What it really means to Fear the Lord (Part One)
By Jay Wegter
Adapted from The Forgotten Fear of God, by Albert N. Martin, and from Religion
our True Interest, by Thomas Watson
Introduction: the fear of God has been misconstrued in Evangelicalism today as belonging to the old mosaic covenant. And with this errant perception comes the idea that the fear of God is for the dour, the strict, the frowning, and strait-laced. It is sad that this virtue of fearing God has been associated with timidity, groveling, guilt, and uncertainty. For paradoxically so much of the blessings that are desired in Christianity such as peace, joy, delight, sanctification, fruitfulness, knowing and loving God are found within the fear of God!
Protestant pulpits tend to grant a wide berth around this subject of the fear of the Lord. For fearing God cannot be harmonized with consumerism. By avoiding the fear of God, church growth ecclesiastical engineers leave their hearers’ imagined sovereignty undisturbed. Christianity becomes an exercise in utilizing manageable principles heard through a filter of self-improvement. In that scheme God is reduced to a partner in one’s self-development.
This genteel, domesticated god of Evangelical pulpits inspires little reverential fear. For he has been tamed and then enlisted in the parishioner’s cause of personal growth. For decades churchgoers have sat under countless homilies which offer only a domesticated god who is but a useful deity. The biblical fact that God is to be feared resembles an embarrassing family secret that is to be kept under wraps. And when the truth about Him is allowed to get out, it is shrouded in apologies, lest the full weight of this truth traumatizes the hearer.
There are symptoms arising from pulpits dispensing principles but not the true knowledge of God. First, there is a palpable casualness, everything is light, bouncy, comfortable. Church becomes an exercise in the familiar. So why not saunter in wearing cutoffs and flip flops? As one pastor stated, pretend like the sanctuary is your living room (pj’s?). Conversation is polite, but mundane. Few are doing what Spurgeon describes as visiting the soul of the other person. There is little expectation that attendees have come to church to learn what to repent of. The second symptom is equally grievous. Because so few are fearing God, sin is tolerated. Christ’s goal of a pure church all but disappears.
The answer is a return to expositing the whole counsel of God. Proclaim who God is, and why He is to be feared. Stop protecting the carnal sensibilities of the congregation. Let the lukewarm be unnerved, and the hypocrites shocked and devastated. Forsake protecting the consciences from the trembling that God’s holiness induces. Cease hiding the ‘gold’—the fear of God is treasure (Is 33:6).
The church has been afflicted with shallow or still born conversions. A close friend of mine who has a prison ministry recalls how an inmate cried out through his tears, I need to be saved! To be saved from my sin! Now this felon had seen the inside of many courtrooms, but never had God’s courtroom been set up in his soul and conscience. When the Holy Spirit is going to grant the new birth to a person, He first comes as Prosecutor. He is sent to convict of sin and establish a guilty verdict which devastates. This is not merely a general feeling of guilt and danger, but the conviction of specific sins—before the bar of God’s justice. The Spirit of God does not stop there, when He convicts of sin in preparation for salvation, there is the penalty phase of the trial. “I deserve damnation, to be eternally miserable. My sins merit eternal condemnation.”
Only to a person so convicted of sin and guilt does Christ appear exceedingly lovely and beautiful. The gift of the fear of God planted in the soul causes that person to flee into the arms of the Savior; to ‘close with Christ’. How we need to hear the scriptural truth in this matter, the Holy Spirit will not be sent as your Comforter unless He is first sent as your Prosecutor—convincing you that you are a habitual breaker of God’s law.
Systematic training in righteousness and the fear of the Lord is altogether missing today. What has rushed into that remaining vacuum? A century plus of Freudian thought has borne a soul-damning fruit; namely psychology has replaced theology, therapy has replaced repentance, and the love of self has replaced the love of God (2 Tim 3:2). God hasn’t changed, we have. Lust for self-determination and self-definition have run this generation off a cliff like suicidal Lemmings hurling themselves into the sea.
The fear of God is rare today. Like a massive filing system without a folder for the fear of God, modern religion has in the place of fearing God, a domesticated false god, a bellhop, a therapeutic god, who is only benevolent, and certainly not dangerous. To this pervasive error, Christ’s words hit like a lightning bolt. “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28).
