Source of the Fear of God
Albert N. Martin
One eminent commentator on the Bible has said, “It is well known that the fear of God is used to signify not only the whole of His worship but all godly affections whatsoever, and consequently the whole of true religion.” This writer could say that it is commonly understood by anyone who knows his Bible that the fear of God can be used as a synonym for the whole of true religion. I believe that a study of Scripture leads to that conclusion. But that also means that there is this terrible negative implication. If the fear of God is synonymous with the whole of true religion, then the absence of the fear of God is indicative of the absence of true religion.
We have asked and answered a number of pivotal questions from the Scriptures pertaining to this important subject of the fear of God. But another useful question we may ask regarding the fear of God is, Where does it come from? What, according to Scripture, is the source of the fear of God? Suppose your child had never seen a delicious, moist chocolate cake; but you have just baked such a cake and set it in front of him. He asks you what it is, and you respond that it is a cake, something delicious to eat. He asks you what it is made of, and you list the ingredients: flour, shortening, baking powder, chocolate, and so on. You have told him not only what it is but also what makes it what it is. You have told him the ingredients. He may next ask where the ingredients came from. You explain that the flour came from grain that is grown out in the field, and the shortening came from either grain or a certain animal that fed upon the field. You are explaining the origin of those ingredients.
What we have done in our study thus far is to explain what the cake is—or in our case, what the fear of God is. It is that regard of God which, considering Him in the majesty and glory of His person produces in us that sense that His smile is the greatest of life’s blessings, and His frown the greatest of life’s curses. We have also explained three ingredients of the fear of God. As we consider where those ingredients come from, we must bear in mind that this inquiry is not a mere academic exercise. One of the most crippling errors in all religious experience is to be content with ignorance of the origin of virtue. Remember what Paul said of his fellow Jews. They knew that righteousness was necessary to be saved. But Paul said of them that, “Being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:3). They knew they had to have righteousness, but they weren’t concerned to find out what was the source or the origin of the righteousness that alone is acceptable to God.
It is not enough simply to know that you must have the fear of God; you must know where to get it. Crippling harm can come to you if you don’t know where to get the fear of God. This is a matter of great spiritual concern. What is the origin or source of the fear of God? First we will see that the fear of God implanted in the heart is a distinct blessing of the covenant of grace. Secondly we will note from Scripture how the fear of God is planted in the heart by the work of God’s grace.
A Distinct Blessing of the Covenant of Grace
First then, let us establish from Scripture that the implanting of the fear of God in the heart is a distinct blessing of the covenant of grace. All of God’s dealings with men are on the basis of His covenantal relationship to them. God pledges to do certain things upon certain conditions that he Himself determines. The blessings of salvation come to us in the terms of what Scripture calls the “everlasting covenant” (Hebrews 13:20), described sometimes under the terms of the New Covenant, when it is contrasted with the Mosaic economy. Jesus said, when He instituted the Lord’s Supper, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (I Corinthians 11:25). In other words, all that He is to do in the shedding of His blood has reference to the blessings to be secured within the framework of the New Covenant. No man receives any blessing of the covenant apart from the blood that Jesus shed; but all who receive any benefits from that blood receive them in terms of the distinct blessings of the New Covenant.
What blessings were promised in that covenant? Several blessings are specified in the prophecies of the New Covenant in Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31 and 32. (We know that these passages refer to blessings to be enjoyed under the New Covenant, especially based on Hebrews 8 and 10.) We will focus our attention on Jeremiah 32, since it directly addresses the matter of the fear of God and its place in the New Covenant.
And they shall be my people, and I will be their God: and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from following them, to do them good; and I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and will implant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul (Jeremiah 32:38-41).
In this context of God’s promising mercy to His people, He says He will put His fear into their hearts, thus securing their perseverance in His ways. Notice the relationship: “I will put my fear in their hearts that they may not depart from me.” In the Old Covenant, even though God set His law before the people with displays of His majesty and His power so that they trembled and dared not even touch the mount, they still committed spiritual adultery against Him time after time. Eventually, God sent the entire nation into captivity because of their spiritual whoredom. Now, He says, in the administration of this New Covenant, all those who come under the blessings of this covenant will not become adulterers against Him. They will not depart from Him, and the reason is this: “I will put my fear in their hearts” (verse 40). That is, “I will so establish My fear in their heart—that is, the very seat of their being—that they will cling to Me and to My ways and will not depart from Me.”
