Rejoice and tremble

What does it mean to fear the Lord?

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10).
Perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18).
How can both of those statements be true?

I’m thankful for a new-ish book by Mike Reeves (also known as Michael Reeves), which helps to answer this question.

I first heard Mike Reeves speaking about this topic at a conference back in 2017, and I wondered at the time if he was working on a related book project. I was very pleased when I discovered the answer was, “yes.” As promised by the cover, he unpacks the “surprising good news” of this neglected and/or puzzling topic in a richly soul-refreshing way. 

The surprising good news

Influenced especially by John Bunyan, Mike Reeves cuts through the confusion about whether we should fear God or not by distinguishing different types of fear. There is a sinful fear, which drives us away from God. And then there is a right fear, which leads us to God. 

This is a crucial distinction, which arises from different understandings of what God is like. Is he someone we need to hide from in fear (Genesis 3:10)? Is he a harsh god we need to appease through slavish attempts at religion? Do we need to go through our days alternating between loving God and fearing him?

In Christ, we find the glorious answer to these questions is, “No.” In Christ, we find a right fear of the Lord, which doesn’t contradict our love for God, but defines it. A fear which is “the right response to God's full-orbed revelation of himself in all his grace and glory” (53).

And that word “grace” is part of the “surprising good news” of the fear of the Lord. In the Scriptures, we meet a God who is “fearfully gracious” (50). We find believers who “fear and tremble because of all the good” God does for them (Jeremiah 33:9). We see the fear of the Lord being prompted by the fullness of his character - not just his holiness, but also his goodness (1 Samuel 12:24), his wisdom (Jeremiah 10:7), and his forgiveness (Psalm 130:4).

All of this underscores how this fear is not about being afraid of God. For Christians, our fear of the Lord is shaped by our experience of his redemption. It's a filial fear: "not the dread of sinners before a holy Judge" but "the overwhelmed devotion of children marveling at the kindness and righteousness and glory and complete magnificence of the Father." (101). This is partly why the popular synonyms of "respect" and "reverence" are insufficient. This fear is more intense and personal than that. It's a "wonderful, trembling adoration" (162). 

This is good news. But is it a good book?

The short answer is, “yes.” But before I end with an encouragement to buy it, let me explain why I would only give this book 4 stars, not 5.

Throughout the book, Mike Reeves draws on the wisdom of authors from the past who have discovered this “surprising good news” themselves. This is good and helpful. But I think it is overdone. There are many long block quotations (including a glut of Lewis and Tolkien), which I feel disrupt the flow of the book. And that’s a shame, because Mike (or Michael) is a very good writer himself.

And it’s also a shame because it would have been good to have more direct engagement with Scripture. The book is definitely thoroughly biblical, and the Scripture Index is as long as the General Index, but some passages get surprisingly little comment. Psalm 2:11, which provides the title for the book, gets only a fleeting mention. The same is true of Philippians 2:12, a crucial text for our growth as Christians. And the exhortation in Hebrews 12:28-29, to worship with reverence and awe “for our God is a consuming fire” is not mentioned at all.

That said, I would really recommend getting hold of a copy. It’s definitely a helpful book for understanding the Bible’s statements on “the fear of the Lord”, correcting wrong thinking and setting out a good framework for making sense of this Scriptural theme. I also appreciated that Mike Reeves (with his Union hat on) draws out some of the specific implications for pastors and preachers. I was particularly struck by his comments about how the fear of the Lord corrects our pastoral tendencies to be either too soft or too harsh. It gives "gentle strength" to be, like Christ, "simultaneously lamblike and lionlike" (146). We are both humbled and strengthened in the presence of our great and awesome God.

But the main value of this book is not its specific applications, or even its helpfulness in explaining a puzzling theme of Scripture. Rather, this book is wonderful because it teaches us, like Christ, to delight in the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:1-3). With his typical infectious joy, Mike Reeves gives us a glorious view of God that leads us to worship with “sweet and quaking wonder” (168).

Shopping list

I read this book as part of 10ofThose’s Summer Reading Challenge, and you can buy this book at a good price from 10ofThose or Evangelical Bookshop.

There is also a companion, shorter volume, which I haven’t read, called “What Does it Mean to Fear the Lord?” This is also available from all good retailers.