COMMON GROUND: Why do/should people fear God?

COMMON GROUND is a column dedicated to encouraging respectful dialogue by posing a monthly question that is open to people from every religious/non-religious/political background.  If you would like to post a response, please email smjivey@gmail.com for details.

The question for August is "Why do/should people fear God?" 

 

Mark Langham, is a follower of Christ and an activist/owner/writer for Conspiracy of Hope - an organization whose sole purpose is to stop the sexual exploitation of children.  His response to this month's question is below:

"The Sovereignty of God" 

By: Mark Langham

As a Christian, well immersed in “church” and living in a post-modern age where words have been emasculated, and being no theologian, my response to the “fear of God” has evolved. I was taught, as Ira was, that “fear” meant awe and wonder. And I believe that to be one large dynamic part of it. But I think we already have a deeply ingrained system of awe and wonder. If a “2” is a litter of puppies being born then a “9” is my son being born. The headroom for God is very limited. We say God is love. And then we say I love chocolate. The sliding scale starts in the finite but goes into the infinite. Words fail us and yet words are all we have.

When I read the scriptures, it seems to me that fear is a huge part of worship and the relationship we are supposed to have with God. We’re told the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That fear is for our protection, for our blessing, for our understanding, for all things in the universe to remain in order. It is this fear that is supposed to compel us to cherish our neighbor, to feed the poor, to be kind to the stranger when we have failed to do it out of love. At the end of his days, Solomon, whom scripture calls the wisest man, summed it up to this. “Fear God and keep His commandments.” So than what is this fear?

 Again with the clumsiness of human terms, let me try and explain what it means to me. To me it is the sovereignty of God. It is the understanding that He answers to no man. That He can take or give without permission, be that life or riches or power. He is beyond reproach, beyond any misgiving. He cannot lie. He cannot err. He cannot cease because He always was. He is all powerful and could at any moment, without my permission, end my life by grinding the big blue-green ball of earth to sub-atomic grit in His hands. I believe, if His majesty were revealed, in total, to any created being that being would explode, or implode, or worse. And I believe the only thing that stays His hand from exacting justice on us all, is His heart. Is His promise to love those He has called, and love us he does. Infinitely more than we love him.

 

I do not believe we have transposed a fear of death and created God. Anymore than a fear of thirst has created water, or the fear of darkness the sun. Certainly many have manufactured faith out of that fear. That is at the heart of many religions, and that rot is in Christianity also. And it is small coterie of people of faith that have ceased to fear death, at least in total. The God placebo wears off when the heart knows its own fraudulence.

The fear of God is then, to me, the complete acceptance of His total sovereignty and incomprehensible greatness and of our total depravity and infinite smallness. He is I am. And we are not.