*Image: The Deluge (1920) by Winifred Knights
Rethinking Fear
Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist at NYU, (re)started a debate about fear. The smartest thinkers are learning how to properly define fear and where to locate this emotion within the brain? When is it good to fear and can we alter our fight, flight, or freeze responses? There is a parallel question forced on us in Scripture: To fear the Lord, or not to fear the Lord, that is the question.
Russell Moore once quipped, “Now these three abide: anger, outrage, and fear—and the greatest of these is fear.” He explains that while this is not a quote from the Bible, it feels like it could be. We instinctively list fear alongside anger and outrage, not faith, hope, and love. However, Scripture elevates a certain kind of fear as necessary to find wisdom.
To cut the confusion, you have to sort through seemingly contradictory statements. For instance, perfect love casts out fear (I Jn 4:18). God did not give us a spirit of fear (2 Tim 1:7). One of Jesus' most frequent commands is, “Do not fear” (Luke 12:7). Yet, those who love God are synonymous with God-fearers. Moses and Isaiah regularly say, fear the Lord your God. (Dt 6:13; Is. 8:13). Jesus says, fear God who can destroy your soul (Matthew 10:28). And, wisdom begins with fear (Pr 1:7; Pr 9:10). So, how do you properly understand the fear of God?
What does fear of God mean?
Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke explains you cannot understand ‘fear of the Lord’ by breaking down the words any more than you can by breaking down the word ‘butterfly.’ You don’t research butter, then research flies. “The-fear-of-the-Lord” is something different than fear + LORD. It’s a compound expression. We want to hold these words together as a unit even as we look at them individually.
1 Fear is the right word, but not the kind of shock or dread you get with a ticket to a horror film. As far as the OT is concerned, fear (yir·at’) is a switch-hitting word, sometimes used positively and other times negatively. Michael Reeves explains, “The same word can be used for both right and sinful fears: anything from bone-melting dread to ecstatic jubilation.” He goes on to show respect and reverence are simply too weak and grey to stand in as fit synonyms. The proper biblical recipe leads to joy. Proverbs insists, that Happy is the one who fears the LORD always (Pr 28:14); The fear of God is a fountain of life (Pr 14:27). People find delight in this fear.
2 We need to connect the right view of ‘fear’ with the right view of God. In 1679, John Bunyan wrote a treatise on the fear of God directing us to consider the Lord as “the true and living God, maker of the worlds, and upholder of all things by the word of his power: that incomprehensible majesty, in comparison of whom all nations are less than the drop of a bucket.” Eight billion people daily learn and discover new things: from new galaxies to self-driving cars to new types of sushi rolls to new photos. Last year, the global volume of data created, captured, copied, and consumed was 149 zettabytes. God sees it all; His knowledge is comprehensive and limitless. At the core, a life that possesses fear-of-the-Lord maintains a radical God-centeredness resulting from rightly seeing God’s boundless power.
Without detailing all of God’s attributes, let’s add one more note: personal. People fear a God who has a name, Yahweh (I AM). God makes himself known - He acts in history. Early readers of Proverbs feared one who not only created all they see, but delivered their ancestors from Egypt. God is a personal God who rescues and provides, who calls by name, who guides through the wilderness, and now guides with his Spirit moment by moment. It is not only right thinking but a right relationship. Fear-of-I-AM holds together both the powerful and the personal.
3 We must spot the correlation between fearing God and loving God. Love and fear connect at the point of obedience: avoiding evil and choosing good. Jesus says, if you love me, obey my commands (John 14:15). Immediately after Moses relays Ten Commandments, the people cry out, “Don’t let God speak to us or we will die.” Moses replies, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin (Ex 20:20).” Spurgeon calls this a fear to be shunned and avoided, and a fear which has in it the very essence of love. Fearing God and loving God provides a right foot, left foot alignment to walk out your faith.
What does fear of God do?
1 Fear-of-I-AM provides the beginning to wisdom, or skilled-living (Pr 9:10 MSG). It’s the proper boot camp for a street-smart life. The beginning is not the first stage that is later left behind, but is the first and controlling principle. Derek Prince explains, “If you want access to My (God) wisdom–if you want Me to begin to release My wisdom into your life–then there is one channel through which it can come to you: the fear of the Lord.” You can’t do math without numbers. According to Proverbs, you can’t do wisdom without fear-of-I-AM. It’s a necessary starting point to live with the grain of creation.
2 The fear-of-I-AM motivates. The Christian faith, unlike other religious teachings, is not simply concerned with what you do, but why you do it. Why do you take certain actions or restrain yourself from certain behaviors? Fear of the Lord is an appeal that lies underneath our passions. It orders our intellectual and emotional lives to submit in obedience to God. A simple way to detect fear of God in one’s life is to scan back through your calendar to see what you did (or avoided) in a day or week and search for the underlying motivations.
This is where once again you see the link of love and fear. Those who fear God shun evil (Prov 14:6). On the contrary, the love of people’s approval, or fear-of-man, can lead to embracing evil. When you “fear man” – you don’t tell the truth in a meeting. You buy (or simply covet) things you cannot afford. You fold like origami in the face of power. You live for beauty through products and clothes to gain approval on social media. Something stronger than love/fear-of-man has to curb our inordinate desires.
Learning the fear of the Lord
In the same way, LeDoux and his neuroscientist colleagues are learning more about the nature and psychology of fear, fear of the LORD can be learned. This is good news! Like improving with your 9 Iron, you can be more characterized by rightly fearing God at the end of the year. The psalmist offers this invitation, “Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD” (Ps. 34:11). The Bible consistently shows that right fear drives us to God and not away from him. Studying the person and work of Jesus is like compost for growing in the fear of the LORD.
Yet, the cross guides us to this fear in an unexpected way. Again, the Psalms anticipate this unlikely, cross-shaped fertilizer. We read, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared” (Psalm 130:4). Forgiveness is the ultimate way to lodge fear of God deep in your heart.
In Ash Wednesday, T.S. Eliot composes this memorable line, “Teach us to care and not to care.” It reminds us God acted in history to save us from sin on the cross. When you experience the fear of love on the other side of the fear of justice, you learn the fear of God that avoids fight, flight, or freeze responses. You gain a freedom that can’t be hijacked or held hostage.
Teach us to hear and not to fear, this is the beginning of wisdom.
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