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Mt. 10:28 Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

 

Lk. 2:9 And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people.





In the first part of this article, we brought forth the spectral nature of fear. We examined how fear may embody the entire light spectrum of the Lord which produces cleansing of the inner man, or how it may be confined to the “black light” end of the spectrum which illumines nothing but the empty inner self, producing the fear that cowers. Today we want to look at these nuances in some more detail to help dispel the confusion of the natural mind over this interdimensional emotion.

 

Jesus’ exhortation regarding fear in the Sermon on the Mount spotlights the enigma for us. He tells us first “not to fear” men who can kill the body, but then “to fear” God who can destroy the body. We are looking at one word, but we are seeing the two frequency dimensions of fear side by side. Remember, this is about spiritual discernment. You have to put your spiritual glasses on to see this.

 

The only kind of fear that is evoked when one is threatened by men is the fear that cowers. There is nothing about the fear of men that inspires to the cleansing of the soul. So we know that in the first part of this exhortation (fearing men), Jesus is talking about the fear that cowers.

 

But at the same time, we saw from the story of the talents that the fear that cowers in the presence of the Lord is of no virtue and finds no pleasure from the Lord. The man was afraid in the presence of the Lord, but He did not “fear the Lord” unto cleansing. The Father is not about making people cower before Him, certainly not for its own sake. That is not His heart.

 

What does this tell us about the second part of the exhortation to “fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell”? It tells us that Jesus is referring not to the limited fear frequency that cowers before men, but the full fear spectrum that cleanses the soul.

 

Why must this ultimately be so? It must be so because the mission of Jesus is to save, and the fear that cowers cannot save. Jesus is not going to exhort men to a fear which can bring the Father no pleasure! So here then, we are seeing the fear that cowers and the fear that cleanses side by side in the same exhortation.

 

“But,” one says, “you are just mincing words. The fear that cowers in one is the fear that cowers in the other. Look, Jesus is appealing to them based on what God can do to destroy them in hell, not what He can do to make them pure. So, get real. He has to be talking about the fear that cowers across the board!” 

 

OK. OK. You have a really good point there. So how can we handle this? Because it still remains that the fear that cowers cannot please God, and that the mission of Jesus was not to spread a cringing fear of God into men something like “Allah.”

 

 

Nuance within the Full Fear Spectrum

 

Remember that we have said the difference between the fear of man and the fear of God is partiality of spectrum. The fear that cowers only evokes the self-referenced black light end of the spectrum of fear. The fear of God invokes the entire spectrum unto cleansing. 

 

But what does the word entire mean? It means entire. It means that, yes, the black light end of the spectrum is still part of the full spectrum that comprises the fear of the Lord. There is a frequency of the fear of the Lord that does indeed strike non-redemptive terror in the hearts of men! It is that frequency that encounters our sin nature. (Hope we’re not getting too deep on this, but bear with it….)

 

Throughout scripture we see example after example of the presence of God evoking cowering fear in men on first contact. Please examine again now the passage about the angel and shepherds:

 

Lk. 2:9 And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people.

 

When the shepherds first encounter the angel, it says they were “terribly frightened.”  What fear is this? Is it the fear of the Lord? No. It is not the fear of the Lord. It is the non-redemptive natural fear of self-preservation. It is the same fear as that of the man in the parable of the talents.

 

And over and over we see this phenomenon where on first contact with an angel, or with Jesus walking on the sea at night, or even before the throne of God in heaven, the first section of the fear spectrum evoked by God’s presence is indeed the black light end of the spectrum!

 

 

First Contact and Fear Frequency Conversion

 

In course of its mission to cleanse us, the fearful Presence of the Lord inevitably first triggers non-redemptive fear in people. This is because all men are lost in self, and self is the only reference point anyone has for what he first encounters of the unknown, which includes God. In this, the fear of the Lord is testing the soul for the presence of pride and intransigence.

