Agape love doesn’t cover up fear—it removes the reason we’re afraid.

Let’s talk about fear and Agape love, how they relate to each other. Weird combo, but hear me out. If you’ve never heard of Agape love it is defined in 1 Cor 13. Strongs concordance calls it affection, benevolence, charity. 

We see the combo of love and fear in a wonderful promise in the Bible, 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.”

I don’t know about you, but I have been tormented by my fears and I’ve avoided things that are scary. Just recently I missed out on a fun camping trip because I was scared of bad weather and narrow off roads. I tormented myself that “I should not fear anything because I’m a therapist and I should just “pull myself together” but I am human too.

While love brings images of warmth, fear is not the most comfortable emotion. It can range from butterflies to terror. We often avoid fear by withdrawing from, or avoiding entirely, scary or potentially scary situations. Yet, scripture also tells us to fear God, that fearing God is the beginning of wisdom. Psalms 111:10, NKJV “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments. His praise endures forever.”  

Going back to 1 John 4 in verse 16 it says God is love then in verse 18, it says love casts out fear. Some explain this apparent discrepancy by redefining this “Biblical” fear of God as respect, or awe, and that may be a valid point. But I think there is more, in fact I would say these verses don’t disagree at all but rather support each other. 

Looking at 1 John 4, the Bible explains the context of the kind of fear “love casts out” in verse 17 it talks about the judgement. NLT says “it is for fear of punishment”. This is the fear we have because we made a mistake or even willfully done something wrong and we’re going to get in trouble for it. That is the kind of fear love drives out. First, love drives out this fear because God is love (verse 16) and not out to get us or hurt us. Secondly, love drives away the fear of punishment itself. With faith we are saved by His grace thus we will not be punished. Doesn’t that line up perfectly with “follow His precepts” from Psalm 111:10? I think of this as the circle of obedience. When we obey, we learn more about God and His love, and the more we love and embrace God’s love, we naturally obey more (become more like Christ) and so on, until it is part of who we are. He writes His law, His character on our hearts. 

We could take a side tangent, since we are commanded to love others as well. Would you agree others shouldn’t fear us? People in our lives won’t fear we will retaliate, get bitter, be manipulative, force our opinion, be critical, etc etc. If we have that pure agape love from God because we won’t do these things. But let’s stay on topic.

Love doesn’t cast out the emotion of fear by coating us in some kind of warm fuzzy goo. It removes that which IS most fearful, most terrifying, being lost, without love, without God! Let me repeat, love doesn’t protect us from emotion, it changes the circumstances. We go from being lost to being saved.

We don’t want to get it backward. Love will not cast out fear in an individual who is wilfully disregarding God‘s commands. That would put the person in a very dangerous situation of getting further and further from God. Another side tangent, I suppose if you love only yourself it can cast out the fear of doing wrong because you no longer care about God, or anybody else. That’s certainly a possibility if we go too far down the selfish path. That’s why we need Gods law, His character as a mirror so we can see our true state.

God created fear for a reason. It is an alert system that perhaps we are not on the right path. We want to be comfortable, in perfect peace, while on the right path yet glad to be fearful when we get on the wrong one. Of course sometimes we have fear because of lies like, “I’m too far gone”, but God’s love and wisdom can sort those out too! Keep the faith, hold onto Christ even when it’s dark and fearful. And there are other kinds of fear and anxiety this verse is not talking about. This verse is not saying you’ll have no fear whatsoever in any circumstances. That would take it out of context.

Love does not put a little blanket over us and blinders on our face so that we can’t see reality. Rather love changes us so that we can be closer to God and not fear His retribution. God’s perfect love purifies us, which is the work of a lifetime. 

Maybe this sounds grandiose but it is how powerful God’s love is. It is transformative, it re-creates us. May you embrace agape love and no longer fear punishment. May you go from the beginning of wisdom toward the end result of having Christ’s righteousness part of your life.