What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “God fearing”?
One of the first things I picture is an old movie. Maybe it’s even black and white. And one of the characters is described as a “God-fearing woman” or a “God-fearing man.” It could even be a John Wayne movie, such as the 1947 feature Angel and the Badman in which John Wayne plays an injured outlaw who is nursed back to health in a proper, God-fearing home.
There was a time when that phrase was commonly used to describe a pious and upstanding member of the community.
But we almost never use the phrase anymore, though a few people may pine with nostalgia for those “olden days” when there were more “decent, God-fearing folks.” The idea of fearing God, however, occurs regularly in the Bible and means something far deeper than being decent, moral, and churchgoing.
Responding to God
Fearing God has everything to do with God himself. It flows from His utter holiness, both in His person (he is wholly other than us as an eternal, uncreated, infinite person) and in His character (he is so completely pure and clean that he is incapable of desiring and doing anything wrong or unholy).
He is majestic in holiness: “Who is like You among the gods, Lord? Who is like You, majestic in holiness..?” (Exodus 15:11, NASB).
And the proper response to such majestic holiness on the part of finite and fallen creatures like ourselves is sheer awestruck wonder, tinged with a bit of trepidation, that is overwhelmed by His Majesty and our own smallness and unworthiness.
So, in Isaiah 6:1-5 when Isaiah is called to ministry and granted a vision of God in which the angels call out “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of armies,” Isaiah’s response is one of holy fear:
“Woe to me, for I am ruined!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies.” (Isaiah 6:1-5, NASB)
“Who is like You among the gods, Lord? Who is like You, majestic in holiness..?”
And when Jesus enabled the miraculous catch of fish, the thought of who Jesus must be so overwhelmed Peter that he responded by falling on his face and saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8, NASB). This too is the response of holy fear.
And it is the truly appropriate response by finite and fallen creatures to the infinite, almighty God who is majestic in holiness.
Fearing God recognizes his immensity, his power, his majesty, his purity and holiness, and in grasping that we see our smallness, our finiteness, and our creaturely dependence, as well as our sinfulness.
Perfect Love Casts Out Fear?
But doesn’t perfect love cast out fear (1 John 4:18)?
Well, yes and no.
Two ideas combine in 1 John 4:15-18 that make clear what kind of fear is cast out and what kind remains. Those two ideas are love and punishment. The kind of fear that is cast out is the fear of punishment. Because we confess Jesus and are now in God, we need not fear punishment from God. The penalty is removed in and through Jesus. In this way we have come to know the love of God, and as we remain in that love, God’s love is perfected or matured in us so that we no longer relate to God on the basis of being afraid of punishment from him.
This helps us see that there is a healthy development in our fear of God that is much like a normal, healthy relationship between kids and their parents. When kids are young, the fear of consequences is a key part of their relationship with their parents. It is one of the ways they learn appropriate behavior and often it is what controls their behavior. As they mature, ideally they grow in love for their parents and value them more. The fear of punishment is removed but the admiration and desire to honor their parents remains (again, speaking ideally).
And this is the way our relationship with God matures too. That’s why in 1 John 4:18 it is perfect love—that is, mature love—which casts out fear.
“As they mature, ideally they grow in love for their parents and value them more. The fear of punishment is removed but the admiration and desire to honor their parents remains.”
But mature love does not diminish the awe and affection and honor we have for God’s beauty, holiness, and majesty. Rather, it deepens it and heightens it.
Because God loves us and we love him—as our love grows into a mature, abiding love—our fear of God becomes a greater understanding of, a deeper affection for, and an increased admiration of his power and holiness.
Love deepens the fear of God into holy awe and amazement.
5 Indicators of the Fear of God
It’s clear in the Bible that fearing God is not just a feeling. It is evidenced by the way we live our lives. The awe, amazement, and affection we feel for who God is changes what we do. So, here are five kinds of behaviors that indicate we fear God.
1. Committed loyalty to the one true God
When Israel is at the border of entering the promised land, Moses warns them that they are about to enjoy a level of affluence and security they have not known. They’ll inherit cities, houses, fields, and cisterns, all of which they did not build. And the danger is that they will forget the Lord their God.
