The Practice of Godliness: Godliness has value for all things (3 page)

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Authors: Jerry Bridges

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THE GOD-FEARING CHRISTIAN
The late professor John Murray said, “The fear of God is the soul of godliness.”
1
Yet the fear of God is a concept that seems old-fashioned and antiquated to many modern-day Christians. There was a time when an earnest believer might have been known as a “God-fearing man.” Today we would probably be embarrassed by such language. Some seem to think the fear of God is strictly an Old Testament concept that passed away with the revelation of God’s love in Christ. After all, doesn’t perfect love drive out fear, as John declares in 1 John 4:18?
Although it is true that the concept of the fear of God is treated more extensively in the Old Testament, it would be a mistake to assume that it is not important in the New Testament. One of the blessings of the new covenant is the implanting in believers’ hearts of the fear of the Lord. In Jeremiah 32:40 God said, “I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to
fear me,
so that they will never turn away from me.”
“Nothing could be more significant,” observed John Murray, “than that the fear of the Lord should be coupled with the comfort of the Holy Spirit as the characteristics of the New Testament church: ‘So the church ... walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit was multiplied’ (Acts 9:31).”
2
Paul and Peter both use the fear of the Lord as a motive to holy and righteous living.
3
The example of the Lord Jesus Himself, of whom Isaiah said, “and he will delight in the fear of the Lord” (11:3), should put the question beyond all doubt. If Jesus in His humanity delighted in the fear of God, surely we need to give serious thought to cultivating this attitude in our lives.
Some of the aversion to the phrase “fear of God” may be due to a misunderstanding of its meaning. The Bible uses the term “fear of God” in two distinct ways: that of anxious dread, and that of veneration, reverence, and awe. Fear as anxious dread is produced by the realization of God’s impending judgment upon sin. When Adam sinned he hid from God because he was afraid. Although this aspect of the fear of God should characterize every unsaved person who lives each day as an object of God’s wrath, it seldom does. Paul’s concluding indictment of ungodly mankind was, “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:18).
The Christian has been delivered from fear of the wrath of God (see 1 John 4:18). But the Christian has not been delivered from the
discipline
of God against his sinful conduct, and in this sense he still fears God. He works out his salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12); he lives his life as a stranger here in reverent fear (1 Peter 1:17).
For the child of God, however, the primary meaning of the fear of God is veneration and honor, reverence and awe. Murray says this fear is the soul of godliness. It is the attitude that elicits from our hearts adoration and love, reverence and honor. It focuses not upon the wrath of God but upon the majesty, holiness, and transcendent glory of God. It may be likened to the awe an ordinary but loyal citizen would feel in the close presence of his earthly king, though such awe for an earthly potentate can only distantly approximate the awe we should feel toward God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The angelic beings of Isaiah’s vision in chapter 6 demonstrated this awe when, with two of their wings, they covered their faces in the presence of the exalted Lord. We see this same awe in Isaiah himself and in Peter when they each realized they were in the presence of a holy God. We see it most vividly in the reaction of the beloved disciple John in Revelation 1:17, when he saw his Master in all of His heavenly glory and majesty, and fell at His feet as though dead.
It is impossible to be devoted to God if one’s heart is not filled with the fear of God. It is this profound sense of veneration and honor, reverence and awe that draws forth from our hearts the worship and adoration that characterizes true devotion to God. The reverent, godly Christian sees God first in His transcendent glory, majesty, and holiness before he sees Him in His love, mercy, and grace.
There is a healthy tension that exists in the godly person’s heart between the reverential awe of God in His glory and the childlike confidence in God as heavenly Father. Without this tension, a Christian’s filial confidence can easily degenerate into presumption.
One of the more serious sins of Christians today may well be the almost flippant familiarity with which we often address God in prayer. None of the godly men of the Bible ever adopted the casual manner we often do. They always addressed God with reverence. The same writer who tells us that we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place, the throne room of God, also tells us that we should worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, “for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 10:19 and 12:28-29). The same Paul who tells us that the Holy Spirit dwelling within us causes us to cry,
“Abba,
Father,” also tells us that this same God lives in “unapproachable light” (Romans 8:15 and 1 Timothy 6:16).
In our day we must begin to recover a sense of awe and profound reverence for God. We must begin to view Him once again in the infinite majesty that alone belongs to Him who is the Creator and Supreme Ruler of the entire universe. There is an infinite gap in worth and dignity between God the Creator and man the creature, even though man has been created in the image of God. The fear of God is a heartfelt recognition of this gap—not a putdown of man, but an exaltation of God.
Even the redeemed in heaven fear the Lord. In Revelation 15:3-4, they sing triumphantly the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb:
Great and marvelous are your deeds,
Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways, King of the ages.
Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy
All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.

