The Fear of the Lord

When Zuwaira was a girl in Kaduna, she could tell her father’s mood from the sound of his car on the gravel.

If he drove in slowly and the engine idled for a while before it stopped, it meant he had had a good day. He would come in humming, ask about school and perhaps bring home a bag of oranges from the roadside sellers. If the car came in fast and the door slammed before the engine had properly died, everybody in the house went quiet. Her brothers found reasons to be in their room. Her mother started to speak in a low voice. Zuwaira would check that her shoes were lined up by the door, that her books were off the table, that nothing anywhere could become the reason for what was about to happen.

The worst part was never knowing. A broken plate could pass without a word one evening and bring a beating the next. She learned to read faces, to anticipate, to make herself small. She became an excellent student and an obedient daughter. She also became someone who was afraid all the time.

At nineteen, at a campus fellowship in Zaria, Zuwaira gave her life to Christ. She loved the songs. She loved the Bible studies. And then one Sunday the preacher read from Proverbs: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). He told the congregation that God was holy, that He saw everything, and that they must fear Him.

Zuwaira felt her stomach tighten. In her mind she heard a car coming fast over gravel.

For the next six years, she related to God in the only way she knew how to relate to a father. She was careful. She was obedient. She read her Bible every morning in case missing a day became the reason. She was exhausted, and she had no idea that the word fear in Scripture could mean anything else.

Two kinds of fear

The Bible uses the language of fear in more than one way, and much confusion comes from collapsing them into one. Paul draws the line with great clarity:

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

“Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear.” Paul is describing a kind of fear that belongs to slavery. It is the fear a servant feels towards a harsh master: the dread of punishment, the anxiety of never knowing whether today will be the day he is thrown out. The word again is telling. The Roman believers had known that kind of fear before, perhaps under pagan gods who had to be appeased, perhaps under a legal religion that left them uncertain of acceptance. Paul says that the Spirit they have received does not lead them back into it.

Instead, they have received “the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” The Spirit produces the cry of a child, warm and trusting, towards a Father who is known to be good.

John puts it even more strongly: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment” (1 John 4:18). The fear John means is the fear of punishment, the tormenting kind that cannot rest. That fear is cast out by love.

So is the fear of the Lord gone for the believer? No. The same New Testament that tells us we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear also tells us that the early churches were “walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 9:31). Fear and comfort in the same sentence. Paul himself writes, “let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).

There is a fear that grace removes, and there is a fear that grace produces. The first is the terror of a slave before an unpredictable master. The second is the reverence of a child before a holy Father whose love is certain. Learning to tell them apart can set a believer free.

Punchline

Grace removes the terror of a slave before an unpredictable master. It produces the reverence of a child before a holy Father whose love is certain.

Forgiveness that leads to fear

One of the most surprising verses in the Psalms shows us where the right kind of fear comes from:

If thou, LORD , shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

Read the logic slowly. If God kept a record of every wrong, nobody could stand before Him. “But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.”

We might have expected the opposite. Surely, we think, threats produce fear, and forgiveness removes it. If God forgives freely, what reason is there to fear Him? But the psalmist sees something deeper. The terror of judgement drives people away from God. They hide, like Adam among the trees of the garden. Forgiveness draws them near, and it is only when they are near that they can truly see who He is. The person who has been forgiven much stands before God with a trembling gratitude that the unforgiven never know.

Think of a man who has been pardoned by a judge after a serious crime. He walks out of the courtroom free. Does he leave casual about the law? Does he treat the judge with contempt? If his heart is right, the pardon will make him more serious, not less. He has seen how much was at stake and how much was given. His freedom has a weight to it.

That is the fear of the Lord as the psalmist means it. It is the awe of someone who knows that the same God who could have marked iniquities has chosen to forgive them. The fear does not come from wondering whether He will forgive. It comes from knowing that He has.

