Mere Fear

If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.
Psalm 130:3-4

I have run into Christians who have a hard time understanding the concept of fearing God. Usually the reasoning goes something like this: "If God is all loving and good, why should we fear him?". Often, God is seen as a big, soft teddy bear. While He certainly is full of love and mercy, it is easy to overlook the goodness of his justice.

God does not sweep our sins under a rug. He is not looking the other way when we rebel against Him. In fact, I think God abhors this idea. If our sins were merely swept under a rug, then Jesus died for nothing. No, our sins were paid for.

We must first understand the extreme depravity of our nature to understand why God is feared. The Psalmist understands this quite well. "If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins/ O Lord, who could stand?". I like to read the second verse like this: "But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are ONLY feared." My NIV text note says this: "If God were not forgiving, people could only flee from him in terror." Without God's forgiveness, we would experience a feeling before God that far exceeds fear. Who could stand? Instead, we are forgiven and get to experience mere fear before Him. Awesome, humbling, sobering fear.