I. The fear of God is not a natural fear.
A. Lost persons fear physical danger more than the eternal loss of the soul. The natural man denies God’s justice. “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom 3:18). “Why has the wicked spurned God? He has said to himself, “You will not require it” (Ps 10:13). The natural man is apathetic about God’s threats. He acts as if he possesses an unconquerable soul, and if necessary, can endure God’s judgment and condemnation (Ps 50:16-21; Amos 5:18).
B. Impenitent sinners harden their hearts against the fear of God. Without the fear of God, sinners ‘bribe’ their consciences into false peace. “While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape” (1 Thess 5:3; also 2 Thess 1:7-10).
And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed (Lu 17:27-30).
C. You may be thinking, “Amen, the unchurched folks out there have no fear of God.” But, what about outward religion, what of churchgoers who do not fear God? Countless Protestants have told themselves, Jesus was substituted for sinners, therefore, I am fine. But, to accept a ‘salvation plan’ is not the same as coming to Christ as a guilty helpless sinner. Many who are strangers to the cleansing blood of Christ presume that they are saved—even though they have not repented. They are comfortable with their yoke of sin and self but have never exchanged the yoke of sin for Christ’s yoke. They have a profession of faith, but do not have the fear of God (Jude 3-4).
II. The fear of God is of divine origin and must be planted in the heart and learned.
Defining the fear of God.
A. The fear of God is a holy reverence for God which diligently guards against sin. The basis for the fear of God is this: our Holy God is infinitely opposed to all sin—wrath is His righteous response to transgression (Jer 5:22). And, when His omnipotent sword is unleashed upon the impenitent, finite creature, there is justifiably trembling in terror, horror, and dread. Therefore, only gross willful ignorance of God’s character can explain why sinners are complacent amidst their disobedience and rebellion.
Because we have lost sight of the fear of God, the fact that He is a jealous for all the beams of His glory is a concept that does not compute by
21ˢᵗ Century reasoning. “. . . for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments” (Ex 20:5).
B. We are astounded to hear in Scripture that God is clearing the reputation of His Name in the punishment of sinners. Note the theme phrase in the book of Ezekiel—“Then they will know that I am the LORD; I have not said in vain that I would inflict this disaster on them” (Ezek 6:10). God vindicates the glory of His great Name in the destruction of impenitent sinners who have profaned His Name by their wickedness and hypocrisy. “Those who rule over them howl, and My name is continually blasphemed all day long” (Is 52:5b). “For “THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU,” just as it is written” (Rom 2:24).
C. Why is the fear of God so central in Scripture? If there is no covering for your sin by the merits and blood of Christ, then God has pledged by His holy nature, that you shall be an eternal monument of His pure and righteous wrath. This paralyzing dread of facing God’s vengeance is not the major chord, or dominant theme of the fear of God. The major scriptural use of the fear of God is describing the posture of heart of every true believer. Rather than quaking at anticipated condemnation, the fear of God in a believer is veneration. It is awe, adoration, reverent loyalty so that the greatest fear the person has in life is displeasing and dishonoring God.
D. The fear of God is learned: “Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Who is the man who desires life and loves length of days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it” (Ps 34:11-14). “Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the alien who is in your town, so that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God and be careful to observe all the words of this law” (Deut 31:12). E. It is planted in the heart of a saved person. “They shall be My people, and I will be their God; and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me” (Jer 32:38-40).
Christ is the source of this fear of God implanted! “Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And He will delight in the fear of the Lord” (IS 11:1-3a).
III. No one goes to Heaven unless they fear God.
A. The Scriptures enforce the fear of God. “Give praise to our God, all you His bondservants, you who fear Him, the small and the great” (Rev 19:5). “Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him (Ps 33:8). God is worthy of reverential fear. Reverential fear is the believing response to God. “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil” (Eccl 12:13-14).
B. The fear of God is the foundation of all spiritual wisdom. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov 1:7). ‘Beginning of wisdom and knowledge’ does not simply mean the ‘rudiments of’ but the fact the fear of God is the essence of life—a fountain of life (Prov 14:27). It is the whole posture of a Godward life.
C. Possessing the fear of the Lord is one of the primary types of evidence that a person is saved and knows God.
Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name. “They will be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts, on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. So, you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him (Mal 3:16-18).
IV. The fear of God is mixed with faith and love toward God
A. Those who fear God find satisfaction and contentment in God. The fear of God in believers leads them to submit to Him and not run from Him. “So, the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase” (Act 9:31). “If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared” (Ps 130:3-4) –loved and venerated.
