It’s a big, scary world out there. We could all make lists three miles long of things to fear. (My own personal list is pushing seven miles long at the moment, but I’ve tended toward extremes all my life.) So I don’t need to rehearse all the things that make us afraid. Just turn on the news for five minutes and let your heart start palpitating.
Instead, I’d like to ask the question, “What is the deal with this whole fear thing in the first place?”
It would seem to me that fear, just like joy, anger, and sorrow, is an emotions that human beings are capable of experiencing due to the fact that we were created in the image of God. That would mean that there is a good and proper place for fear, just like there is a good and proper place for joy, anger, and sorrow. That would also mean that, ever since Adam and Eve decided they’d determine for themselves what was good and what was evil, there is an evil and improper place for fear, joy, anger, and sorrow. These emotions in and of themselves are not evil. However, due to sin, each of them has been distorted, which has opened the door for us to feel them all when we shouldn’t and in ways that we shouldn’t.
What has happened, then, with the emotion called fear?
If we could go back to before the first man and woman rebelled against their good Maker and decided to set up a rival kingdom with themselves on the thrones, I believe Adam and Eve were capable of feeling fear, and I would say it probably felt something like this: As they began to discover the world around them, as they began to understand the complexity of all that God had spoken into existence, as they began to come to terms with the mind-bending reality called life, both in them and in the birds and whales and flowers that flew and swam and grew in their environment, as they looked heavenward and contemplated the sun, moon, and all the stars, and as they walked and talked with the very Maker of all that wonder in the cool of the evening, I could imagine them feeling very small and weak in the presence of someone very big and strong. I could imagine a somber joy welling up within them from the deepest depths of their beings. I could imagine them forgetting themselves completely and finding themselves entranced by the greatness and wonder and beauty of all that existed outside of them and by the greatness and wonder and beauty of the one that brought it all into existence. The hair on the back of their necks would have stood up straight. I’m sure a tingle went down their spines, and perhaps they felt a little weak in the knees. Maybe their hearts beat faster and their palms got sweaty. They would have felt the most insignificant in those moments. And they would have felt the most alive.
That, I think, is what the human experience of fear was supposed to feel like. We were supposed to stand in front of something—and more specifically, someone—who is infinitely greater and more powerful than we are, and it was supposed to move us—shake us—to the very core. We were supposed to revel in the intensity of being so close to such glory and in being so small by comparison.
And why wouldn’t Adam and Eve have been filled with terror as they began to grasp the immensity of the God they were walking and talking with? They knew that the infinite power of that God was matched by his infinite love for them. As Mr. Beaver said about Aslan, “[H]e isn’t safe. But he’s good.” Their confidence in God’s goodness in the face of such grandeur was supposed to produce within them a feeling that was as pleasurable as it was intense. No doubt their awe that was backed by an assurance that the fierce, unbridled force before them would not consume them was a thrill like we today can almost not imagine. That was how we were supposed to experience fear.
So what happened? God didn’t change. He remained as big and powerful and good as ever, but mankind lost something. In fact, I’d say we lost two somethings. First, we lost our confidence that God is good, that he really cares about us, and that his love for us is as wide as his might. We started thinking he might not be as good as he first made himself out to be. Perhaps he’s got a darker side. Perhaps he’s hiding something. This suspicion that possibly God isn’t like we had hoped is terrifying indeed.
Second, of course, we lost our innocence. Through humanity’s God-given faculty called the conscience, we are constantly measuring ourselves up against the standard that we all instinctively understand. Because we were created in God’s image, we all have an imprinted knowledge of good and evil, of what kinds of thoughts, feelings, and behavior imitate God and which ones do not. And not a one of us has ever measured up to that perfect understanding that we know we were created to fulfill. And so our guilty consciences also distort the proper, thrilling fear of God into terror. Adam and Eve hid from God, and we’ve been doing the same ever since.
Once mankind found themselves outside the garden, other truly sinister realities began to emerge on the scene, some real and some imagined. Monsters that live in little boys’ or little girls’ closets or under their beds are always bigger and stronger than the little boy or girl, and they are most certainly not intent on the boy or girl’s good. That feeling—that throat-constricting, heart-pounding, sweat-inducing feeling—is the result of either the uncertainty as to the outcome of standing in the presence of something much bigger and stronger or the conviction that such an encounter will most certainly turn out bad. What should have been an exquisite thrill has instead turned into a dread strong enough to stop a person’s heart.
Why do some people love roller coasters and some people hate them? The people who love them are simply convinced that the ride won’t ultimately result in their harm. They get the thrill based on the assurance that they are completely safe. At least that’s how I began loving roller coasters. It wasn’t until I convinced myself that I wasn’t strapping myself into a death cart that I was finally able to enjoy the intensity. I knew that no matter what happened, I was going to get off alive and intact. I was convinced I could trust that the engineers of the ride knew what they were doing, and it was at that moment I could let go of the lap bar and truly enjoy the ride.
