What does it mean to fear God?

Verse 7 contains the keynote to the entire book. (See 9:10; Eccles. 12:13; Job 28:28; Psalm 111:10.) The word "fear" means a godly fear, reverence. This fear of the Lord is mentioned fourteen times in Proverbs. This childlike reverence, so sadly lacking among the young of our day, is the beginning of knowledge; there is no true knowledge apart from the fear of the Lord. It means to acknowledge the Lord, adore and worship Him, bow in faith to His revelation and put it above everything else. The foolish despise wisdom and instruction, they follow the philosophies of this world. To acknowledge the Lord to reverence and fear Him is thus written over the portal of the house of wisdom.

This fear of the Lord is not the slavish dread that marks the superstitious. No. It is a reverent trustfulness accompanied by hatred of evil. “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil” (Prov. 8:13). “The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever.” Where this is maintained the presence of the Lord is a reality and joy.

Thirdly, we are exhorted to "fear God." This is a wholesome word, but one that is very little in use in these days. Further on in the same epistle the apostle explains the character of this fear. He says (chap. 3:15), "but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts." This is a quotation from Isaiah 8:13, where we find these additional words, "and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread." The "fear of God," then, is not a craven fear, but rather the setting the Lord always before us, not doing or undertaking anything without reference to Him. Alas! how many things we do, and perhaps never consult Him at all. As long as it is not anything absolutely wrong, we seem to think we can do pretty much as we like. "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts." Who from this time will begin to do it? It is not talking much about it, but "in your hearts." It is having the heart continually in the presence of God. This is the blessed life, that everything should be "begun, continued, and ended in Him." This was the life of the Lord Jesus: "I have set the Lord always before Me."

What is the fear of the Lord? Not the fear of a guilty conscience that fears the policeman or the magistrate or the judge, but the fear of a son, who is afraid to displease his father, filial fear, begotten of love. For all through Proverbs Solomon is insistent upon affection, love. “My son, give me thine heart,” “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”

Is this knowledge? No. The reasoning on facts, even without God, even in that which is the legitimate sphere of experimental science, is only the leaving man to the wandering of his own mind, who never will, and never can, know creation without knowing a Creator; that is, without that faith which believes that the worlds were framed by the word of God, and that the things which are seen were not made of the things which do appear. When we turn to moral things and intellectual philosophy, it is evident there can be no knowledge without the fear of God; for then I enter on the sphere of relationships and obligations; and how can I be right, when I leave out the first and principal one? I cannot think of mind and find it sufficient for itself within itself. In point of fact, it has aspirations, and longings, and thoughts of a Being above us, power out of our reach, goodness, good and evil - of an end of our being, which is not apparent. If mind cannot suffice for itself, is it to turn to what is below it and exercise merely its powers? If above, what is God? what are my relationships with Him? where do they end, how begin? Will they end? I must know God to be at rest, God must have His place. Now putting God in His true place - that is the fear of God - is the true beginning of all knowledge.

There is here a modification of this. It is the fear of Jehovah; that is, it was a known relationship which man had with God, and it is living in that relationship as so known, for example, putting Him in mind and conscience in His true place as in that revealed relationship. Inconsiderate persons, running wildly after their own will, despise wisdom and instruction the experience and judgment of mature, experienced mind, or the warning and discipline which may apply to what is not such. But there is a subordinate principle to the fear of the Lord - subjection in these relationships in which He has established authority in the first instance and immediately over the movements of man's nature: that is, the father and the mother. God has established this as the first and original bond of authority; will is in subjection, and honour, obligation, respect, come in. The parent is the source of the path of the child in contrast with his own will. It is not a law to meet and break his will (if he be not wilful), but to instruct, form, guide, but with authority; yet as honoured by the child and respected, as holding God's place, and with affections which produce willingness instead of will; still it is authority. Here we have therefore instruction, guidance by warning, discipline, and even by chastisement (paidia; Heb. 12:5). So he is not to forsake the precepts and admonitions of his mother, those early influences which first bend the mind to good. This is a deeply important principle. It is not, like marriage, first instituted of all. It begins with authority, but authority in relationship of love, the source that forms and fashions as well as controls the character, the name that God takes in highest grace towards us; not a lawgiver, but an authority, but whose word is law, where it is a question between that and our own will.

"The fear of the Lord leads to life" (v. 23). Of course, this fear is not a slavish fear, but reverential, simply giving the Lord His rightful place in authority over us. His authority is always kind and gracious, so that one who has this godly fear will remain fully content, without evil intruding into his pathway.

The first distinguishing mark of this remnant is that "they feared the Lord" (Mal. 3:16). This is in striking contrast to the religious mass by which they were surrounded, who, while making a high religious profession, showed only too clearly by their low practice that they had cast off the fear of the Lord. The Lord details many grievous sins that call for judgment, but they are all summed up in this great sin, the people "fear not Me, says the Lord of hosts" (Mal. 3:5). Looking upon the mass, the Lord has to say, "Where is My fear?" (Mal. 1:6); looking upon this godly remnant, He delights to own that they "feared the Lord" (Mal. 3:16). The man who fears the Lord is governed by the Lord and not by man. He obeys the Lord rather than men. He refers everything to the Lord, and has the Lord before him in all his ways. He allows no man, whatever his position and gift, to come between himself and the Lord. In a word, he gives the Lord His right and supreme place, and this is very precious in the sight of the Lord.

And first as to ways: "as his fear, so is his wrath." It is not arbitrary, but according to His own nature and character. Fear is knowing Him in truth, so that what He is is applied to the holy judgment of all that is in the soul, so that nothing should displease Him or hinder communion. Now wrath as discipline - governmental displeasure - is the expression of this as regards the state of the soul, where it has been unheeded, or the will has been in it. It makes good God's character as regards that which is opposed to it in us. Faith, divine teaching, shews us that His wrath is as His fear. But when the will bows, our very feebleness becomes, not terror, but a motive in our appeal to God. And He owns it. He considers whereof we are made, and remembers we are but dust. But when once we feel our nothingness, and apply our hearts to wisdom, the beginning of which is the fear of Jehovah, instead of God's having to enforce it by subduing our will, and correcting our carelessness, the heart gets courage, gets bold. It is not reasoning, but by grace confidence is restored, and the heart says, "Return; O Lord, how long?"

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 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.