embodied so richly as it was in the Seeker and Saviour of the lost, the Friend of little children, the Companion of sorrowful women, the Comforter of penitent outcasts, the Refuge of publicans and sinners, and the Sacrifice in body and blood for the world of the ungodly? Surely, herein is love. This text is Immanuel in print. We want both the “love” and the “God.” Call Christ “God,” or call Christ “Love,” as you need Him at the moment, for He is both. Being both makes Him the Mediator.
II. The extraordinary language touching the relation of the Christian with Christ.—We are, first, the inhabitants, with Christ for a dwelling, and then we are the houses, in which Christ makes a home. Two very different ideas, but both equally beautiful and equally instructive.—Henry Christopherson.
1 John 4:18-21. Perfect Love casteth out Fear.—(This outline is given as an illustration of the evangelistic method of dealing with the passage.)
I. The state of an awakened soul.—“Fear hath torment.” There are two kinds of fear mentioned in the Bible. The one is the atmosphere of heaven, the other of hell.
1. There is the fear of love.
2. There is the fear of terror. Deal with the latter, and explain its rise in the soul.
(1) A natural man casteth off fear, and restrains prayer before God.
(2) When the Spirit of God opens the eyes, He makes the sinner tremble.
(3) The Spirit makes him feel the greatness of sin, the exceeding sinfulness of it.
(4) Then the sense of corruption working in the heart torments the soul.
(5) The Spirit also convinces the soul of his inability to help himself.
(6) And then the man fears he shall never be in Christ.
II. The change on believing.—The love here spoken of is not our love to God, but His to us; for it is called perfect love.
2. But where does this love fall? On Jesus Christ.
III. His love gives boldness in the day of judgment—Because then—
1. Christ shall be our Judges 2. The Father Himself loves us.
IV. The consequences of being in the love of God—
1. We love Him.
2. We love our brother.—R. M. McCheyne.
1 John 4:18. Two Kinds of Fear.—The Bible speaks of two kinds of fear. One is terror, fright, dread,—the lively apprehension of evil to come; the crouching and crying of the dog in anticipation of the lash whose whistle in the air he already hears. The other is reverence, respect, adoration,—the awe that fills the mind as it stands in the presence of errorless Wisdom; the instinctive tribute that weakness pays to Omnipotence; the admiration that human frailty cannot conceal, or suppress, when God’s flawless goodness rises before it; tho impression of the Divine on the human; the worshipful stoop of the soul before God, not because it is frightened, not because God has thunder-bolts in His hands, and legions of heaven-bright warriors, with swords that turn every way around Him, but because He is altogether lovely, because He has mercy for thousands, because He is holy and good, because He is God—because He is Love.—J. Morgan Gibbon.
Love and Fear.—In the epistles of the apostle of love comes out most broadly, most sternly, the principle that all mankind are divided into two great classes,—the one, those that are of God; and the other, those that are of the world and of the devil. Whatever is not of light is darkness. There are only two motives, St. John says, that rule men in regard to God—only two emotions: either love or fear.
I. The universal dominion of fear.—Wherever there is not the presence of active love. This rests on the universal consciousness of sin. All men everywhere have some more or less active or torpid working of conscience. It is not made doubtful by the fact, that the ordinary condition of men is not one of active dread of God. Man has a strange power of refusing to think of a subject, because he knows that to think of it would be torture and terror. The fear which springs from the conviction of God as righteous, and the consciousness of individual sinfulness, varies in energy with the varying strength of these two convictions, and it assumes various forms. Sometimes it appears as a straining after forgetfulness—that is fear wearing the mask of godlessness. Sometimes it assumes the very opposite shape, and becomes the underlying basis of vast and complicated systems of rigorous, joyless worship—that is fear wearing the mask of godliness. Sometimes this fear takes the understanding into its pay, and appears as enlightened disbelief in God and immortality. Sometimes it takes the shape of vehement efforts to get rid of unwelcome thought by fierce plunging into business, or into wild riot. Whatever form it take, the fear which hath torment lies like a sleeping serpent in the hearts of all who think of God, and who cannot say, “We have known and believed the love which God hath to us.”
II. The fearlessness of perfect love.—Love is no weak thing, no mere sentiment. The manliness of Christian love, and the putting away from ourselves of all fear, because we are “perfected in love,” is one of the highest lessons that the gospel teaches us, and one of the greatest things which the gospel gives us. Love and fear exclude each other. Fear is based upon a consideration of some possible personal evil consequence coming down upon me from that clear sky above me. Love is based upon the forgetfulness of self altogether. The love of God, entering a man’s heart, destroys all fear of Him. All the attributes of God come to be on our side. The love which casts out fear rises in the heart as a consequence of knowing and believing the love which God hath to us. This love to God, which is built upon God’s love to us, is the all-powerful motive for every good thing. If you would grow in power, holiness, blessedness, remember this, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Perfect love is perfect man. And love, which destroys fear, heightens reverence and deepens self-distrust.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
1 John 4:19. The Genesis of Christian Love.—“We love, because He first loved us.” Spontaneous love, loving just because He is love, and must give out Himself, may be predicated of God, but it can be predicated of none else. Yet even the love of God can do nothing until it finds an object to spend itself upon. All love other than God’s is kindled by love. It is like life—it cannot exist save by the contact of love. Nobody on earth ever loves unless he is loved. The love may be that of some one who loves us, or it may be the love of some one whom we love. In any and every case we love because somebody loves us. And St. John does not simply say that we love God because He loves us; but he urges the larger and altogether more searching truth, that the love of God to us cannot have its right influence on us unless it makes us loving—loving to the brethren, loving to everybody. The Christian love is precisely that feeling a man can alone have when he “knows and believes the love that God hath unto him.”
Love the Cause of Love.
I. The love of God to us as sinners is the “sole” cause of our love to Him.—To make this fully appear, we may specify those other sources from which this disposition might be supposed to proceed.
1. Our love to God might be supposed to be the result of a superior discernment of the Divine character. But as that character is an object of dislike to all men in their natural, fallen state, it is obvious that this repugnance is not to be overcome by the exhibition of that character in a clearer light. An object of terror or dislike, so long as it is viewed as such, cannot be loved; and the more distinctly such an object appears, the more intensely will it be hated. The antipathy to it can only be removed by means of some new discovery, which shall place that object in an attractive light.
2. It might be thought that love to God, where it exists, is the result of some predisposition in the sinner’s heart towards God. Such partialities and predilections operate very generally among men. But since the heart of every man, by nature, is at enmity to God, our love to Him cannot be attributed to this source. If in any heart it might have originated thus, we should expect to find it in the amiable John. But he himself is no exception.
3. It might be supposed, again, that the principle of love to God is directly planted in the heart by the hand of God. But true love cannot be forced; it withers under the breath and touch of violence. No other source but the Divine compassion to us as sinners can give birth to this heavenly principle.
II. This love of God is the “sufficient” cause of our love to Him.—The stoutest rebel must relent and love a Being whose mercy and compassion he has been brought to feel extends to himself.—Anon.
1 John 4:20. Keeping with Brethren.—To separate ourselves from our brethren is to lose power. Half-dead brands heaped close will kindle one another, and flame will sparkle beneath the film of white ashes on their edges. Fling them apart, and they go out. Rake them together, and they glow. Let us try not to be little, feeble tapers, stuck in separate sockets, and each twinkling struggling rays over some inch or so of space; but draw near to our brethren, and be workers together with them, that there may rise a glorious flame from our summed and collective brightness which shall be a guide and hospitable call to many a wandering and weary spirit.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
1 John 4:17. Perfect Love.—We are along way yet from perfect love; it is too Divine a thing to be speedily fulfilled in the creature. But we are coming to it; and then, when we do come to it, we shall know more fully how great and blessed it is as the best wine, creation’s endless festival, by reviewing the ages upon ages of division and strife through which we have struggled on to the unity of love in Christ. The labours of God, the labours of the angels, the labours of the Church, the groans and contentions of all creatures and all elements, will go on, and never cease, until the redemption of mankind; for the perfect individual is essential to the perfection of love.—Pulsford.
1 John 4:18. Love casting out Fear.—The literal sense of this verse is as follows: (Slavish) fear exists not in this love, but perfect love (such as this) casts aside fear; for (such) fear carries with it terror (which is inconsistent with love), since he who feareth is not perfected in love, does not love perfectly and sincerely. φόβος, “fear,” here signifies a fear, not of displeasing God, but of incurring His punishment, which conscience raises. “Casteth out fear” refers to the previous verse, and is contrasted with a joyful confidence in the mercy of God—Bloomfield.
1 John 4:19. Love-won Love.—Have you seen a broad, straight path of silver brightness lying by night upon a smooth sea, and stretching from your feet away until it was lost in the distance—a path that seemed to have been trodden by the feet of all the saints who have ever passed through a shifting world to the eternal home? Oh, that silver path by night across the sea, it glittered much; but it was not its brightness that lighted up the moon in the sky, neither was it the love to Jesus, trembling in a believer’s heart, that kindled forgiving love in Him! The love that makes bright a forgiven sinner’s path across the world was kindled by the light of life in the face of Jesus.—W. Arnot.
CHAPTER 5