What do we learn from this statement in the prophecy of Jeremiah? We learn first of all that the fear of God is a distinct blessing of the everlasting covenant. No man truly and rightly fears God unless he has the fear of God within the framework of the covenant of grace. Secondly, it is a distinctly sovereign work of God: “I will put my fear in their hearts.” How can God state any more clearly that He is the One who is going to do this? He will do it within the framework of the everlasting covenant. Also, He says He will put it in the heart. What He does will not be a surface thing that will merely affect them for a time, as in the administration of the Mosaic economy. Then, the pattern of the nation as a whole was a pattern of spiritual whoredom and turning from God continually. But He says that all who come under the blessings of this New Covenant will have His fear implanted in the heart. It will secure their cleaving to Him. And further, this passage tells us that it will be done in a context of gracious blessing. He says, “I will be their God” (verse 38); “I will not turn away from following them, to do them good” (verse 40); “I will rejoice over them” (verse 41). He will implant His fear within the context of the blessings of grace.
Conclusions
What can we conclude from this prophecy of Jeremiah? We can conclude two things. First of all, there is no way for anyone to be a partaker of the fear of God but to have it put into his heart as a distinct blessing of the New Covenant. No such fear is ever found growing in purely Adamic soil. The fear of God is an attitude that will not grow in our hearts by nature. As Romans 3:18 says, speaking of natural men, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” The natural man will never fear God with a fear of awe and veneration that binds him to God in a relationship of love and obedience. Only those who come under the blessings of the New Covenant know that kind of fear. Such fear does not come through education; it doesn’t come by spiritual osmosis. It comes only as one enters into the blessings of the New Covenant.
The second conclusion we draw from this passage is that all who are partakers of the blessings of the New Covenant will give evidence that the fear of God has been planted in their hearts. There is no such thing as a sinner forgiven by the blood of the covenant who doesn’t fear God. There is no such thing as one who comes to Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant, and is pardoned, but who then goes out to walk in a manner indifferent to God and as a stranger to His fear. There is no way to know the fear of God but by coming under the blessings of the New Covenant. And all who receive any of its blessings also receive this blessing of the fear of God.
A Work in the Heart by the God of Grace
The Heart Inclined to Obedience
Now consider the manner in which the fear of God is imparted to the human heart in the New Covenant. I pose this question reverently: Does God simply form a disposition called the fear of God in someone’s heart, plunking it down into the heart of a sinner much like someone puts money into a safe? We must say that God certainly could operate in that way. But Scripture reveals that God’s working in grace does not bypass the natural structure of how man is made. It does not circumvent the operations of his mind and affections, but it works behind and in and through them, so that often it is difficult to discern our working from His working. Paul says in Philippians 2:13, “It is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.” It says that God “worketh in you.” When God works in us, we do not just become puppets at the end of a string that God is manipulating, so that we merely wait for impulses to move us to pray or to obey His commands. No. God “worketh in you to will,” says Paul. He works beneath the level of my consciousness. When I go to church, all I am conscious of is that I choose to go, that I choose to give myself to pray as the congregation seeks the face of God. But, although I was not conscious of it, God was working in me to will and to do of His good pleasure. God doesn’t work in us by overriding what we are as human beings but by laying hold of all that we are and working in us. As we read in Jeremiah 31:33, “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Jehovah: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it.”
What then is the first distinct blessing of the New Covenant? God says that the first thing He will do is to powerfully and inwardly incline His people to a life of obedience. What He requires of them will not be merely external to them, but He said He will write His law upon the heart. There will be an inward affinity to that holy law so that there will be an inclination to keep and to obey it. God says, “I will not only set My requirements before them, but I will also inwardly incline them to a life of obedience.” What is that but an awareness of our obligation to God, or what I called the third ingredient of the fear of God? Yes, the law is external to me, telling me what to do. But it is also within me, inclining me to live the life of obedience.”
