Day of Judgment
19. Confidence for the Day of Judgment (1 John 4:17)
My friends, you remember that I still have the last part of John's letter to expound to you, as the Lord gives me the grace. I haven't forgotten my debt, and you shouldn't forget to claim it. The love that is the main and almost the sole subject of this letter makes me faithful in acknowledging my debt, and you kind and gentle in claiming it. Where love is lacking demands are bitter, but when it is present they are welcome. And even though the one on whom they are made has to undertake some labor, still love makes this work light and almost nothing. Don't we see the same thing in dumb and irrational animals? Their love isn't spiritual; it's carnal and natural. Yet we see how insistently the young claim their milk from their mother's breasts. The sucklings may treat their mother roughly, but she likes this better than if they don't suck, if they don't claim what love owes them. Don't we often see a half-grown calf butt its mother's udder with its head and almost lift her off the ground? Yet it's not kicked away. On the contrary, if the young one isn't there to suck, the mother lows to it to come. The Apostle says of spiritual love, "I became little among you, like a nurse cherishing her children." If this love is in me, then I love you when you claim your due. But those who are lazy I don't love, because I am afraid for them.
In this is love perfected in us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world. John is telling us how each one of us may test love's progress in us; or rather, our progress in love. For if God is love, and if God
88 / LOVEONE ANOTHER, MY FRIENDS knows neither progress nor decline, then we say that love is making progress in you only to the extent that you are making progress in love. Ask, then, how you are progressing in love, and to learn the measure of your progress, listen to what your heart replies.
John promised to show us how we may know this when he said, In this is love perfected in us. Ask him, In what? That we may have confidence for the day of judgment. Love is perfected in the person who has confidence for the day of judgment. And what does this mean? It means that we aren't afraid of its coming. There are people who don't believe in a day of judgment; they can't have confidence for a day they don't believe will come. We can leave them aside. May God awaken them to life! I have nothing to say about the dead; they neither fear nor desire what they don't believe in.
There are others who have begun to believe in a day of judgment, and with their belief comes fear. Because they are afraid, they don't yet have confidence for the day of judgment, and love isn't yet perfect in them. But they mustn't lose hope. If someone's made a beginning, why despair of the end? But what is the beginning I see? It's fear. Listen to Scripture: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." People who've begun to fear the day of judgment must amend themselves in their fear. They must keep watch against their enemies, their sins. They must begin to renew the life within them and to mortify their "members which are on earth," as the Apostle tells us. By the *members which are on earth" he means "the spiritual hosts of wickedness" as he explains, naming greediness and impurity and others. Now the more those who've begun to fear the day of judgment mortify their members which are on earth, the more their heavenly members rise and gain strength. These heavenly members are all the different kinds of good works, and as their heavenly members rise up they begin to desire what they once feared. They were afraid that Christ would come and find them godless people, whom he'd condemn; now they are eager for his
CONFIDENCE FOR THE DAY OFJUDGMENT / 89 coming, because he'll find holy people, whom he'll crown! When their chaste souls have begun to long for Christ's coming and for their Bridegroom's embrace, they renounce all adulterous loves. Faith, hope, and love make them inwardly virgin. Now they have confidence for the day of judgment. They experience no inner conflict when they pray, "thy kingdom come!" Those who fear the coming of God's kingdom are afraid this prayer will be heard. But how can people be said to pray who are afraid that their prayer will be heard? Those who pray with the confidence of love now truly desire that the kingdom will come. It was with this desire that the psalmist said, "'And you, O Lord, how long? Turn, Lord, and deliver my soul." He was distressed that it was delayed. There are people who die with patience; and there are some, those who are perfect, who live with patience.
Let me explain what I mean by this. Those who still want this life patiently endure the day of death when it comes. They struggle against themselves in order to follow God's will, and to act according to God's choice and not their human will. But their desire for this present life causes them to struggle with death, and it takes patience and fortitude for them to die with an untroubled spirit. These people die patiently. But those who desire, as the Apostle says, "to depart and be with Christ" don't die with patience, they live with patience and die with delight. Look at the Apostle, not loving life here but bearing it with patience: '"To depart," he says, *and be with Christ is far better; but to remain in the flesh is necessary on your account."
So, my friends, set to work and train yourselves to desire the day of judgment. Your only proof of perfect love is that you've begun to long for this day. To long for it is to have confidence for it, and to have confidence for it means that your conscience in its perfect and sincere love feels no alarm.
In this is love perfected in us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment. Why will we have confidence? Because as he is, John says, so are we in this world. Do you think he's said something impossible? Can a human being be as God is? I've already explained that as doesn't always signify equality but sometimes only a certain likeness. For example, as you have two ears so has your image; the two cases are not the same, but you still say as. Thus because we were made in God's image we are *'as" God; that is we are not his equals, but we are like him according to our measure.
Then where does our confidence for the day of judgment come from? Because as he is so are we in this world. We must understand this in reference to love. The Lord says in the gospel, "If you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?" What does he want us to do, then? "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." If he's commanding us to love our enemies, what example does he give us? It's God himself: *So that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven." And what does God do? He loves his enemies: He makes his sun rise on the good and on the wicked, and sends his rain on the just and on the unjust." And so the perfection God calls us to is to love our enemies as he loves his own, and our confidence for the day of judgment is because as he is so are we in this world. As he loves his enemies, making his sun to rise on the good and the wicked and sending his rain on the just and the unjust, so, even though we can't give sun and rain to our enemies, we can give them our tears when we pray for them.