How should a believer respond to the characteristics of God?

God is holy. God makes those who are His holy. God expects and requires those who are His to be holy.

Let us take up again one or two details of this song. Verse 1 celebrates the salvation of the Lord. All is pure grace on His part, for it is “grace … which carries with it salvation.” Verse 2 celebrates Jehovah's holiness. The believer cannot separate these two traits one from the other; one who has found God as Savior understands that He is “holy … for there is none beside [Him].” But it is necessary to be holy in order to belong to Him; this is why He has sanctified us for Himself. All our conduct should henceforth display this characteristic.

The other references to His name in the book of Malachi will produce this reverence for the name of God, this acknowledgement on our part of His supremacy, that He is to be obeyed, to be honoured and to be followed, that would touch us in every part of our lives. These actions are not done out of fear, such as marks the devotees of idols, whose lives are characterised by debauchery, but they are done out of a reverence for God, understanding the greatness and the glory of God. This is what is meant by reverence, God is so great that there is something demanded on my part in my approach to Him. It is not to be a careless, casual approach that would treat God as if He was of the same standard as myself, but there must be a sense of His greatness and glorious supremacy that would bow my spirit and my heart in wonder and adoration before Him. It used to be said that Britain was a God-fearing nation, but this is true no more, God has been thrown overboard. There are blind theologians who speak about God ‘being dead’, there are those who would throw overboard every principle that God has given for the conduct of man in every sphere of life that God has graciously given, it cannot now be said that Britain is a God-fearing nation; but it should be amongst those who belong to God, those who owe everything in time and eternity to His mercy and to His goodness. God-fearing should mark us who belong to God.

But holiness is to be pursued, as well as evil shunned; and in calling for its perfection the disciple does but repeat the Master's earlier claim (Matt. 5:48; Eph. 5:1). God's children can have no lower standard of conformity proposed to them than God Himself, as we learn Him in the gospel of His Son. To be transformed to this pattern, by the renewing of our minds, is the manner and measure of that "godliness" which should be added to our saving faith (Rom. 12:2; 2 Peter 1:6). Nor should we lightly regard the last words of this verse; it is in the fear of God that holiness is to have its perfect work. That which, as an element of character, is declared to be totally wanting to the natural man, is here mentioned emphatically as a ruling principle of action in the saint. The presence or absence of this quality constitutes, in fact, the essential distinction between a true believer and a merely hypocritical or self-deceived professor. A mental conception of grace, unaccompanied by the fear of God, produces antinomianism, and is the last and most deadly form of spiritual corruption (Jude 4). The grace of God is never separable from His fear. His goodness leads those who believingly appreciate it to repentance; while reverence and godly fear distinguish always the behaviour of those whose worship and service He accepts (Heb. 12:28). Those who hate God dread and would flee from Him, when they think of Him at all: His fear is the treasure of His children. Jesus feared, and they who have the mind of Christ fear also. This sentiment is not to be confounded with that which is proper to a conscience under legal bondage. That fear has been cast out of the believer's heart, ever since he knew the grace of God in truth, by the power of His perfect love (1 John 4:17-18; Col. 1:6). He will have boldness in the day when unrepentant sinners are afraid. The fear of which Paul here speaks is the one essential form which love to Godward must ever take, in the case of any creature. And the higher the elevation to which grace raises its objects, and the nearer the relationship in which they stand to God, the more perfect and intense must be that venerative sentiment which has its origin in the true knowledge of Him who is its object (Ps. 89:7). When the apostle noticed that there were some at Corinth who, by disputing the doctrine of the resurrection, showed an entire absence of this fear, he taxes them with ignorance of God. For none who know God underrate His power, or trifle with His words. Among Christians this soul-preserving sentiment will be deep or shallow, according to their measure of self-knowledge and of grace.

He has called us by His grace and we call Him Father. As Father, the head of His family, to which we belong, He must govern His house. As Father He exercises judgment in government regarding His children; He must chasten His children if they do not walk as it becometh those who are in possession of the divine nature. And though that government is one of love and grace, the Father's dealing with a beloved child, we must pass the time of our sojourn with fear. But this is not a slavish fear, nor a fear which has in it the elements of uncertainty as to salvation, a fear which trembles before a holy God, fearing His wrath. It is a godly, a holy fear, a fear that we might not please Him. This holy fear should be a passion to measure up to our calling as children and not to displease Him who is our Father, so that He does not need to exercise a Father's judgment upon us.

It would make an immense difference if we lived in the recollection that we are thus before the Father's eye, and under His government. Hence indeed the exhortation which the Spirit of God gives us through Peter. If this be so, pass the time of sojourning here in fear; that is, a gracious fear of grieving the Father's heart, the fear which springs from the sense of the holiness of His character. The apostle Paul, after bringing in the truth of our future manifestation before the judgment-seat of Christ, says, "Knowing the terror" (fear) "of the Lord, we persuade men." It is well, indeed, for our hearts to remember that while we are brought into the most tender and intimate relationships with God as our Father, He is ever the Holy One, and that His government of His family is also holy. Confidence in His grace and love, and the full enjoyment of liberty in His presence, which He in grace has accorded to us, should never prevent, but rather lead to, our cherishing the most reverential fear. It is true that perfect love casteth out fear — all fear of God as a judge; but it brings with it and intensifies the holy fear of which Peter speaks.

Then how necessary to cultivate habitually the fear of God! There is nothing right where this fails. The holy fear of God shuts out every dishonouring fear of man, and all tormenting fear of God. We know His majesty, His holiness, and His righteous character; and we know also that He loves us beyond a father's love, with the perfection of the Son's Father. May we all deepen in our fear of Him!

But though dread is thus banished from the believing soul, reverence remains and deepens as God and His Word become more fully known. Hence the exhortation, "Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear" (Heb. 13:28). Along with this there is developed an inward horror of sin in its every form, and an earnest desire to walk in complete separation from it. "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil" (Prov. 8:13). He who wallows in sin, whatever his religious profession, has never known our God.

In their extremity they had called upon His Name; in their great deliverance they showed reverence and true godly fear. The goodness of God when believed always creates and deepens reverence for Himself, and carefulness as to His holy will in worship and service.

What is most beautiful and wholly characteristic of this beloved and loving man of God is added here. He says, "God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way;" and this he at once proceeds to do: "Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider how great things He hath done for you." He places their obedience not on the ground of obligation merely, but on the higher plane of gratitude; "For consider," he says, "how great things He hath done for you." There is only one higher reason seen in the creature: the holy angels in heaven obey God for what He is in Himself, in the infinite perfections and glories of His Being. This motive is not absent in the worship and obedience of the redeemed; in them it is coupled and augmented with the sense of gratitude and obligation; and we would not have it otherwise. The "great things He has done for us," shall be our wonder and delight to sing in the coming ages of that glad eternity that awaits us, through the grace of God, on the alone ground of "the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Alleluia!