Unspoken Sermons · Chapter
The Fear of God explained
This chapter explores the nature of fear toward God, arguing that fear arises from imperfect love and a troubled conscience.
What happens
This chapter explores the nature of fear toward God, arguing that fear arises from imperfect love and a troubled conscience. It asserts that God, as life essential and eternal, consumes death and corruption, and that true shelter from terror is found in the Father's arms. The chapter uses John's vision on Patmos to illustrate how even a beloved disciple can be overcome by fear, and concludes that the all-glorious, all-perfect God is the only refuge and the source of love that casts out fear.
Themes in this chapter
God as Loving Father
The chapter emphasizes God as the Father who receives his children with open arms, the home from which they were sent.
Inner Transformation and Perfection
Discusses the burning away of evil parasites and the transformation from fear to love, comfort, and strength.
The Individual Relationship with God
Highlights the personal journey of the child running to the Father, and the need for each soul to know God directly.
Characters to notice
- Jesus Christ
Referred to as the Son of Man, the First and the Last, the Living one; appears to John in glory on Patmos.
- John Boanerges
The disciple who saw the glory of the Son of Man and fell at his feet as one dead; later comforted by Jesus.
- God the Father
Described as the Father of spirits, the infinite Father, the one who seeks nothing but his children themselves.
- Moses
Mentioned in the context of the law being unknown before the birth of Jesus.
- Job
Quoted as the suffering heart of humanity crying out for the first, the last, the living one.
Key passages
“God is life essential, eternal, and death cannot live in his sight; for death is corruption, and has no existence in itself, living only in the decay of the things of life.”
God is the essence of eternal life, and death cannot exist where God is, because death is merely the decay of living things and has no independent reality.
Clarifies the ontological distinction between God as life and death as parasitic corruption.
“What father being evil would it not win to see the child with whom he was vexed running to his embrace? how much more will not the Father of our spirits, who seeks nothing but his children themselves, receive him with open arms!”
Even an evil father would be moved by a child running to him for comfort; how much more will God, who desires only his children, welcome them.
Illustrates God's unconditional love using a parental analogy.
“The glory can breed terror only in him who is capable of being terrified by it; while he is such it is well the terror should be bred and maintained, until the man seek refuge from it in the only place where it is not—in the bosom of the glory.”
God's glory only frightens those who are still capable of fear; such fear is useful until the person finds safety in God's own presence.
Explains the pedagogical purpose of fear in leading to God.