Read and post comments on my blog.
My last blog provoked a response from my son, Chad. He wrote:
I found this in a book called Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, and I think it applies well to many things in our lives both as men and as Christians—perhaps there is very little difference between the two.
In the book this is part of an ongoing dialogue about the nature of fear and of true nobility.“When I first came to Lakedaemon and they called me ‘Suicide,’ I hated it. But in time I came to see it’s wisdom, unintentional as it was. For what can be more noble than to slay oneself? Not literally. Not with a blade in the guts. But to extinguish the selfish self within, that part which looks only to its own preservation, to save its own skin.”
The narrator continues to talk about the motivation for giving up one’s self, which I will not include because their motivation is not entirely the same as ours (although a love for others above oneself does certainly play a role). But the narrator makes the point through the characters that this “giving up of one’s self” is the ultimate defeat of fear.
So going back to your comments about how we need fear to hold us when our imperfect love is not enough. This is undoubtedly true. However, our goal should be to overcome fear. Not through protestations of love but by giving up that which we have to be fearful for: ourselves. Truthfully it is in the submission of ourselves, our desires, and our self interest to God that we best show our love to him. This cannot be done out of fear. It is impossible to be motivated to give up one’s own right to self preservation out of fear for that very preservation. It’s a contradiction.
I don’t think that it is obedience that God desires of us; it is Love. God could force obedience out of fear, but fear does not motivate love. Fear motivates an individual to do the very least he thinks he can do and still get away with it.
I do not know what word the Bible uses for ‘fear’ in Greek, or if there is a better translation. Often when I read in the Bible about the fear of or for God, I think of it more as awe.
I sometimes tell a story about a time I was in a valley surrounded on three sides by an enemy that outnumbered us. When night fell this enemy thought that the fighting was over. They lit fires for their food on the sides of the mountain. We could see the campfires from dozens of enemy positions on both sides of the valley. But with the night came one of our Specter gun ships. There was no moon that night so the bad guys had no idea where the plane was. But with my Night-vision goggles on I could see a giant infrared spotlight come down from the sky onto one of the camp fires. It stayed on them for a few moments and shut off. Fifteen seconds later a 105-mm shell struck the campsite. I’m certain that everyone there was killed. This continued for more than an hour. I am certain that dozens of enemy were killed and wounded that night.
The feeling I had that night was awe at the awesome might of the U. S. military. At that moment we seemed unstoppable. That is the kind of fear I imagine is appropriate to have of God (Just multiply by 100.) It’s not a kind of fear that forces obedience but the kind of fear that acknowledges the awesome and infinite power of God.
I think you are right that fear is fundamentally self-centered. Where there is no concern for self, there is no fear. I also agree that God desires our love, but I don’t think I would oppose love and obedience. Jesus told his followers that love would prompt their obedience, essentially, that obedience demonstrates love. When we obey, even in fear of punishment, we demonstrate our love. When I was a child, I obeyed my parents sometimes out of fear, but it was not only fear of punishment; it was fear of disappointing them. It is this fear that I see as the flip side of love. Every love prompts us to hold on to something dear to us, so every love involves us in the fear of losing something precious. Part of loving God is cherishing his good opinion. The flip side of that love is fear of losing his approval.
You wrote that “it is in the submission of ourselves, our desires, and our self interest to God that we best show our love to him.” I do not think that is correct. It seems that you are saying that we demonstrate our love most by sacrifice. Yet when King Saul disobeyed God and chose to sacrifice part of his plunder to God rather than totally destroying everything as God had commanded, Samuel told him, “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.” In one sense, of course, his obedience demanded greater sacrifice. He did not disobey because he wanted to keep the plunder for himself; it was because he feared the grumbling of his men more than the wrath of God. He hoped to please his men by letting them keep the plunder while appeasing God’s wrath with religious observances. In so doing, he showed contempt for God by valuing his men’s approval more than God’s. That is why Samuel was so outraged and announced that Saul’s kingdom would be torn from him and given to someone else. If you are talking about this greater sacrifice, then I think you are right, but in that case, I don’t see how you can separate it from obedience. The greatest sacrifice is obedience because obedience requires the subjugation of our own desires and reason to the superior design and goodness of God.
I think you are also correct when you say that fear does not motivate love. I agree. My claim goes the other way round. Love motivates fear. Where there is no love, there is no fear. Even the most basic and elemental fears, such as fear of imminent danger, arise from a love of security and safety. Our problem is not fear, but inordinate fear arising out of inordinate love. When we love something—anything—more than we love God, then our loves and fears are out of order, and we fall into all kinds of snares that trap us in sin. That’s why the first of the Ten Commandments is to have no other gods before the Lord. If he is preeminent, then everything else in life falls into place. It’s also why the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Such love engenders a perfectly healthy and appropriate fear of God.
God is awesome. His power is unlimited. We need only look to nature to grasp something of the magnificence of his power. The first time Belinda saw the Grand Canyon, she wept to see its immensity and beauty. Yet the Grand Canyon is little more than a surface scratch on an ordinary planet in a vast universe. There is an appropriate fear of such grandeur, but even that also is a flip side to the love of our own significance.
So if love causes fear, how can it also be that perfect love drives out fear? It’s clear from the context that John is talking about the fear of punishment. Perfect love frees us from the fear of punishment. It also frees us from the fear of disappointing God because love overwhelms fear. Fear is swallowed up in love.
Chad replied:
I think that we must disagree on the definition of Love. When I speak of love, I am talking about a conscious devotion and submission to something other than oneself. This is not the same as infatuation and I would definitely not refer to a “love of security” as love. The reason I don’t include these more basic definitions of love is because to love oneself is the basic human condition. Not only is it human, but it is the way of everything in this world. Every living creature has a survival instinct, and many of the more advanced creatures are capable of feeling and reacting to fear. I hold to my statement that selfishness is all that is required for fear.
As for obedience, I did not mean to oppose obedience and love. However I think one is a symptom and the other the disease. When I say God does not desire our obedience, I mean that God does not ultimately desire our obedience. He desires our obedience because he desires our Love (as previously defined). Obedience comes through submission, through giving up oneself. Had King Saul truly submitted himself—his desires, and his self interest—he would have had no problem with obedience. It would have been his only available course of action. Indeed, it would have been the desire of his heart.
It’s not that love and obedience are opposite. It is that while obedience can be gained by love, it can also be gained by fear (as you first mentioned in your blog). However, this is my experience of obedience that is gained by fear: it is half-assed. I see it all the time in the soldiers under me. If they are given a task they do not wish to complete, they may not moan or gripe. Instead they do the minimum. They fulfill the letter and only the letter of the orders they are given. As I understand it, Jesus urged us to look to the spirit of the law and not just the letter. This type of obedience can only come from someone who is acting out of something more than fear.
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