Why are some people deathly afraid of spiders? Even though spiders are physically smaller, the person with the fear is convinced that those tiny, eight-legged invertebrates possess a power strong enough to take life or at least cause serious injury to it.
Translate those more childish examples into the adult world, and the same dynamics are in play. What is at work in a man who is terrified to make a presentation to his boss? In the simplest of terms, such a man sees his boss as someone who is bigger and stronger than he is, and he’s not sure whether his boss is inclined to be in his favor or against. What is at work in the woman who fears social interactions? In short, she sees others as people with more power than she has, and she’s not sure if they are going to use that power ultimately for her good or for her ill.
So what’s a person to do? Even though there aren’t really monsters in your closet or under your bed, sometimes roller coasters really do crash. Some spiders can actually kill you. Some bosses really are jerks. And sometimes people are just plain old mean, and if you reach out to them, you’re liable to pull back a stump. The problem is not necessarily with a person’s perception of all the things out there in the world that are bigger and stronger than we are. And the problem is not with our understanding that some of those bigger and stronger things out there may very well hurt us in the end. Such threats are real. So ignorance or blindness to the dangers that fill our world is not the answer.
Well then, what is? I would propose that a much better solution to the problem of fear is to develop an even bigger fear.
But I realize that might call for some explanations.
First off, perhaps instead of saying a “bigger fear,” I should say “the biggest fear.” I’m not saying swap out your fear of daddy long-legs for a fear of great white sharks. I’m saying swap out all smaller fears with the one, great fear there is: the fear of God himself. He is the fear trump card. There’s nothing else bigger or stronger in existence. So I’m really saying the solution to the problem of all other fears is the fear of God.
Second, when I say that the solution to the problem of fear is to develop an even bigger fear, the astute reader will realize that I’m using the word “fear” in two different ways. The first word “fear” could be substituted with the word “terror,” and the second word “fear” should be understood as the feeling I’m sure Adam and Eve experienced when they, in their sinless perfection, contemplated God and all that he had made. So when I say replace your fear with the biggest fear, namely the fear of God, I’m not saying that you conquer your fears of public speaking by becoming terrified of a God who might zap you at any moment with lightning bolts. I’m arguing that you overcome the dread you feel about lesser things with a deep, joyful fear of God like we were meant to experience as God’s loved sons and daughters. I’m saying the key to conquering the terror you feel in the presence of your boss who may actually desire to do you wrong is to develop an even greater, confident assurance that the God in whose presence you live every moment of your life is not only infinitely more powerful than your boss but is also infinitely more dedicated to your good.
What was God’s warning to Isaiah when God gave him the formidable task of going and speaking to a rebellious and stiff-necked people? God told him, “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Isaiah 8:12-13). Did you catch that? God basically told Isaiah to not be afraid of what everyone else was afraid of. Instead, Isaiah was to replace all other terrors with a confident, joyful fear of God.
Psalm 118:4-6 also captures the paradox:
“Let those who fear the Lord say,
‘His steadfast love endures forever.’
Out of my distress I called on the Lord;
the Lord answered me and set me free.
The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.
What can man do to me?”
Here, too, we encounter the strange reality that it’s only those who fear the Lord who are capable of declaring that they will not fear.
Now, that raises a question, doesn’t it? Is there any good reason to have the confidence that when we come to God—the fiercest and most powerful being in existence—he won’t respond in anger but in love? I mean, is there really any reason for us to think that he would condescend to use all of his omnipotent power for our good? Because if not, then terror would be a really good choice of an emotion when coming into God’s presence.
Two different people could ask that very same question from two very different perspectives. One might ask whether or not God will receive a person with love instead of anger with this question churning beneath the surface: Is he really good?
As already hinted at, was not the insinuation that God wasn’t really good—that he was in fact holding out on Adam and Eve—what got humanity into this whole mess in the first place? Near the very core problem of humanity is the fact that at a deep level we doubt that God is good. We’re unsure as to whether he’s trustworthy. And it would be hard to overstate the heinousness of such doubt. To insinuate that he who is the definition of good might not be so is to spit in the Creator’s face. It is to call into question his character. It is to turn the Judge into the judged and to place ourselves on the bench complete with black robe and gavel. If terror grips our hearts at the thought of coming to God because deep down we’re not sure he’s worth coming to, we could not do worse if we cast his royal robes on the ground and stomped on them. Such an accusation says much more about the evil in our own hearts than the evil that we pretend exists within his.
