God sometimes sovereignly makes examples of some of His people so
that all of His people may lead exemplary lives all of the time
by William Harrell
Most preachers and Bible teachers consistently modify any reference to the
fear of God by saying that since perfect love casts out fear, such fear
must imply reverence and not dread. The distinction between reverence
and
dread is certainly valid. However, for many of us that is as far as the
analysis of the fear of the Lord goes, with the result that God is
conceived of as being indulgent, which He is not.
The fear of God contains two facets. One is holy reverence. Perfect
love
does not cast out but enhances such reverence. The other facet is the
dread
of a guilty conscience as it convicts us before our righteous God. Perfect
love casts out this type of fear. But lest we in our haste assume that
such
love is automatically operative in the life of every professing believer
at
any given time, we do well to consider further what our being perfected
in
love really means.
As there is a distinction in fear, so there is in love. The love of
benevolence loves not because of the loveliness and worthiness of the
beloved, but in spite of the unattractiveness and unworthiness of the
object of such love. The love of complacency recognizes and delights in
the
worthiness of the beloved. Due to the love of benevolence of our God,
we
are justified by Christ's imputed righteousness. The divine love of
complacency for us results from our sanctification, wherein progressively
our Lord loves us not in spite of who we are, but because of who we are
becoming. Jesus Himself tells us as much when He declares that He and
the
Father love obedient disciples: "He who has My commandments, and
keeps
them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My
Father, and I will love him..." (Jn. 14:21). As we grow in loving
obedience, the Father and Son love us with complacency, and our cause
for
dread diminishes.
Before we glibly dismiss all thought of the applicability to our lives
of
the dreadful aspect of the fear of God, we do well to realize that it
is
only when we are perfected in both facets of love that we can be free
from
all such dread. Our haste to exclude the punitive aspect of the fear of
God
is not truly warranted, since our love for Christ, our obedience springing
therefrom, and His resultant love of complacency for us-all remain
imperfect for each of us in this life.
Therefore, instead of our reducing the concept of the fear of God, we
should consider carefully its true character and import. Many people say
that they love and are loved by God without their understanding all
dimensions of the nature of God as revealed in Scripture. In fact, such
people love a fabrication of their own fancy, and not the one, true, living
God. It is easy not to fear (or respect!) a fantasy; it is impossible
and
unsanctifying not to fear the jealous God of Scripture, into whose hands
His Word tells us that it is terrifying to fall (Heb. 10:31).
We can too easily train ourselves to forget or to consider as irrelevant
the fact that our God is a jealous God (Ex.20:5). We can suppress the
truth
that repeatedly His jealous ire has been aroused and manifested in
redemptive history. There are, for example, those incidents where rank
departure from and rebellion against His revealed Word and ordinances
have
met with Swift capital punishment. When the Israelites grew riotous over
the golden calf which they pleaded with Aaron to make, the Lord, through
Moses, instructed the sons of Levi to kill more than 3,000 of the people
(Ex. 32:25-28). When Korah rebelled against Moses, he and his family were
destroyed by the Lord opening up the earth (Num. 16:31-35), while 14,700
members of the covenant people, who sympathized with rebellious Korah
were
killed by a plague (Num. 16:41-49). Later in Israel's history, 24,000
of
those joining themselves to Baal of Peor were put to death (Num. 25).
Nor is it only crass and open rebellion which proved fatal to those
inclined to indulge in it. A man was ordered by the Lord to be stoned
to
death because he collected firewood on the Sabbath (Num. 15:32-36); more
than 50,000 men from Bethshemesh, a Levitical town, were struck dead by
God
because they looked into the ark (1 Sam. 6:19); Nadab and Abihu, the two
eldest sons of Aaron the high priest, were struck dead by the Lord on
the
day after they were consecrated as priests, because they offered strange
fire to the Lord (Lev. 10); Uzzah died because he touched the ark as it
tottered on an ox cart (1 Sam. 6; 1 Chron. 13). And, lest we wrongly
conclude that such capital punishments are confined to Old Testament times,
bear in mind that Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead by God because
they
lied to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5), while many in the church at Corinth
were
weak, sick, and some had died because of their unworthy partaking of the
Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11:27-30).
Who in his right mind would not fear a God who had done such things,
and be
in dread of offending Him? If anyone objects that for the vast majority
of
the time God does not so severely chastise His people, the apostle Paul
reminds us that it is not due to the Lord's indulgence, but rather to
His
patience, which is exercised to lead us to repentance (Rom. 2:4).
All of these things are written in God's Word, not so that we might
discount and ignore them, but they are for our admonition and amendment.
I
believe that Matthew Henry wrote, in commenting on Uzzah's death, that
God
sometimes sovereignly makes examples of some of His people so that all
of
His people may lead exemplary lives all of the time.
It is not morbid and grim rightly to fear the Lord. David calls the
fear of
the Lord clean, more desirable than gold, sweeter than honey, and rewarding
(Ps. 19:9-11). When we remember that our God is both compassionate and
a
consuming fire, we shall take greater care in our thinking, speaking,
and
walking to keep from sins great and small, while we dwell more vitally
and
consistently in Jesus. In this respect we all do well to hear and heed
the
call of the psalmist: "Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry,
and you
perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled...." Indeed,
it may be
kindled sooner and over smaller matters than we think! Our safety and
satisfaction are not found in a perversion of the Lord's grace and love
into a license for complacent living, but rather in the fear of the Lord,
which drives us when love fails to draw us to the Son, of whom the psalmist
also says: "How blessed are all who take refuge in Him." (Ps.
2:12).
William Harrell
Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia.