B. Those who fear God serve Him with gratitude. “And He sat down and began teaching the people from the boat. When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’
Simon answered and said, ‘Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; so they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, ‘Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.’ When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him” (Lu 5:3-11).
C. Reverential fear and awe is accompanied by an intense longing to draw near and commune. Both concepts must be in you, or you are not saved. In the Luke 5 account of Peter, we see: run from it, run to it; this is consistent with attachment and love. Crisis, then capture. The crisis part is exemplified by Simon Peter when he said, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” He was expressing an all-consuming sentiment: “I am not fit for you and I to enter into an intimate relationship. You are holy, I am not. This is the sinful creature in the presence of deity: “Something is wrong that we are so close.” In the light of your omniscient holiness, I am exposed. See Isaiah 6. The saving knowledge of God overcomes, devastates, slays then captures—“They left everything and followed Him.” The correct concept of God’s character is designed to produce reverence, fear, awe—dread of sinning against His Person. To fear God is to be possessed by a controlling sense of God’s majesty, holiness, and sovereignty which calls forth reverence. It is to be so staggered by His infinite glory and majesty that you long to walk to please Him.
Jn Brown of Haddington paraphrased: to cherish the awesomeness of God induces in us a compelling mindset, to have His favor is the greatest imaginable blessing, but to have His disfavor is greatest of all evils, miseries, and tragedies.
D. Now that gospel grace is here, is the fear of God primarily an OT virtue? No, our walk, growth, and sanctification are to take place in the context of fearing God. “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor 7:1). “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13). “If you address as
Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth” (1 Pet 1:17). Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard (Heb 4:1-2).
V. God commands all men to fear Him; and to come to Christ and be saved from divine wrath.
A. “And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he said with a loud voice, ‘Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters’” (Rev 14:6-7).
“Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. ‘I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. ‘They will say of Me, ‘Only in the LORD are righteousness and strength’” (Is 45:22-24a).
B. Those who fear God flee to Christ for refuge and safety. “In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us” (Heb 6:17-18).
C. What is God’s holy love? The cross of Christ is what God thinks of sin—a monument to the world that sinners deserve to die under divine wrath. The cross is a stronger statement of God’s hatred of sin than hell. The love of God in the gospel will come to us in a way consistent with His burning holiness. All in our relation to Christ is in a climate of the fear of God. Without the sight of God’s majesty, justice, immensity and holiness, the love we are left with is but sentimentality.
D. Since the first salvation of a sinner, God has always made it clear that He wills to be known by means of the satisfaction of His unchanging standard of righteousness. This satisfaction of perfect righteousness was through the substitute He appoints. From the two lambs slaughtered in Eden, to the Day of Atonement, to ultimately Calvary, God makes Himself known by the absolute satisfaction of His righteousness and justice (Rom 3:24-26). Thus, at the consummation of redemption, the cross of Christ is the revelation of God’s inflexible justice and spotless holiness. God’s love to sinners is so holy, its channel to the sinner must be cut through the heart of the Son of God (Al Martin). Christ’s cry of dereliction and His abandonment by the Father on Calvary’s cross was an act of divine holiness in the judgment of the believer’s sins in his substitute (Ps 22:1-3). The genuine fear of God alone permits us to conceive that the offended God of the universe punishes His only begotten Son in order that He might be true to Himself in the redemption of guilty sinners. That is how His holy love is revealed—through the Person and passion and work of Christ.
VI. The fear of God in practice, from The Forgotten Fear of God
The fear of God is predominant in biblical thought. If you take away the fear of God from any profession of godliness, nothing remains but the stinking carcass of barren religiosity (Mt 23:27-28) (p. 1).
Throughout Scripture the major qualification needed for spiritual leadership is the fear of God. Those who fear God shun evil, they mortify sin, they consistently turn away from it (Deut 4; Job 1:1) (p. 3).
The gospel is intended to teach the nations the fear of God. For the gospel gives the knowledge of God (Jn 17:3). The Lord has pity upon those who fear Him. How central is the fear of God to true religion? There is no genuine claim to salvation without the fear of God (Ps 67:2, 7; Ps 103:11) (pp. 6-7).
As creatures made in His image it is our duty to fear God. The fear of God is His due (Jer 10:7). Yet, the fear of God is not in our nature; it must be learned (Ps 34:11; Prov 2:5; 9:10; 16:6; Eccl 12:13-14; Is 11:1-2; Rom 3:18). The fear of the Lord is the godly man’s delight (Is 11:3) (pp. 8-9).
