“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom” (Ps. 111:10). A familiar verse to those of us who have been in and around the church for some time. In fact, so familiar and seemingly straightforward that we commonly quote it to other Christians, refer to it in conversations, and even send it out as an encouragement or reminder to friends (I am a little surprised that I don’t see it on more t-shirts and coffee-mugs). Still, at least for myself, along with being a familiar verse it has also always been a kind of bewildering verse. Because while the argument is simple enough, that the fear of the Lord precedes wisdom, the question always remains, what is “the fear of the Lord”?
Be honest for a minute, how many arguments have you been in (lets call them robust dialogues) about whether the fear of the Lord is respect or terror; admiration or trepidation? You don’t have to answer that out loud, because I actually can’t see or hear you anyways, but I will assume that at least some who are reading this have had those dialogues. The Lord knows that I have. And to be honest, though I have earnestly argued in those times from one side or the other, for most of my life I have not been exactly sure who is more right. Of course, to the unredeemed the fear of the Lord must be mostly if not entirely terror. How could it be anything else when you are in the cross-hairs of God’s judgment? But is there not that kind of fear also mixed in with the worship and admiration of those who have been rescued out of His judgment?
A Fuller Picture
The fear of the Lord is not the only perplexing phrase found in Scripture. The Bible is full of them. In fact, there are so many words and concepts in the Bible that are difficult to unpack that sometimes I wish God had just included a lexicon in the back. It would have been a huge time saver and cleared up a lot of discussions. But alas, He did not. And so, for our own good (and truly for the delight of our souls) we are left to become students of the Bible; to search the Scriptures in an effort to put together fuller understandings of the biblical language, and also to read and learn from those who have gone before us and done much of that searching and putting together already.
All that to say, one of the most impactful and biblical definition of the fear of the Lord that I have ever come across is from the 20th Century Swiss Theologian, Emil Brunner, in the first volume of his three-volume dogmatics set, The Christian Doctrine of God. In his chapter on the holiness of God, while Brunner is discussing God’s incomparableness and his transcendence over and above his creations, he writes this beautiful and insightful passage,
“Man is not equal to God: he is indeed a creature, not the Creator; he is a dependent, not an independent, personality. Therefore, one cannot stand on a level with God and have fellowship with Him as if He were just one of ourselves. We must bow the knee before him…The creature should bow the knee in reverence before the Holy God. This humble recognition of the infinite distance between God and man is the “fear of the Lord”: that fear of the Lord which is the “beginning of all wisdom” (Prov. 1.7). This is the expression of the feeling that we are wholly dependent upon God, and that He is in no way dependent upon us.”[1]
Isn’t that wonderfully said? When I read that some months ago, I remember feeling like for the first time I had a picture of the fear of the Lord that was beyond the age old of debate of either respect or terror. Brunner makes the picture so much fuller than that, and he does so by putting together a couple of important biblical concepts.
Consider this passage for a moment and at least two of the components that Brunner sees as essential to a biblical fear of the Lord.
STARTING WITH HUMILITY
The first component is humility. Fear of the Lord is made up of the kind of humility that comes from seeing God as completely transcendent and wholly separate from mankind in His holiness: “The King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6.15-16). It is made of the kind of the kind of humility that comes from seeing the absolute incomparable nature of God, and the creatureliness of man; from seeing God as Creator and people as His created beings: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? (Ps. 8.3-4). It comes from the kind of humility that sees Isaiah, a prophet of the Lord upon encountering the Lord, proclaiming judgment upon himself because of his absolute unworthiness: “Woe is me! yFor I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Is. 6.5).
If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then the humble admission and recognition that we are in no way equal to God is the beginning of that fear. Or to say it another way, the first essential part of the fear of the Lord is knowing that He is the Lord and that we are not.
FROM HUMILITY TO REVERENCE
The second component is reverence. Now a person might say that reverence is humility, but I would argue that they are not quite the same. People standing in the presence of God might be humbled; they might finally recognize their level of importance in comparison to Him; they may even bow their knees to Him as Paul says will be the case (Rom. 14.11). But in that moment, those knee bowers may still fail to stand in awe of Him and show Him the kind of deep honour and respect that is caught up in the term reverence. Without a doubt, reverence and humility are deeply connected. Reverence requires humility and it comes out of humility. Still, it is not the case that wherever you find humility before God, that reverence can just be assumed. And so, Brunner identifies reverence as another essential piece, “The creature should bow the knee in reverence before the Holy God.”[2]
The fear of Lord is not only recognizing the infinite chasm between us and God, it is following that recognition to a place of worship. It is recognizing not only His otherliness but also His worthiness. It is prostrating our lives before Him because we have seen not only his separateness but also His goodness. It is saying with Psalmist, “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!” (Ps. 95.6)
HUMBLE REVERENCE
All that to say, if Brunner is right (and I believe He is), for the believer the fear of the Lord is not simply respect, and it is not just plain fear. It is more then both of those. It is recognizing how transcendent and wholly other God is, not sharing His glory with any, and so recognizing how worthy He is of all of our praise. It is in Brunner’s own words, humble reverence. Or in the words of the elders in the throne scene of Revelation 4, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4.11).
To finish where we began, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom” (Ps. 111:10).
[1] Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God (Westminster Press: Philadelphia, 1946), 162-163.
[2] Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God, 163.
