219 How Can You Love and Fear God

The Bible admonishes us to Fear God and yet we are supposed to Love Him? How on earth can you do both. I have discovered that I can't trust someone that I also fear? In this episode on the journey too Rediscover God we unpack the reality that the Bible is an ancient document written centuries ago. Words have different meaning than they used to and therefore they need to be understood in the context of where they are written. We discover fear has many different meanings. Join us on this journey.

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SHOW NOTES

Fear and God

Charity used to mean love, not giving to the less fortunate, as it is taken to mean today. “ I

don’t need your charity!”

After eating from the forbidden tree, Adam and Eve feared God to the point where they hid from Him. The Hebrews subsequently developed and cultivated a terrible fear of God.

They did not want to dialogue with God and delegated this conversation to Moses. So, at

Sinai God had to say to them “do not be afraid” (Exodus 20:20). Moses cannot see God's

face and live (Exodus 33:20) which inspires fear even as we read it 3000 years later. Later

when Manoah sees God, he is sure he is going to die.

“We are doomed to die!” he said to his wife. “We have seen God” (Judges 13:22)!

The New Testament has similar examples:

But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don't you fear God,” he said, “since you are

under the same sentence?” (Luke 23:40).

In this sense “fear” means just what we mean when we use the term to convey the

apprehension of a terrible insecurity. The end time angel call,

He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory. . . .” (Revelation 14:7)

suggests that it is important to understand the meaning of "fear" when it is associated with God.

The Scriptures also use the term “fear” in a positive way when referring to man's

relationship with God. In most of these situations’ "fear" is equated with obedience and

trust. Here are some examples.

“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that

you (Abraham) fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only

son.” (Genesis 22:12)

Clearly “fear” in this context means trust or obedience. When,

On the third day, Joseph said to them, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God:”

(Genesis 42:18)

he is making a statement about his trust in and obedience to God.

“Fear” can also mean integrity.But select capable men from all the people – men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as o\icials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. (Exodus 18:21)

“Fear” can also be used as a synonym for worship or service.

“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. (Job 1:9)

Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me.

(Psalm 66:16)

It seems clear that "fear" often means worship, to trust or to obey. In Acts 13:16 the newer

translations use the term "worship" rather than "fear" as it is translated in the King James

Version.

Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said: “Men of Israel and you Gentiles

who worship (“fear” KJV) God, listen to me!”

Ecclesiastes 8:12-13 Although a wicked man commits a hundred crimes and still

lives a long time, I know that it will go better with God-fearing men, who are reverent

before God. Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them,

and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.

Here the parallelism of Hebrew literature makes the meaning clear. “Fear” is equated with

reverence, a sense of humility in the presence of, or a trusting attitude in, God.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:

Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man.

“Fear” here means obedience.

Luke 18:4 For some time he refused. But finally, he said to himself, “Even though I

don't fear God or care about men, . . .”

The context means that this man lives only for himself. He has no place for God or others in his thinking and doing.

1 Peter 2:17 Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers,

fear God, honour the king.

In this instance "fear" is included under the umbrella of "respect.” To respect God is to

"fear" Him.

So, is it necessary to feel afraid in the presence of God? There is a story that might help to

answer this question. It is the is the story of the woman taken in adultery and draggedbefore Jesus (John 7:53-8:11). The New English Bible has an interesting note on this incident.

This passage, which in the most widely received editions of the New Testament is

printed in the text of John 7.53-8.11 has no fixed place in our witnesses. Some of

them do not contain it at all. Some place it after Luke 21.38, others after John 7.36,

or 7.52 or 21.24.

It seems the implications of the story are so revolutionary it was di\icult for those who

copied the manuscripts to believe it was an authentic story and so it was sometime just

left out. We can be sure the woman was distraught, but the attitude and words of Jesus,

"neither do I condemn you" probably gave her the inspiration to live a future life of dignity

and purity.

Jesus makes this statement in John 14:9:

If you have seen me, you have seen the Father!

Now the people who met Jesus were, for the most part, not afraid of Him. Yes, those who

feared the truth or were envious of His influence, or wished to murder Him were afraid of

Him, but then they had reason to be. Perhaps their feelings were like that of a bank robber seeing a policeman while collecting the loot from the bank. The robber would certainly experience anxiety or fear.

Perhaps the most compelling evidence for reconsidering our understanding of the meaning of “fear” is found in 1 John 4:18,

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with

punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

This is because once we have understood God's sovereign love for us we cannot fear Him with that knowledge.

A respected religious writer has put it this way.

From the beginning it has been Satan's studied plan to cause men to forget God,

that he might secure them to himself. Hence he has sought to misrepresent the

character of God, to lead men to cherish a false conception of Him. The Creator

has been presented to their minds as clothed with the attributes of the prince of

evil himself—as arbitrary, severe, and unforgiving—that He might be feared,

shunned, and even hated by men. Satan hoped to so confuse the minds of those

whom he had deceived that they would put God out of their knowledge. Then he

would obliterate the divine image in man and impress his own likeness upon thesoul; he would imbue men with his own spirit and make them captives according to

his will.

It was by falsifying the character of God and exciting distrust of Him that Satan

tempted Eve to transgress. By sin the minds of our first parents were darkened, their

natures were degraded, and their conceptions of God were moulded by their own

narrowness and selfishness. And as men became bolder in sin, the knowledge and

the love of God faded from their minds and hearts. "Because that, when they knew

God, they glorified Him not as God, " they "became vain in their imaginations, and

their foolish heart was darkened" (Romans 1:21). (5T737)

What shall we conclude? When "fear" is associated with God, it can mean insecurity and

anxiety, but it can also mean obedience (Deuteronomy 6:2) or admiration. (Revelation

15:4). Perhaps, like Elijah, it is helpful to understand that God is not in the awful

catastrophes of wind, earthquake and fire but in the still small voice of persuasion and love (1 Kings 19).

Manoah's wife, fortunately, was more perceptive than her husband as Judges 13:23

demonstrates. But his wife answered, “If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt o\ering and grain o\ering from our hands, nor shown us all these

things or now told us this.”

Apparently her sensible understanding of God gave her the ability to overcome the fables and traditions of her time and press on to receive the good that God had in mind for her and Manoah—their son Samson.

There is a relevant prophecy in the New Testament. The aged Zachariah speaks under the influence of the Holy Spirit on seeing the Christ child in Luke 1 as follows:

68 “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed

his people.

69 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David

70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),

71 salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—

72 to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,

73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham:

74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him

without fear

75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on

before the Lord to prepare the way for him,77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,

78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us

from heaven

79 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet

into the path of peace.”

Jesus, according to this prophecy, came to deliver us from serving God out of fear. This

truth is confirmed by John’s understanding that “perfect love casts out fear.” It is in the light of the love of God shining through the face of Jesus that we come to serve God for who He is and not because of what He might do to us if we did not serve Him. We end where we began, in Revelation 14:7:

He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory . . .”

Can we now say “Trust God, obey God and thus give Him glory?” I think so. Can we strip

away the superstitions of the millennia that painted God as an evil ogre? Not only do I think so, but it must be done to have a functional relationship with God!

God is love. This means at least that he has more mercy and compassion for us than any

other being in the universe. He knows the worst about us but sees the best in us. When we did our worst to him he reflected back his best to us. After his resurrection he had no

condemnation for our wickedness but greets his petrified, guilty disciples with “Fear not,

peace be unto you” (John 20:19, 21, 26).