Written by Edward T. Welch |
Monday, March 20, 2023
Genuine fear of the Lord is reserved for those who know Jesus. This fear of the Lord means reverent submission that leads to obedience, and it is interchangeable with worship of God, reliance on him, trust in him, and hope in him. You will find it when you can come to the Lord and are a humble listener to his words. This fear includes a knowledge of our sinfulness and God’s moral purity, and it includes a clear- eyed knowledge of God’s justice and his anger against sin. But it places its confidence in God’s great forgiveness, mercy, and love.

All experiences of the fear of man share at least one common feature: people are big. They have grown to idolatrous proportions in our lives. They control us. Since there is no room in our hearts to worship both God and people, whenever people are big, God is not. Therefore, the first task in escaping the snare of the fear of man is to know that God is awesome and glorious, not other people.
This clicked for me one Sunday while I was sitting in church. It was family month. Each Sunday for the month of February, a different family would speak to the church about their family devotions. All the families were very edifying and, of course, horribly convicting, but the one father gave me a revelation. When asked what he did for family devotions, he said, “Talk about God.”
That was it. That was my revelation.
Let me explain. As a counselor, I live in a “how to” world. A depressed person talks with me because he or she wants to know how to get rid of depression. Couples don’t feel any romance in their relationship; they want to know how to have that spark again. Sometimes, I confess, I speak more about the “how to” than about God.
I have two children who used to bring home great Sunday school materials. Typically, I read these papers on Sunday afternoon. They were always very helpful, full of biblical principles and their application. Lots of good “how-tos.” There were edifying stories of children who felt rejected by their friends and learned how Jesus could help them to love those who were mean. I remember one on cheating that was especially good. But they rarely talked about God.
Don’t get me wrong. I think the application of Scripture to the details of our lives is so important. My observation, however, is that these principles are not always embedded in our primary mission and treasure of knowing God. “He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure” (Isa. 33:6 NIV). When this treasure is not in view, the result is that our goal can be self- improvement rather than the glory of the Holy God.
What Is the Fear of the Lord?
Please don’t think only of terror when you think of the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord, like the fear of people, includes a spectrum of attitudes. On one side, the fear of the Lord does indeed mean a terror of God. We are unclean people, and we appear before the Almighty God who is morally pure. We are rightly ashamed before him, and punishment would be completely just.
Terror is our natural response to God. Such fear shrinks back from him. It wants to avoid him as much as possible. Not that we are always aware of these stirrings in our hearts. A fear of the Lord that loses sight of Jesus might appear as “free-floating anxiety,” low self-esteem, and a host of other modern maladies that we do not attribute to our ever-present connection to God, though it is indeed a consequence of living before him. This fear is afraid of God, but it is not the fear of the Lord.

Genuine fear of the Lord is reserved for those who know Jesus. This fear of the Lord means reverent submission that leads to obedience, and it is interchangeable with worship of God, reliance on him, trust in him, and hope in him. You will find it when you can come to the Lord and are a humble listener to his words. This fear includes a knowledge of our sinfulness and God’s moral purity, and it includes a clear- eyed knowledge of God’s justice and his anger against sin. But it places its confidence in God’s great forgiveness, mercy, and love. It knows that because of God’s eternal plan, Jesus humbled himself by dying on a cross to redeem his enemies from slavery and death. It knows that God always says “I love you” first. This knowledge draws us closer to God rather than causing us to flee. In this fear, we walk humbly with him and delight in obedience. It is the pinnacle of our response to God.
Knowing the difference between these two fears clarifies why Scripture can say “there is no fear in love” (1 John 4:18) while simultaneously demanding the fear of the Lord. The Bible teaches that God’s people are no longer driven by terror—fear that has to do with punishment. Instead, we are blessed with reverential awe motivated by the love and the honor that is due him. The biblical context always clarifies which kind of fear it is referring to.
Why does the Bible use the same word for both responses? Because both fears have something very important in common. They are both responses to the fact that the Holy One of Israel reigns over all the earth. This is the message of the Bible, and it is the essence of the fear of the Lord.
To appreciate the magnitude of this message, you should understand the biblical meaning of the word holy. Holy can be defined as “separate,” “set apart,” “distinct,” or “uncontaminated.” In reference to God, holy means that he is different from us. None of his attributes can be understood by comparison to his creatures. His love and justice are above us; they are holy. His power is that of the Almighty; it can be compared to no one else’s. His moral character is peerless; he alone is righteous.