Woe is me

When people in Scripture saw God as He is, they did not respond casually. Isaiah describes the vision that shaped his whole ministry:

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

The seraphim cover their faces in the presence of the Lord. They cry “Holy, holy, holy” to one another, as though one “holy” could not carry the weight. The doorposts shake. Smoke fills the house. And Isaiah, who was already a prophet, a man of God, falls apart. “Woe is me! for I am undone.”

Notice what he becomes aware of. “I am a man of unclean lips.” In the presence of perfect holiness, Isaiah sees his own sin with sudden clarity. That is what reverence does. Long before it is a feeling, it is the honest recognition of who God is and who we are.

But the story does not end there. A seraph takes a live coal from the altar and touches Isaiah’s lips. “Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged” (Isaiah 6:7). The altar, the place of sacrifice, provides the cleansing. Then Isaiah hears the Lord asking, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And the man who a moment ago was undone now says, “Here am I; send me” (Isaiah 6:8).

Peter had a similar moment. After a whole night of catching nothing, Jesus told him to let down his nets, and the catch was so great the boats began to sink. Peter fell at Jesus’ knees: “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” And Jesus answered, “Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men” (Luke 5:8-10).

In both scenes the pattern is the same. Holiness is revealed. A sinner becomes aware of his sin. Grace cleanses and reassures. And the person who has been reassured is sent out to serve. The fear remains, transformed into reverent readiness.

Holy as He is holy

Peter, the same man who once said “Depart from me,” later wrote to scattered believers about how they should live:

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

“Wherefore.” Peter is drawing a conclusion from what he has just said. The preceding verses speak of a living hope, an inheritance reserved in heaven, and a salvation the prophets longed to understand. Everything Peter is about to ask of his readers rests on that foundation. Grace comes first.

“Gird up the loins of your mind.” In the ancient world men wore long robes. To run or work, a man gathered the loose cloth and tucked it into his belt. Peter applies the picture to the mind. Do not let your thinking flap about loose. Gather it. Prepare it for action.

“Be sober.” Be clear-headed, alert, not intoxicated by anything that clouds judgement.

Nugget

“As obedient children.” Notice the relationship. Peter does not say “as frightened servants.” He says children. Obedience flows from a family relationship that is already secure.

“Not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance.” Before Christ, the readers had been shaped by desires that ruled them. Now they are to refuse that mould.

“Be ye holy; for I am holy.” Peter quotes Leviticus. God’s holiness is the pattern for His children’s lives. To be holy is to be set apart, belonging to God, different from the patterns of the surrounding world because we bear His name. Grace does not lower this standard. It provides the life that can grow towards it.

The price that was paid

Then Peter speaks directly about fear:

And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

“If ye call on the Father.” The relationship is still the context. Believers pray to God as Father. “Who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work.” God is not swayed by status, connections or reputation. He evaluates honestly.

“Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.” Believers are sojourners, temporary residents in a land that is not their final home. During that sojourn they are to live in reverence.

Why? “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold.” Here is the heart of it. Peter does not ground this fear in a threat of rejection. He grounds it in the price of redemption. “But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”

That changes everything about how we understand reverence. You were bought back from an empty, inherited way of life. The price was not money, which can be earned again and spent again. The price was the blood of the Son of God. A believer who understands what it cost to redeem him cannot treat sin as a light thing. He fears to dishonour a love that paid so much.

And look how Peter ends: “that your faith and hope might be in God.” The fear he describes does not lead to anxiety. It leads to faith and hope. It is the fear of a son who knows that his Father gave everything for him, and who would rather lose his right hand than bring shame on that love.

There is a judgement of believers’ works in the New Testament. Paul speaks of it in 2 Corinthians 5:10 and in 1 Corinthians 3, where a believer’s work may be tested and some lose reward, “but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” (1 Corinthians 3:15). This is an evaluation of how we have lived as sons, not a trial to decide whether we remain sons. It should make us thoughtful. It should never make us terrified.

Here we reach the question that troubles many sincere believers. If I am fully forgiven and secure, what will keep me from becoming careless? Some preachers fear that if they stop threatening, their congregations will stop obeying. Peter’s answer is that gratitude is a stronger engine than fear, and a far more lasting one.

