The Fear of the New Birth

Introduction

We have been examining Peter’s treatment of the new birth, and the subsequent realities thereof. Peter expounded upon the new birth, and the hope that it gives us predicated on the resurrection of Christ. We saw with Peter that the new birth is grounds for deep and abiding joy, even in the midst of trials. We saw further that this new birth was predicted and is therefore validated by the prophetic word spoken forth for our benefit. We saw that the new birth compels us to transformed lives, and the first way we are to be transformed is in our minds, preparing for action and being sober. We then saw the importance of being transformed in our lives, as Peter called us to holiness a few weeks ago. Tonight we will consider what it means to be transformed in our emotions, as we look with Peter at the idea of Godly fear.

Tonight’s text is formulated as one giant if/then conditional statement, made up of two clauses that contain a multitude of subclauses. As we have said before, Peter is no slouch when it comes to literary complexity. So we will attempt, as clearly as possible, to unfold Peter’s meaning in such a way that we can take it home with us.

I am seeking to prove tonight, with Peter, that the chief cause for Godly fear is not His holiness, nor His glory, nor His justice, nor His righteousness, but rather His redemption of His children in Christ is the chief cause for Godly fear. Let me repeat that: God’s redemptive work in Christ is the chief motivation for Godly fear.

Let’s begin

If God is your father

The “if”part of our logical relationship concerns our relationship to God. Peter’s subsequent statements are predicated upon this reality. If we are not children, then the rest of his argument does not hold up. But if we are children, then we can proceed forward in the argument.

The assumed filial relationship

Peter assumes a filial relationship here. In other words, having spoken of God as our Father in verse 2, having spoken of the new birth in verse 3, and having operated under the assumption that we saw two weeks ago that we are obedient children, Peter safely assumes that as this point in the progression of thought he is addressing those who are children of God. As I have said before, if you have arrived at this point and do not know God as your Father, you’ve gone too far without grasping the truth of what Peter is saying, and you need to turn back and ensure that you have received the new birth by faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Once the matter of your regeneration and adoption is settled, you are free with Peter to continue on the road of future-facing implications thereof.

Our Father and Judge

Peter now continues with a brief explanation of who God is, namely, our Father and our Judge.

Now these are two interesting attributes of God to juxtapose together, one with another. We’ve already seen Peter mention the fatherhood of God, once explicitly and once implicitly. The first appearance was in the context of God’s foreknowledge and electing purpose, and the other was in the context of our duty of obedient holiness. We now approach God’s fatherhood juxtaposed with His role as judge.

These are two seemingly opposite and incompatible attributes of God. How can He exist as both a judge and a Father at the same time?

God in His office as judge is a righteous and just arbiter of the law, handing down legal decrees and punitive judgments against that which violates His holy law. God in His office as Father, on the other hand, is a loving and caring paternal presence, leading and guiding His children with tender affection and covenant compassion.

How can these two seemingly opposed roles coexist at the same time?

I would like to provide two reasons, one situated in our understanding of the doctrine of God, and another situated in our doctrine of salvation.

Judgment and fatherhood can coexist in the person of God because He is a simple God. An explanation is in order here. When I say that God is simple, I do not mean simple in the sense that He is basic, uncomplicated, or easy. Nor do I mean simple in the slightly more archaic sense that He is foolish, silly, or unthinking. Rather, I mean that God is simple in the sense that God is perfect unity, without parts, composition, or division. This is what the Westminster divines meant when they described the one true and living God as “without parts.” James Dolezal further explains: “A part is anything in a subject that is less than the whole and without which the subject would be really different than it is.” To put it another way, for God to have no parts is for His essence and attributes to all be one in Him. This is the doctrine that lies in the framework of many of Jesus’ own descriptions of His Father, such as “God is Spirit.” The apostle John takes the idea further with statements like “God is love” and “God is light” Jesus did not say that God has a spirit, nor did John say God expresses love, or emanates light, but that He, in a peculiar unity of essence, is light very light, spirit very spirit, love very love.

There is a world more that I could say here, but I don’t want to belabor the point too much, as this is not a class on the doctrine of God. What we need to know is this: God’s judgment and God’s fatherhood must logically coexist with one another, and we must affirm with Peter that God is Father, and God is Judge, in an essential and absolute sense.

So our first answer to the question “Can God be both Judge and Father?” is, at risk of being reductionistic, yes, because God is God and therefore without parts, indivisible, and possessed of essential unity.

Now then, enough with the Reformed scholasticism. There is a second answer to our query that works itself out practically in space-time history.

