The Fear of The Lord Is Not Fear of Punishment

Sunday morning as I was walking my pooch in our local park, I was thinking about the Fear of the Lord, my regular theme of late, and I heard the Lord drop another idea into my mind that I want to reflect upon. What I heard was “the fear of the Lord is not fear of punishment.”

I think that statement is an excellent defining principle worth some reflection. The Lord in His love for us, wants us to understand how His mercy and compassion are essential to the Gospel, and must be understood in the midst of our pursuing Him, and encountering Him in His Holiness and Majesty.

I think that too often we are led to believe that our relationship with God is defined by the Law, and His reaction to our sins is to punish us.  We don’t often hear this message proclaimed with such clearness, but that is the underlying message that is often communicated when we hear a “rules based” Gospel.  For many of us this message is woven into our thinking and theology, and yet it does not represent the true Gospel.

This is a rather complicated theme, so I don’t expect to be able to cover it clearly in a single morning reflection.  Lord, please help me to break it up into digestible pieces!

I know there are whole books on this theme, and probably several whole books proclaiming the other perspective, so I will just try to keep to the basics of the Gospel, in definable statements.  Here goes: 

1. Jesus came to save us, not to condemn us (John 3:16-17)

2. Jesus perfectly fulfilled all of the Law (Rom 10:4 & Matt 5:17)

3. Jesus paid the price for all our sins (Heb 9:12 NIrV)

4. Jesus was punished for our sins (Is 53:5)

5. Jesus opened the way for us to have relationship with God. (2 Cor 3:14-18)

6. Jesus offers us salvation freely, for He paid the price. (Rom 3:24)

7. We cannot earn forgiveness for our sins through works (Gal 2:16).

8.  If we could earn our salvation through works, then Jesus’s death, resurrection and ascension were not necessary. (Gal 2:21)

9. Jesus offers this to us freely because He loves us.(2 Thess 2:13-14)

Going back to the top, the motivation of the Gospel is God’s love for us.  Jesus came as a perfect representation of the Father to us, and was a perfect representation of man to the Father. He took our place, and did for us what we could never do.  

Continuing on, if Jesus paid the price for all our sins and took the punishment of those sins upon Himself, why would God punish us?  If He does, then it seems to me that God is saying that Jesus didn’t actually pay the whole price for our sins, nor take the punishment for them all, and His sacrifice was incomplete! 

Yikes, we don’t want to be agreeing to that thought, for that is certainly not the Gospel!

His death and resurrection opened the way for us to be restored to relationship with God!  He did what only He could do, and now offers salvation (out of His love for us) freely, through faith.  It is not because of anything we did, it is all based on what Jesus did, so He extends it freely to us! 

None of this is a promise of punishment for wrong behavior! 

In fact, while we were sinners Jesus did all this for us! (Rom 5:8)

If He did all this for us while we were sinners, why would we think that He would completely change everything once we receive salvation?  

If He did all of this for us, would He act like He didn’t, and punish us anyway for our sins?

This type of thinking (That God will punish us for our sins) is no gospel, and certainly not good news at all!

The Gospel is almost unbelievable, too good to be true, yet it is!  In spite of our sins, God chose to love us and save us from our sinfulness, from the punishment due us, instead freely offering to us forgiveness for our sins, salvation, relationship, and blessing.  He did everything we can’t and couldn’t do, and offers it all to us freely!  All we need to do is believe!

This Good News should cause us to wonder at the unbelievable goodness of God!  We should be overwhelmed with thankfulness, with gratitude, and with assurance that we are not worthy of any of it!  Our hearts should recognize the unbelievable good news of our pardon and release!  We are not only set free, but God desires relationship with us, and that is HIs reason for this all!  

His love is His motivation!

His Love is eternal, and exists in spite of our sins, and imperfection! 

He is so much better than we can imagine!

He loves us and has a plan for us, for our own good!

He is Holy, all powerful, all knowing, and He loves us and wants us to spend eternity in relationship with Him!

This is the beginning of the Fear of the Lord!  We don’t want to miss any of what He has purposed!  We don’t want to disappoint the One who loves us so perfectly!  We don’t want to miss the opportunity to know Him and be known by Him!   

When we see Him, we will recognize how beautiful, magnificent and glorious He is, and we will probably fall on our faces! (Rev. 1:17)

This is Fear of the Lord!

Amen!