1 John 4:17 - Meaning and Application

The apostle has already urged holy love from the great pattern and motive of it, the love that is in God himself. He now presses it further with other reasons, and he speaks of both parts of it, love to God and love to our brother, that is, our fellow Christian neighbor.

Love to God is love to the first and highest of all lovely beings. In him all beauty, excellence, and goodness meet, and from him every other good thing receives whatever makes it lovely. John says this love is recommended for several reasons.

First, it gives peace and steady comfort on the day when we will need it most, the day of judgment. “In this, love is made complete, so that we may have boldness in the day of judgment” (1 John 4:17). There must be a day when all people are judged. Happy are those who will stand before the Judge with holy confidence, able to lift up their heads because they know him as their friend and advocate. Happy are those who already look for that day with faith and hope.

Those who love God can have that confidence, because their love to him assures them of his love to them, and so also of the friendship of his Son. The more we love a friend, especially when we know he knows it, the more we trust his love. Since God is good, loving, and faithful to his promise, we can trust his love and the good fruit that comes from it when we can say, “Lord, you know all things. You know that we love you.” Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).

This may mean either our love for God, or our sense of his love for us. In either case, the two belong together. If we truly know and feel his love for us, that very love stirs up love for him in our hearts. Then we gain confidence before him, with peace and joy in him. He will give the crown of righteousness to all who love his appearing.

We also have boldness toward Christ because we are becoming like him. “As he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). Love has shaped us into his likeness. As he was the great lover of God and man, he teaches us, in our measure, to be the same. He will not reject his own image. Love also teaches us to share in his sufferings. We suffer for him and with him, and so we may rightly hope that we will also be glorified with him (2 Timothy 2:12).

Second, love removes the harsh effects of servile fear, that is, fear born from guilt and dread of punishment. “There is no fear in love” (1 John 4:18). As love grows strong, fear fades. Here we should distinguish between reverent fear of God and being afraid of him. Reverent fear is part of true religion (1 Peter 2:17; Revelation 14:7). It means deep respect for God and his rule, and it is fully consistent with love.

But there is also a fearful dread that comes from guilt and from seeing God as a judge against sin. In that sense, love drives out dread. Love sees God as good, excellent, and worthy to be loved. It sees him as most good and as most loving to us in Christ. So love replaces dread with joy. As love grows, joy grows too. “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

Those who truly love God are fully assured, from his nature, his purpose, and his covenant, of his love for them. So they are free from dark and terrifying suspicions of his justice and power as if those were set against them. They know that God loves them, and they rejoice in that love. John argues this plainly: what drives out torment also drives out fear, because “fear has to do with punishment” (1 John 4:18). Fear is a troubling and painful feeling, especially when it is the dread of an all-powerful, avenging God. But perfect love brings the heart to full rest in the one it loves, and so it casts out fear.

Or, in the same sense, “the one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). Many doubts, fears, and dark thoughts about God show that our love is still far from complete. Let us long for, and move toward, the world of perfect love, where our peace and joy in God will be as complete as our love.

Third, our love comes from God’s prior love. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). His love is the reason and cause of ours. We cannot help loving such a good God, who loved us first when we were unwilling and unlovely, and who loved us so greatly that he sought our love at the cost of his Son’s blood. He even stooped to plead with us to be reconciled to him. Let heaven and earth be amazed at such love.

His love is also the power that produces ours. “Of his own will he brought us forth,” meaning he gave us new life by his free and loving choice. For those who love him, all things work together for good, for they are the ones called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). Those who love God are called to that love in keeping with his purpose. He first planned to shape them into the image of his Son, and then he effectively called them into that life. God’s love has stamped love on our souls. May the Lord keep guiding our hearts more and more into the love of God (2 Thessalonians 3:5).

John then turns to love for our brother and fellow Christian neighbor. This love is fitting and necessary because it agrees with our Christian profession. In professing Christianity, we say that we love God, the root of religion. But if someone says he loves God and yet hates his brother, whom he should love for God’s sake, he is lying (1 John 4:20). He gives his own profession the lie.

The apostle proves that such a person does not love God by a common truth, that people easily love what they can see more than what they cannot see. “Whoever does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).

What we see with our eyes usually affects our hearts more deeply. Things we cannot see are harder to notice, and so they often feel less close to us. One reason people find it hard to understand God is that he is invisible. But in Christ’s people, much of God’s likeness can be seen. So how can someone hate a visible image of God, and still claim to love God, the invisible original?

This also fits God’s clear command and the good sense of it: “This commandment we have from him, that the one who loves God must love his brother also” (1 John 4:21). Just as God has shared his likeness in both nature and grace, he wants our love to spread in a fitting way. We must love God first and above all, and we must love others in him, because they come from him and belong to him.

Our fellow Christians have a new nature and precious gifts from God. God also has an interest in them, just as he has in us. So it is only right that anyone who loves God should also love his brother.