Holiness is not one of many attributes of God. It is his essential nature and is seen in all his qualities. His wisdom is a holy wisdom. His beauty is a holy beauty. His majesty is a holy majesty. His holiness “adds glory, luster and harmony to all his other perfections.”1
Some have called this “otherness,” this holiness, of God his transcendence. God is exalted above his people. He lives in a high and lofty place (Isa. 57:15). His judgment and mercy are above us; they are ultimately incomprehensible. As a result, we don’t use a reigning king or queen as our template for God. To say that the Holy God reigns makes it impossible for us to use earthly kings as the model. The Holy God is unique—he is greater and of a different kind than earthly kings. The Holy God is the original; the most glorious of earthly kings are only a dim reflection. Our God is great.
To make the holiness of God even more awesome, the transcendent God has come close to us. He is great, and he is love. It would be one thing to know that God was gloriously transcendent and entirely separate from his creation. In such a situation, we could become accustomed to his lack of intervention in human affairs, and for practical purposes we could become our own gods.
But our God is also the Immanent One who has revealed himself and become like us. He said, “I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people” (Lev. 26:12). He is near us. He will never leave us or forsake us (Heb. 13:5). He is so close that he calls us “friends” (John 15:14). He is so close that Scripture talks about “Christ in you” (Col. 1:27). Given his nature, this is virtually impossible for us to grasp. But, by God’s grace, we can grow in knowing his holiness, and this knowledge will both expel the people-idols from our lives and leave us less prone to being consumed with ourselves.
Excerpt taken from Chapter 5: “Know the Fear of the Lord”, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man by Edward T. Welch. Used with permission.

John M’Clintock and James Strong, “Holiness,” Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature (New York: Harper, 1872), 4:298.

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Written by James N. Anderson |
Thursday, December 16, 2021
The charge that divine determinism “makes God the author of sin” typically functions as a proxy for an argument rather than an actual argument that merits rebuttal. As I have concluded elsewhere: What is widely regarded as a grave problem for Calvinism—that it makes God the author of sin—only appears so while the term “author” is left ambiguous and unanalyzed. The critics have much more work to do if this commonplace objection is to have any real bite.3

Since it’s relevant to some current discussions, I’m posting here a short section from a forthcoming essay entitled “Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom: Incompatibilism versus Compatibilism,” which is due to appear in a multi-author volume on the doctrine of unconditional election.
Does Divine Determinism Make God the Author of Sin?
Reformed compatibilism maintains that divine determinism is compatible with human freedom and moral responsibility, where divine determinism is understood as the view that all events within the creation, including human choices and actions, are ultimately determined by the will or decree of God. It is commonly objected that divine determinism, if true, would make God to be “the author of sin,” but since God cannot be the author of sin—James 1:13 is commonly cited here—it follows that divine determinism must be false.1
Let us note first that Reformed theologians have consistently repudiated the idea that God is “the author of sin.”2 To take one representative example: the Westminster Confession of Faith, in its chapter on God’s eternal decree, affirms that God has sovereignly ordained from eternity “whatsoever comes to pass,” but denies that God is thereby “the author of sin” or that his decree does “violence” to the will of his creatures. Similarly, the Confession’s chapter on divine providence, while asserting that God’s providential control of events extends even to creaturely sins, insists that God “being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.”
Of course, the mere fact that Reformed compatibilists have issued such denials does not refute the charge that divine determinism makes God the author of sin. But it’s crucial to recognize two things about this objection. First, the initial burden of proof lies with the objector to offer a serious argument in support of the charge, not with the Calvinist to provide an argument to the contrary.
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Resist the temptation to partisanship. Just because others want to police the teachers who help you love Christ and your family and your neighbors better doesn’t mean that you need to respond in kind. Over the years, I’ve benefited greatly from a variety of Christian leaders, including both Doug Wilson and Kevin DeYoung (and John Piper and Mark Dever and Al Mohler and Tim Keller and so on). One of the most refreshing aspects of the Moscow Mood to me is the freedom to benefit from these men for what they’ve done well, and to publicly commend them without any hesitation, and to do so while disagreeing with them when appropriate and necessary. Others may regard these types of difference and disagreement as a barrier to fellowship and Christian camaraderie. But you need not. So don’t be ashamed to acknowledge the teachers that have helped you to follow Christ more closely.

One of the reasons I’ve long appreciated Kevin DeYoung is that he and I both value clarity. That’s why I was eager to read his recent critique of Doug Wilson and the “Moscow Mood.” Having done so, I understand why many folks have found it helpful. He’s raising a lot of the right issues. At the same time, I have some questions about his analysis and some important disagreements with his prescription.
