The fear of God is a bizarre concept. How can we possibly be afraid of someone who’s gone to the cross for us? Yes, we can say, “fear means reverence, not literally being afraid of God,” and that sort of thing; but “fear” nevertheless brings to mind “being afraid”. How can we be afraid of a loving God?
After all, the apostle John says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18) In that context, John speaks about God’s righteous judgement: if we’re in Christ, we don’t fear God’s wrath. That’s extremely comforting; so comforting that we might not see the divine forest for the tree of the cross. Our idea of God might be too comfortable.
Imagining God is easy: maybe an old man, or a blinding ball of heavenly light. But because we’re imagining him, we can grow comfortable with the image we’ve created. It’s very difficult to be afraid of something you’ve made and are comfortable with. But is this cozy image the God who reveals himself in Scripture? NO!
Beginning with the Ten Commandments, we’re warned not to make images and worship them. By making God into a comfy image, we’re doing that very thing. How did the Lord make himself known to the Hebrews? Deuteronomy 4:12:
The Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.
Reading Scripture, we, too, encounter God: we read his words, but see no form. Why? As God says in Exodus 33:20, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” That’s a pretty good reason to fear God!
The New Testament is even less comfortable. In Mark 12:29, Jesus repeats Moses’ statement, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”; but then the New Testament goes on to assert that there are three Persons in the one God!!! Not three gods, but three Persons in one God. At the very least, our reaction should be, “Pardon?” The Father being God is easy to grasp; but Jesus is also shown to be God…a second Person, in spite of being one with the Father (John 10:30)! Yet he’s also the Son of the Father! Even worse for our feeble brains, Jesus, God the Son, was conceived in Mary not by the Father, but by the power of the Holy Spirit!…who, the New Testament says, is also God!
“The Trinity is incomprehensible!” we cry. “I can’t understand it!” Of course we can’t: it’s God revelation of himself. We could understand God being the “great ball of light in the sky”; but the fact that the Trinity is so utterly beyond our understanding shows how vastly different he is from us. It also shows how the doctrine of the Trinity came from God: what nutcase creating a cult would invent something which nobody can comprehend?! As God declares in Isaiah 55:9, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, / so are my ways higher than your ways /and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Someone so incomprehensible upon whom we have no choice but to depend should make us afraid. And yet….
Imagine you’re alone at home, when suddenly, the entire dwelling starts shaking, like by a violent wind (John 3:8 and Acts 2:2). The windows are filled with brilliant light, and you’re terrified! You know there’s a mysterious unknown force outside and there’s nothing you can do. Then you hear a very loud pounding at your door. With a beating heart and trembling hands, you go to the door and open it. All is calm: there stands a smiling, ordinary-looking man, saying, “How ya’ doing? My name’s Jesus. Come and share the joy of my Father’s kingdom.”
Glory be to the One God in Three Persons! Amen.
Andrew MacLeod