So Moses instructs them, “You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him and swear by his name. You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you” (Deuteronomy 6:13-14, NASB).
That danger is still real. The gods of the nations still pose a threat to seducing our hearts away from the living God. Fearing God means resisting that temptation and guarding our hearts with steadfast loyalty to him.
“Fearing God means resisting that temptation and guarding our hearts with steadfast loyalty to him.”
2. Faithful obedience to God’s instruction
In Hebrew poetry such as the Psalms, the relationship between the lines is one way they communicate their meaning. Psalm 111:10 begins with the familiar line “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” The following line amplifies what the author has in mind by fearing the Lord: “All those who follow his commandments have a good understanding.”
Fearing the Lord entails following his commandments.
The attitude manifests itself in obedient action.
Moses once again communicates the same truth in Deuteronomy 10:12-13 (NASB): “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?”
3. Rejecting evil and wrongdoing
The flip side of obeying God is rejecting evil, so fearing God motivates us to do that as well. In fact, Psalm 36:1-4 says that the ungodly person does wrong because he does not fear the Lord.
“Wrongdoing speaks to the ungodly within his heart;
There is no fear of God before his eyes.
For it flatters him in his own eyes
Concerning the discovery of his wrongful deed and the hatred of it.
The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit;
He has ceased to be wise and to do good.
He plans wickedness on his bed;
He sets himself on a path that is not good;
He does not reject evil.” (Psalm 36:1-4, NASB)
Proverbs 16:6 (NASB) puts it succinctly: “By the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil.”
Fearing God leads us to put distance between ourselves and evil.
“By the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil.”
4. Waiting patiently on God’s faithfulness and love
Psalm 147 assures us that God is the great caretaker of creation. He sends the rain. He provides the animals with food. Therefore, the one who fears the Lord will “wait for His faithfulness” (Psalm 147:11). They will entrust themselves to his care and wait for him to keep his promises.
Psalm 33 instructs us that no one is rescued by their own power or position. God is the one who rescues and provides. So it reminds us that “the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who wait for His faithfulness” (verse 18) and “our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield” (verse 20).
The God-fearing person actively waits for God’s faithful care and help.
5. Living mindful of our accountability to God
We did not create ourselves. We don’t belong to ourselves. We exist through God and for God.
We are creatures made for a purpose and responsible to our Creator.
And there is a day coming when our Creator will call all people to account for how they lived their lives. God-fearing people know this and live in light of it.
The apostle Peter instructs us, “If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth” (1 Peter 1:17, NASB).
There is a healthy sense of accountability to our heavenly Father.
In fact, the apostle Paul reminds us that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive compensation for his deeds done through the body, in accordance with what he has done, whether good or bad” and then adds, “therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord…” (2 Corinthians 5:10-11a, NASB).
Fearing God moves us to live in light of our ultimate accountability to God for how we spend our lives.
“Fearing God moves us to live in light of our ultimate accountability to God for how we spend our lives.”
Conclusion
Now here is the truly amazing thing. This God to whom we are accountable—this infinite, almighty Creator who is majestic in holiness—is the very same God who once walked with us in the garden and who has spent all of history working to be able to dwell with us like that again.
He is the God who descended on Mount Sinai in such furious power and glory that the people stood at a distance in utter fear—but then he came down from the mountain to dwell in a tent right in their midst.
He is the same God who once again pitched his tent among us in the Word made flesh, and “we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, NASB).
This is the God who most fully revealed himself to us by emptying himself and humbling himself to the point of death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8).
This is the very God who in the restoration of all things will once again pitch his tent with us forever:
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4, NASB)
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.”
So while our early experiences of the fear of God might come with insecurity and even fear of punishment, as we come to know the love and kindness of God more and more, the fear of God becomes in us a deep experience of immense gratitude and humble awe that such a God who is majestic in holiness would lower himself to love and live with creatures such as us.
And so we gladly live before him with grateful awe in the beauty of holiness.
