Meditations Upon 1 John 4:18- Part One
There
is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to
do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
This seminal verse reminds disciples
that God’s unfailing love in Christ is the foundation of the Gospel. In the
fourth Gospel, the evangelist makes the often-quoted declaration, “For God so
loved the world, He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him
shall not perish but have eternal life.” The first half of this verse alludes
to God’s irreversible and irrevocable covenant with humankind that He makes
with Abraham in Genesis. In Christ, God’s establishes a new covenant through
the gift of the Lord’s sacrificial life. At the Last Supper, Jesus foreshadows
His betrayal, crucifixion, death and resurrection as He institutes this
ordinance of remembrance. Christ’s broken body and shed blood are supernatural
gifts that establish the new covenant. Through faith in Christ, anyone
graciously receives admission to the “New Israel,” the church or beloved
community of the eternally redeemed through Christ. They are heirs of all
promises that God makes through Christ. The ultimate promise is the gift of eternal
life to anyone who believes in Christ and His atoning and salvific work.
Implied in this promise is exoneration from perishing in eternity. Because of
the Father’s covenant pledge premised upon His unfailing love for humankind
through the gift of Christ, anyone who believes need not fear “going to hell”
and being timelessly separated from God.
In the seventeenth verse of the third
chapter of the Gospel, John further explains God’s purposes in the gift of
Christ. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but
to save the world through Him.” The objective of the Gospel is sharing God’s
unfailing, redemptive, gracious and transformative love with humankind.
Condemning people to hell is not its cardinal purpose. Commenting to the
beloved community, conceivably filled with second and third generation
disciples, with wisdom borne of his old age and longevity, the beloved apostle
reaffirms love as God’s character and essence. Simply stated, “God is love.”
God demonstrates the pricelessness of His love in Christ. Accordingly, the
enduring and eternal gift of Christ’s atoning sacrifice and propitiation
satisfies the collectivity of human sin, offense and transgression against
God’s holy character. Implementing a new covenant that appeases Himself, the
Holy and Heavenly Father through love liberates all disciples from the eternal
threat of hell and daily fear of punishment.
I grew up in the African American
Southern Christian context and community. I attended New Zion African Methodist
Episcopal Church located in Wisacky, South Carolina. The church was nestled
between soybean, corn and cotton fields. This rural hamlet was a microcosm of
the pervasive conservative, evangelical, regional and cultural expression of
American Christianity that acquiesces biblical inerrancy and literalism and
conservative sociopolitical and economic ideology. My childhood years witnessed
the ascendancy of the “Gospel of Wealth and Health.” Still, a fundamentalist
canopy hovered above regional religion, social interactions and relationships and
public policy decision making. Removal of prayers in the public schools was met
with utter disdain. Allusions to the Bible permeated public discourse.
Political speeches faithfully invoked the name and will of God. Interestingly,
a former Governor, Richard W. Riley, during an unrelenting drought punctuated
with no rain and a daily heat index exceeding one hundred and five degrees
Fahrenheit in the first two weeks of July 1986, asked the clergy of South
Carolina to pray for rain. The citizens of the state favorably received that
overtly religious appeal from their chief executive. Some of them, when
interviewed, pledged to incorporate a petition for rain into their own prayers.
Religion infused all dimensions of daily living whether socially or personally.
I recall reading numerous articles in The
Sumter Daily Item about law enforcement seizures, arrests and prosecutions
of makers of moonshine. This underground and alternative market liquor was also
known as “Joy Juice,” “White Lightning,” “Corn Liquor” and “White Whiskey.”
Made in the moonlight to avoid law enforcement raids, this type of alcohol
competed significantly with “legal” and taxed alcoholic beverages sold in
grocery, ABC (Alcohol Beverage Control) and liquor stores. Retrospectively, I
realize that the State of South Carolina prosecuted moonshine makers because
their underground market yielded a considerable loss of tax revenue. One of her
main tactics was to condemn moonshine makers for corroding the moral social
fabric. Preachers and elected officials were vociferous in their contempt about
the moral dangers of allowing moonshine to remain unchecked. Newspaper articles
cited myriad potential dangers to people’s health and quality of life. Sermons
characterized moonshine as “the devil’s brew.” Without question, distilling,
packaging, selling, distributing, sharing, buying and consuming moonshine was
sinful beyond being illegal. On a morally reductionistic level, some preachers
opined, “You can’t get to heaven by drinking moonshine. People who do so will
go to the other place.” Leaders of state
government, law enforcement officials, journalists and clergy cohered in their
moral condemnation of consuming moonshine. Conveniently, they ignored obvious
contradictions about tax collections and “blue laws” prohibiting the sale of
alcohol from midnight on Saturdays until six o’clock in the morning on Mondays
in all venues except ABC stores. Parenthetically, it would be interesting to
see if the state collected data on traffic fatalities and accidents during that
thirty-hour period over the weekend to ascertain whether the “blue laws”
reduced those unfortunate events. Chances were people simply stocked up on
Saturdays in anticipation of Sundays prohibitions. Nonetheless, religion and
moralizing heavily influenced the denunciation of the underground sale and use
of moonshine.
On an individual level, the threat of
hell was used widely as a discipline strategy. Children who engaged in common,
unruly and disruptive behavior, relative to their developmental stage, were
told sternly and humorously, “Boy, you keep acting like that and you’re going
to burn in that fire. People who act the way that you do end up in that fire.
Do you want to be in that fire?” I vividly recall hearing those questions on
multiple occasions during my childhood. They conditioned me and other children
and youth to uncritically accept “hellfire and brimstone” sermons. That motif
flowed through Southern preaching like the Amazon, Nile, Mississippi or Yukon
rivers run through their terrain as a life-giving force. Probably, countless
conversions to Christianity occurred pejoratively as “eternal life insurance.”
Instead of coming to the Lord in response to His incredible love, grace, mercy
and redemption, church goers and adherents to Christianity sought to avoid
eternal damnation and punishment. In
church services, annual revival meetings and radio, television and multimedia
preaching, clergy emphasized the need “to get right with God,” renounce a
sinful life and pledge to live a righteous life worthy of admission to heaven
upon physical expiration.
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