What Is Perfect Love and the Fear That It Casts Out in 1 John 4:18?

You can find a pretty horrific description of the pain and suffering of the coronavirus.  You can read the mounting deaths and see the graph of the steep upward curve of infections.  You can hear about the precipitous drop in employment and your retirement investment.  You could be afraid because of such information.  The Apostle John writes in 1 John 4:18:

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

You can apply 1 John 4:18 to the coronavirus, but not like most are doing it, who are using it right now.

Your parents hate your rock music, your alcohol, your immodest dress, your carnal or worldly entertainment, your love for the world system, your foul language, and your disobedience to scripture.  You might be afraid of that reality.  You read 1 John 4:18 and it takes away your fear of that.  You think you are relying on scripture to go ahead with your music, alcohol, immodest dress, carnal or worldly entertainment, love for the world system, your foul language, and your disobedience to scripture with fear of your parents's judgment.  That is a terrible perversion of 1 John 4:18 and just the opposite of what it means.  You are twisting it or listening to others twist it.  Just because you can plug in "love" and "fear" into a statement doesn't mean 1 John 4:18 applies to it.

"Perfect" is something that is "perfected."  This relates to the doctrine of sanctification.  "Perfect" translates teleios, an adjective modifying "love," and "made perfect" translates the verb teleiao, both related words.  The verb means "to bring to an end."  The "end" is the purpose for God, which is represented by the actual end of your life, when you see God.  The previous verse (v. 17) says:

Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

When a true believer's love is made perfect, it is made like Jesus' love -- His love for whom?  This is Jesus' love for the Father, God, and for men.  This is loving God and your neighbor.  This is not God's love for you.  This is your love for Him and others.  A true believer's love will reach the purpose God has, which is a love conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

True believers are as Jesus is in the world, loving like Jesus loves, so that they can have confidence or boldness as they look forward to the day of judgment.  Love made perfect is love that continues to abound through sanctification, which occurs to all saved people.  They have peace as they see this love growing in their lives.  This is obviously holy love.  It contradicts rock music, alcohol, immodest dress, carnal or worldly entertainment, love for the world system, foul language, and disobedience to scripture.  These are unsaved people.

The way 1 John 4:18 is being used by those corrupting scripture is that they're covered by God, His "perfect" love for them, so that even though their love for God and others isn't being perfected by God, they have their anxieties removed by just thinking about this unconditional love of God for them or just preaching the gospel to themselves.  They are becoming more and more worldly by thinking about how that God just covers for everything they are doing.  Jesus died for them and now they have His righteousness and are all set for the day of judgment. This is just the opposite of what John is writing.  The righteousness Jesus imputes to a believer results in the believer living a righteous life.  He doesn't impute practical righteousness.  The believer has to live that.

The fear is taken away from a believer by his love being perfected.  God's love doesn't need to be perfected.  He's already perfect.  A person without his love being perfected should be afraid.  He should have massive anxiety.  He should be very very afraid.  He's going to Hell.

Love that is perfected is what casts out fear.  Why?  People who are loving God and loving others actually are saved.  They are saved people.  People who love the world (1 John 2:15-17), the love of the Father is not in them, so they do not possess perfected love.  They have every reason to be afraid.  If they are not afraid, it's because they are telling themselves this lie that everything is covered for them because of Jesus' perfect love for them.  They are not covered by Jesus love, because they are not saved.  People who are saved will have their love perfected by God.

What about the fear of the coronavirus?

Lauren Daigle, a "CCM pop star" thinks of the perfect love of Jesus and that takes away her anxiety.  The "perfect love" isn't Jesus' love for her.  The "perfect love" of 1 John 4:18 should be her love that is perfected by her keeping the Word of God.  She is not perfecting her love by giving out a twisted interpretation of scripture.  Others are not perfecting their love by retweeting her post to encourage others to get the same false interpretation.  It doesn't mean what she says it means.  Look at a few verses later in 1 John 5:1-2:

1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

Whoever loves God also loves "him that is begotten of him," that is, believers (this would include believing parents).  How do you know that you love children of God, that is, have love that is being perfected?  It is when you love God and keep his commandments.  Binge watching Game of Thrones, drinking alcohol, listening to rock music with foul language, and using foul language are actually all breaking God's commandments and, therefore, not loving the children of God.  This is a person who does not love God and should fear the day of judgment.  He should fear the coronavirus.  If he dies in this state, he will be sent to Hell. He is an unbeliever.  The twisting of scripture is like 2 Peter 3:16:

[The] unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

He twists scripture to justify his sin, and he does that to his own destruction.  Some of these same young people will say that they are growing close to God, feel the love of God more, and have grown more than ever in their life, which results in the actual massacring of the Word of God and perverting the love of God.  Does that sound like Christian growth?  This is not growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (two verses later, 2 Peter 3:18).

Daigle's wresting of 1 John 4:18 gives faux peace.  It doesn't help people to give them the wrong meaning of a passage, to take a little phrase out of context.  Maybe someone fed it to her.  It shows you how untrustworthy it is to rely on a "singer" to get your theology.  People who are not saved shouldn't be given a counterfeit peace.  They need the pain of conviction.  They need fear of judgment.  This works toward obtaining real peace, not an impostor or placebo peace.

A right view of 1 John 4:18 could give you peace about the coronavirus.  You could see the sanctifying work of God in your life, as your love is perfected, and that would give you peace about your final judgment.  That's not how Daigle uses it and many other millennials.  In fact, that usage creates a great danger of future judgment for these people.  They have a false sense of security.  It's not a perfected love for God and others, but actually a love for themselves, where they feel good personally even though they are in dire danger.  They confuse this feeling of well being with the love of God for them.  It isn't.  It's the opposite.

The wrong view of 1 John 4:18 anesthetizes counterfeit believers against true belief.  They think they're all set for judgment.  They can live in their sin and not have a feeling of conviction because they have embraced an impostor sanctification that wards away the real thing.  They think they're saved, when they really are not.  As Jesus said, they are twice the children of Hell that they once were.  Their continued lack of repentance and lack of actual perfected love is tell-tale in this.