Reeves argues that there are multiple types of fear. First, natural fear is the fear of pain, accidents, and death. These are the result of the fall, but they are not sinful in themselves. A second form of fear he calls “Sinful Fear,” which gets its name because it derives from our sin. We fear God as judge because we know we are guilty before Him. Finally, there is the fear of the Lord (I will call it Righteous Fear, though Reeves simply calls it “Fear of the Lord”), which is the center of discussion later in the book.
Books don’t often make grown men cry with joy, but I have heard that Reeves’s book on the Trinity (Delighting in the Trinity) has done so. That book is still on my reading list, but when I heard Reeves recently wrote a book on the Fear of the Lord, I knew I had to read it. I read it to get exposure to Reeves’s work, but I also read it because I am fascinated by the topic of the Fear of the Lord.
Reeves begins with a great question: Is fear good or bad? On the one hand, Jesus came to deliver us from fear (Lk. 1:74–75; Heb. 2:15); on the other, we are called to fear God (Prov. 1:7; Ps. 86:11; etc.). Reeves’s book is designed to “cut through this discouraging confusion” (16). His goal is that readers would be able to “rejoice in this strange paradox that the gospel both frees us from fear and gives us fear. It frees us from our crippling fears, giving us instead a most delightful, happy, and wonderful fear” (16).
Setting us Free from Fear
Reeves argues that there are multiple types of fear. First, natural fear is the fear of pain, accidents, and death. These are the result of the fall, but they are not sinful in themselves. A second form of fear he calls “Sinful Fear,” which gets its name because it derives from our sin. We fear God as judge because we know we are guilty before Him. Finally, there is the fear of the Lord (I will call it Righteous Fear, though Reeves simply calls it “Fear of the Lord”), which is the center of discussion later in the book.
Despite living in times where safety is undeniably greater than at any point in world history, many people live in perpetual fear. Anxiety is rampant. Reeves argues that “the loss of the fear of God is what ushered in our modern age of anxiety, but the fear of God is the very antidote to our fretfulness” (24).
Fear does not merely derive from uncertainty though; it sometimes derives from certainty—the certainty that God is holy and we are not. This realization, present in all humans, contributes to a Sinful Fear that leads men to flee from God. They hate His holiness, and they fear the life of holiness he would bring in their lives. Further, they know He will judge, and they know they will be guilty.
Sinful Fear is the natural state of man before God. The fanning of such fear is the grace of God, awakening the sinner to the reality of his predicament. As the old hymn says, grace teaches the heart to fear, and only then can grace that fear relieve.