Judgment and fatherhood coexist in God at the Golgotha Cross and the Garden Tomb. The cross of Jesus Christ is precisely where God the Judge and God the Father converge in space-time history, and do so in perfect, beautiful, redemptive harmony. In a span of 72 hours, God the Judge destroys His own Son in an act of pure and impartial judgment according to the works of each one to whom the Father had elected in eternity past. In that destruction, God the Judge and Father is satisfied in the atonement that has been made and is simultaneously bringing many sons to glory. Destruction and adoption accomplished in a single moment by God the Father and Judge at the Golgotha Cross

These essential qualities of God converge again approximately 36 hours later at the Garden Tomb, as God the Father and Judge raises His son to new life and executes a death sentence against death itself. The impartial judgment of God the Father and Judge renders to His Son exactly what was earned: eternal life as a reward for perfect obedience.

And it is in this work of God in Christ that God can now relate to us as both a Father and a Judge: We rest in His adoption of us in Christ, with the ever-present knowledge of the judgment price that was paid so that our adoption might be won.

Therefore, we rejoice and tremble. We fear God as our Father. We fear Him as our Judge. We know that He is both to us and we praise Him that He is both to us in Christ.

Peter makes two distinctions regarding God’s judgment, and it is to those two distinctions that we turn now.

He judges impartially

God’s judgment is impartial, in other words, it is indiscriminate. It is not based on status or wealth or heritage or bloodline, but is purely transactional. God’s judgment is between Himself and men, according to His law and their works. There is no slipping God a twenty under the table so He’ll look the other way. You will receive the recompense that you are due.

This is what makes the miracle of imputation so beautiful, and this again is where God the Father and Judge works so clearly. Christ is judged according to each one’s work, each one whom the Father gave Him in eternity past, so that they might not bear the judgment anymore. Conversely, those whom the Father did not give the Son in eternity past, have been and will be judged themselves, with no substitute and no imputation, impartially, resulting in eternal punishment.

He judges according to each one’s work

Peter’s second distinction mirrors the first: God’s judgment is impartial and so therefore it is completely works-based. As we have said before, perhaps provocatively, everyone is either saved or damned by works. If saved, saved by Christ’s works. If damned, damned by their own. God judges impartially, according to your works, and that means that you will receive unspeakable eternal punishment in hell. Your only hope, therefore, is that Another will work in your stead to accomplish the perfect works of obedience you could not, and resultantly impute to you, by faith, those merits, which in turn earn for you eternal life.

Then you will fear Him

We come now to the “then” of the if-then statement made here by Peter. If God is Father and Judge, and if He is so in relation to you, a response or reaction is implied and impelled. That response is fear.

Now fear is a much maligned and often misunderstood virtue of the Christian life. Nevertheless, it demands our understanding, if for no other reason than that Peter intends Godly Christian fear as a good and necessary consequence of our adoption as sons by God the Father and Judge.

So let’s dig in.

Concerning your conduct

For Peter, fear is singularly a matter of conduct. But fear is not simply something you do, in a one-off act of response to adoption. Rather, for Peter, fear is a way of life. Fear is something that ought to mark your conduct. In other words, all of life is to be lived in fear of God. Is not an action but it is a manner of life.

Fearful

So what does Peter mean by fear? If our lives are to be marked by fear, how does that take shape in my life today?

A brief ontological explanation is in order. We need to understand the nature of fear and the qualities of it’s existence before we can understand how it is to be worked out in our Christian conduct.

As we proceed in this discussion, I must mention my debt to Michael Reeves and his wonderful book Rejoice and Tremble, to which I will return as we move on through this discussion.

Biblically speaking, there are two types of fear. The Puritans gave them various labels: John Flavel distinguished between sinful and religious fear. George Swinnock spoke of servile and filial fear, William Gurnall saw in God’s Word a slavish fear and a holy fear, and John Bunyan wrote of ungodly and Godly fear. Whatever you may label the two categories, this much is clear: two types of fear exist. One is a result of sin, the other of righteousness.

Reeves gives three examples of fear that stems from sin. James makes mention of this fear being posessed by demons in James 2. This is the same type of fear that Adam experienced in Genesis 3 when he heard the voice of the Lord and was afraid.

This type of fear is at odds with love for God, and is rooted in the heart of sin. It dreads, opposes, and retreats from God.

Rejoice & Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord Sinful Fear

As Luther put it, “I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God.” It was only when he felt himself to be born again in the knowledge of Christ as a kind Savior that Luther could say, “He will not be a terror to me, but a comfort.”8

A sinful fear is contrasted Biblically with a fear that comes froth from righteousness in, love for, and joy in God. Michael Reeves describes this fear as unexpected, especially in contrast with the sinful fear we’ve already mentioned.

