Ingredients: Part 1d
The framers of the shorter catechism caught this concept, for in answer to the question “What is God?”, they framed the answer in this way: “God is a Spirit.” That’s His essence. Therefore, He’s boundless. He cannot be contained. Then they used three adjectives: infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. And He’s those three things in all of these others in His being: wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. What they’re saying is: as you look at His goodness, remember, it’s the goodness of infinity–infinite and eternal and unchangeable in His goodness, in His mercy, in His truth. They’re saying don’t look at the birds and the brook and the rabbits without looking at the mountains and the lightening playing off the edges of the cloud. That’s what they’re saying. And that’s what Scripture says to us. So that to contemplate God’s love is to contemplate holy love, infinite love, immense love, transcendent love. My own heart was so blessed in the reading of John Brown’s thoughts along this line that I felt I could do nothing better than to read a couple of pages to you in which he says,
“Everything about God is fitted to fill the mind with awe. And it would seem as if nothing short of insanity could prevent any being possessed with reason and affection from habitually feeling the sentiment of supreme veneration for God. [You see what he’s saying? He says only insanity could prevent any being who has reason and affection, who has a head and a heart or a part of his head and a part of his heart–nothing but insanity could keep such a being from constantly experiencing supreme veneration for God.] He is the unexhausted inexhaustible fountain of all the being, all the life, all the intelligence, all the power, all the activity, all the excellence, all the happiness in the universe.
He is the first and the last and the living one–from everlasting to everlasting, immense–filling heaven and earth with His presence, infinite in power having called into existence myriads of worlds; capable of calling into existence myriads more, upholding all these worlds; Himself upheld by none, controlling all things; Himself uncontrolled, doing according to His will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, infinite in knowledge–every creature manifest in His sight, all things naked and open to His eyes, Hell itself naked before Him and destruction having no covering, infinite in wisdom, wonderful in counsel as well as excellent in working, wise in heart as well as mighty in strength, the holy, holy, holy one, infinite in righteousness. He is the Rock whose work is perfect, and all His ways are justice; a God of truth without iniquity. Just and right is He. The blessedness of the divine being may seem a quality fitted to excite love rather than fear, yet are there two qualities of it: its immeasurable extent and its immaculately holy character, which are well fitted to deepen the impression of awe produced by His eternal, infinite, immutable power, wisdom, and holiness.”
Then he goes on to elaborate, quoting passage after passage and concludes by saying,
“Surely a being such as this is worthy to be feared. Surely He is the meet object of the supreme esteem and reverence and love of all intelligent beings. Surely to be the objects of His approval and love and care is the highest honor and happiness of such creatures. To be the objects of His disfavor is to the deepest disgrace and misery that can come to any one of those creatures.
And of course, to seek His favor in conformity of mind and will to Him is their highest wisdom and duty. Such are the convictions and feelings of unfallen and restored angelic and human inhabitants of the celestial world. Their unceasing hymn is: ‘Holy, holy, holy Lord God almighty. Great and marvelous are Thy works. True and just are Thy ways. Who shall not fear Thee and glorify Thy name?’ And this enlightened affectionate sense of the infinite grandeur and excellence of God is in their minds a principle of supreme allegiance to His holy government, rendering it morally impossible that they should disregard His authority or seek their happiness in anything but in union of mind and will and enjoyment with God.”
What’s the essential ingredient of the fear of God? It must begin with correct concepts of the character of God, particularly His immensity, His majesty, and His holiness. It should be obvious to us, then, as we draw our study to a close this morning, that when the true knowledge of God is forsaken, there can be no valid fear of God. Proverbs 9:10 ties these two things together: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And what is the fear of the Lord? The knowledge of the holy one. That is understanding. So where there is no concept of God to illicit this reverential awe, to produce this sanctified dread, then there can be no true fear of God, and hence, no true understanding. So the decline of the fear of God is rooted in the fact that we’ve lost the God of the Bible, particularly the God of majesty and His holiness. When divine love is couched in any other context than that of the omnipotence, immensity, holiness, and sovereignty of God, it becomes cheap sentiment which illicits no true fear of God.
