1 John 4:17

1 John 4:17. "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world." The sense seems to be this - our love is made perfect to give us boldness before Him (that is, before Christ) in another world, even by our being in this world as He is. Like Him in love, then is our love made perfect, when we love one another as He hath loved us. For it is that love that the apostle is speaking of in the preceding verse, "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us," and what that love is that God hath to us. The Apostle said in the preceding verses: 1 John 4:9; 1 John 4:10, - viz., God's sending His Son into the world to die for us - and then says, verse 11, "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another;" that is, we ought to love one another as God hath loved us, and as Christ hath loved us, and so we shall be as He was, and hereby we shall have assurance, as it follows, 1 John 4:13, "Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit," - made us to be of the same temper with Himself; and then the Apostle, in verses 14 and 16, further insists on the love of God to us in giving His Son; and in the 17th verse, repeatedly mentions our conformity to Him in this love as what will give assurance, and observes particularly by this it will give boldness at the day of judgment, when we appear before Christ, that in this world we have been like Him, and behaved ourselves as He behaved Himself in the world.

Jude

Jude 9