Another person, however, might ask whether or not there’s any good reason to think that God will lovingly receive us with a very different question prompting him. That person’s question may sound more like this: Does not my record make it impossible for God to ever accept someone like me? While it’s possible for such a question to actually be a mask for the first question, this second question, if asked from a broken heart, deserves a little bit more consideration.
First of all, your record is worse than you might even realize. You and I don’t merely do bad things. We’re rotten to the core. We were conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5). Not a one of us is righteous (Romans 3:10). No one seeks after God (Romans 3:11). All of us have turned to his own way and have become worthless (Romans 3:12, Isaiah 53:6). No one measures up to the standard of God’s holiness (Romans 3:23). If it’s a capital crime to spit in God’s face by calling his character into question—and I would argue it is—then what do we deserve when we hear his decrees and actively stand against them? What awaits the person who hears the law of his King and Creator and says with the most insidious arrogance, “Uh, that’s nice, but I’ve got a better idea”?
Hell is only an overstatement if we fail to grasp the seriousness of dragging God’s honor through the mud. An infinitely heinous crime deserves an infinitely harsh punishment, and it doesn’t get more heinous than to defame the character of the highest and holiest being in existence and to stand toe to toe against him in defiance of his good decrees.
So the person who asks, “Knowing what I’ve done, could God ever accept me?” is really on to something if it’s a broken and contrite heart that has led him to ask the question. And wonder of wonders, it is precisely the broken and the contrite that God will not despise (Psalm 51:17).
How does God answer the question?
There stands in the middle of history a banner flying high over all humanity that reads, “The Love of God Was Manifested Here.” It’s a flag driven into a hillside supposedly shaped like a skull where one day, some 2000 years ago, three men were nailed to Roman crosses and hung up to die beneath a darkened sky. It is the middle cross and the achievements of the one who hung there that will forever stand as a testament to the external, objective proof of God’s great love for men, women, and children just like you and me with pasts so detestable you truly cannot fathom how God could take even one look and then take any one of us in.
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9).
It was for your own private kingdom building and mine that Jesus was nailed there. Would I willingly die in the place of even the person I love the most in the world? And to think that Jesus died for people like you and me and the very soldiers who had driven the nails, people who were not merely indifferent to him—though that is truly horrific in its own right; Jesus died for those who were actively working against the will of his good Father, for those who had revolted from God’s rightful reign, who had called into question his trustworthiness, who had tarnished his good name, who had taken up arms against him and against his other children and his creation, and who had made a mess of their own lives and the lives of all those around them.
And he did it, John says, “so that we might live through him.”
He who had never personally sinned took upon himself the burden and punishment of our sin—in fact, it says he became sin—so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (1 Corinthians 5:21).
Did you catch that last part? We get the first part more easily. Oh sure, Jesus took my sin on himself and suffered God’s righteous punishment in my place. But that’s only the first half of the great exchange that took place on the hill where Jesus died. Yes, Jesus took our sin, but did you catch the reason 1 Corinthians 5:21 gives as to the purpose of his becoming sin for our sake? He did it “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Jesus’s death on your behalf does not simply wash you clean, as if you were returned to some neutral state of not having done either good or evil. Jesus’s death on your behalf gifts you with the righteousness you need so that God can welcome you into his arms. While Jesus was becoming sinful for you, he was making you righteous for God. All the law-keeping, all the spotless perfection, all the merit and credit and holiness and goodness that you need so that God can welcome you into his arms forever is a gift paid for with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus on your behalf.
“Knowing what I’ve done, will he accept me?” you ask.
He knows, and at the very moment words of contempt against his holy name were flowing out of our lips, Jesus stretched out his arms and died and in so doing made a way so that you could be reconciled to your loving Father forever.
Is he good? If you could truly see the person and work of Jesus Christ—I mean if you could really come to see it with the eyes of your heart and truly grasp even a sliver of its significance—from the bottom of your being you’d declare, “Yes! He is good, and he is trustworthy, and I can run to him despite the blood—his blood—on my hands!”
There is a freedom from all your fears—if, that is, you’re willing to joyfully tremble before the God who has manifestly demonstrated both his omnipotent power over evil and his goodness and his love for even his enemies by sending his Son into the world so that you might live through him. The terror of a million lesser fears melts in the heat of the exquisite fear that our souls were meant to delight in: the fear of standing next to infinite power and holiness and resting assured that we will not be consumed. His heat will warm our faces, not burn us. His light will illuminate our souls, not blind us. His glory will transform us into that very glory, not annihilate us. This is fear at its best. This is the fear that breaks the choke hold of all other fears. And this is the fear we long to experience.
So we replace all lesser fears with the single greatest fear. That is, we replace all that terrifies us with the trembling awe known only to those who call the Creator of the universe their Father. I invite you to fear in ways you’ve never feared before, and in so doing, to be freed from everything else you’ve ever been afraid of.