God Owns His People, and they Own Him
What else does God say He will do? In the latter part of verse 33, He says, “And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” “All that I am as I have revealed myself”—and we know from our perspective in the New Covenant that that takes in all that He has revealed in the person and work of His Son—“they will gladly own.” And He says not only that He will be their God, but they shall be His people. They will not only own Him as He has revealed Himself, but He will own them. What is this but God bringing Himself into an intimate covenant relationship to His people, filling them with a pervasive sense of His presence and of their relationship to Him and His to them? And isn’t that the second ingredient of the fear of God? A man recognizes that this great, mighty, transcendent, holy, powerful God is not simply a God out there somewhere, but He is my God and I am His child. I belong to Him and He belongs to me in this covenantal relationship. This is what God has pledged in the New Covenant.
True Knowledge of God
And what else does He promise? In verse 34, He says:
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know Jehovah’; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah.
God says that in the New Covenant He will impart a true and inward knowledge of Himself to His people. Under the old economy there were some who truly knew God, but the great masses of the people didn’t know Him. They saw mighty demonstrations of His power firsthand, but they were utterly ignorant of His heart. God told them, “I hear your groaning down there in Egypt. I am moved with pity and compassion, so I’ve sent Moses to be a deliverer, to bring you out.” But they are no sooner out of Egypt, at the shore of the Red Sea, and what do they do? They come to Moses and say, “God brought us out to kill us!” They didn’t know Jehovah. The truth is that they found themselves standing at the shore of the Red Sea precisely because God heard their cries and had compassion on them and desired to deliver them. But they turn around and say He brought us out to kill us! How would you feel as a father if you told your son, “I’ve planned a wonderful day for you. We are going to one of your favorite places to do one of your favorite things.” But as soon as you get into the car he says, “Are you going to run this car off a cliff and kill me?” You’d say to him, “Son, you don’t know me. I’ve told you what my plans are.” The Jews didn’t know God. A few did, but the rest didn’t know Him.
God says, in the New Covenant, they will not need to be tutoring one another saying, “Know the Lord”; for one of the blessings of the New Covenant will be the impartation of a true and inward experimental knowledge of God. And what is that but right views of the character of God, inwardly and spiritually perceived? So the three ingredients of the fear of God are all here. God says I will put these things into their heart. And when the three ingredients are in the heart, you have the fear of God.
Forgiveness of sins
But notice carefully that there is one phrase at the end which I left out. This is in effect the pivot upon which everything else stands and rests. It is in the light of, and with reference to, and because of this great blessing that God says He will do all that He does. “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). In other words, the base upon which all these other blessings rest is the blessing of full and final forgiveness of sins. “All of these things that I said I would do—inclining you to My will, giving you an experimental knowledge of Myself, owning you as My people so you own Me as your God—all of this,” He says, “is inseparably joined to the forgiveness of sins.” Only he who receives that forgiveness will know the other blessings of the New Covenant implanted in his heart. Jeremiah saw—because God revealed it to him—an inseparable relationship between possessing the fear of God and being in a state of conscious forgiveness through the blood of the covenant.
The Forgiveness of Sins and the Fear of God
There is one text of Scripture that ties these two thoughts together beautifully. In Psalm 130, the people of God are in a state of dejection. They are in what the psalmist describes as “the depths.” The psalm opens, “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Jehovah” (verse 1). Next we get a hint as to what His depths are. “If thou Jehovah, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” (verse 3). He is conscious that, if such a holy God should take account of every sin he has committed, he could never abide in God’s presence or stand in the judgment (cf. Psalm 1:5). And if we cannot stand before God with delight, we cannot walk in His fear. How can you hold delightful communion with a God before whom you sense nothing but dread and terror? Who could stand before God in such a state? There is the question.
Verse 4 provides the answer to the dilemma: “But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.” He says “Lord, no one could stand before You if You were to mark iniquity, if You were to give me what I deserve. And if I cannot even stand before You, I will know nothing of a heart inclined to do Your will. I will not be able to own You as my God and have You own me as Your child. I will know nothing of this inward experimental acquaintance with You, such that You will delight in me and I in You. I will know nothing of true fear. I can know dread. But, Lord, I cannot stand.”