Think of a young man from a village near Ilorin whose uncle sold a piece of family farmland to pay his university fees. Nobody threatened the young man. Nobody told him he would be thrown out of the family if he failed. But he knew what the land had meant to his uncle, and he knew what it had cost. So he did not skip lectures. He did not waste the money on parties. He studied late into the night under a rechargeable lamp when NEPA failed. When his friends teased him for being serious, he said simply, “You do not know what was paid for me to be here.”

That is responsible obedience born of gratitude. It is far more serious than the obedience of fear, because fear only works while the threat is visible. The servant who obeys out of terror relaxes when the master leaves the room. The son who obeys out of love keeps going in the dark, because the love goes with him. Paul says the same: “the love of Christ constraineth us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). It holds us, presses on us, keeps us in line more firmly than any threat could.

A consuming fire

The letter to the Hebrews brings the two sides of this truth together in a single sentence. The writer has just contrasted Mount Sinai, with its fire, darkness and terror, with Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, where believers have come to “Jesus the mediator of the new covenant” (Hebrews 12:24). Then he warns, “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh” (Hebrews 12:25). And he concludes:

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.

“Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved.” The believer’s position is secure. Everything else may be shaken. The kingdom we have received will not be.

“Let us have grace.” The phrase can also be read as “let us be thankful.” Gratitude is the response to receiving such a kingdom.

“Whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” Gratitude leads to service, and that service is marked by reverence. The word translated godly fear carries the sense of caution, awe and careful respect.

“For our God is a consuming fire.” The writer quotes Deuteronomy 4:24. Under the new covenant, God has not changed His nature. He is still holy. His holiness still burns against evil. The difference is that believers have come to Him through a Mediator whose blood speaks better things than the blood of Abel. We stand near the fire safely, because of Christ, but we never forget that it is fire.

Some teaching on grace has made God seem like a genial grandfather who smiles at everything. That is not the God of the Bible. The same God who calls us sons is the God before whom the seraphim cover their faces. Grace does not make Him smaller. Grace brings us near to Him in His greatness.

What reverence looks like on a Tuesday

Punchline

Reverence is not only a feeling during worship. It shows up in ordinary life, often in the choices nobody else sees.

It looks like taking God’s word seriously. Isaiah writes that the Lord looks to the one who “is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word” (Isaiah 66:2). A reverent believer does not treat Scripture as a collection of suggestions to be weighed against his preferences. When the word speaks, he listens with the intention of obeying.

It looks like integrity in private. When Joseph was alone in a house with his master’s wife and nobody would have known, he asked, “how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). Nehemiah, as governor, refused to burden the people with taxes the way his predecessors had, and he gave the reason simply: “but so did not I, because of the fear of God” (Nehemiah 5:15). Reverence is often the reason a believer refuses a bribe that no auditor would ever find.

It looks like the company we keep and the conversations we have. Malachi describes a remnant in a careless generation: “Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it” (Malachi 3:16). These were ordinary people who talked about God with one another when everyone around them had grown cynical. God listened in, and a book of remembrance was written. Reverence is contagious in the best way. It grows among people who take God seriously together.

It looks like the way we speak about God and to Him. Jesus taught us to pray “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name” (Matthew 6:9). Intimacy and honour sit together in the same opening line. We come boldly to the throne of grace, as Hebrews 4:16 invites us, but we come knowing whose throne it is.

It looks like hating what God hates. “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil” (Proverbs 8:13). Reverence is not neutral about cruelty, deceit or exploitation. It grieves over them, starting with our own.

And reverence brings security. Listen to this:

In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge. The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.

“In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge.” Fear and confidence in the same verse. The person who reveres God has nothing else to be ultimately afraid of. His children have a refuge. The fear of the Lord is “a fountain of life,” a source that keeps a person away from snares that would destroy him.

Two distortions to avoid

There are two ways to go wrong here, and believers often swing between them.

