What does it mean to fear the Lord?

What does it mean to fear the Lord? Dr. Michael Allen unpacks the different types of fear in the Bible to help believers understand “the fear of the Lord” that is the beginning of wisdom.

As we read holy scripture, we repeatedly come across the phrase, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” That speaks of promise and significance. This clearly matters. When we read that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, it’s not primarily saying that the fear of the Lord is the first step, or it’s somehow the moment of inception, as if it’s something you do and then you move beyond. Rather, it’s speaking to the fear of the Lord being the foundation, the ground, the ongoing route of wisdom. We all need to be wise, don’t we? We live in a world where we need to not only know the truth, but know how the truth applies in this or that situation, to that quandary or that question. That requires maturity and wise judgment, and the fear of the Lord is crucial. It is the ground on which that wisdom is built.

Servile Fear

As we think about the fear of the Lord, we’ve got to acknowledge that the Bible speaks of it in slightly different ways. And in certain respects, fear is to be commended and sought out prayerfully by the Christian. But in other respects, fear is something that, thankfully, the Lord has put to the side. Theologians sometimes speak of what they call “servile” fear.God calls us to attentiveness. God calls us to spiritual-mindedness. God calls us to set our minds on things above. And to fear the Lord in this way is not to quake in our boots. Augustine, for instance, would encounter passages like “the love of the Lord casts out fear” in 1 John. What we hear there is a kind of slavish, fearful anxiety that God might be after us, that his judgment might befall us. And one of the beauties of the gospel is that perfect love casts out that kind of anxious concern. Knowing ourselves to be united to Christ, knowing ourselves to be loved of God and beloved for his sake, we do not experience that kind of fear. We ought not experience that kind of anxiety. And when it comes upon us, when we are tempted unto it, it is right that pastors and fellow congregants remind us of the truths of the gospel, and the promise that God’s perfect love has cast it out.

Filial Fear

But the Bible speaks of fear in other ways. “The fear of the Lord is clean,” Psalm 19, says, “enduring forever.” Here’s a fear that isn’t cast out. Here’s a fear that isn’t somehow anxious. It doesn’t somehow weigh us down. This is a fear that actually serves us, that cultivates holiness. In fact, Paul will go so far, writing the Corinthians, in saying that we are called, actually, to bring holiness to completion in the fear of the Lord. Well, what’s involved in that? As we think about this “filial” fear, as Augustine puts it, as we think about this fear that’s eternal and that’s good and that brings us to whole and complete holiness, we see that God calls us to attentiveness. God calls us to spiritual-mindedness. God calls us to set our minds on things above. And to fear the Lord in this way is not to quake in our boots, but it’s to take God seriously. It’s always to have an eye to God, to his presence, to what he’s doing, to his promises and their pertinence for our situation. And so, the fear of the Lord that’s the beginning of wisdom is that God-centered focus, wherever we may be, whatever circumstance we may be living, whether it be happy or sad, whether it be life or death, that we would be mindful of God and his presence, that we would be attentive to his word and its promises, that we would remember that he is always the most interesting character in the context. That’s what it means to fear the Lord, and to have begun on the path of holy wisdom.