(For those of you who know, the title of this one comes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where the main character is told, "Don't panic; be very, very afraid.")
Nehemiah prayed to God about ... going home from captivity (Neh 1:4-11). He ends that prayer with "O Lord, I beseech You, may Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and the prayer of Your servants who delight to fear Your name, and make Your servant successful today and grant him compassion before this man" (Neh 1:11). Did you see that? Nehemiah asked God to hear the prayer of His servants who "delight to fear Your name." "Delight to fear"?? I looked up a variety of sources. What is "the fear of the Lord"? Almost without exception, they assiduously (word of the day -- look it up) held explicitly that the fear of the Lord is not fear. Reverence, awe, respect ... sure ... but in no way "fear." But the word is translated "fear" everywhere but in these "fear of the Lord" or "fear of God" places. As if "of the Lord" as a modifier changes the meaning of the word. Because the word means fear, both in the Hebrew version and the Greek version. Yet, quoting Deuteronomy 4:24, the author of Hebrews wrote, "Our God is a consuming fire" (Heb 12:29). So ... don't fear?
I wrote about this yesterday (and on other occasions), but I fear (yes, small joke) that if we don't fear the Lord as we ought, we could be missing the mark. There is this sense in us that we shouldn't fear ... at all. A sense that fear is bad. Nehemiah delighted to fear the Lord. To stand in amazement and reverence and, yes, a little bit afraid in the presence of God. If there is no fear, I think we aren't seeing Him clearly. Using Isaiah as an example, it was when Isaiah hit his knees, undone in fear of God (Isa 6:5), that God put Him to use (Isa 6:6-8). It was when Peter fell on his face in recognition of his sinfulness that Jesus put him to work as His disciple (Luke 5:1-11). I'm not talking about abject terror or unreasonable fear. But all this "No need to fear God" thing seems to run in direct opposition to ... you know ... Scripture. Instead, let fear enhance your relationship ... like Moses, hidden from God's terrible glory, safe in the cleft of the rock (Exo 33:18-23). The fear that keeps us safe makes the glory possible to enjoy.
2 comments:
To my mind, an attitude of fear towards God is completely appropriate for me to hold, in light of aspects of His nature such as His sovereignty, omniscience, omnipotence, and holiness. For anyone to explore theology in general and the God of the Bible more specifically is to be faced with the sheer magnitude of Almighty God--a fearsome entity indeed. In fact, a paramount truth of the Gospel is that there is a Supreme Being before whom I am accountable and upon whom my fate is utterly dependent. In my view, one can’t proceed to receive the full Gospel--and to be granted eternal life through its promises--without first recognizing and accepting all that God is; this will naturally produce fear, awe, and reverence--an intellectual acknowledgement of His transcendent majesty. As one grows in the knowledge of God, one’s increasing awareness of the immense chasm between Him and us only deepens that fear--thus making the Gospel of grace that much more extraordinarily blessed.
P.S. For anyone seeking a very good study of this topic, I would highly recommend the book, The Joy of Fearing God by Jerry Bridges (one of my favorite Christian authors); it contains an excellent study guide to aid one’s understanding. I believe the use of “joy” in the book’s title echoes Stan’s observation that “Nehemiah delighted to fear the Lord.”
I often scoff when people claim the only thing they need to believe in God is for Him to appear before them. That is the last thing you'd want, and the moment He showed up, you'd be flat on your face. I think we lose out when we ignore the Old Testament and forget Isaiah's response to seeing God.
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