 

But what distinguishes the Lord’s fear from straight up cowering fear is that, toward the humble faithful, it immediately moves to convert the cowering to cleansing. It moves immediately from the black light contact point to the full redeeming spectrum. Really get this carefully. Read it over as much as you have to. We’re talking about a spiritual “chemical reaction” and frequency conversion that takes place when the redemptive fear of the Lord first encounters us in some form of our lost self-centered ignorance and unbelief.

 

Virtually immediately on arousing natural fright, the fear of the Lord says, “Fear not!” It says, “Be not afraid!” Again, see this with the angel speaking to the shepherds:

 

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people.

 

And we see this over and over in these stories of divine encounter. An angel shows up. Or Jesus appears in His glory. Cowering fear is immediately evoked. And just as immediately, the fear of the Lord moves to convert it to the full redemptive, cleansing power of fear.

 

Understanding the fear conversion dynamic now allows us to resolve any controversy about what fear Jesus was evoking by saying “fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.” I said it was about the fear of the Lord. The objector said it was about cowering fear. The fact is both are true, but the ultimate truth lies in Jesus’ intent to communicate the complete fear of the Lord, which, though it indeed first triggers cowering fear, does not end there.

 

Remember again that at this point in His mission, Jesus is coming to seek and save that which is lost—that which is capable of humble response, and not to threaten that which is already condemned. So while His warning does include the cowering aspect, stirring that aspect is not his ultimate objective. If that were his objective, then the exhortation has no redemptive value.

 

No. Jesus truly is leading his hearers into the cleansing, loving fear of the Lord beyond the initial threat. We must see the full spectrum in His word to “fear Him who can cast both body and soul into hell.” 

 

 

Fear Conversion in the Life of the Disciple

 

Let’s turn aside to consider some practical implications for our own daily walk in the Lord. In reality, fear conversion is a living dynamic that is played out through the journey of our discipleship.

 

God is always coming to us in new and unknown ways. He is always challenging us with new, previously unconsidered thought patterns and processes. And true to form, every time we are faced with this, we pass through the fear frequency conversion cycle.

 

Every time we are confronted by God in some hitherto unknown form, it triggers carnal fear in us. We are frankly afraid for ourselves. This is especially true on the cusp of any new challenge to higher faith and trust. On first encounter of challenge, we get scared. The word of the Lord to us does this. The prophetic word does this to us. A new conviction from the Lord does this to us.

 

Why is this? It is because in the new encounter, the Lord’s presence intrinsically exposes and proves us for deeper levels of pride and unbelief. But because God loves us, and because He is dealing with us unto cleansing, and because He sees our innate readiness to humility, His immediate movement is to say, “Fear not! Be not afraid!” The Father immediately moves to convert the evoked torment to the cleansing fear of loving accountability.

 

This is where John’s word “perfect love casts out fear” comes in. What does this mean given all we have seen? Does it mean perfect love casts out the fear of the Lord? Of course not! It means that the “perfect fear of the Lord” which is His love cleanses us past the black light of cowering fear. It also means that every solo demonic spirit of black light fear is evicted. (Let’s remember that satan operates entirely and only within the confines of black light fear.)

 

Because this process is what it is, we should in our deepest heart “not be afraid” every time we encounter black light fear in our soul, whether demonic in origin or the natural result of first encounter with the Lord at a new level of faith. (We have written about this elsewhere.)

 

Can we get past being afraid of encountering fear when challenged to new faith? Can we get past wondering if something is wrong each time we feel a deeper fear in the face of new revelation or else a new taunt from the enemy? We need to. This article can help us do that.

 

Accept that you will encounter black light fear at the leading edge of your next new encounter with God’s truth. The pride, unbelief, control and impatience you don’t even know still remain are going to be aroused. Recognize it, turn your ears to His immediate next word “Be not afraid,” and then move through innate humility into your deliverance from torment and into fear’s cleansing love  as you continue to gaze on Him, not on the tormenting self-referenced concern.

 

That is how growth into the fear of the Lord works. The disciples passed through this cycle numerous times on the sea. Count on it. So will we.  

