The fear of the Lord
Photograph by Max LaRochelle via Unsplash
Rev. John Burns
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” (Proverbs 9:10).
This summer, I had a heart attack. Long ago, when I thought as a child, I would have wondered what I had done to deserve such a punishment from God. I no longer wonder. I know. Too much Popeyes chicken, too much worrying about things I have no control over and too little exercise.
A heart attack is a good time to reevaluate, to talk to the Lord about lifestyle alterations that need to happen. A closed artery can open prayer channels and bring one into a deeper communion with God. But that doesn’t mean that God sends heart attacks or cancer or car accidents or tsunamis to whip us into shape.
These days, however, I’m reexamining the theology captured by the Biblical phrase, “The fear of the Lord.” Does the Lord God ever intervene in human behavior to punish, discipline or stop the unjust? If so, should mortals, when aligned with injustice, fear the Lord?
Most of my adult life, I have been nurtured by the progressive wing of the Baptist movement. That wing often explains that “fear of the Lord” means we are to “respect” or “reverence” the Lord. Respect God for the Lord’s wisdom and holiness. Reverence the Lord for God’s mystical nature and boundless creativity. But never, never, never, I’ve been told, should we be afraid of God. I’m not so sure about that. Maybe I don’t want to be so sure about that.
There are several arguments offered for why people should not be afraid of God regardless of how they live. First, we don’t fear God because the Almighty’s love is unconditional. Nothing we can do could cause God to quit loving us fully, robustly, eternally. I agree. However, couldn’t that love for all humanity, require God to use divine powers to guide us in the way of justice and discipline us when we embrace unjust ways? Scripture seems to say yes. Here’s a test. Open your Bible to anywhere in the Hebrew Scriptures or New Testament and read ten verses. Any ten. You will have found the rarest of passages if you can read ten verses and not encounter a loving, clear command to do some things and not do others. In hundreds of passages God promises that obedience to these commands will be rewarded with shalom or blessing whereas disobedience will lead to the purifying judgment of God. Even our favorite verse, John 3:16, says believe and receive everlasting life, reject and perish.
Another argument is that experience proves that God does not stoop to punish or reward we mere mortals for our behavior. The evidence of this is hard to dispute. One of the oldest struggles of faith asks, “If God truly intervenes in human actions, why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer?” Why indeed. If God moves among us to establish justice and punish those who stand in her way, why isn’t the world in better shape? Judas’ question in “Jesus Christ Superstar” comes to mind: “Every time I look at you, I don’t understand why you let the things you did get so out of hand.”
A third reason for dismissing the idea that we need to fear the Lord is that the threat of God’s wrath has been a toxic force in the world, not a redemptive one. Because we find it so enticing to identify the troubles of people we disagree with as God’s judgment while concluding that anything bad that happens to our group is a random “act of nature” or “unfortunate coincidence or happenstance,” we misrepresent God’s corrective acts. Depending upon our viewpoint and self-interest, a hurricane, mass shooting, or worldwide virus can be attributed to God’s wrath on homosexuality or homophobia, abortion or the denial of a woman’s right to choose, permissive gun laws or restrictions on gun laws, communism or capitalism, illegal immigration or mistreatment of migrants. Inevitably all such explanations unleash a virulent self-righteous arrogance that is antithetical to all that Christ has taught us.
If God hates injustice and loves justice, should we not fear that either through direct intervention or the allowing of natural consequences, God’s righteous wrath shall bring about a reckoning for all who flaunt their unjust ways in the belief that there is no power greater than themselves to hold them accountable?
A fourth reason is the observation that the pain that arises from our behavior individually and corporately is really just the natural consequences of our actions, not the punishment of God. As Leah, the child of Baptist missionaries, says in “The Poisonwood Bible”: “I see that plainly when I look at my parents. God doesn’t need to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves.”[i] I’m not sure it matters much, however, whether we should fear God because we believe the Almighty will directly chastise us for our misdeeds or fear God because the Lord has designed a universe in which bitter consequences befall the unjust.
The last reason is the most powerful. We should not fear the Lord because the chief message of our Christian faith is cruciform not vindictive. Jesus told the disciples to put away the sword and gave himself up to die on the cross. He did not scream from those crossbeams “I’ll get you for this!” He cried, “Father, forgive them.” Christ did not inflict pain on a sinful world; he took the pain upon himself to save the world.
Yet if I’m standing at the foot of the cross with Jesus bleeding out and the day turned night and people wailing and the Savior breathing his last, I’m going to be shaking in my sandals. The awful cost of the crucified one in the face of the sins of the world, is an incredible act of love worth fearing.
We find ourselves living in a nation whose leaders have little (if any) fear of the Lord. Many politicians fear the displeasure of the president or the loss of an election. Many university heads fear the loss of government funds. Some prominent members of the media fear having their plans and profits impeded by government intervention. Evidently millions of Americans fear the immigrant who lives in their neighborhood or works at their job site. Some billionaire business moguls seem to fear even the slightest restriction on their ability to increase their bloated fortunes.
Our current elected leaders have enacted policies that caused the deprivation of aid to the world’s poorest people, reduced the money available for medical care to the neediest of our citizenry, restricted the ability of black and brown people to enter this country while welcoming white Afrikaners with a long history of racial oppression, pardoned criminals who support them while launching vindictive investigations against their political opponents, allowed many in power to use their office and influence to increase their own wealth and is in the process of dismantling scores of laws and policies that protect our rapidly deteriorating environment. Most recently, the Department of Homeland Security used their government-sponsored website to quote Isaiah and Proverbs to paint themselves as God’s warriors against the immigrant in our midst.[ii] And “we the people” put all of them into office.
If God hates injustice and loves justice, should we not fear that either through direct intervention or the allowing of natural consequences, God’s righteous wrath shall bring about a reckoning for all who flaunt their unjust ways in the belief that there is no power greater than themselves to hold them accountable? Could it be an act of compassion and unconditional love for the church to follow the example of Isaiah, Amos, Micah, and Jesus and tell them as well as ourselves that it is time to “fear the Lord”?
Rev. John Burns retired in 2023 from University Baptist Church, College Park, Maryland. He is the author of “Modeling Mary in Christian Discipleship,” available from Judson Press.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
[i] Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible (New York: HarperPerennial, 1998) p. 327.
[ii] https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1942362217795510273?t=gLBgGnoOgA_xdzXHeF2oNQ&s=19, https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1949913619644493930?t=G5xtlPcbELqgZSrMN29_pA&s=19
Get early access to the newest stories from Christian Citizen writers, receive contextual stories which support Christian Citizen content from the world’s top publications and join a community sharing the latest in justice, mercy and faith.