Boldness and Confidence

1 John 4:17 gives the child of God great comfort and courage. When we believe in Christ for salvation, He takes away fears and feelings of emptiness.

Boldness and Confidence

"Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world."

(1 John 4:17)

1 John 4:17 is truly a wonderful text that gives the child of God great comfort and courage. When we believe in Christ for salvation, He takes away fears and feelings of emptiness. Love has been perfected in us. The word translated "perfected" is a perfect passive verb. The perfect tense points to an event in the past but has current and future consequences. Oftentimes when the Bible refers to our salvation, it is in the perfect tense. When we accept Jesus Christ and believe in Him for salvation and forgiveness, we can confidently say we have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. Praise God that we are fully embraced and accepted by God! Ephesians 1:6 says we are "accepted in the Beloved."

There are two ways that reveal that love has been perfected in us: one has to do with the future, and the other has to do with the present. First, we will have boldness on the Day of Judgment. Every person who ever lived will have to face God in judgment. All unbelievers will appear before the Great White Throne of judgment mentioned in Revelation 20:11-15. Those who rejected God's offer of forgiveness will be cast into the lake of fire to suffer everlasting torment. How could God do that, you ask? The better question is how can people reject God? Many people believe that they can live as they please and ignore God here on earth. Only those who respond to God's forgiveness while alive on this earth will escape the fire of hell. Those who are saved will appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10), and each person's work will be judged and then rewards will be given (1 Corinthians 3:14). I believe this will happen after the rapture of the church.

Perhaps you are a Christian and you are fearful about the future. References to judgment, rapture, and end times make you uneasy and fearful. Please know and grasp this truth: if you belong to Christ, you need not fear the past, the present, or the future.

John MacArthur tells about a fellow student in college who was terrified of the rapture. So, MacArthur and some of his buddies thought they would cure their friend's fear of the rapture by staging the rapture. (From his sermon, "Why We Should Love One Another.")

"I'll never forget in college, we did a lot of dumb things in college — everybody does in college, but we did dumber things than most of them. And there was this one kid who was afraid of the rapture. He was petrified of the rapture. So, we figured we would pull off a rapture. So, we went down to the sound stage, and we got this great big aluminum sheet that makes thunder noise; and we got a trumpet. And we got a great big, huge press camera with a huge flash. In the middle of-the night, he was asleep in his bunk. And we went in there and the guy with the camera got right over his face. He was sleeping like this. And we hit that aluminum sheet — boingggggg, the thunder and the trumpet blew, and somebody said (deep-voice), 'Come!' And he opened his eyes, and that flash went off and we had everybody from about 4 or 5 rooms around in the dorm leave and make a little cave in their pillows, you know, and their beds tucked and . . . we all hid down in the middle of the hall. He couldn't see anything because of the flash. He came wandering out of there and went into one room and then two rooms and then came screaming down the half. 'I'm left!! I'm left!!' Well, we tried to justify that event as a lesson to teach him that such fear was foolish. I'm not too sure we ever got it across."

MacArthur also writes: "We have no more to fear about Jesus' coming as Jesus has to fear about His coming." (Ibid.) John says we can have boldness on the day of judgment.