The answer to the dilemma is that a way of forgiveness has been discovered in God. A discovery of God’s way of forgiveness will always secure the fear of God in the heart of the one who discovers it. But how is this so? If the text had read, “There is justice with God that He may be feared,” we could understand that. But there is forgiveness with God that he may be feared? How does the discovery of the forgiveness of God secure the fear of God? I suggest that there are two ways in which the experience of forgiveness gives rise to godly fear.
The Display of God’s Character
First of all, in the work Christ did to secure forgiveness for His people, there has been the fullest, most intense and glorious display of all the attributes of God. If the fear of God begins with right views of God’s character, seeing His majesty and His glory, then certainly to discover God’s way of forgiveness is to discover the brightest display of all His glorious attributes. Therefore, because there is forgiveness with God, He is feared. How did that forgiveness come? We are astounded when we contemplate the wisdom that framed worlds and formed the intricacies of the little cell as well as the great galaxies. But such contemplations are like kindergarten knowledge when we stand before the wisdom of the virgin’s womb and the Incarnate God. That is the wisdom that conceived that sinful men could be forgiven through God Himself actually becoming a man, the offended God taking the offense upon Himself and so discharging that offense that He can be just and the Justifier of them that have faith in Jesus. No wonder Christ is called the wisdom of God (I Corinthians 1:24). What a display of wisdom!
But what about God’s holiness? If you had been able to look with Abraham at what was once Sodom and Gomorrah, but was now simply a vast plain going up in smoke “as the smoke of a furnace” (Genesis 19:28), you would see His holiness in that frightening display of His hatred for sin. Well, that display of God’s holiness pales in comparison to Golgotha. For when we look to the cross, we see the shrouded heavens covered in blackness. We look upon the heaving bosom of the Son of God, and we hear that cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). The the only answer is that God is so holy that when the sins of man are laid upon His own beloved Son, He must bring down the stroke of His wrath upon Him until He cries out with a cry that eternity will not be able to fathom. God is so holy that He does this even to His dearly beloved Son who had Himself never committed evil.
To discover the way of forgiveness forged in the terrible agonies of Christ is to see the display of wisdom and holiness that far outstrips any other display God has made. It is to see the display of power beyond any other display, even the power that raised Christ from the dead. We read in Colossians 2:15 that Christ made an open show of the powers of darkness when He triumphed over them in His death and in His glorious resurrection. Think of all the powers of hell that would have sought to keep Him in a state of death. But Peter says that “it was not possible that he should be holden” by death (Acts 2:24).
Then there is the display of God’s love. Who can fathom it? “God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Here is the display of the majestic condescension of the Son of God. He “thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” yet He emptied Himself and took upon Himself the form of a servant (Philippians 2:6-7). Can you see how the discovery of the way of forgiveness produces the fear of God? How can you discover those things without standing amazed before such a God? It is impossible.
Peace with God and Filial Fear
The second reason why forgiveness and fear are joined together is that a believing reception of the forgiveness which God offers through His Son brings peace and rest from the fear of dread and of terror, and it binds the heart to God in grateful love and glad submission. When a sinner is forgiven by God, the fear of dread is exchanged for the submission of an adopted son. Who can discover that kind of forgiveness in God without saying, “Here, Lord, I give myself away, ’tis all that I can do”? God, by showering mercy upon the undeserving and extending forgiveness to the sinner, brings him out of a state of terror and into a condition of reverent, filial fear.
Mercy and grace therefore combine to elicit the fear of God in a way that all the terrors of the law could never rival. This godly fear considers God’s mercies and benefits received more than His judgments threatened. The fear of dread thinks of judgment, and it trembles. The fear of God thinks of mercies given, and it worships. It regards more the open hand of God’s blessing than the closed fist of His judgment.
Forgiveness of Sins Misused
There are several practical implications of this teaching. First of all, we behold the folly of all man-made religions. For every man-made religion either seeks to produce the fear of God on some other basis than forgiveness, or it promises forgiveness in a way that does not produce the fear of God. Every scheme to attain the righteousness of God based not on the gospel but on human “wisdom” will fail in one of those two ways. They’ll say, first, that you can’t tell people they are fully accepted and forgiven, or they’ll go out and live like hell. That’s the argument of the Roman Catholic Church. They don’t dare preach free and full forgiveness; otherwise, they reason, people will think they can sin with impunity. They believe rather that the way to produce the fear of God that results in obedience is to rub the conscience raw with terrors and insecurity and doubts about one’s acceptance. Then the person will fearfully attempt to obey God, hoping he will attain His favor. But what we have seen about the way God produces His fear in the heart of man exposes Romanism for what it is. God takes the raw conscience full of the terrors of the damned and, disclosing the way of forgiveness, binds that heart to Himself in fear that is based upon love and trust.
