In Thy Faith and Fear

(I wrote this back in 1993/4 for Trinity Seminary in Pittsburgh and I have recently found it and a friend scanned it! I hope you find it has something to say to modern worship....) -- Peter Toon

Apparently few Christians today are convinced that "the fear of God," so important to the Anglican Refor­mation and its liturgy, is a necessary or legitimate ingredient of genuine spirituality. Some clergy have rep­rimanded me for claiming that it is part of authentic Christianity. Usu­ally they quote St. John, who said "Perfect love casts out fear" (7 John 4:18) or Jesus, who said "Fear not" (Luke 5:10).

By "fear" they understand the emo­tion that reduces one to uneasiness, anxiety, insecurity, and immobility. Surely (they reason) the God who is love does not want to reduce His creatures to such a state. He is not like the stern Victorian father whose arrival makes his child nervous, worried, and frightened. He is like the father whose arrival makes his child happy, contented, and expect­ant.

The Christian concept

The Christian concept is not "fear" but "filial fear" (happily "filial" applies to female and male). This fear is a gift of the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit of the Messiah, He is the Spirit of "the fear of the Lord," for the Messiah delights "in the fear of the Lord" (see Isaiah 11:2-3). As the Spirit of Christ, He causes believers to cry out "Abba, Father." Thus the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the fear of God and of our adoption by God.

The best way to get people to under­stand the "fear of the Lord" is by studying the incidents where God creates "fear," such as Jacob's exper­ience at Bethel in Genesis 28:17. A general definition would go some­thing like this (the second sentence in each section shows the intensi­fication of fear in the new covenant).

First, fear is the sense of dread and awe felt by the creature (made in God's image and after His likeness) before the majesty of the holy God, the eternal Creator. When God is also known as a Holy Trinity of Persons, fear is more profound.

Second, it is the sense of fear felt by a guilty sinner before God the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-pure Judge, whose holiness rejects and punishes sin. When God is also known as the Incarnate Son, who bore the wrath of the holy God against sin for sinners, fear is intensified by a great sense of unworthiness and gratitude.

Third, it is a sense of profound re­spect and reverence for God's self-revelation, will, and law and a fear of displeasing Him by being irrev­erent, disobedient, and selfish, and thus it leads to glad submission to Him and His will. When God is also known as revealed in Jesus Christ, who perfectly obeyed His Father's will on behalf of sinners, there is a greater feeling of reverence, respect, awe, and determination to do the will of God freely and gladly.

Therefore this filial fear is the very foundation from which, and the very atmosphere in which, love, joy, faith, hope, worship, and freedom as fruit or gifts of the Spirit of Christ func­tion best. Filial fear is the right atti­tude of a believing sinner who has been placed in a right relation with God through the saving work of Jesus Christ.

Without filial fear it is easy to cheapen the grace of God, to mini­mize duty to God and the neighbor, and to diminish the glorious attri­butes and transcendence of the eter­nal God who is the Lord our God.

Biblical background

Those who insist that "the fear of God" belongs to the old covenant and has no place in the new covenant have to avoid a range of texts in the New Testament.

Jesus said, for example, "I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him" (Luke 12:4 5). After the death of Ananias and Sapphira we learn that "great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events" (Acts 5:11), for "it is a dreadful [fearful] thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). Then, in Revelation, the angel proclaims: "Fear God and give him the glory" (Revelation 14:7). This is followed by a voice from God's throne that says, "Praise our God all you his servants, you who fear him, both small and great!" (19:5).

This positive meaning of fear is also found in great richness in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms and Proverbs. Here to fear the Lord is not only the beginning of wisdom but also the hallmark of genuine piety, devotion, and religion. It is a dread, a reverence, a profound respect for the living God who has revealed Himself. This godly fear becomes the basis of ready obedience to God's law and of walking in His ways. Thus the command to fear God supports the command to trust, obey, love, and worship Him.

The Book of Common Prayer

If we go back to the sixteenth cen tury we find that for both Protes­tants and Catholics the "fear of God" was a basic emotion of the Christian life and a necessary ingredient of authentic spirituality. The affection or emotion of godly fear is certainly fundamental to the spirituality set forth and encouraged by the English Book of Common Prayer of 1662.

The Catechism in the Prayer Book explains "my duty towards God" as "to believe in him, to fear him, and to love him, with all my mind, with all my soul and with all my strength." At confirmation the bish­op prays for the candidates in these words: "Fill them, O Lord, with the spirit of thy holy fear, now and for ever. Amen."

In the Litany the Church prays that "it may please thee to give us an heart to love and dread thee" and that God would rule the sovereign's heart in "thy faith, fear and love." In the marriage rite the first cause given for the institution of matri­mony is "the procreation of children to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord and to the praise of his holy name."

The Collect for the Second Sunday after Trinity begins: "O Lord, who never failest to help and govern them whom thou dost bring up in thy steadfast fear and love . . .". And in the Order for the administration of the Lord's Supper the priest prais­es God for the faithful departed: "We bless thy holy name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear." In the same prayer he has already asked God that the assembled congregation "with meek heart and due reverence" may hear and receive the divine Word.

Obviously, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and the other theologians who worked on the Book of Common Prayer felt no tension between the godly affections of fear and love. In fact, as the sermons and treatises of that period indicate, clergy were well aware of the variety of mean­ings of the word "fear" in the Bible. However, they believed that there is a right and appropriate use of fear as a necessary affection of the soul as it comes before God in the name of Jesus Christ.

They knew something that we in a generation of instancy and of famil­iarity seem to have forgotten. They knew that a profound reverence and dread of the eternal, infinite, holy God who is our Creator, Redeemer, and Judge, is the very foundation of our true spiritual worship, service, love, and obedience. While He has united himself to us by the Incar­nation, and while He bids us to come boldly to Him through Jesus, He still expects us to come to Him in holy dread and reverence, always aware of who He is and what we are.

Some would argue that one weak­ness of both modern Anglican and Roman Catholic liturgies, and es­pecially of charismatic services, is that the emotion of godly fear is often minimized, marginalized, or even eliminated altogether. Though part of the problem is the liturgical rites themselves, often those who preside believe that to be joyful in the Lord a believer must not have any feelings of dread before God.

I do not suggest that they reject godly fear, but that they do not see that this emotion of the regenerate soul ought to develop in worship. They have simply absorbed the modern view that fear belongs to the old and not to the new covenant.

Conclusion

If godly fear is a genuine part of authentic Christian spirituality, we need to ask whether our piety and worship allows for the proper exercise of godly fear.

My own conviction is that godly fear is a genuinely Christian emo­tion and that we can and must recover it in our spirituality and worship, without losing our sense of charismatic power and joy. For Anglicans the use of the Book of Common Prayer might help in the recovery of the sense of fear, awe, and dread before the LORD, the living God.

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon