What Greek word is in 1 John 4:18; torment, punishment, restraint, trauma, after saying ‘perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with…’ what?

Question

This question is different to a related one, Perfect love that casts out fear vs Fear of God - Are 1 John 4:18 and 2 Corinthians 7:1 talking about different concepts of fear? which seeks contrast with ‘fear’ in that verse and in 2 Cor. 7:1. My question is not about fear, but about the reason why fear remains if perfect love does not obtain. What results from the absence of perfect love? Is it being tormented, punished, restrained, or feeling trauma? That last translation – trauma - I know not from whence it came, as a lady quoted it without saying what translation she had used. But surely trauma comes from something like a road traffic accident, or getting lost up a mountain, with finger-tips having to be chopped off due to gangrene?

This has prompted me to seek clarification of the Greek word used in the text, and what it means. I just want to know the biblical meaning of the word used, and not what modern translators imagine their idea of it means.

I see that the Greek word ‘kolasis’ is in the text (undisputed), as in Matthew 25:46, the wicked going into everlasting punishment, which carries a sense of ‘restraint’ as well as of pruning. God’s punishment of restraint and ‘pruning’ of the wicked would also bring torment, but I seek to know how that would be understood by the living Christians, whom John was addressing, as those who should know God’s perfect love.

Answer 1

In cases like this where a word is used only once or twice in scripture and the meaning is therefore, often, disputed or, more to the point, guessed at, I always turn to my Special American Presentation Edition, 1,700 page 1854 , of Liddel & Scott from which many other lexicons have taken a substantial portion of their substance (albeit in truncated form).

• Kolaptw is the word for a stone mason striking at a stone to hew a piece off.

• Kolasis is a pruning and (attributed to Threophrastus) therefore chastisement or punishment. Used in 1 John 4:18 and Matthew 25:46.

• Kolasterios is a place of chastisement or an instrument of torture.

• Kolastes is a chastiser or a punisher

This is what fear does, if it does not find relief. Experience teaches that, in regard to religious fear, there is no bound or end to the sensation if it does not receive some kind of intelligent awareness that there is some other influence that can assuage the deep-seated reason for the fear.

From experience, I would agree with the KJV and say that 'torment' is ideally suited to the text.

'Twas grace that caused my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved...' as says John Newton in 'Amazing Grace'.

The psalms abound in similar statements wherein it becomes clear that a godly fear is that which results in a godly conclusion and a release from all fear in the knowledge of the lovingkindnesses of God.

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.

Left to itself, without respite or resolution, yes indeed, fear hath torment, in this life and, if no valid and righteous resolution is discovered in one's own experience then, in that which is to come, the torment will be unabated . . . .

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. Matthew 25:46 KJV

Answer 2

For what it is worth, here is my translation of the Greek of 1 John 4:18 which should never be divorced from the explanatory previous text and that following -

V16: And we have now come to know and believe the love that God has to us. God is love, and the [one] abiding in [that] love abides in God and God abides in him.

V17: In this [way] love has been completed with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgement, because just as He is, we are also in this world.

V18: There is no fear in love, but complete love casts out fear, because fear has punishment; but the one fearing has not been completed in love.

V19: We love because He first loved us

Note that answer to the OP's question is actually contained in V16 & 17; ie, we love God and believe that He abides in us and we in Him. In this way, love is completed and the fear of punishment is removed that the wicked have. That is, loving and abiding in God is the guarantee of an eternal life with Christ on the basis of love and God's grace.

The punishment, on the basis of comparison with Matt 25:46 and the explicit mention of "the day of judgement" (1 John 4;17) is clearly discussing the punishment of the great final judgement.

Note the important concept of "complete" love - it is well-known that God loves all people, but not all people love God. Thus, when God's love remains unrequited (not returned and not completed) the person is necessarily doomed to eternal punishment.

However, when a person completes God's love by loving God in return for God's love (see V19) then love is completed and the person abides in God and God abides in that person and any fear of eternal punishment is banished.

Rather simple actually.

APPENDIX - Love is the basis of all obedience.

Note the following repeated commands upon which John's instruction in 1 John 4 is based:

• Deut 5:10 - but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
• Deut 6:4, 5 - Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
• Deut 11:1 - You shall therefore love the LORD your God and always keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments.
• Deut 11:13 - So if you carefully obey the commandments I am giving you today, to love the LORD your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul,
• Deut 11:22 - For if you carefully keep all these commandments I am giving you to follow—to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him
• Deut 13:3 - you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul
• Deut 19:9 - because you carefully follow all these laws I command you today— to love the LORD your God and to walk always in obedience to him—then you are to set aside three more cities.
• Deut 30:6 - And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
• Deut 30:16 - For I am commanding you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, statutes, and ordinances, so Biblical Theology Page 38 that you may live and increase, and the LORD your God may bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.
• Deut 30:20 - and that you may love the LORD your God, obey Him, and hold fast to Him. For He is your life, and He will prolong your life in the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
• Josh 22:5 - But be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you: to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, to hold fast to Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
• Josh 23:11 - So be very careful to love the LORD your God.
• Matt 22:36-40 - “Teacher, which commandment is the greatest in the Law?” Jesus declared, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
• John 14:15 - If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
• John 15:10 - If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
• 1 Cor 13:8-10 - Be indebted to no one, except to one another in love. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and any other commandments, are summed up in this one decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.