DeYoung’s Critique
Let me begin with a brief summary of DeYoung’s main lines of criticism. He contends that Moscow’s appeal is largely visceral, not intellectual. People are drawn to a cultural, aesthetic, and political posture, a culture-building and culture-warring mood or vibe that says, “We are not giving up, and we are not giving in. We can do better than negotiate the terms of our surrender. The infidels have taken over our Christian laws, our Christian heritage, and our Christian lands, and we are coming to take them back.”
DeYoung acknowledges that there are aspects of this mood or vibe that are commendable, but he nevertheless foresees “serious problems” with “the long term spiritual effects of admiring and imitating the Moscow mood,” to wit, that it is too often “incompatible with Christian virtue, inconsiderate of other Christians, and ultimately inconsistent with the stated aims of Wilson’s Christendom project.”
To demonstrate these problems, DeYoung highlights two promo videos for No Quarter November (NQN), Canon Press’s annual event in which they give away lots of free books and launch new resources on the Canon+ app, all while Doug Wilson writes weekly blog posts in which he speaks pointedly, with no qualifications, nuance, or hedging. DeYoung sees the promo videos as representative of the concerning aspects of the Moscow Mood. In particular, per DeYoung, the videos display a sarcastic and edgy tone; they take cheap shots at other Christians (such as the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and G3 Ministries); they explicitly encourage culture-warring and culture-building; and they are focused on Wilson himself (as rebel, gunslinger, taboo-breaker, and hero for crazy times).
According to DeYoung, NQN is selling “a carefully cultivated personality and image,” a vibe that is built on a “fundamentally oppositional framework,” “an adversarial stance toward the world” and toward cowardly Christians. “Differentiation is key,” DeYoung says, “and this can only be sustained by a mood of antagonism and sharp antithesis,” one that builds a following through negative partisanship and refuses to link arms with other networks but instead forges an unbreakable loyalty to Wilson as the Outsider-Disruptor.
Satire as Rebuke
Like I said, I have some questions. For example, what is the proper role of satire and the serrated edge? It seems to me that a number of rhetorical devices are conflated throughout DeYoung’s article–writing with Chestertonian joy and Wodehousian verve, playfully mocking other Christians through memes, derisively mocking the folly and compromise of Christian leaders, shockingly indicting sin and idolatry through carefully deployed obscenities and vulgarities. Distinguishing these different types of rhetoric and their proper use would be immensely helpful and clarifying, but is not something that DeYoung takes the time to do. He opts instead to lump all these styles and strategies together.
With that in mind, let me take a stab at clarifying a few common confusions about satire. At one level, satire is an appeal to reality over against the absurdities of sin and rebellion. It often appeals to those who live amidst corruption and hypocrisy, while provoking those who practice them. But satire is also a form of rebuke and admonition, deployed to correct and reprove someone when they’re heading down a sinful or foolish path. Like other forms of rebuke, it operates on a dimmer switch. Light satire might be used to reprove the folly of a fellow Christian who needs some prodding to knock it off. Heavier satire might be used to skewer serious compromise on the part of professing Christians, with the rebuke acting as a sifting agent–with some responding to the satirical rebuke with humility, and others hardening their hearts. And the heaviest satire might be used to expose and condemn great wickedness and rebellion.
With that rubric, let’s consider some of DeYoung’s objections to Moscow’s use of satire. At one point, he argues that satire and mockery are inappropriate when dealing with serious wickedness in the culture. To mock the evil of the world with “Wokey, McWokeface” is “silly, unnecessary, and ultimately undermines the seriousness of the issue they are trying to address.” But wouldn’t this same criticism apply to Elijah mocking the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:27), asking if their God is asleep or relieving himself? Wasn’t idolatry “serious wickedness”? Or ask yourself this question: why is it presently culturally acceptable to mock biblical marriage and traditional child rearing, but “hateful” to mock the obvious and immoral absurdities that mark the sexual revolution? Could it be that one of the ways that the world advances its rebellion, its blasphemy and heresy, is by teaching us what to laugh at and by demanding that we take its folly seriously (as this short video on the Moral Imperative of Mockery argues)? Could it be that the Bible deploys satire as a high-stakes weapon, one that is particularly suited for the trenches of a culture war?
Or what about DeYoung’s objection that the serrated edge should be deployed only against the non-Christian world, and not against fellow Christian leaders. Well, again, if satire is a form of rebuke, then wouldn’t it be appropriate to use it to correct professing Christians? The Bible clearly doesn’t limit satire to the non-believing world. The shepherds of Israel, the priests, the Pharisees and Sadducees–all of these are subject to a variety of caricature, indictment, mockery, and scorn at the hands of the prophets and the Lord himself. And this doesn’t imply that every member of these groups was unregenerate. Some members of the Sanhedrin followed Christ. Did Christ’s satirical rebuke of them as a whole have anything to do with that?
