Rejoice and Tremble in The Lord?

Rejoice and tremble in the Lord? It almost sounds like an oxymoron. Yet Michael Reeves has written that fear and joy of the Lord go hand in hand.

Rejoice & Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord is the title of a book written by Mike Reeves. This post isn’t a review. You can read someone else’s review HERE. The reviewer told me it was his favorite book of 2021 at the time he wrote it. I have the book and can see why.

See also this video review of the book and this interview.

The Sinful Fear of God

According to Reeves there is a sinful fear of God. In the past I’ve associated the fear of God with the punishment for sin. This type of fear can be fostered in homes, churches and schools (in the past). Reeves refers to the demons (James 2:19) and Adam’s hiding from God (Gen 3:10) as examples of sinful fear. He says that, “Sinful fear drives you away from God.

The Right Fear of God

The right fear of God is not the flip side of our love of God. They go hand in hand. See Reeves’ article Fearing and Loving God.

Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” Exodus 20:20

O Clap your hands, all peoples; Shout to God with the voice of joy. For the LORD Most High is to be feared, a great King over all the earth. Psalm 47:1-2

But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. Psalm 130:4

Surgeon wrote,

It is not because we are afraid of him, but because we delight in him that we fear before him…“Thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged,” says the prophet Isaiah, and so it comes to pass with us. The more we fear the Lord, the more we love him, until this becomes to us the true fear of God, to love him with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength.

This is a complicated subject that is exacerbated by bad teaching and habits. We don’t normally associate fearing God with having joy. Yet Michael Reeves notes, “heaven is the paradise of unconfined, maximal, delighted filial fear.’

If sinful fear drives us away from God, proper fear draws us to God.

Maranatha!