The third in a series on fearing God. Part 1: Fearing God Our Creator. Part 2: Fearing God Our Judge.
“I am a child of God, God is my Father; heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer. My Savior is my brother; every Christian is my brother [or sister] too.” This is my favourite sentence in J. I. Packer’s Knowing God. Packer persuasively argues that being adopted as a child of God is the highest blessing that God gives us, higher even than justification. When we are justified, we know God as our Judge, but when we are adopted, we know God as our Father. To be declared right with the Judge is incredible. When Martin Luther finally understood justification, he thought he had entered “paradise itself through open gates!” But to know God as our Father is to be loved by the one who gives us paradise!
John writes in his first letter: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 Jn 3:1). This should stagger us, both intellectually and emotionally. And it should stir us to holiness.
Fearful Holiness
Augustine draws a helpful distinction between two types of fear:
He who has a filial fear of the Lord, tries to do his Will. Different is the fear of servants; servants fear for the penalty, children fear for love of the father. We are children of God; let us fear Him from the sweetness of charity, not from the bitterness of dread.
Christians do not need to fear the condemnation of God: he has poured out his wrath on his Son in our place on the Cross. But we can still grieve the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of sonship. We don’t want to do that. We don’t want to disappoint him. Rather, we want to become like our Father—holy. Peter writes:
As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. (1 Pet 1:14–17)
Like a fire, the fear of the Lord consumes evil desires and fuels holiness.[1]
Such fear changes the way that we pray.
Filial Fear and Prayer
Filial fear does not produce an outward hypocritical show of reverential religion like the Pharisees Jesus condemns:
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. (Matthew 6:5)
As those who fear him, we now seek to please our heavenly Father:
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:6)
This produces a heartfelt quaking at the incomprehensible love and justice of our Father. Such filial fear stirs up a sincere and affectionate prayer life. We want to know God better and enjoy sweeter and more constant communion with him.
The Fatherly Discipline of Suffering
We should also expect his good fatherly discipline. We are instructed in Hebrews:
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:7–11)
Our heavenly Father disciplines us for our good, to share in his holiness.
He has already “sanctified us in Christ Jesus and called us to be saints” (1 Cor 1:2). But as he disciplines us, he works in us to live out our holy status.
The fatherly discipline of suffering is not pleasant. It may be sickness or injustice or persecution. I remember the despair of watching my first wife Bronwyn die of pancreatic cancer eleven years ago. It was gut-wrenching. It seemed unfair. But it was God’s severe mercy that made her even more beautiful as she continually pointed our family to Christ and to reflect on eternal matters. I think it was seminal in keeping our children trusting Christ, and helping me to slowly care less about the opinion of others and more about the opinion of God my Father.
The discipline of suffering can be expressed in other ways, too. For example, Peter writes:
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. (1 Peter 5:8–9)
How do God’s children suffer? As they resist the temptations of the evil one. How do they resist the devil? By being alert and sober minded as they cast all their anxieties on their Father who cares for them.
If we fear God our Father we will tremble with delight at his incomprehensible love. We will stagger at the thought that we are his adopted children. We will long to share in his holiness by embracing his loving yet painful discipline that trains us.
It is only a healthy fear of God that will eclipse, consume, and eventually destroy all rival fears. In the new heavens and the new earth there will be unrestrained, maximal, delightful filial fear. “We will rejoice to see God as he is, with no misunderstanding, no devilish whispers of doubt, and no trace of fear of punishment.”[2] We will tremble in awe at the one who dwells with us as our Creator, our Judge, and our Father in undiluted glory.
[1] Michael Reeves, What Does It Mean to Fear the Lord, 56.
[2] Reeves, 66.