The new covenant bestows the fear of God. This is inseparable from what it means to know God. The fear of God is new covenant life (Jer 32:38-40) (pp. 10-11). The fear of God contains both the elements of dread and veneration, both fear and awe. The Spirit of God, the Administrator of the new covenant, pours out the fear of God upon His church (Is 8:12-13; Acts 9:31; Heb 10:31) (pp. 13-14). Believers are commanded to be perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Cor 7:1). Holiness only grows in the climate of the fear of God. Believers are to work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12-13). The fear of God is expressed in the way we treat one another, in all our relationships—especially bridling our tongue against slander and churlish talk (Eph 5:21; 1 Pet 1:17-19). Our blood-bought redemption does not negate our obligation to fear God. But rather our salvation makes the fear of God possible and desirable (Neh 7:2; 2 Pet 3:18; Rev 15:2-4; 19:4-6; Rom 8-9) (pp. 18-21).
The definition of the fear of God—the fear of God is first and foremost the soul of godliness. There are two kinds of fear, first being gripped by terror and dread, and second veneration, honor, and awe. The second depicts standing in the presence of someone who is superior in worth and dignity. This does not mean reverence alone, the Psalmist says, trembling and shuddering accompany the thought of the condemned in the hands of Almighty God (Deut 2:24-25; 17:13; 21:19-21; Ps 105:36-38; Lk 2:9; Acts 5:11; Lev 19:3; Ps 119:20) (p. 23-31). Jesus commands the fear of God (Mt 10:28 and Lu 12:4-5). This means being gripped with terrible dread and terror as you contemplate conducting yourself in a way that warrants the damnation of God. How God regards sin lies at the root of this fear of dread and terror. God’s judgment is to be understood by the biblical words of fury, anger, wrath, indignation, vengeance, and retribution. When the infinite God takes finite creatures into His hands for judgment, it is a terrifying and fearful thing of horror and dread (Rom 11:20-21; Heb 4:1; 10:26-31) (p. 32-35).
Natural, unregenerate men do not fear God according to Romans 3:18. Impenitent men deny the fury of God’s wrath (Ps 50:21-22). Modern culture is seduced by the idea that God is too kind to damn eternal souls. In the constant press to assure themselves that God is not to be feared, humanity pursues enumerable diversions through electronic devices. The prevailing attitude is that nothing must rattle or disturb man’s sense of personal well-being (pp. 36-39). The fear of God is at the heart of our perseverance. The fear of God guards the believer from apostacy. True spirituality is ever aware of the judgments of Almighty God. You are dealing with a God who is without respect of persons. No matter what one’s profession of faith, to live in the flesh is to die eternally damned (Rom 8:12-13). The proclamation of the terror of the Lord is intended to persuade men to flee the wrath to come (Ps 19:120; 90:11; Mt 3:7; Rom 6:23; 8:13; Jude 20:23; Acts 24:25; Col 3:5; 1 Pet 1:17; Heb 4:1) (pp. 40-45).
The fear of God placed in our hearts will cause us to keep His statutes (Jer 32:39-41). Obedience flows more from veneration, honor, awe, and reverence, than from fear, terror, dread, and anguish. Isaiah’s vision of God was an encounter which produced a shattering, flesh-withering response to God’s transcendent holiness. Yet the prophet did not flee to hide himself God’s holiness assured Isaiah of cleansing and forgiveness. The paradox is in Isaiah’s devastation he is aware of divine forgiveness and cleansing which captured his affections and brought about loving submission to the call of God (Ex 3:1-6; Is 6:1-7) (pp. 46-52).