 

 

The Non-Redemptive End of the Fear of the Lord

 

So we have seen how the partial black light fear of the Lord initially exposes sin, unbelief, ignorance and self-preservation. We’ve also seen how such arousal is not the essence of the fear of the Lord as it is with carnal, demonic fear. The fear of the Lord moves immediately from arousing torment to love’s redemptive cleansing, “casting out” any other fear. And it is to this outcasting cleansing that the fear of the Lord ultimately calls all men. That is His true heart.

 

But now we must understand that at the end, in all who finally fail to enter into loving cleansing, fear’s concluding manifestation is indeed in its threat to “destroy both body and soul in hell.” Fear’s end is judgment and condemnation. The non-redemptive fear of final judgment on the non-redeemable is plainly proclaimed to us:

 

Heb. 10:26 For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27but a terrifying expectation of judgment and “the  fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.” 31It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

 

 

The Old Testament majors on presenting the concluding non-redemptive frequency of the fear of the Lord against that which proves its ultimate incorrigibility: 

 

Mic. 7:17 They will lick the dust like a serpent, Like reptiles of the earth. They will come trembling out of their fortresses; To the LORD our God they will come in dread And they will be afraid before You.

 

Numerous passages outline this final effect on the unbelieving and rebellious.

 

Indeed, at the end, when redemption’s opportunity is past and fear’s cleansing power has done all it can and will accomplish, all that remains is the self-referenced destructive terror of the Lord. Again, this is not the fear Jesus is ultimately seeking to evoke in the people on the mount. But that is the only expectation for all who ultimately fail to enter the “fear conversion zone” from cowardice to cleansing. 

 

 

Failure of Prophetic Discernment in Proclaiming the Fear of the Lord

 

The church’s inability to discern the full spectrum of God’s fear has affected the prophetic wing as well as the mainstream. The mainstream church, as we noted last time, has watered down the fear of the Lord to appease the world’s cowardly aversion to any beneficial concept of fear.

 

On the other hand, the prophetic wing, specifically the “John the Baptist” wilderness camp, has tended to major exclusively in the final negative black light fear of God applied to the non-redeemable. In disdaining the appeasing mainstream church, the extreme wilderness prophetic has blindly failed to preach fear’s full spectrum of redemptive cleansing, presenting the Lord as the equivalent of “Allah.” Raving maverick radio prophets have been on the air for decades espousing this kind of “fear of God,” which is really only the fear of satan.

 

While at it, we should also note that most “end times warning” ministries have stirred nothing but the cowering black light fear of satan. Such is behind their purveyance of “grab your guns, stock up your supplies and run for the hills” schemes. Their warnings have rarely stirred to the fear of the Lord that cleanses.     

 

Preaching the fear of the Lord demands discernment on the part of the prophets! Pharisaic prophets preaching non-redemptive fear of God as the sum of God’s heart will reap the very judgment they are proclaiming. Those given to inspiring the cowering fear of God for purposes of profit and manipulation will reap the same. 

 

If we are going to preach the fear of the Lord, we had better know “what manner of spirit we are of.” We can only rightly preach from a position of having first been cleansed ourselves by the fear of the Lord. We must always be preaching God’s fear from a position of proven humility clothed in sack cloth. We must know our audience, discerning the redeemable from the incorrigible. We must know how to speak “fear not” to trembling shepherds as well as “tremble ye sinners” to unrepentant Pharisees and kings; knowing who is who, which is which and when is when.

 

 

Psalms 2 and the Exhortation of Jesus

 

As we wrap up this study on the two dimensions of fear, let’s take a look at a passage that opens up more fully what Jesus meant when He said, “fear Him who can cast both body and soul into hell.” The following passage from Psalms 2 brings this hard to embrace relationship between threat of torment and hope of cleansing to a critical expression.  

 

Ps. 2:10 Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth. 11 Serve the Lord with fear, And rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, And you perish in the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.

 

Here the fear that cowers and the fear that cleanses are tightly entwined, almost impossible to distinguish. A tightrope walk is formed in the words, “Serve the Lord with fear” in which a stark choice appears between cleansing fear unto wholeness (…rejoice with trembling….Blessed are those who put their trust in Him) and cowering fear under threat of its life (…lest He be angry, And you perish in the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little). The nuancing between the two sides of the fear spectrum here is intense.