 

Note the focus of their veneration upon God’s attributes of power, justice, and holiness. It is these attributes, which particularly set forth the majesty of God, that should elicit from our hearts a reverence for Him. This same reverence was drawn forth from the children of Israel when they saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians. Exodus 14:31 says, “the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.” Along with Moses, they sang a song of worship and gratitude. The heart of that song is found in 15:11: “Who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?” To fear God is to confess His absolute uniqueness—to acknowledge His majesty, holiness, awesomeness, glory, and power.
Words fail us to describe the infinite glory of God portrayed in the Bible. And even that portrayal is dim and vague, for now we see but a poor reflection of Him. But one day we will see Him face to face, and then we will fear Him in the fullest sense of that word. No wonder, then, that with that day in view, Peter tells us to live holy and godly lives now. God is in the process of preparing us for heaven, to dwell with Him for eternity. So He desires that we grow in both holiness and godliness. He wants us to be like Him and to reverence and adore Him for all eternity. We must be learning to do this now.
In our day we seem to have magnified the love of God almost to the exclusion of the fear of God. Because of this preoccupation we are not honoring God and reverencing Him as we should. We should magnify the love of God; but although we revel in His love and mercy, we must never lose sight of His majesty and His holiness.
Not only will a right concept of the fear of God cause us to worship God aright, it will also regulate our conduct. As John Murray says, “What or whom we worship determines our behavior.”
4
The Reverend Albert N. Martin has said that the essential ingredients of the fear of God are (1) correct concepts of the character of God, (2) a pervasive sense of the presence of God, and (3) a constant awareness of our obligation to God.
5
If we have some comprehension of God’s infinite holiness and His hatred of sin, coupled with this pervasive sense of God’s presence in all of our actions, yes, even our thoughts, then such a fear of God must influence and regulate our conduct. Just as obedience to the Lord is an indication of our love for Him, so is it also a proof of our fear of God. “[You shall] fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands ...” (Deuteronomy 6:2).
Leviticus 19 contains a series of laws and regulations for the nation of Israel to observe in the promised land. This is the chapter from which Jesus quoted the well-known second commandment of love, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (verse 18; see also Matthew 22:39). The expression “I am the Lord” or “I am the Lord your God” appears sixteen times in Leviticus 19. Through this frequent repetition of His sacred name, God reminds the people of Israel that their obedience to His laws and regulations is to flow out of a reverence and fear of Him.
The fear of God should provide a primary motivation for, as well as result in, obedience to Him. If we truly reverence God we will obey Him, since every act of disobedience is an affront to His dignity and majesty.
GRIPPED BY GOD’S LOVE
Only the God-fearing Christian can truly appreciate the love of God. He sees the infinite gulf between a holy God and a sinful creature, and the love that bridged that gulf through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s love for us is many-faceted, but He supremely demonstrated it by sending His Son to die for our sins. All other aspects of His love are secondary, and in fact are made possible for us through the death of Christ.
The apostle John says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). He explains this statement by saying, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). The
New International Version
of the Bible gives as a marginal rendering for “atoning sacrifice” the phrase, “as the one who would turn aside his wrath, taking away” our sins.
The truly godly person never forgets that he was at one time an object of God’s holy and just wrath. He never forgets that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and he feels along with Paul that he is himself the worst of sinners. But then as he looks to the cross he sees that Jesus was his atoning sacrifice. He sees that Jesus bore his sins in His own body, and that the wrath of God—the wrath which he, a sinner, should have borne—was expended completely and totally upon the Holy Son of God. And in this view of Calvary, he sees the love of God.
The love of God has no meaning apart from Calvary. And Calvary has no meaning apart from the holy and just wrath of God. Jesus did not die just to give us peace and a purpose in life; He died to save us from the wrath of God. He died to reconcile us to a holy God who was alienated from us because of our sin. He died to ransom us from the penalty of sin—the punishment of everlasting destruction, shut out from the presence of the Lord. He died that we, the just objects of God’s wrath, should become, by His grace, heirs of God and co-heirs with Him.
How much we appreciate God’s love is conditioned by how deeply we fear Him. The more we see God in His infinite majesty, holiness, and transcendent glory, the more we will gaze with wonder and amazement upon His love poured out at Calvary. But it is also true that the deeper our perception of God’s love to us in Christ, the more profound our reverence and awe of Him. We must see God in the glory of all His attributes—His goodness as well as His holiness—if we are to ascribe to Him the glory and honor and reverence that is due Him. The psalmist caught this truth when he said to God, “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared” (Psalm 130:3-4). He worshiped God with reverence and awe because of His forgiveness. In our practice of godliness, then, we must seek to grow both in the fear of God and in an ever-increasing comprehension of the love of God. These two elements together form the foundation of our devotion to God.