The clearest example, I believe, in Scripture of this type of fear comes from Jeremiah 33:8-9

Jeremiah 33:8–9 NASB95

‘I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against Me and by which they have transgressed against Me. ‘It will be to Me a name of joy, praise and glory before all the nations of the earth which will hear of all the good that I do for them, and they will fear and tremble because of all the good and all the peace that I make for it.’

This is the essence of the New Covenant accomplished and applied by Christ. We can make three observations:

God will cleanse and pardon.

The cleansing and pardoning is fundamentally good snd fundamentally peaceful.

The good and peaceful cleansing and pardoning results in fear.

Therefore, the fear is a direct result of the good and peaceful cleansing and pardoning accomplished by God the Father and Judge. Peter echoes the thoughts of Jeremiah here.

The pattern is picked up by Hosea in Hosea 3:5

Hosea 3:5 ESV

Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.

Again we can make three observations:

Right fear is Godward

Right fear is a response to God’s goodness

Right fear will be given in abundance in the latter days

Peter believes that what Hosea spoke of has been fulfilled in the work of God the Father and Judge at the cross of Jesus Christ. An essentially good God has performed an essentially good work and has applied an essentially good grace to His elect people, and the result is that the people fear Him.

Therefore we can say that to fear God is to respond in joyful awe and loving reverence to the goodness of God’s grace in Christ.

John Bunyan describes right fear in 5 ways:

It is a work of the Spirit of grace.

It is the fruit of God’s electing love.

It is an exceedingly rare treasure.

It makes those who possess it exceptional in the eyes of God

It softens the heart to stand in awe of the mercy and judgment of God

Having made these two ontological distinctions, let us now turn our attention to those characteristics which Godly fear produces, again from John Bunyan,.

Fear of God produces Godly reverence.

Fear of God produces a watchfulness over one’s own heart.

Fear of God produces a strong and lively desire to commune with the people of God.

Fear of God produces a holy reverence for the majesty of His sacraments, namely, the preaching of the Word, prayer, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.

Fear of God produces a godly self-denial.

Fear of God produces a sincerity of heart in service to God.

Fear of God produces compassion for others.

Fear of God produces hearty, fervent, and constant prayer.

Fear of God produces a willingness to give of our best to Him.

Fear of God produces humility.

Fear of God produces hope.

Fear of God produces reverent use of all the means God has given us for growth in salvation.

Fear of God produces great delight in the holy commands of God.

Fear of God enlarges the heart of the Christian in love for God and for others.

The fear of God is thus a multi-faceted jewel of Christian virtue. It is no wonder that Peter places it alongside discipline and holiness as one of the great foundational virtues of the life of the child of God as they grow into the image of God their Father and Christ their older brother.

For life

Peter continues his train of thought by providing the duration of fearful conduct. This commitment to joyful awe and loving reverence before the goodness of God’s grace is not a one-time event at a camp meeting or a revival service or a hymn-sing or a Puritan Conference. Joyful awe and loving reverence are to be life-long marks of the life of the faithful Christian. You never outgrow the fear of God our Father and Judge.

The foundational contrast of redemption

Our vital and varied fear of God, expressed as a life of joyful awe and loving reverence, cannot be disassociated with the knowledge spoken of by Peter in verses 18 and 19. The fearful conduct of verse 17 is worked out with this knowledge ever before it.

This knowledge is foundational and inescapable, and indeed is the source of our fear. When we speak with Bunyan of fear as grace, this is the source of that grace. Knowledge of this reality is the factory in which Godly fear is produced.

And what is the reality? It is the reality of redemption. The Lexham Bible Dictionary defines redemption as the release of people, animals, or property from bondage by the payment of a price.

Other Bible translations use the word ransom, and that is also an appropriate word, as it also carries the sense of being bought back or paid for.

It is the payment of that price that Peter places at the forefront of our minds, and he paints a contrast between two payments: a perishable payment and a precious payment.

Not a perishable payment

For Peter, the price of our redemption is not perishable. The price of our redemption is not something so cheap and valueless as gold or silver. Peter speaks here of the futility of the former way of life inherited from your forefathers. It seems that this is a direct reference to the old covenant sacrificial system.

Peter affirms with Isaiah and the author of Hebrews the utter futility of this old way.

Isaiah 1:11 NASB95

“What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” Says the Lord. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle; And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats.

Hebrews 10:4 NASB95

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

The old way was never designed to effectually pay the price of redemption, but rather to point ahead to the true effectual payment, the blood of Christ.

