Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord by Michael Reeves. Crossway. 193 pages. 2021
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Seminary president and professor Michael Reeves asks if fear a good thing or bad. He tells us that the most frequent command in Scripture is “Do not be afraid!” Yet again and again and again in Scripture we are called to fear. And perhaps even more strangely, we are called to fear God. The author wants us to rejoice in the strange paradox that the gospel both frees us from fear and gives us fear. It frees us from our crippling fears, giving us instead a most delightful, happy, and wonderful fear. He aims to show us that for Christians, the phrase “the fear of God” in the Bible doesn’t mean being afraid of God.
The author tells us that there are different sorts of fear. Sinful fear drives you away from God. On the other hand, right fear does not stand in tension with love for God. There is no true knowledge of God where there is no right fear of him. Throughout the book, the author compares and contrasts sinful fear and right fear.
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It may be surprising to some how often fear is referred to in the Bible. The author captures many of those passages in this book. Throughout the book, the author shares from the writings of Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, John Owen, John Bunyan and others.
The book is best read slowly, so that you can meditate on the subject of fear. As I read the excellent book, I also listened to the messages from Reeves’ new teaching series from Ligonier titled The Fear of the Lord. I highly recommend that series as a complement to the book.
Below are 20 of my favorite quotes from the book:
- Scripture is clear that just as the fear of God defines true love for God, so it defines true joy in God.
- We are made to rejoice and tremble before God, to love and enjoy him with an intensity that is fitting for him.
- Fear not only defines our love for God and our joy in God. It also prompts us to trust in God.
- Knowing God the Redeemer in Christ will make our Christian fear distinct from the fear shown by the devotees of other gods.
- Those who do not know God as a merciful Redeemer and compassionate Father can never have the delight of a truly filial fear.
- The right fear of the Lord is a high gift, not something easily acquired.
- The one who fears the Lord, then, is not merely one who grudgingly attempts the outward action of keeping the Lord’s commandments. The one who truly fears the Lord greatly delights in God’s commandments!
- Sinful fear is not merely a matter of sinful actions: it hates God, despising him as a revenging Judge, and therefore acts sinfully. In contrast, a right fear loves God, cherishing him as a holy Father, and therefore has a sincere longing to be like him.
- The cross, by the forgiveness it brings, liberates us from sinful fear. But, far more than that, it also cultivates the most exquisitely fearful adoration of the Redeemer.
- When the awesome magnitude of Christ’s forgiveness, the extent to which he has gone to atone for us, and therefore the terrible gravity of our sin become clear to us—as they do best at the cross—the right, loving reaction is so intense, it is fearful.
- All too easily we Christians settle for a sinful fear of God because we cannot handle the judgment of the cross on our sinfulness. It is when we accept that judgment and die to ourselves that our resisting dread of God turns to fearful adoration.
- Those who fear the Lord know his mercy, love, and compassion. They can know they are accepted, protected, and delighted in.
- The fear of the Lord, then, is a heart-level indicator of the warm communion with God that God wants with his children.
- The fear of God is the only possible foundation upon which true knowledge is built: all knowledge acquired elsewhere is counterfeit and will eventually prove itself as such.
- Those who fear God come to know him in such a way that they actually become holy, faithful, loving, and merciful, like him.
- As the fear of the Lord grows, it outgrows, eclipses, consumes, and destroys all rival fears.
- The fear of the Lord is the only fear that imparts strength. This is an especially vital truth for any who are called to some form of leadership, for the strength this fear gives is—uniquely—a humble strength. Those who fear God are simultaneously humbled and strengthened before his beauty and magnificence.
- Where the final appearing of the Lord in glory fills believers with an unprecedented joyful fear of the Redeemer, it fills unbelievers with a new level of dread at their Judge.
- Sin first made the world a place full of fear, and hell is its culmination: a place of unrelieved fears, and of sinful fear come to a head.
- When we rejoice in God so intensely that we quake and tremble, then are we being most heavenly.
- Study, Savor and Share Scripture: Becoming What We Behold. My wife Tammy has published a book about HOW to study the Bible. The book is available on Amazon in both a Kindle and paperback edition. She writes “Maybe you have read the Bible but want to dig deeper and know God and know yourself better. Throughout the book I use the analogy of making a quilt to show how the Bible is telling one big story about what God is doing in the world through Christ. Quilting takes much patience and precision, just like studying the Bible, but the end result is well worth it.