 

 

Jealousy, Fire and the Fear of the Lord

 

There is only one divine attribute that can finally help us understand the intensity of these intertwined fears. The fear of the Lord is sourced in His jealousy.

 

Behold:

 

Dt. 6:13 "You shall fear only the LORD your God; … 15 for the LORD your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the LORD your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth.

 

 

Jealousy in the heart of man is a destructive power only. It is a defective soulish human attribute corrupted from the jealousy of God. But in the heart of God, jealousy is an enigmatic spirit blend of cleansing loving energy set amidst destructive fire. Comparing the warming and destroying effects of the sun as an example, this too we have written about long ago. 

 

Solomon informs us of the incomprehensible power of this fiery divine attribute:

 

Songs 8:6 For love is as strong as death, Jealousy is as severe as Sheol; Its flashes are flashes of fire, The very flame of the LORD.

 

From here, the full spectrumed fire of the Lord with its cleansing embrace yet terrorizing force is resolved in this single observation:

 

Heb. 12:29 Our God is a consuming fire. 

 

And this is what we are really trying to describe in formulating an understanding of the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is really all about the fire of the Lord under the banner of divine jealousy.

 

As a consuming fire, God is inscrutably jealous both for His holiness, and for His loved ones. As He has told us:

 

Ex. 34:14 for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God

Zech. 1:14 I am zealous for Jerusalem And for Zion with great zeal. 

 

As an aside, it is due to the incomprehensible “atomic fission” between these two jealousies in God’s own heart that Christ died from before the foundation of the world. Christ resolved and brought to fusion the jealousy conflict in the heart of God. That is the mystery of the universe, and a subject for another time.

 

Nevertheless, comprehending the jealousies of God for both His Name and His People enables us to understand the apparent contradicting terrorizing and cleansing frequencies of the fear of the Lord derived from them. His jealousy for His Holy Name brings cowering dread to our sinfulness apart from Him, but His jealousy for us fearfully cleanses us from our sin, if we will enter into that jealousy.

 

And in this, we have the truest meaning of the positive fear of the Lord. To fear the Lord means to enter into His jealousy for us.   

The consummating enigma of the fear of the Lord thus appears:

 

If we fear the Lord, we will not be afraid of Him. But if we are afraid of Him, we do not fear Him.

 

In the end, whatever we fear is what we ultimately love.

 

 

Conclusion

 

This article, grappling as it does with titanic realities, is but a poor attempt to help us conceive of these competing frequencies within God’s fiery heart, that we might know how to rightly respond to Him from within our own fearful emotion.

 

Does anything we have learned here give us what we need to convince an unbelieving world of the valid moral rightness of the fear of the Lord? Probably not. If they cannot grasp his jealousy and His fire, they will never grasp His saving fear. The carnal mind will still not apprehend the spiritual nuances associated with this.

 

But this writing is not for the benefit of unbelievers, but for those who do believe, but who need bolstered confidence in why we unhesitatingly contend for the fear of the Lord. We who believe are capable of spiritual discernment. And that is all that matters. Let’s remember that God is not sensitive about human inability to believe in Him. He does not cater His self-revelation to man’s incapacity to appreciate that revelation.

 

The fact is our God is a jealous God—for Himself against sin, and for those He reclaims from sin against sinners. He is fire. That is all there is to it. That is all we need to know. His fear embraces both threat and cleansing, but His heart is only unto His cleansing—a cleansing no other god offers humanity. And that is all that internally matters for us.

 

If we know this, we do not need to be perplexed by the nature of divine jealousy, nor therefore over the difficulty of His fear. We can know that His fear and His love are ultimately harmonious, even though the fear taken in isolated black frequency is contrary to His love.

 

The Holy Spirit is here to guide us into the truth of all these things.

 

 

&&&&&&&&&&

 

To all the saints then, be loved in the fear of God and to the standard of His cleansing!


[return to Part 1]




Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

11/15


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