The first and essential revelation made in the life and ministry of our Lord, according to John in 1 John, is not that God is love. John says, “The Word of life has been amongst us. We beheld Him. We touched Him. We handled Him. And now we’re going to share what we learned of Him.” And he says in verse 5 of chapter 1, “This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” It’s in that context and in that alone that we dare put the statement of 1 John 4 that God is love. It’s the God of infinite pure light who is a God of love. Therefore, His love will come in a way consistent with and answerable to His burning holiness; never in a way that will cancel or negate the demands of His holiness.
So then, if sinless creatures hide their faces in the presence of the God of burning holiness, who are we to think that a sight of the wounds and sacrifice of Christ will negate the necessity for us drawing near with veiled faces and with trembling hearts. It’s accurate to say that perhaps nowhere in all of Scripture is this principle more clearly seen than in the cross itself. For what is the cross but God’s clearest revelation of His inflexible justice. God had given many revelations of His justice, but when He’s put to the test–I say it reverently–and His own beloved Son must be the object of His wrath; if divine justice is to be satisfied, and He spares not His Son but brings upon Him the full brunt His wrath against sin, what a display of inflexible justice; what a display of spotless holiness, so holy that He will turn His back upon His only begotten, the one of whom He said, “This is My Son, My beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”
Yet the cry comes forth from Golgotha, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me.” And our Lord Himself knew the answer. As you read the 22nd Psalm, as He’s complaining of His abandonment, in the midst of it, He says, “But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” Where do we see infinite, incomprehensible wisdom more clearly than at the cross of Christ? Who would have ever conceived of a way in which the offended triune God punishes Himself to be true to Himself in order to let guilty rebels free. Infinite wisdom revealed in the cross–it’s there that we see holy love revealed, love so deep as to press to death the Lord Jesus, love so holy that its channel must be cut through the heart of the Son of God, love so holy that it cannot find a channel for its expression any other way than through the heart of the Son of God, a broken heart. So an enlightened view of the cross of Christ, rather than canceling or negating or diluting anything of the whole drift of Scriptural teaching on the fear of God merely serves to heighten and to seal that concept, so that all our relationship to God though Christ is a relationship in the climate of the fear of God.
You who are here this morning strangers to grace, strangers to forgiveness, strangers to a new heart, could it be that the reason you feel so at ease is because you’re doing what is spoken of in Psalm 50:21: “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.” Have you been trying to make God in your own image so you can feel comfortable in your sin; comfortable in your state of impenitence? My friend, God has never been made in your image. He is still that holy one before whom seraphim and cherubim veil face and feet and cry one to another, “Holy, holy, holy.” There will not be any measure of the fear of God in your heart until you begin to take seriously the revelation He has made of His own character and begin to tremble before Him with the fear of dread and terror till you would fain cry for rocks and mountains to hide you from His face. Then, dear friend, the Gospel will become good news to you, that one was hidden from the face of the Father that you and I might be forgiven, even the Lord Jesus.
And I would say to you and myself as God’s people, that we will not grow in the fear of God unless we grow in our awareness of and sensitivity to the Scriptural teaching of the immensity, the majesty, and the holiness of God. This is not something that is incorporated into the life once for all. I would be intensely practical and exhort you to spend much time meditating upon such passages as Isaiah 6 and 40 and Revelation 1 and 19 and some of these other passages which are particularly calculated to set forth God in His transcendent majesty and holiness and immensity until you begin to feel something of the climate of the Biblical patterns of thought and take your place before Him in true Godly fear. As we shall see in subsequent studies, it is this sense of His majesty and holiness, bringing that reflex reaction of true Godly fear that becomes one of the great motivations for a life of holiness and Godliness.
The first essential ingredient of the fear of God is a correct concept of His character. The Lord willing, in subsequent studies, we shall look at the other ingredients. Let me just exhort you, that if your thoughts of God have been such as to leave you devoid of His fear, there’s something wrong with what you’re thinking about God. And may God help you to begin to adjust your thinking to the statements of Holy Scripture that you might have that fear of the Lord, which is the chief part of knowledge.