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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - 1 John 4:18 - 4:18
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Fear has no place in love. Bold confidence (1Jo 4:17), based on love, cannot coexist with fear. Love, which, when perfected, gives bold confidence, casts out fear (compare Heb 2:14, Heb 2:15). The design of Christ’s propitiatory death was to deliver from this bondage of fear.
but - “nay” [Alford].
fear hath torment - Greek, “punishment.” Fear is always revolving in the mind the punishment deserved [Estius]. Fear, by anticipating punishment (through consciousness of deserving it), has it even now, that is, the foretaste of it. Perfect love is incompatible with such a self-punishing fear. Godly fear of offending God is quite distinct from slavish fear of consciously deserved punishment. The latter fear is natural to us all until love casts it out. “Men’s states vary: one is without fear and love; another, with fear without love; another, with fear and love; another, without fear with love” [Bengel].