By Ian Wilson (Rated G)
One of the virtues extolled frequently in Scripture is the fear of the Lord. As Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” Therefore, we cannot even begin to have wisdom without the fear of God.
“But why,” you may ask “should I fear the Lord? He is loving and gracious, is He not?” He is. He is also holy; completely holy. Both the Hebrew and Greek words for “holy” mean “set apart”. God is totally set apart; He is holy both in being and character. There is none like Him and He has no equal in Heaven or Earth. He is utterly other from us, and we need to acknowledge that.
The Hebrew word translated “fear” can mean awe, astonishment, respect, and terror. Here in the American church, I think we have “tamed” God. We have an image of God as “safe” like a house cat; when in reality He is a lion. He is the God who parted the Red Sea, who flooded the earth in Noah’s time, who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; nothing is impossible for Him.
As Nahum 1:3-5 states:
The Lord is slow to anger and great in power,
and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
He rebukes the sea and makes it dry;
he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither;
the bloom of Lebanon withers.
The mountains quake before him;
the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
the world and all who dwell in it.
When Isaiah the prophet saw the Lord in a vision in the Temple, he said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5). He was so utterly overwhelmed by the sight of God that he thought he was about to die. And yet he found grace in the eyes of God.
The same God who plagued the Egyptians is the God who healed the lepers and gave sight to the blind. The God who slew the firstborn in Egypt is the God who did not spare His only Son for our justification. God is love – a fierce, passionate, overwhelming love. No creature of Earth could love in the way that God loves. We have to stand in awe of his power – we owe Him that – but we must remember that He loves us more than anyone else could ever love us.
LogoSophia Magazine 