The first is to make grace casual. Jude warned about people “turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness” (Jude 1:4), treating forgiveness as permission. A believer who says, “God will forgive me anyway,” while planning to do what he knows is wrong, has misunderstood both grace and God. In the early church, when Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit, “great fear came upon all the church” (Acts 5:11). Luke did not record that account to make believers live in dread. He recorded it so that we would remember that God is not mocked, and that grace is no joke.

The second distortion is to make God unpredictable. This is the error that kept Zuwaira exhausted for six years. It treats God as though His acceptance might be withdrawn at any moment, as though He watches for an excuse to punish. Many believers carry this fear because of preaching that used terror as a motivation. Many carry it, like Zuwaira, because of earthly fathers whose moods ruled the house. The God revealed in Jesus is not like that. “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” (Psalm 103:13). His character does not change with the weather.

If your relationship with God has been shaped by fear learned in a frightening home, please know that this can take time to heal. Reading Scripture, praying honestly and being among believers who reflect God’s kindness will help. A good Christian counsellor can also help you untangle the fear you learned from the reverence God invites. And if you are in a home where you are not safe right now, please speak to someone you trust and seek help. Your safety matters to God.

When Moses stood before the people at Sinai, he said something that holds both truths together: “Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not” (Exodus 20:20). Fear not. And let His fear be before you. Do not be terrified of Him. And take Him seriously enough not to sin.

Zuwaira is married now, with a little girl of four called Khadija. She told me this story herself, and she said the turning point came on an ordinary evening in their flat in Abuja.

Her husband was sitting on the couch reading. Khadija had been told twice not to climb on the shelf where the television stood. She climbed anyway. Her father put down his book and said her name, firmly. Not loudly. Firmly. “Khadija. Come down. Now.”

Zuwaira watched her daughter’s face. The little girl stopped. She knew her father meant it. She took his word completely seriously. She climbed down carefully and stood in front of him with her head lowered.

Then her husband said, “Thank you for listening,” and opened his arms. And Khadija climbed straight into his lap and put her head on his chest.

Zuwaira said she had to go into the kitchen because she was crying. She had just seen something she had never experienced: a child who took her father’s word seriously and was not afraid of him. Obedience without terror. Reverence and refuge in the same small body.

“That is what I was supposed to have with God all along,” she told me. “I thought the fear of the Lord meant listening for the car on the gravel. It means knowing that when He speaks, He means it, and knowing that His arms are open when I come.”

That is the fear of the Lord under grace. Take His word seriously. And climb into His arms.

For reflection, practice and prayer

Teaching Companion

For Reflection

• When you hear the phrase “the fear of the Lord,” what feelings or memories does it bring up? Where do you think those associations came from?
• How does Psalm 130:4 change your understanding of the relationship between forgiveness and fear?
• In what areas of your life might you have made grace casual? In what areas might you be relating to God as though He were unpredictable?
• How does knowing the price of your redemption (1 Peter 1:18-19) shape the way you think about sin?
• What would “reverence on a Tuesday” look like in your workplace, your home and your private life this week?

This Week

Each morning this week, before you pray, read Hebrews 12:28-29 slowly. Then spend a minute in silence considering who God is: holy, unchanging, a consuming fire, and your Father through Christ. Begin your prayer with “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name,” and mean both halves. At the end of each day, ask yourself one question: “Where today did I take God’s word seriously, and where did I treat it lightly?” Bring your answer to Him without fear, and thank Him for His forgiveness.

A Prayer

Holy Father, I come to You through Jesus Christ, whose precious blood has redeemed me. Thank You that I have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, by whom I cry, Abba, Father. Heal every fear in me that came from somewhere other than You. Where I have been afraid of You as an unpredictable master, teach me Your unchanging love. Where I have treated Your grace lightly, give me a reverent heart. Let me take Your word seriously and run into Your arms. Help me to serve You acceptably with reverence and godly fear, because I have received a kingdom which cannot be moved. Hallowed be Your name in my life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.

Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.