Fear of God

J. Gresham Machen writes:

Even the Christian must fear God. But it is another kind of fear. It is a fear rather of what might have been than of what is; it is a fear of what would come were we not in Christ. Without such fear there can be no true love; for love of the Saviour is proportioned to one's horror of that from which man has been saved. And how strong are the lives that are suffused with such a love! They are lives brave, not because the realities of life have been ignored, but because they have first been faced — lives that are founded upon the solid foundation of God's grace. May such lives be ours!

Perfect love casteth out fear. But if it be our love which casteth out fear, our love is only a response to the loving act of God. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." There is the culmination and the transformation of fear. "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men," says Jesus, "him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven."

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