God fearers reason in this way, the greatest blessing is to have God’s approval and approbation—the greatest evil is to have His disapproval. He who fears God lives for His approval and is controlled by the reverence brought forth by His majesty and holiness (Ps 34:11; Prov 2;1-5; 1 Pet 2:17) (pp. 52-56). To fear God is to see Him as He truly is. A correct concept of the character of God is indispensable to fearing Him (Rev 15:2-4). Because the following aspects of God’s character are lost today, there is little fear of God: His holiness, wrath, immensity, eternity, omniscience, majesty, unrivaled sovereignty, and omnipotence. To be in awe of Him, overpowered, swallowed up in His grandeur—in tandem with perceiving His unfathomable love, compassion, boundless mercy, and fatherly tenderness is rare today—and non-existent where He is not feared (pp. 57-59). The cross of Christ brings deep fear of God. The crucifixion is the clearest revelation of God’s inflexible justice and burning wrath as well as His amazing love and grace. God spares not His Son but brings on Him the full brunt of His wrath against sin. This displays God’s spotless holiness. We serve the Lord with fear because we stand before an atoned for, and immolated God, receiving a pardon purchased at the price of His blood (Ps 2:11; Heb 9:11-15; 10:10-14) (p. 60). The fear of God is accompanied by a pervasive sense of His presence. God is our veritable environment (Acts 17:27-28). The unbroken awareness of His immediate presence is the ‘heart frame’ of those who fear Him. This controlling perception is a function of God’s demand on us which tolerates nothing less than totality of commitment to Him (Gen 28:16; Ex 3:6; Is 6:5; Rev 21:3) (pp. 61-64).
Psalm 139 teaches us about God’s inescapable presence in a sustained and concentrated way. His immensity, majesty, holiness, grace, and kindness are right here! We cannot escape His presence even if we wanted to do so. Possessing academic facts about God (that He is holy, sovereign, immense, transcendent, boundless, free, etc.) won’t make much of difference in how you live unless you are cultivating a sense of His presence (Acts 17:28) (pp. 64-71).
Reckoning God’s presence means being grieved by what is not like Him— grieved by what contradicts His holy character. Paul urges us to carry our holiness and sanctification on to perfection in the climate of the fear of God (2 Cor 7:1). God-fearers have this controlling thought: what is God requiring of me at this moment? That man’s greatest concern is whether he is fulfilling his obligations to his Lord (Mt 22:37-38; Mk 7:6; 2 Cor 6:16) (pp. 71-75).
Fearing the Lord means welcoming our obligation and privilege to live as His disciple. Christ has laid out the terms of discipleship: loving Him supremely; single-minded devotion to Him, unreserved trust in Him, denying oneself and taking up one’s cross daily (Mt 10:37-39; Lu 9:23-26; 14:25-35) (pp. 77-83). Fearing the Lord involves absolute confidence and trust (2 Cor 5:7). Our Lord’s act of faith while on Calvary’s cross was the greatest act of faith ever exercised on God’s earth. “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Lu 23:46). Our Lord uttered these words after being abandoned under divine wrath. God’s servants are to rely on God even when circumstances appear only dark (Is 50:10). Fearing the Lord is joined to obedience and love (Deut 10:12-14) (pp. 83-84).
It is the grace of God in the new covenant that plants the fear of God in the heart (Ez 36:25-32). God’s grace by the cross of Christ causes a person to no longer live for themselves but for Him who died and rose on their behalf (2 Cor 5:15). The transformative knowledge of His Person produces the constraining sense of what we owe Him. Conversely, consider the terrible apathy of the unregenerate—he does not stir himself to know God but reclines in a wicked state of contentment in his ignorance of God (2 Thess 1:8ff.) (pp. 85-90).
The evidence that the Spirit of God is at work in a man is that he will choose what is pleasing to God. There is a new inclination to do God’s will (Phil 2:12-13). The true believer delights in being God’s possession, and as such his fear of God works through his mind, affections, and will. These new affections are traceable to blood-bought new covenant promises (Ezek 32:38-41; 1 Cor 11:25; Heb 8:6-13; 13:20). This godly fear is never found growing in Adamic soil—but only in the soil of the circumcised heart (Col 2:11-14) (pp, 90-95).
What was first announced in the Law and the Prophets, mutual ownership, “You will be My people, and I will be your God” (Ex 6:7; Jer 32:38-39)—is perfected in the glory to come (Rev 21:3). The beauty of mutual ownership is captured in the Song of Solomon, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (Song of Songs 6:3). We belong to God by the purchase of Christ, and by daily presenting ourselves back to the God who owns us, we express our love and reverential fear of God (Rom 6:11-13) (pp. 96-98).
You cannot fear God and delight in communion with Him if all you sense from Him is dread and terror. Divine forgiveness is the answer to that dilemma. “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared” (Ps 130:3-4). “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jer 31:34). True forgiveness always implants the fear of the Lord (pp. 98-100).
