In his first epistle, the Apostle John has a lot to say about our relationship with God, which he describes as a relationship based on love, specifically God’s love for us.  He writes that “we love him because he first loved us.” Our love for God, therefore, is merely a response to his love for us, because, as John says, he loved us first. Furthermore, the Apostle Paul tells us that God loved us while we were sinners, highlighting the fact that his love for us, and therefore our relationship with him, is not based on our actions or performance, but solely upon his grace.

John makes some remarkable statements about God’s love for us and how it should affect our thinking.  He writes, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.”  The word “love” in this verse specifically means “God’s love for us”. This is made clear by the context – in the previous verses John had written, “we have known and believed the love that God has toward us…” The word “fear” in this verse does not mean generic fear, like the fear of a rattlesnake or a tornado. It specifically means the fear of God’s judgment. This we also know from the context – the previous verse pointedly mentions God’s judgment.

Setting aside the 400-year old language of the King James translation and putting this idea in ordinary speech, John is saying that if we could fully comprehend God’s love for us we would no longer fear him or his judgment.  In fact, when we read that “fear hath torment”, the word translated “torment” literally means “punishment” or “penalty”.  Therefore, the Amplified Translation renders it this way, “Fear brings with it the thought of punishment”.  In other words, fear of God means fear of his punishment, and if we truly understood his love for us, that fear would be cast out – it would cease to exist. John is encouraging us to get rid of the fear of God and replace it with the love of God.

Here is the bottom line, so to speak: God wants us to have a love relationship with him. But it is impossible to have a love relationship with someone you are afraid of.  If we fear God we cannot truly love him because if we fear God, our “love” for him is, in reality, nothing more than a self-centered attempt to avoid or mitigate his punishment. But because God first loved us, even though we deserved his punishment, he instead placed our punishment on Jesus, removing its threat from us forever, leaving us free to respond to his love by loving him in return.