Fear is an inescapable concept. It isn’t whether we fear, but whom we fear. We will either fear God or we will fear man. Put another way, we will either fear God or we will be afraid of him.
And yet to many Christians, the fear of the Lord makes no sense. After all, the sensation of fear feels so terrible, who in their right mind would want to fear God? How can the Bible tell us the fear of the Lord is a good thing?
This is the central question addressed by Michael Reeves in Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord. Reeves—the president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology in Bridgend and Oxford (United Kingdom)—has written a rich yet accessible meditation on the gift of the fear of God.
Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord
Michael Reeves
Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord
Michael Reeves
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”—Proverbs 1:7
Fear is one of the strongest human emotions—and one that often baffles Christians. In the Bible the picture can seem equally confusing: Is fear a good thing or a bad thing? And what does it mean to “fear the Lord”? In Rejoice and Tremble, Michael Reeves clears the clouds of confusion and shows that the fear of the Lord is not a negative thing at all, but an intensely delighted wondering at God, our Creator and Redeemer.
Reeves is steeped in both Scripture and the writings of the likes of Luther, Calvin, Bunyan, John Owen, John Flavel, and C. S. Lewis. In fact, one of the book’s best uses is serving as a tour guide through centuries-old gems we might not have discovered on our own. “What’s not to like?” said a friend of mine, halfway through the book. “It’s basically a tour through the Puritans.” That’s an exaggeration—Reeves writes plenty of the book’s best passages—but you get the idea.
Do You Fear God Yet?
But first, a warning: Rejoice and Tremble won’t make any sense if your heart isn’t ready. The concept of the fear of God bounces off our foreheads unless the Lord opens our minds. Three months ago I would have tossed Reeves’s book as “not what I need right now.” The whole concept of the fear of the Lord was a basket with handles to someone without hands. It was music to the deaf. Color to the color-blind. I just didn’t get it.
I believed I already understood the fear of the Lord. I thought it was my vast, easy comprehension that made the topic such a yawn, like basic addition bores the high school student. Fear God—yep. The fear of the Lord—got it. I skimmed over the concept because if I pondered it for any length of time, it became annoying. Oppressive. Slavish. Weird. Harsh. Rude. Bizarre. Unattractive. Mean.
Eventually, I had to acknowledge that I wasn’t bored by the fear of God. I was frightened. The fear of God itself was frightening. I was afraid of fear. I was afraid of God.
The fear of God itself was frightening. I was afraid of fear. I was afraid of God.
Is this you? Don’t dismiss the possibility lightly. When I went white-water rafting and fell into class-four rapids and nearly drowned, panic distorted my senses and shut down my brain. In the same way, slavish fear of God is blinding—you may not even be aware of it.
Are you afraid of God because you’ve tried desperately your whole life to please him, and you don’t understand how he could love you unconditionally? Are you afraid because you see your own sin, and you don’t understand his forgiveness? Are you afraid because you’ve never actually submitted to Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Begin with Mercy
As Reeves points out in one of the book’s most amazing chapters, the root of each of these fears is a misunderstanding of God’s mercy. Quoting John Bunyan, “Godly fear flows from a sense of the love and kindness of God. Nothing can lay a stronger obligation upon the heart of God than a sense of, or hope in, mercy” (50, emphasis mine).
If we have a low view of the mercy of God, we can’t fear him. We will only be afraid of him. This craven fear may manifest itself as anger, avoidance, apathy, manic overconfidence, works righteousness, impatience, impossibly high standards, superiority, a mad scramble for perfection, and finally apostasy or despair as we realize we can never do anything ourselves to make God not unhappy with us.
The only answer to this horrible, blinding fear is the good fear that comes when we see God’s mercy. “We must fight fear with fear,” Reeves says (149). We can’t save ourselves. It’s all Christ. It’s all love. It’s all grace. God has made God not unhappy with us. Only when we know this overwhelming mercy can we fear God not as slaves but as sons. The fear of the Lord is a good, happy, and utterly safe fear. “With you there is forgiveness,” David says, “that you may be feared” (Ps. 130:4, emphasis mine).
Overjoyed Dread
Think of it this way. Have you ever really messed up, and your parents or spouse or very kind friend loved you anyway and forgave you—in fact, they’d been loving and forgiving you for much longer than you realized?
Only when we stand in the light of this overwhelming mercy can we fear God not as slaves but as sons.
If your eyes were opened to their amazing mercy, then you felt a trembling, grateful, overwhelming fear of that person. You aren’t afraid of them, but their grace dazzled you and melted your heart and made you want to hide your face with relief. You couldn’t believe they still loved you. That experience is something like the overjoyed dread you feel once you come face to face with God’s mercy. Human kindness and forgiveness are the mere spindrift floating off the infinite waterfall of God’s mercy for you.
To feel the wonderful fear of this gracious God, one terrifying thing you might have to do is first ask him to show you your sin. When you look at the cross and see your wickedness, “you simultaneously repent and rejoice,” Reeves points out. “His mercy accentuates your wickedness, and your very wickedness accentuates his grace” (124). Only then will you feel this thrilling, addictive, happy terror of the amazing God who truly and deeply loves you.
Once you feel this fear, you will be like the young C. S. Lewis on his desperate quest for Sehnsucht—that keen, aching joy that proved elusive until he fell into the arms of Christ. You will be chasing this lovely fear and longing to drown in it for the rest of your whole life. The good news is, you can.
