4:18a

There is no fear: (Event Idea) Here John uses a noun, fear, to express the idea of being afraid. The rest of the verse makes it clear that he is talking about being afraid of God, so if the verb “fear” requires an object in your language, “God” can be made explicit here.

in love: (Event Idea) Again a noun, love, is used to express an event idea, “loving.” Here it probably means “when God loves someone/us.”

4:18b–c

perfect love drives out fear: (Metaphor) This clause repeats the meaning of the previous one, using the metaphor of someone expelling an enemy from a place. For a restatement of this clause without the metaphor see the Display.

4:18d

fear involves punishment: (Alternative Interpretations) There are two views of what this means:

(1) It probably means “the reason why people are afraid of God is that they know he will punish them on the day of judgement.” (The Jerusalem Bible, Living Bible)

(2) Some think it means “when someone is afraid of God he is causing himself to suffer just as if God was punishing him.” (New English Bible, Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English)

4:18e

who fears: (Lexical Problem) Again the implied object of this verb is God.

4:18f

been perfected in love: (Meaning) This means the same as “love has been perfected” in 4:17a and “love is perfected” in 4:12c. See the note on 4:12c.

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All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.