Fearing God

The Joy of Fearing God

And just as Jesus “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2), we look to the cross of Christ with joy, for through his death and resurrection, he has secured our redemption, reconciled us to God, and given us eternal life. This he did not by condoning sin but in perfect righteousness, not by compromising of his deity but by divine justice, and not by making himself “safe” but victorious. “’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you.”

Confessing the Faith

To those whom he called “friends,” Jesus warned, “do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” (Luke 12:4-5). Of course, they were, like we are too, friends prone to fear, fear that is often unfounded, fearing wrong things and wrong ones, rather than the One. And while Jesus pointed them to God’s providential care of creation and our image-bearing place in it, the temptation to fear is a powerful one, especially the fear of others, what they will think of us, what they will say about us, what they will do to us.

In the fullness of time, God came to his people not upon a mountain but in the person of Jesus Christ. Fully God yet fully man, he became the sinless sacrifice upon the altar of the cross. He is not offered up repeatedly like sheep or oxen but was sacrificed once for all for the sins of his people. Therefore, it is through the sacrifice of Christ, and only through him, that we rightly worship God as his people.