- The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. Kevin Halloran writes that this book “Succeeds in exposing the lies our culture believes about manhood and biblical manhood specifically. The book left me wanting to be a better man, husband, and father. There aren’t a lot of women who can do that, but Nancy Pearcey sure has.”
- 6 Habits of Heart and Mind for Lifelong Learners. In this excerpt from his new book Foundations for Lifelong Learning, John Piper writes “Lifelong learning for the glory of Christ calls for continual growth in six habits of mind and heart. These are the habits we seek to instill in our students so that their education does not stop when their schooling stops. These are the habits we seek to grow in ourselves.”
- A Day’s Journey. Tim Challies reviews Tim Keesee’s new book A Day’s Journey. He writes “All who read it will benefit from it and find that it leads their hearts to worship the Lord who accompanies us on every journey, the most difficult as well as the most joyful.”
- True Blessing Comes from Countercultural Living. On this episode of the Gospelbound podcast, Collin Hansen visits with Alistair Begg about his excellent new book The Christian Manifesto: Jesus’ Life-Changing Words from the Sermon on the Plain.
- An Evening with Rosaria Butterfield: “Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age”. On October 6th, Rosaria Butterfield joined the Kenwood Institute for an evening organized around her new book, Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age.
- World Magazine’s Book of the Year. Christianity and Liberalism, the 1923 book by J. Gresham Machen is World Magazine’s 2023 Book of the Year.
- How Does Learning Deepen Joy? On this episode of the Ask Pastor John podcast, John Piper asks a question related to his new book Foundations of Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy, “What essential role do joy and feeling play in Bible-learning and in all our learning?”
- An Interview on Lifelong Learning. John Piper answers questions from students about his new book Foundations of Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy at the recent Godward Life conference.
Won’t you read along with us?
We are reading through Truths We Confess: A Systematic Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by R.C. Sproul. From the Ligonier description:
“The Westminster Confession of Faith is one of the most precise and comprehensive statements of biblical Christianity, and it is treasured by believers around the world. R.C. Sproul has called it one of the most important confessions of faith ever penned, and it has helped generations of Christians understand and defend what they believe.
In Truths We Confess, Dr. Sproul introduces readers to this remarkable confession, explaining its insights and applying them to modern life. In his signature easy-to-understand style and with his conviction that everyone’s a theologian, he provides valuable commentary that will serve churches and individual Christians as they strive to better understand the eternal truths of Scripture. As he walks through the confession line by line, Dr. Sproul shows how the doctrines of the Bible—from creation to covenant, sin to salvation—fit together to the glory of God. This accessible volume is designed to help you deepen your knowledge of God’s Word and answer the question, What do you believe?”
This week we look at the second half of WCF 8: Of Christ the Mediator. Here are a few helpful quotes from this section of the chapter:
- Perhaps the most magnificent glorification of Jesus during His period of humiliation came at His transfiguration.
- The only way anyone is saved is by works. But it is Christ’s good works, not ours.
- The most vivid demonstration of the wrath and justice of God that we find in Scripture is found in the New Testament, at the cross. The Lord Jesus sacrificed Himself and satisfied the justice of His Father on the cross for His own glory, and for the benefit of the elect.
- Everything that Christ accomplished for New Testament believers was accomplished for Old Testament believers as well.
- Christ objectively purchases redemption for the elect. He certainly and effectually applies and communicates that redemption to them. And He makes intercession for them.
- Christ not only has died for our sins and purchased our redemption on the cross, but He is making intercession for us every day in heaven.
- The whole point of election is that we are dependent from beginning to end on the mercy and grace of God and on the work of Jesus to rescue us.
- From all eternity, God has planned to save certain people, the elect. They will all certainly be saved because His decree of election cannot fail.
- The point of limited atonement is that salvation is entirely of the Lord.
- What we affirm is that Christ’s death was intended to cover only the sins of the elect. He did not intend to die for the nonelect. Though His sacrifice was enough for the nonelect as well, our triune God did not have the nonelect in view when He planned and executed the atonement.
- What took place on the cross was not just an abstract act of total atonement for all human sin. Rather, Jesus died specifically for His own, His elect.
- The elect receive the mercy of God; the nonelect receive the justice of God. No one is treated unfairly or unjustly.
