fear of the Lord

Good question Tom. Hopefully this makes sense and isn’t too wordy. It a small phrase that incorporates a lot.

Depending on who you are referring to, the fear of the Lord differs. For the unbeliever, the fear of God is the fear of the judgment of God, eternal punishment in hell and eternal separation from God.

Luke 12.5 says: “But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.”

And Hebrews 10.31 says: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

For the believer, the fear of God is something much different. The believer's fear is reverence of God. Hebrews 12:28-29 is a good description of this: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ’God is a consuming fire.’” This reverence and awe is exactly what the fear of God means for Christians. This is the motivating factor for us to surrender to the Creator of the Universe. It is also the motivating factor in how we live our lives as we have “a continual awareness that our loving heavenly Father is watching and evaluating everything we think, say, and do” knowing that we too will be held accountable.

On the other hand, the individuals who pay no attention to God and are “under the power of sin” as stated in Romans 3.9 basically do whatever they want (verses 10-17) because “They have no fear of God to restrain them” (verse 18). Ironically, those who don’t fear God are the ones that should truly be afraid, as a day of reckoning will come; and in many cases, the ones who are most afraid of God are those who find themselves sitting in a church building every Sunday; partly because the church historically has used fear as a motivator and a way of manipulating the masses and partly for lack of understanding what it means to be saved by grace and not by works. We can stand before God without fear because of what Christ accomplished for us on the cross, not because of anything we have done.

Believers are not to be scared of God. We have no reason to be scared of Him. We have His promise that nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:38-39). We have His promise that He will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Fearing God means having such a reverence for Him that it has a great impact on the way we live our lives. The fear of God is respecting Him, obeying Him, submitting to His discipline, and worshipping Him in awe.

The link between the fear of God and wisdom means we cannot possess wisdom if we recreate God in our own image. Too many people want to “tame” God into a non-threatening nobody. But, if we redefine the Lord as a god that makes us feel comfortable, a permissive “buddy” who exists simply to bless us and give us what we want, we will not fear Him in the way He deserves to be feared. The Lord God Almighty is far greater than that, and the fear of the Lord begins when we see Him in His majesty and power. As such, wisdom is merely seeing life from God’s perspective and responding accordingly.