The second type of false religion operates in an almost opposite manner. Its proponents affirm that through the blood of the cross sinners indeed receive complete forgiveness. But those who receive their message are generally utterly devoid of the fear of God. They don’t show any concern to walk before Him with a careful conscience. They don’t know what it is to be powerfully inclined to obedience to God’s holy law from the heart. They have no terror whatsoever. They don’t tremble the way many poor Roman Catholics do, wondering if maybe they’ll wake up in purgatory tomorrow. They are dead sure they are going to wake up in heaven because they are forgiven through the blood of the cross. Yet their lives manifest an utter lack of the fear of God. They desecrate God’s holy day, giving Him a token two hours, and using the rest of the day as they please with no reference to His law. They order their homes and their time and the use of their television with no reference to His law. Why? Because they have believed a lie—that they could have their sins forgiven, yet remain strangers to the fear of God.
Both of those errors are damning at the core. You can’t fear God as you ought until you come into the blessedness of full forgiveness. But if you come into that blessedness, you must fear Him. If you don’t, you have never truly experienced the saving mercy of God.
Practical Words of Instruction
Do you have a conscience that has been rubbed raw? Have the terrors of the law and of God tracked you down? Do you have a fear of dread, but know nothing of the fear that is based upon forgiveness? Do you have the spirit of bondage, but know nothing of the Spirit of adoption that makes you cry, “Abba, Father”? If this is your condition, you must understand that you will find no rest and no true fear of God until you come, as you are, to Jesus. He is the Mediator of the New Covenant, and He is seated upon the mercy seat, and it is in that mercy seat that there is a way of forgiveness that He may be feared. You will not fear Him until you trust Him as your Savior. Cast yourself upon Him just as you are—for that is how He bids you to come—and He will receive you.
There is also a word of consolation for troubled souls. There are true children of God who feel themselves so sinful that, at times, they wonder how it can be that God bears so long with them. If that is your condition, don’t listen to the people who tell you to just forget your sin and rejoice in the Lord. No; don’t forget your sin. Rather, let the Holy Spirit show you all of your sin that He knows you are able to bear—realizing He has only shown you the one thousandth part of it. God’s Spirit will enable you to say with the psalmist, “If You should mark iniquity, who could stand?” Then, the more you see of your sin, the more you will be amazed at the magnitude of God’s glory in providing forgiveness. And the more you see the magnitude of His glory in providing forgiveness, the more you will fear Him. “There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.” Octavius Winslow wrote, “Soak the roots of thy profession daily in the blood of Christ.” That’s what we all need to do. And as you soak them there and come again and again to Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant, you will find the fear of God deepening in your soul.
There is also here a word of conviction to any who are deceived. You may feel yourself to be forgiven, while, at the same time, you experience no dread, no fear of hell, because you feel that all is well. You say, “I have the blessings of the New Covenant!” But, the question is, Where is the fear of God? God’s own Word says that if He has brought you into that covenant He has put His fear within your heart. Do you display the constraining awareness of your obligations to Him? Do you manifest a pervasive sense of His presence? Has your understanding of forgiveness bound you to a life lived in the fear of God? Let me make it more personal: if someone were to ask your children, What is the one thing that characterizes your mom and dad above everything else, would they be able to answer, “They fear God”? Would they be able to say, “In everything in the home, Daddy’s first concern is what God says about it.” Would your children say that the fear of God is s dominant characteristic in his father and mother? The testimony of your children that you live a life characterized by godly fear can’t be bought; it has to be earned, and it is earned by a life lived in the fear of God.
Must you admit to yourself that your children—or whoever lives close enough to you to know what “makes you tick”—could not bear that testimony concerning you? If that is the case, call out to God today, and plead, “Oh God, give me such a sight of forgiving grace that I will begin truly to fear You.” The fear of God begins with forgiveness of sin, in the climate of all the gracious provisions of the New Covenant.
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