On the Fear of God: Reflections from Ecclesiastes
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As Christians, we are to fear our God. But after much bewilderment over its complexities, we often store this truth away in some remote periphery of our faith, never to be obeyed nor experienced. “Perfect love casts out fear,” we remind ourselves. Why should we fear God? Wouldn’t this distort the grace and forgiveness that we have in Christ? Yet the command stands (Philippians 2:12-13).
ALL IS MEANINGLESS
Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. Ecclesiastes 1:2.
These are the words of Solomon; Solomon, the king of Israel, with unsurpassed wisdom and discernment from God (1 Kings 3:12). After attaining unsurpassed wisdom, power, wealth, and pleasures in life, Solomon unashamedly addresses the all-pervasive vanity, or meaninglessness, of life
“under the sun.” But this observation seems to imply that our Creator and Lord is not sovereignly acting in this world. For this very reason, the notion of meaninglessness often drives us to despair, apathy, or bitterness toward God.
To restate the meaning of the Preacher’s words in more digestible terms seems tempting: ‘only in God can we find true satisfaction’ or ‘without God, life has no rhyme or reason,’ or something of the like. But this isn’t what Solomon is saying. He simply speaks of life “under the sun” – Christian or not. Still, the Preacher insists that God is sovereign and that this world is the work of His hands (Ecclesiastes 7:13, 8:14, 8:17).
What the preacher wants to show him (the youth) is that the real basis of wisdom is a frank acknowledgement that this world’s course is enigmatic, that much of what happens is quite inexplicable to us, and that most occurrences “under the sun” bear no outward sign of a rational, moral God ordering them at all. J.I. Packer
The preacher diverts us from the foolish, arrogant belief that we understand the ways of a sovereign God. “…then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.” Ecclesiastes 8:16-17.
NEGLECTING FEAR
Without a cautious consideration of Solomon’s words, the sin of pride besets us. We as Christians often feel pressure to have life figured out. We know God. We know He is in control. We know He has a plan for us. We know our situations are preparation for something to come. We know trials teach us and grow us.
These are true in their place, but let us not think that we have any special god-like insight or control. Let us not end up believing that we have God sorted out neatly. James warns us of boasting with such arrogance. His reasoning resembles the Preacher’s, “yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14). It is God who sits on the throne. We are but His servants, walking by faith, yet to understand divine workings in all their fullness.
WRONG FEAR
Instead of fearing God, we fear the tangible. Our good and sincere desire to trust in God’s sovereignty morphs into a panicked frenzy to be spiritual and flourishing in our faith. But suddenly, we fear the storm itself rather than the One controlling it. We read of this when the disciples grew afraid during a storm at sea, losing faith. Jesus was asleep, and they failed to grasp His control, even questioning His care for them. (Mark 4:35-41).
When the vanity of life strikes, this mindset of having God figured out proves deadly. The suffering and pain of trials comes along, and suddenly the facade of having arrived spiritually breaks down and disillusionment sets in. When suffering will not cease, we cannot honestly claim to have answers. Life appears dark and bleak – a valley of death. We discover that we have been trusting in a God of our own creation, a God whose actions make perfect sense to us – a God who is small.
RIGHT FEAR
The story of the disciples in the storm doesn’t end with wrong fear though. Once Jesus calmed the storm, they understood His control. Yet, upon witnessing the control their Lord held, their fear actually grew. Only now they feared the One to whom fear was due. (Matthew 10:28 ESV)
Solomon, David, and Job all penned that the fear of the Lord is wisdom (Proverbs 9:10, Psalm 111:10, Job 28:28). So here lies the root of the matter. True wisdom is not the attainment of some kind of omniscience comparable to God’s. True wisdom springs forth from fearing God. To fear God, we must see God in proper view: He is Creator, He is Sovereign, He is Holy, but He is also Other: His ways are unknowable. Only with corrected vision can we sustain a healthy fear of God amidst the vanity of life under the sun.
God has made everything beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The Preacher carefully sets out to prove that life is vain: the righteous die like the wicked, the fool inherits a man’s toil, the oppressed have no one to comfort them, etc. Yet he claims that God makes life beautiful. God has “put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (v.12). Whether times of mourning or dancing, every temporal circumstance reinforces the truth that God is God, He is eternal, and we are not.
Solomon ends his writing with, “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14). As humans, we are not expected to understand life; we are expected to fear the One who does. This path brings enjoyment to life. We can rest in the humility that it requires. We can rest in God’s sovereignty over our circumstances and over our sins. He transcends even our wrong fear.
“Has the Preacher not relegated everything to vanity precisely so that the eternal and blessed significance of that thought might become properly manifest, so that it might bind the straying soul in obedience to the admonition? Søren Kierkegaard
We are but a vapor, and when we see God as eternal, we can begin to work out our salvation with fear, knowing that it will be well with those who fear God (Ecclesiastes 8:13).
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