This awareness of God’s love for us in Christ must be
personalized
in order for it to become one of the solid foundational corners of our “triangle of devotion” to God. It is not enough to believe that God loved the world. I must be gripped by the realization that God loves
me,
a specific person. It is this awareness of His individual love that draws out our hearts in devotion to Him.
There was a period in my early Christian life when my concept of God’s love was little more than a logical deduction: God loves the world; I am a part of the world; therefore, God loves me. It was as if God’s love were a big umbrella to protect us all from His judgment against sin, and I was under the umbrella along with thousands of other people. There was nothing particularly personal about it. Then one day I realized, “God loves
me!
Christ died for
me.”
Our awareness of God’s love for us must also be constantly growing. As we mature in our Christian lives we are increasingly aware of God’s holiness and our own sinfulness. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy he reflects upon God’s mercy in appointing him to the gospel ministry. He recalls that he once was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man. This description no longer applies to Paul; it is all past tense. But as he continues to reflect upon the grace of God, he slips, almost unconsciously it seems, into the present tense of his experience. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst” (1:15). He is no longer thinking about his past as a persecutor of Christ. Now he is thinking about his present daily experience as a believer who falls short of the will of God for him. He doesn’t think about other Christians, whom we know were way behind Paul in their devotion to God and their attainment of godly character. Paul never wastes time trying to feel good about himself by comparing himself favorably with less mature Christians. He compares himself with God’s standard, and he consequently sees himself as the worst of sinners.
Through this present sense of his sinfulness Paul sees God’s love for him. The more he grows in his knowledge of God’s perfect will, the more he sees his own sinfulness, and the more he comprehends God’s love in sending Christ to die for him. And the more he sees God’s love, the more his heart reaches out in adoring devotion to the One who loved him so.
If God’s love for us is to be a solid foundation stone of devotion, we must realize that His love is
entirely of grace,
that it rests completely upon the work of Jesus Christ and flows to us through our union with Him. Because of this basis His love can never change, regardless of what we do. In our daily experience, we have all sorts of spiritual ups and downs—sin, failure, discouragement, all of which tend to make us question God’s love. That is because we keep thinking that God’s love is somehow conditional. We are afraid to believe His love is based entirely upon the finished work of Christ for us.
Deep down in our souls we must get hold of the wonderful truth that our spiritual failures do not affect God’s love for us one iota—that His love for us does not fluctuate according to our experience. We must be gripped by the truth that we are accepted by God and loved by God for the sole reason that we are united to His beloved Son. As the
King James Version
translates Ephesians 1:6, “He hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
This is why Paul could rejoice so greatly in the love of God. Listen to the triumphant ring of his voice in Romans 8 as he asks these questions:
“If God is for us, who can be against us?”
“Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?”
“Who is he that condemns?”
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

 

Then hear his exultant conclusion as he says, “For I am convinced that ... [nothing] ... will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Does this apprehension of God’s personal, unconditional love for us in Christ lead to careless living? Not at all. Rather, such an awareness of His love stimulates in us an increased devotion to Him. And this devotion is active; it is not just a warm, affectionate feeling toward God.
Paul testified that Christ’s love for us compelled him to live not for himself, but for Him who died for us and rose again (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). The word for “compel” which Paul used is a very strong verb. It means to press in on all sides and to impel or force one to a certain course of action. Probably not many Christians can identify with Paul in this depth of his motivation, but this surely should be our goal. This is the constraining force God’s love is intended to have upon us.
John speaks similarly of the constraining force of God’s love when he says, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Whether it is love for God or love for other people that John had in mind, both are prompted by the realization of God’s love for us.
So we see that devotion to God begins with the fear of God—with a biblical view of His majesty and holiness that elicits a reverence and awe of Him. And then we see that the fear of God leads naturally to an apprehension of the love of God for us as shown in the atoning death of Jesus Christ. As we contemplate God more and more in His majesty, holiness, and love, we will be progressively led to the apex of the triangle of devotion—the desire for God Himself.

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