The fear of the Lord begins with the right views of His character, majesty, and glory. This transforming view of God is imparted by means of discovering God’s way of forgiveness. The saving knowledge of God is granted by understanding how He forgives sinners. He does so through the atoning work of the Son of God our Substitute, discharging our offenses. All that God might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom 3:26). “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me” (Mt 27:46) is a cry we will not be able to exegete for all eternity (Albert Martin) (pp. 99-103).
‘Filial fear’ is the reverence borne of sonship. At salvation, domination by dread is exchanged for love and belonging. Adoption produces a love-compelled fear and willing submission to God. This is the spirit of sonship, a consciousness of our adoption produced by the indwelling Spirit of God (Ps 33:18; Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6-7) (pp. 103-104).
Rome’s manmade religion which rubs the conscience raw cannot produce the fear of God. A conscience full only of doubts, insecurities, and the deserved terrors of damnation cannot respond to God with reverential fear suffused with love and trust. It is the height of falsehood to think that sin can be restrained by leaving guilt in place. Nothing can replace the divine formula, “there is forgiveness with Thee that Thou may be feared” (Ps 130:4) (pp. 105-106).
God has only shown you one ten thousandth of your sin. Entrust yourself to the Savior, daily cast yourself upon Him. He receives sinners (Lu 15:2). He is seated on the Mercy Seat, His throne is a throne of grace. Do not seek peace in measuring the extent of your sin by the magnitude of the sins of others. No, do as Octavius Winslow counsels, “Soak the roots of thy profession daily in the blood of Christ.” Are you enjoying the manifold blessings of the new covenant? Remember, the everlasting covenant plants in a man the fear of God. Thus, is your first concern discovering what God’s Word says about every issue? (pp. 107-109).
The forgiveness which produces the fear of God causes the believer to draw near to his God. Perceiving the abundant goodness in Christ causes the Christian to cling to his Savior. The fear of God produces godly conduct; and the reverse is also true—where the fear of God is absent, so also godliness will be missing. Abraham rightly reasoned that in regions where there was no fear of God his life would be in danger (Gen 20:11) (pp. 110-117).
Keeping constant thoughts of God’s character and presence has a powerful sanctifying effect on the believer. Where reverential fear is intentionally absent, be assured that the individual is making a provision for sin. Notice the heart talk of the hypocrite in Psalm 10:11, “He says to himself, “God has forgotten; He has hidden His face; He will never see it.” Astounding, the sinner pushes God out of his thoughts. He will not permit himself to dwell upon the constraining awareness of the character of God. This is insanity, a flight from reality (p. 130).
The fear of God keeps our heart motives in tune with God’s character. The Hebrews allowed religion to slip into the externals of formalism. “Then the Lord said, ‘Because this people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote” (Is 29:13). When a perfunctory approach to our spiritual life reduces our obligations to heartless box-checking, repentance is needed (Rev 3:19). Renewing our fear is the solution—hungering and thirsting again for righteousness and press on to know the Lord (Hos 6:3) (pp. 132-134).
Before the Israelites could pursue the obedience and devotion Yahweh required, they were commanded to destroy the idols and altars of the land of Canaan. “Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst. But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim—for you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Ex 34:12-14). The one true God; His Name is Jealous! Idolatry is always about false sources. When you fear God, you won’t envy sinners and their idols. God commands we fear Him, that our hearts may be an unshared temple belonging exclusively to Him, for His Name is Jealous.
Christ is the Mediator of the new covenant; our King is a mediatorial King who represents His people interceding for them as their High Priest (Heb 7:24-28). Natural fear drives us from God, just as Adam hid himself, but biblical fear drives us to Him (Heb 2:17-18; 4:14-16) (p. 145).
To deepen your fear of God come to the Scriptures with the goal in mind of feeding on His majestic greatness. “I have set the Lord continually before me; because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will dwell securely” (Ps 16:8-9).
To deepen your fear of God, make sure that you choose as your closest associates those who truly fear God. “I am a companion of all those who fear You, and of those who keep Your precepts” (Ps 119:63) (Prov 22:24-25; 1 Cor 15:33). “Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem His name. ‘They will be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts, ‘on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.’ ‘So, you will again distinguish between the righteous and the and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him’” (Mal 3:16-18) (pp. 160-162).
Seek the face of God, asking Him to grant you an ever-greater fear of Him. “Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name. I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and will glorify Your name forever. For Your lovingkindness toward me is great, and You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol” (Ps 86:11-13) (p. 166).