Learning to Fear God

Does the term “fearing God” equate respect for, and reverence of God?

This particular thought has been occupying most of my conscious thoughts on the train to and from work the past couple of days so I thought I would share what I’ve learned.

Today, many sermons focus on love, forgiveness, the goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father, grace, the end-times, etc, but I have read or heard very few on the fear of God.

Don’t get me wrong — it’s all good that we are learning about love, grace, forgiveness and even about the persecution that is to come, but there are very few teachings on the fear of God, and I wanted to learn more.

When I first asked this question as a young Christian, the answer I received was that we don’t really fear God as we fear the bogeyman, but it is more of respect and reverence.

I don’t think that explanation is wrong, but I felt that there’s more to the teachings to fear God than just respecting and having reverence for God.

After all, don’t those who aren’t Christians respect God? Even atheists, though they deny God, give Him enough due respect to say that they deny His existence (yes, I know it’s a weird way of looking at it, but that’s my take).

The Bible teaches this:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling

Philippians 2:12

Even so, our Lord Jesus Christ tells us this:

I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!

Luke 12:4-5

So the fear of God is not just respect or reverence, because the word “trembling” is so obviously there, and to me that represents some real form of fear, definitely more than mere respect.

Further reading, especially from the Old Testament, reveals that God was very much feared by not just the Israelites, His chosen people, but also by those whom the Israelites warred against.

Now, we all know that God is the same yesterday, today and forever more, how then do we explain away the “fear of God” with just a simple “oh, it just means respect and reverence for God”?

In other words, God hasn’t changed, but our attitude towards Him as His church has, perhaps snared by the beautiful and comforting words preached from the pulpits of love and forgiveness and grace.

Today, many of us don’t mention the “fear of God” because we don’t want to scare away the Christians now, do we?

Yet we must be mindful that in order to truly love God, we must also be able to fear Him!

Let me see how I can best explain what I believe to be the fear of God.

Our fear of God is not alike the fear of the bogeyman or other irrational fears we have of this or that, but it is as like a fear of one’s parents.

Don’t we all, while we were little children, love our parents and respect them, but yet fear them at the same time? And when do we most fear our parents?

We fear them most when we do wrong and when we know we have done wrong, and that there’s some form of impending punishment, no?

So it is the same in some ways — we need to be fearful of God and His hate of sin. We need to recognize that we need to have the fear of God in us in order to recognize that we have sinned and need to repent and seek His forgiveness.

For only through a genuine fear of God that we know also to keep His commandments and do His will.

Someone once mentioned that there’s so little fear of God today because punishment for sin is not immediately meted out, unlike several cases in the Old Testament. For example, Onan wilfully spilled his seed and was struck dead immediately; his brother Er was wicked in the eyes of the Lord and he was slain prior to Onan’s death (Genesis 38:7-10).

However, let’s be mindful that this fear of God should not paralyze and stop us from loving Him.

Just like how our parents shower love upon us exceedingly though we were naughty and broke the rules time and again, our fear of God and our love for Him go hand-in-hand in our relationship with our Heavenly Father!

So how do we truly learn to fear God then? Proverbs 2 teaches well on this:

My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.

Proverbs 2:1-5

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