Viewing satire as a form of rebuke helps to answer the particular examples that DeYoung highlights from the video–the jab at the ERLC and the shot at G3. In the first case, the Bible uses satire to rebuke the compromise and misplaced priorities of the leaders of God’s people (think of Christ’s criticism of the Pharisees for straining gnats and swallowing camels (Matthew 23:24)). The ERLC, which DeYoung commends as an allegedly conservative Christian bulwark, has arguably demonstrated precisely those kinds of misplaced priorities and compromise, whether it’s lobbying for liberal immigration reform and gun control or opposing anti-abortion legislation in Louisiana. It has decidedly not been on the same side as conservative Christians in key cultural battles. I suspect that DeYoung’s assessment of the NQN shot at the ERLC is owing both to a mistaken view of the appropriate targets of biblical satire as well as different assessments of the fidelity of that particular institution.
As for G3, the men associated with that ministry have publicly misrepresented and attacked Moscow (and Christian Nationalists more broadly) in various ways over the last six months while steadfastly refusing to have any clarifying conversations or discussions (despite repeated invitations to do so in a variety of formats). It’s ironic for DeYoung to chide Moscow for a playful jab when it’s Moscow who have repeatedly sought to find common ground with G3 (to no avail). A playful swipe is perhaps a good way to prod them to conduct themselves with greater charity and clarity when it comes to representing the views of fellow Christians.
In a slightly different category is the use of meme-making that playfully pokes fun at fellow believers. Think of the kind of banter that groups of men regularly engage in as a part of masculine friendship. In such circumstances, you earn the respect and trust of other men by being willing to take your lumps and to give as good as you get. Such playfulness is a sign of health, humility, and camaraderie. Even insults can be a sign of affection (and no, this isn’t an excuse for “locker room talk”).
Which brings me to the heaviest kind of satire–the use of vulgarities and obscenities to expose gross rebellion. Wilson has recently responded to another reasonable criticism of his (very rare) use of such rhetoric. Some critics give the impression that Wilson casually cusses like a sailor for the fun of it. While he admittedly did do a stint in the Navy, this characterization is simply untrue. His use of obscenities and vulgarities ought to be regarded as an intentional act of translation, one that he deploys sparingly and in particular contexts. When sin, folly, and idolatry are unrecognized for the evil that they are, the use of vulgar and obscene language translates the evil into a form that is both accurate and shocking, as when Ezekiel likens the idolatry of Israel to a woman who lusts after the genitals of donkeys. To use one of the more infamous examples, when the apostate Lutheran lady pastrix gave Gloria Steinem that award, she was saying something with the statue. Wilson simply translated it into English.
In all my years of discussing the use of satire, I’ve yet to hear one of Wilson’s critics provide an example of a faithful imitation and application of this prophetic mode of speech. If Wilson is doing it so wrong, where are the examples of Christian writers and preachers doing it right? Has DeYoung (or others who share his criticism of Moscow) ever used satire, mockery, and the serrated edge to rebuke the folly and rebellion around us? Both the Old Testament and New Testament are filled with the serrated edge in various forms, from short rebukes (“you foolish Galatians”) to imprecations to caricatures to scathing indictments to derisive mockery, and all of it undergirded with a deep joy and gratitude for God’s kindness. And yet outside of Moscow and the Babylon Bee, I can’t think of anyone attempting to deploy that kind of biblical speech in confronting worldliness and rebellion.
What’s Front and Center?
But I have more questions. DeYoung contends that Moscow does not put the right things “front and center.” He claims that Wilson’s online persona is not about introducing people to Reformed creeds and confessions, or explaining the books of the Bible, or about global missions to the uttermost parts of the earth, or about liturgy, preaching, prayer, and the ordinary means of grace. Now perhaps DeYoung might respond, “Yes, those resources are available, but they are not emphasized in Doug’s online persona.” But how are we assessing that? How many times does Canon have to tweet something before it is sufficiently front and center? How many times does Doug need to feature his commentaries in the header of his blog? How many bread and butter expository sermons does Doug need to preach for that to be a defining mark of his ministry? How many global missions conferences does Christ Church need to host in order to satisfy critics like DeYoung?
DeYoung does gesture toward a means of evaluation later in that same paragraph: “If Wilson and Canon Press believe that their bread and butter is about all those things (creeds, confessions, Bible, missions), then they should devote an entire month (or even a whole year) to just those things without any snark, without any sarcasm, and without any trolling of other Christians.” There’s the rub.
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