Verse 18
18. No fear in love They are contrary affections. So far as love is perfected so far is fear dispersed. So Bengel strikingly gives the grades of our moral state: “Without fear or love; with fear, but without love: with both love and fear; with love without fear.”
Casteth out The stronger and better affection expels the weaker and the worse.
Fear hath torment And this shows that the exclusion of the apostle’s fear is not the exclusion of that reverential fear which “is the beginning of wisdom.”
Torment Sense of guilt and dread of penalty.
Feareth The dread of penalty arising from conscious guilt shows us to be not perfect in love. We have here, then, something of a subjective measure of what is sometimes called “Christian perfection.” When there exists within our hearts the consciousness of the full divine acceptance, so complete that we have no fear at the thought of meeting him at judgment, we may trust that our love is perfected. The maintenance of this consciousness, sustained and justified by the external life, is the highest aim of life.
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