God's Needle and Thread

1st 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."

The word John uses for fear is "phobos" … (to be put in fear); alarm or fright: to be afraid, be in terror.  By John saying there is no fear … he is literally saying … "fear is not; fear has no existence."  In reality, fear is like darkness, it is nothing.  As darkness is the absence of light, fear is the absence of that perfect love or complete trust in God.

"Fear hath torment" … the word torment in this verse is a faulty translation.  The word is "kolasis" and means … "infliction" or punishment causing pain or damage.

Note the present tense, hath, which means it "possesses in the present."  The punishment is present in the fear.  Fear … by anticipating punishment, has it even now.  The phrase hath torment indicates that the punishment is inherent in the fear.  Fear carries its own punishment.  Fear itself is the "torment." 

Commenting on the main point of this verse, "perfect love casts out fear," meaning ... the expulsion of fear by love ... Augustine, (the early Christian theologian from the 4th century) presents a new thought when he suggests this idea …

"As in sewing, we see the thread passed through (the cloth) by the needle. The needle is first pushed in, but the thread cannot be introduced until the needle is brought out. So fear first occupies the mind, but does not remain permanently, because it entered for the purpose of introducing love."

We are the cloth.  The needle is fear.  The thread is God's perfect love.  We cannot know God's perfect love unless fear is introduced into our lives.  Only then can we see and fully understand the perfect love God has for us. 

It's His love that expels any torment fear has brought to our lives.

The Amplified reads this way ... "There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror!  For fear brings with it the thought of punishment, and [so] he who is afraid has not reached the full maturity of love [is not yet grown into love's complete perfection]."

We must each decide for ourselves if God can or does indeed use fear as a needle to introduce that perfect love into our lives.  I believe the Apostle Paul does allude to this thought in Ephesians 1:11, when he writes that it is God ... "who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will."

Including a needle and thread?

Romans 7:7 ... "I had not known sin, but by the law."  Paul states that God introduced "the Law" into the world to show us what sin is.  So why can it not be the same way with fear and love?

Is there another way we can know the difference between the torment of fear, and the opposite ... the complete, perfect love of God, unless we have experienced both?

I have no problem with the example Augustine uses.

God's plan is always perfect.



Comments are welcome.