Peter teaches us that no mere perishable object or creature could ever pay this price, and therefore the requirement is human blood.

But a precious payment

Having expressed this first part of the contrast in the negation, he now states the second part in the affirmation. Nothing perishable could pay the price of redemption, and therefore something precious is required.

Biblically this idea of redemption and ransom is always associated with a blood sacrifice.

Peter traces this idea all the way back to Exodus 6:6

Exodus 6:6 NASB95

“Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

And how does this redemption happen? With blood. We cannot lose the theological significance of the 10th plague when we consider the doctrine of redemption in Christ.

God requires blood for sins, specifically He requires lifeblood. A sacrifice is necessary. Pharaoh and all Egypt paid that price themselves when the angel of death swept through the nation and decimated the firstborn sons of Egypt. For the sons of Israel, however, the blood price was paid by the Passover Lamb. When destruction swept through, the angel passed over the households that had been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. This became the foundation for the sacrificial system in ancient Israel, as explained by Moses in Exodus 13:14-16

Exodus 13:14–16 NASB95

“And it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is this?’ then you shall say to him, ‘With a powerful hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. ‘It came about, when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us go, that the Lord killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord the males, the first offspring of every womb, but every firstborn of my sons I redeem.’ “So it shall serve as a sign on your hand and as phylacteries on your forehead, for with a powerful hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”

For Moses, and by extension for all the Old Testament authors, this concept of blood-bought redemption was central to their theology and life. Without a doubt, the Exodus is the most celebrated and most revered event in Israel’s history, even to this day. Moses viewed the Exodus as an act of redemption in it’s essence, and he understood and emphasized the importance and centrality of the blood price that accomplished it.

David at once looked back on the historical exodus, inward on his own personal exodus, and forward to the eschatological exodus in Psalm 25:20-22

Psalm 25:20–22 NASB95

Guard my soul and deliver me; Do not let me be ashamed, for I take refuge in You. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for You. Redeem Israel, O God, Out of all his troubles.

In one breath, David reflects on redemption in three perspectives: historical, personal, and eschatological. He looks back, looks around, and looks ahead at the mighty redemption of God, both for the individual believer and for the covenant community.

The prophet Micah takes the historical-eschatological parallel a step further in Micah 4-6, in which he speaks of an eschatological end-time redemption to be ushered in by the ruler who will come forth from Bethlehem, and this redemption will be an escalation of what was accomplished when Yahweh redeemed Israel out of Egypt, because it will not be merely physical, but spiritual, not temporal, but eternal, not the shadow, but the true form.

Therefore, Moses and the prophets and poets of Israel looked back at the redemptive Exodus, through the redemptive Exodus, to a new redemptive Exodus, which would be, as the first, paid for with a blood price, but this time not a blood price of a passover Lamb, but the blood price of the Passover Lamb, indeed, our Passover Lamb.

What Moses and David and Micah looked forward to, Peter now declares has been brought to pass. The price of redemption has been paid by the spotless and unblemished Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Conclusion

This is Christian fear. Joyful awe and reverential love borne out of a reflection on God the Father and Judge at once providing redemption and adoption to sinners, like you and like me, through the precious blood of His own Son Jesus Christ. This is the grace of graces. This is the mercy of mercies. To conduct ourselves in fear, then, is to walk heavenward with a constant eye toward the breathtaking beauty of the Golgotha Cross and the Garden Tomb.

Is your breath taken away by the beauty? Is your heart lifted as you learn of it? Is your soul ravished by redemption? Peter’s intent in admonishing us to reflect on these realities is that our emotions would be stirred.

He has implored us regarding our thoughts and he has implored us regarding our actions. He implores us now regarding our emotions. The Christian mind is to be disciplined, the Christian life is to be holy, and the Christian heart is to fear. Is your innermost desire to rejoice and tremble before the God of all goodness and grace? Is your inner person sweetly inclined to quake with wonder at the matchless majesty of mercy? Peter won’t let you walk away tonight without having your heart pierced at the sight of your Savior, rent on the cross, resigned to the tomb, raised to life, and reigning in glory.

Look at Him. Look until you’ve observed every detail. Look until you see Him in all His beauty and savor Him in all His goodness. And when that seeing and savoring and rejoicing and trembling brings to your knees, and then to your face, before Him, He’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, upheld by His righteous, omnipotent hand. And then you walk, conducting yourself like that for the rest of your life.

May we conduct ourselves in joyful, trembling, loving fear before Christ our Savior from this time forth until He returns or calls us home.