The Second Sunday after Trinity

Adelphoi,

There is a profound petition in the Collect for the Second Sunday after Trinity. Please read on.

"O Lord, who never failest to help and govern them whom thou dost bring up in thy steadfast fear and love: Keep us, we beseech thee, under the protection of thy good providence, and make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

The Epistle: 1 John 4. 7-21 The Gospel: St Luke 14. 16-24

Previous to the 1662 edition of The Book of Common Prayer this Collect was similar but shorter:

"Lord, make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy name; for thou never failest to help and govern them whom thou dost bring up in thy steadfast love."

Let us focus on the petition in both these Collects.

As baptized Christians, members of the Household of God, we ask from God to have perpetually in our souls - minds, hearts and wills -two profound affections towards God the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And, further, we ask that we may have these two affections in our souls concurrently, not one for a while and then the other for a while, but both there together and always. We ask both for a perpetual fear of God's holy Name and for a perpetual love of God's holy Name. In biblical terms, the Name of God stands for the revealed Character of God, thus for God himself, for God the Father or God the Father together with his only begotten Son and the Holy Ghost.

Most of us have no difficulty in thinking that we ought constantly to love God's holy Name for the first and great commandment is that we are to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.

But perhaps some of us have real difficulty in thinking it a duty to fear God constantly. Does not perfect love cast out fear (see 1 John 4:18)? Yes it does, the fear of punishment by God the holy Judge, the fear of hell-fire and the fear of condemnation - for there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

But there is another meaning of fear in the Bible and it is a profound sense of awe, submission and reverence of the creature before the all-Holy, all-Majestic God, Creator & Judge of heaven & earth, the Blessed, Holy and Undivided Trinity. This filial and godly fear in the soul of the child of God is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom in terms of God's ways, will and purposes - as the Psalmists testify. Even those who within the new covenant are brought near to God by the blood of Christ Jesus, and in whom the Spirit testifies to their spirits that they are the children of God the Father, ought never be other than filled with reverence and awe in their relation to God, who is always and ever the Infinite, Eternal Glorious and Holy One.

Love with filial fear is like a ship without ballast; it has no steadfastness and it is wavering, fluctuating, unstable and uncertain.

When we love God in reverence and filial fear, our love is not sentimental and sloppy but solid and secure.

When we fear God in love toward him, this fear is not fear of hell-fire or everlasting condemnation, but deep and profound humility & awe before his overwhelming greatness and holiness.

The more ardently we love God the more we fear him with filial reverence and
awe: and the more we ardently fear God the more we love him with all our being.

Thus let us pray all next week...

"Make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy Name."

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The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)