Typically what I do is look up each significant word in a verse or passage and see what sort of discoveries are buried within the root words that aren't seen on the surface in the English translation. This past Sunday as I sat down to do some finishing touches on formatting before we met for our study, I decided to do a couple more searches in one area... and I was blown away by what I found. It was so monumental to me that I couldn't keep it to myself.
The lesson was a continuation from a two-part lesson on "What does it mean to love?" The first part was an overview of 1 Corinthians 13--the infamous passage on love. I had so many amazing discoveries in that as well. But this one was a little different. After a few verses in 1 John 3 we moved on to 1 John 4:18-19:
“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.”
The original Greek word for "casts out" is ballō which literally means "to throw (more or less violent or intense)." The implication is aggressiveness. There is something fierce about love casting out fear. There is an intensity behind it that is full of power. So we know that perfect (which literally means "complete") love throws all fear out of the way. This is great news, obviously, because fear tends to really get in our way a lot of the time, right? So I'm glad to know that the perfect love of God can cast out that fear. But the next part of the verse is what did me in....
"For fear has to do with punishment..."
As I was looking over everything at the end I just flippantly decided to look up other occurrences of the word "punishment" in the concordance. I figured, okay, if fear has to do with punishment maybe it would be good to see where else the word shows up so as to have some more insight into the deeper meanings behind this verse.
The Greek word kolasis, which means "infliction: - punishment, torment" only occurs one other time in the New Testament-- Matthew
25:46:
“Then they will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous to
eternal life.”
The only other occurrence of this word speaks specifically to the punishment of eternal separation from God. For fear has to do with eternal separation... Fear is directly related to the absence of God in our lives. Fear has to do with punishment. Fear has to do with torment. Fear has to do with being separated from our only hope. Fear is a feeling that whispers to us, "God is not there with you through this. He has left. You are alone." As Ann Voskamp put it in her book, One Thousand Gifts, "All fear is but the notion that God's love ends." Fear strikes us down deep into our very existence and causes us to question God's love. Because fear is not an aspect of love.
There is no fear in love.
Fear has to do with punishment.
And whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
When we let fear take hold of us, it is because we have not allowed Love to have its way with us.
The wholeness, the completeness, and the perfection of love is what casts out fear. And those who fear have not been made whole, and complete, and perfect through that love because the fear is what has consumed them, not the love.
"...but perfect love casts out fear."
Sin had left us eternally separated from God and forever without a chance at being with Him. Fear--punishment, torment, separation, darkness--had to be conquered by love so that we could get to Him. So that He could come to us. Fear was cast out when Christ went to the cross.
Because when He walked the road of Calvary He forever cast out the power of fear--the power of eternal separation. There are several other words for punishment and torment in the Greek. There is no mistake that this particular word only shows up twice. Fear has to do with being eternally separated from God. What emotion could possibly be worse than this? When we feel fearful, we are experiencing an emotion that a Christ follower should never have to experience. Because as a child of God, I will never... not ever... not even one time will I ever experience separation from God. In Christ, no matter how terrible my suffering may be, I can never be forsaken by Him. Fear says I am forsaken. Fear is a lie. When we are in Christ... fear is a lie.
But fear wasn't always a lie.
Before Christ went to the cross, fear was legitimate. Fear signified my sin separating me from the holy God of the universe, untouchable by sin. But when Jesus bore the weight of the cross, once and for all He cast out fear, and death, and separation.
Fear says I am forsaken. The only reason that fear is a lie is because another has been forsaken instead of me.
Fear has to do with forsakenness.
Fear represents separation from God, but not even fear could keep Christ from going to the cross. As if being nailed to two pieces of wood after having His body beaten and marred beyond all recognition only to have His Father lay on Him the weight of the sin of the entire human race was not enough anguish and suffering... then--horror of all unfathomable horrors--on top of everything else, His Father turns away from Him.
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
These are words you and I will never utter in truth. We may ask this question in emotion, but it will never represent the truth for us.
The cry of these words from the cross of Calvary represented the one and only true time that any person on this earth has ever known utterly and completely true forsakenness.
So that you wouldn't have to, He was forsaken in your place. God chose to forsake His Son so that He would not have to forsake you. There is no fear in love because God is love, and in Christ, we can never be separated from Him because Someone else already bore that separation, that forsakenness.
If fear represents the eternal separation from God, then love represents the eternal communion with God.
Love triumphed over fear that day, and is whereby triumphing over it every day. You see, the verse says perfect love casts out fear, it does not say perfect love cast out fear. The difference is the tense. And while I'm no biblical scholar and could most definitely be getting this wrong... the tense seems to matter.
To say that perfect love casts out fear is to say that this is an ongoing process. Jesus conquered the power of death, the power of separation, when He went to the cross. But the reality of separation from God is not over for those who do not yet know Him. So to say that perfect love casts out fear means that every day is a new day for someone to walk straight into the arms of his God for the first time and to have all reality of separation cast out forever. Perfect love casts out separation. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Until He returns.
"We love because He first loved us."
The only way you and I can boldly, fiercely, and vulnerably love with abandon is because of this very last phrase. I don't know about you, but one of my biggest fears is rejection. As much as I dreadfully wish against it, I have an underlying terrified fear that my offering of love will be slapped back in my face. So I give in to fear, and I withhold my love. But this... this hope-filling, life-giving phrase shouts to us that we have been given all power to love this world without any regard for a response.... because He loved us first. He's not asking you to take the risk at loving a harsh world that will stomp on your love-- no. There is no true risk here. We are not loving out of our debt, we are loving out of our abundant, overflowing fountain of everlasting, true love. We have the full ability to love because He has already filled up every space and every need we will ever have to be fully loved, fully received, and fully fulfilled by His love.
And yet I still fear.
This verse is ongoing for all of us, because we are still subjected to this lie. Whoever fears has not been perfected in love. This means that my fear is the indication that I have not allowed Love to have His way. To choose Love is to choose Him and to reject the deception of the lie of fear that I am abandoned and separated from my source of life.
One of the most infamous verses in the bible on love is found in 1 Corinthians 13:8--
"Love never fails."
When we did the first part of this study it was a rough road going through the first part of chapter 13 of Corinthians because honestly, love is made up of some pretty difficult stuff. There is a lot of endurance, longsuffering, patience, and perseverance involved. And that stuff hurts. But at the end of the long list of characteristics there is a beautiful reminder between the lines-- "hey, this list is hard and painful and difficult but guess what... Love never fails." The word for fails in the Greek is ekpiptō: "to drop away;
specifically be driven out of one’s
course, to lose, become inefficient: - be cast."
Love never drops away. Love can never be driven out of its course. Love never loses. Love never becomes inefficient. Love is never cast out. Love always wins. Love never fails. Love never ends. Therefore, we can never love in vain. Because love can't ever fail. So love will never not be worth it.
Fear says that Love fails.
Fear says that love ends.
Fear is a lie. Forsakenness is a lie.
Perfect love casts out fear. Fear can never cast out love. For love never fails.
How would our lives look differently if we truly believed that fear is a lie, and Love never fails?
How would our lives look differently if we truly believed that fear is a lie, and Love never fails?
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but
of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
2 Timothy 1:7
2 Timothy 1:7
