Set Free from Fear of Punishment
1 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.
Most Christians misunderstand the verse above, with a little help from the King James translators. The way it is worded above, it sounds like it is saying, “Fear is a real bummer – if you’re in it, you’ll be tormented!” But the Greek word translated torment does not actually mean agony – the word actually means punishment. In other words, fear has to do with punishment. Most modern translations (not the King James or NKJV) recognize this and word it accordingly using the word punishment, and explain that fear involves, or has to do with, punishment.
I believe that the point John makes in this verse is that if you are going around fearing God’s punishment, you do not really comprehend His love for you yet.
God loves you! He is not interested in punishing you – He punished Jesus so that He would NOT have to punish you.
Yet many Christians cringe before God thinking that He is out to get them. If anything bad, like sickness, comes along, they assume that God is punishing them for some sin that they committed. But if that were true, what use was it for Him to punish Jesus for that sin? If you’re just going to “get what’s coming to you” anyway, the cross was a waste of time and you should burn in hell. Thank God for His mercy that spares us the punishment we deserve!
But God is just, so doesn’t that mean He HAS to do something to you if you sin? NO! He is just, and the justifier of the person who believes in Jesus (Romans 3:26). It is JUST for Him to count your sins as paid for because Jesus already paid off your debt. No JUST judge would force you to pay a huge credit card bill if a nice benefactor had already come along and paid off that bill for you. Making you pay wouldn’t be just at all because a single charge doesn’t have to be paid twice. Likewise, there is no need for your sin debt to be paid twice, because Jesus already paid it. So sickness is NOT a case of God making you pay up for your sins when you have received His Son who already made all your payments on your behalf.
Once you see how much God loves you, you realize that you do not need to fear His wrath. God has not appointed you to wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:9) – Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Note: That isn’t a typo. The King James says delivered, but the Greek verb is actually in the present tense, i.e., delivers.) The wrath of God did not pass away with the end of the Old Covenant; a quick look at the book of Revelation should be enough to prove that. Jesus did not eternally pacify the wrath of God or stop it from coming in the future upon mankind, but His sacrifice removed the wrath of God from believers forever. As a believer, you do not have to be bound by fear that God is going to do something horrible to you because you did something wrong. You need to believe in His love for you, and in His Word that declares you blameless in His sight.
I am well aware that some people take that last thought to an unreasonable extreme and reason that because they are blameless in God’s sight, they can sleep around and bar-hop with no consequences. After all, if God is not recording their sins in heaven now, what difference does it make? Well, for starters, fornicators don’t enter the kingdom of God, so if someone really thinks he can fornicate with no regrets, that person is not a believer at all, even if he used to be one. Besides, sin exacts a penalty in this life, and the cross has NOT delivered you from paying certain consequences for sin. Proverbs warns that you will have a reproach that cannot be blotted out if you commit adultery. (Proverbs 6:33 says “A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away.”) That doesn’t mean that adultery is an unpardonable sin that the blood of Jesus could not wash away, but it does mean that your reproach in this life among mankind will not be wiped away. It will be a permanent stain on your record and will cost you opportunities you might otherwise have. Sin always costs you something in this life, so you want to avoid it at all costs! The cross of Calvary did not make sin any less deadly than it ever was; it gave you victory OVER sin so that it can’t dominate you anymore unless you willingly yield yourself to it.
However, as a believer, God still deals with you as He would deal with Jesus – another blameless person. The only difference is that God never needed to correct Jesus, but He will correct you if you get into sin. However, he will NEVER condemn you for getting into sin – the devil is the one who condemns. There is no condemnation for the Christian (Romans 8:1).
So we will assume that you are a biblically normal Christian who submits himself to Jesus’ lordship. When you sin, you feel bad about it because your conscience convicts you. You need to realize that God loves you as much as ever and that He stands by ready to help you overcome that sin. He is FOR You, not AGAINST you (Romans 8:31). He is out to help you, not out to “get” you. You cannot possibly sin your way out of God’s love!
Why is this discussion in a book about healing? Because if you have ANY thought left in your head that your sickness may be God’s way of punishing you, you cannot receive your healing by faith. If God handed you the sickness, how could you ask Him to remove it? You can place yourself, as many do, on a big works treadmill by reasoning that if you just stop a certain sin, God will heal you. But the devil will be sure to point out another sin to you (he is the accuser of the brethren – Revelation 12:10) and tell you that unless you get THAT sin out of your life too, you won’t qualify for healing. In his way of thinking, you will NEVER qualify for healing, and as far as your works go, that is correct. But you do not have to qualify for healing with good works because Jesus qualified you for healing. You – not some future, perfected version of you, but the current, imperfect version of you – are qualified for healing by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that is really good news!
So just receive the healing that Jesus paid for you to have. Don’t think that you have to wait to “get your act together a little more” and then approach God to receive healing. Healing is a mercy, not a merit badge. So “let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).