4. Perfect love rests on the bosom of Christ, and looks forward to the day of judgment without apprehension. That is the particular thought which this text enshrines. Love God, and fear not, the Apostle seems to say, for now we know to what incon- ceivable lengths God's love for us has gone. The crown and perfect work of our love of God is shown in thii'. that it enables us to look forward even to the dreadful day of judgment with
* Henry Ward Beecher. I
364 LOVE CASTING OUT FEAR
courage and boldness. The terrors and sufferings which may come upon us here in our mortal life, are light and trifling compared with the horror which must fall upon all things in that closing day of doom. But even of that, the soul which loves and cleaves to God can face the thought, can wait for it with calmness and quiet. For why? Because as He is, so are we in this world. Because we are here on the side of God. Because they who love God are, as God is, on the side of good, of truth, of holiness, which God must and will one day make victorious.
^ Think of St. John himself, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the disciple whose one hope and longing in the world was to see the Kingdom of his Master, and to rejoice with Him in glory, whom he had loved in the bitter day of defeat and shame. He was the disciple who felt his whole heart beat with the heart of his Master ; who knew that what Jesus Christ loved, he loved too ; that what Jesus Christ worked for, he himself was ready to die for ; that what Jesus Christ counted sin and abomination, that he himself loathed as an accursed thing. He felt that after having known Jesus Christ and His love, all that this world could offer him was not worth a thought; he lived in the mind of Jesus Christ about eternity and the things of time, and felt that all the greatness, and glory, and beauty of this world was only that which his Master had despised and trampled on. With what thoughts of things to come would such a man live ? "What would he fear of sorrow, or perplexity, or loss, or pain, or death ? What would the worst evils which can visit man be to him who lived in the love of Jesus Christ, on whose bosom he had leaned at supper — who was now at God's right hand ? What to St. John, personally, would be all the woes and plagues which — when in the isle of Patmos he saw the vision of the future — he beheld gathering upon the world of the ungodly ? He might tremble, he might pity, he might weep for others ; but in the earthquake, and pestilence, and storm, and death, what fear for himself? To him the day of judgment was the day of Christ, it was the coming back and appearance of his beloved and departed Lord, the beginning of that kingdom of glory for which he daily waited and daily prayed. Awful as it was, he could have boldness when it came. He was ever abiding in Christ and His love, that, as he says elsewhere, when his Master should appear, he might have confidence, " and not be ashamed before him at his coming." ^
^ R. W. Church, Village Sermons, iii. 262.
I JOHN IV. i8 365
O thou that walkest with nigh hopeless feet Past the one harbour, built for thee and thine,
Doth no stray odour from its table greet, No truant beam from fire or candle shine ?
At his wide door the host doth stand and call;
At every lattice gracious forms invite; Thou seest but a dull-grey, solid wall
In forest sullen with the things of night !
Thou cravest rest, and Eest for thee doth crave, The white sheet folded down, white robe apart.—
Shame, Faithless ! No, I do not mean the grave ! I mean Love's very house and hearth and heart.
The Ray and the Eeflection.
ifij
Literature.
Banks (L. A.), John and his Friends, 152.
Brooks (P.), Tlie Light of the World, 40.
Campbell (E. J.), City Temple Sermons, 122.
Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, v. 342.
„ (J. LL), The Work of Christ, 205. Gibbon (J. M.), The Gospel of Fatherhood, 54. Girdlestone (A. G.), The Way, the Truth, the Life, No. 6. Gregory (B.), Perfect in Christ Jesus, 104.
„ (J. K.), Scripture Truths made Simple, 64. Howatt (J. E.), The Children's Angel, 14. lUingwortli (J. E.), University and Cathedral Sermons, 87. Jeffrey (R. T.), Visits to Calvary, 347. Jones (T.), The Divine Order, 226. Kingsley (C.), All Saints Day Sermons, 151, Lewis (F. W.), The Unseen Life, 51. Maclaren (A.), Sermons, ii. 216.
„ „ Triumphant Certainties, 305.
Mayor (J. E. B.), Twelve Cambridge Sermons, 117. Paget (F.), The Redemption of War, 58. Pusey (E. B.), Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, 439. Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xvii. (1871) 481 ; xxii.
(1876) 337 ; xlvii. (1901) 265. Stockdale (F. B.), Divine Opportunity, 40. Temple (F.), Sermons Preached in Rugby School Chapel, iii. 57. Thomas (J.), The Dynamic of the Cross, 52. Vaughan (J.), Sermons, 1st Ser. (1869), 227.