FEAR OF THE LORD
Fear Of The Lord
May 20, 2022: Michael Horton:
"In churches today, many of us might be surprised to hear a sermon on the fear of God. If we do come across one, we may hear that “fear” doesn’t really mean fear. We’re told it means “respect.”
While it’s true that respect and awe are involved, the Hebrew noun pa-had means “dread, a sort of panic.” It means the same thing in Greek, where the word is phobos, from which we get the word “phobia.” The fear of God is a form of xenophobia—a fear of the stranger, or, in this case, the One who is utterly strange and altogether different.
The fear of God is not primarily a fear of something (for instance, judgment) but of someone. It is God himself who provokes our phobia. He is different from us, not only because we’re mere creatures, but because we’re sinful. This is what is sometimes called the sublime. We experience small-scale intimations of the sublime in nature. Describing tornadoes and hurricanes, storm chasers alternate between being terrified by their devastating power and exhilarated by their majesty." Encountering God Should Make You Afraid; Gospel Coalition
"In churches today, many of us might be surprised to hear a sermon on the fear of God. If we do come across one, we may hear that “fear” doesn’t really mean fear. We’re told it means “respect.”
While it’s true that respect and awe are involved, the Hebrew noun pa-had means “dread, a sort of panic.” It means the same thing in Greek, where the word is phobos, from which we get the word “phobia.” The fear of God is a form of xenophobia—a fear of the stranger, or, in this case, the One who is utterly strange and altogether different.
The fear of God is not primarily a fear of something (for instance, judgment) but of someone. It is God himself who provokes our phobia. He is different from us, not only because we’re mere creatures, but because we’re sinful. This is what is sometimes called the sublime. We experience small-scale intimations of the sublime in nature. Describing tornadoes and hurricanes, storm chasers alternate between being terrified by their devastating power and exhilarated by their majesty." Encountering God Should Make You Afraid; Gospel Coalition