According to these observations, the meaning of the apostolic instruction is this. If the goodness of God grants us participation in the privileges and blessings of the unshakable Kingdom, then we must have gratitude to God in our heart.
Moved by gratitude, we must serve Him in a manner pleasing to Him, with reverence and fear.
Following this apostolic impulse toward gratitude before God, which must be turned into service to God, let us not leave without special attention, brethren, what quality the apostolic word requires of our grateful service to God.
"Let us serve," says the Apostle, "God acceptably, with reverence and fear."
We must go somewhat deeper into the foundation on which the Apostle established this commandment. First he said to the Christians: "You have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels, to the festal assembly and Church of the firstborn, who are written in heaven" (Heb 12:22).
Then he founded this conclusion on that thought: "Therefore, receiving a Kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God." From this it is clear that by the undefined name of the "unshakable" Kingdom, the Apostle points precisely to the heavenly and eternally blessed Kingdom.
If we have this Kingdom in view, and even receive it, and are thereby moved to gratitude and grateful service before God, then it would seem most natural to require that we serve God with hope, joy, and gladness.
But the Apostle does not reason so. He says: "Let us serve God acceptably, with reverence and fear."
One may be still more amazed at this reasoning of the Apostle if we remember that elsewhere he places fear among the marks of the servile condition of men who lived under the law of the Old Testament, as though foreign to Christians who are under the grace of the New Testament.
"You did not receive," he says, "the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption" (Rom 8:15). Again, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and chastity" (2 Tim 1:7).
Similarly, another Apostle speaks of fear as an imperfection from which one may at last be freed: "Perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He who fears has not been perfected in love" (1 Jn 4:18).
How, then, are these different views of one subject to be reconciled? Must we not fear that those who strive toward the perfection of love will leave fear behind and so violate the commandment to serve God with fear?
Or, conversely, will those who hold to fear hinder themselves in their ascent to the perfection of love?
These questions show that this invitation of the crowned teacher may be addressed not only to young children: "Come, children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord" (Ps 33:12).
I do not think it necessary to teach what the fear of God is in general. What is sufficiently clear by simple experienced feeling is often made darker by artificial definitions.
If you know what the fear of a servant before a king is, or of an accused and guilty man before an impartial judge, then by increasing the measure beyond all measure you can understand what man’s fear before God ought to be.
To avoid misunderstandings, it is necessary to distinguish the particular forms in which this fear appears, and the degrees by which it rises or descends in different people, or in different inner states of the same person.
So that the distinction may not be arbitrary, let us borrow it from the apostolic word itself. "You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear." Thus there is a form of fear that may be called servile.
To this one may oppose filial fear. Servile fear, in service to God, is the inward disposition of a soul that fears God as the punisher of sin, and therefore turns away from and flees sin, and everything displeasing to God.
Filial fear is the inward disposition of a soul that reverently loves God as the all-good Father, and through love fears to offend Him.
The highest degree of filial fear is "pure" fear, wholly penetrated by love and freed from servile dread. By contrast, the lowest degree of servile fear is the fear of the "wicked and lazy servant" (Mt 25:26).
This is an inward state in which a man fears not so much God as torment for sin. Therefore, though he outwardly serves God in part, inwardly he does not hate sin.
He does not struggle against it for the sake of virtue, and he is ready to surrender to it as soon as he can represent it as not so grave that eternal punishment threatens for it.
After these distinctions, it is no longer difficult to define and mutually reconcile the true meaning of the varied sacred sayings concerning the fear of God in man.
If the Apostle tells us Christians that "God has not given us a spirit of fear," then undoubtedly he means servile fear, or, in his own expression, "the spirit of bondage to fear." He does not mean filial fear.
Filial fear is not foreign to the "spirit of adoption" given to us, because it is one of the movements of that very spirit.
Likewise, if another Apostle says that "perfect love casts out fear," he too is speaking of servile fear. Love has no need to cast out filial and pure fear, for love itself acts in it.
What is pure is not subject to rejection. Therefore Scripture says of "the fear of the Lord" that it is "pure" and "endures unto ages of ages" (Ps 18:10).
To stop at the degree of fearing only punishments would certainly be low for a Christian. He must strive to purify his fear and rise from servile fear to filial fear.
Yet, on the other hand, if someone said, "I wish to be led by the spirit of adoption and do not care for fear," or, "I surrender myself to perfect love and put away fear," such a man, in bold exaltation of thought, would not be far from a fall.
God has given you the spirit of adoption, but He did not say to you, "Have no more fear." And the beloved disciple of Christ, the herald of perfect love, does not authorize you to cast fear out of your heart.
He only reveals to you the mystery of perfection. When perfect love comes, it casts out fear by itself, without your effort, without your participation, and perhaps even without your knowing it.
Even then, perhaps it does not do so forever. For while love casts out fear, so that man may taste the triumph of grace, humility calls fear back, so that the one graced may not forget his unworthiness.
And if you remove fear from yourself, who will bring you to love? For as the Wise One says, "The fear of the Lord sets one on the paths of love" (Sir 1:13).
Who brought divine adoption to earth and gave it to men? Was it not the Only-begotten Son of God, Who for this reason became incarnate?
By His blood He wrote our release from the slavery of sin, burdened with the fear of death, into the freedom of the children of God. What then? Did He free us also from the obligation of fear before God?
On the contrary, He preached it more powerfully and insistently than any of His disciples. "Do not fear," He says, "those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do.
But I will show you whom you should fear: fear Him who, after killing, has power to cast into the fiery abyss. Yes, I say to you, fear Him" (Lk 12:4-5).
And so we shall no longer be surprised that Saint Paul, who both knew perfect love and preached adoption, nevertheless commanded us to serve God "with fear." Let us care even more about fulfilling this commandment than about examining it.
Its fulfillment, more than its examination, must show its dignity, power, and beneficence.
If the fear of God leads you to the service of God in the temple, it will not delay in bringing you here as on wings. It will set you here truly before the face of God.
It will open your mind to deep attention to the word of God, and your heart to the reception of the grace of the Mystery. It will not allow your thoughts and glances to wander over the earth.
They must be directed toward heaven, whence help is sought and comes. It will not permit you to lose blessed conversation with God for the sake of idle talk with man.
It will make your participation in divine worship both pleasing to God and sweet and nourishing to your soul.
If the fear of God accompanies you from the temple into domestic and public life, it will be for you a faithful guard against dangerous encounters, a firm wall against hostile arrows, and a modest intercessor for lofty blessings.
Do you fear the enchantment of sin? "The fear of the Lord drives away sins" (Sir 1:21).
Do you seek wisdom? "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord" (Prov 1:7). It is not only the beginning, but also "the fullness of wisdom, to fear the Lord" (Sir 1:16).
Are you threatened by calamity or death? "He who fears the Lord will fear nothing, and will not be afraid, for He is his hope" (Sir 34:14). "The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, causing one to turn away from the snares of death" (Prov 14:27).
"Who is the man who fears the Lord?" the Prophet asks, as one seeks a man to whom he hastens to announce happy tidings. "Who is the man who fears the Lord?
He will set a law for him in the way that he has chosen. His soul shall dwell among good things, and his seed shall inherit the earth. The mystery of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant" (Ps 24:12-14).
Only with the fear of God is ascetic struggle lawful, hope sure, and joy safe. Therefore it is said: "Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice in Him with trembling" (Ps 2:11).
If you are even saints, then even to you saints it is said: "Fear the Lord, all His saints" (Ps 33:10). But if you do not dare ascribe this dignity to yourselves, then all the more "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil 2:12), "perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor 7:1). Amen.
THEOSIS