the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Fear (2)
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or FEAR (φόβος, φοβοῦμαι; in Matthew 8:24 and Mark 4:40 ‘fearful’ = δειλός).—1. In many passages in the Gospels fear is a motive restraining or compelling action in the ordinary course of human relationships. Men fear others, and shape their conduct, at least in part, by their fears: e.g. Matthew 2:22 (Joseph is afraid to return to Judaea); Matthew 14:5 (Herod would not put John to death because ‘he feared the people’) Matthew 21:26; Matthew 21:46; Mark 11:32, Luke 22:2 (where the Pharisees ‘fear the multitude’); Mark 9:32, Luke 9:45 (the disciples are ‘afraid to ask’ the meaning of a saying); Mark 11:18 (scribes and Pharisees wished to destroy Jesus, ‘for they feared him’); John 7:13; John 9:22; John 19:38; John 20:19 (men are silent or secret ‘for fear of the Jews’). Similar passages are Matthew 25:25, Mark 6:20; Mark 12:12, Luke 19:21; Luke 20:19 etc. This fear sometimes restrains bad men from carrying out their evil purposes; but quite as often turns others aside from the straight path of right.
2. The Gospels also mention frequently the fear which men feel in the presence of what they believe to be supernatural or superhuman. This is often an accompaniment of the miracles of Jesus. It is mentioned of the disciples, at the stilling of the tempest (Mark 4:41, Luke 8:25), when Jesus walked on the sea (Matthew 14:28, Mark 6:50, John 6:19-20), at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:6-7 and parallels). So the people of Judaea were afraid when they saw the demoniac healed (Mark 5:15); so ‘fear took hold on all’ when the widow’s son was raised (Luke 7:16); and in the same way the centurion at the cross (Matthew 27:54) and the witnesses of the Resurrection (Matthew 28:4; Matthew 28:8) were afraid; cf. also Luke 1:12; Luke 1:65; Luke 2:9; Luke 5:28 etc.
3. Especially worthy of notice are those passages in which Jesus exhorts His hearers not to fear. He reassures Jairus when word comes that his daughter is dead (Mark 5:36, Luke 8:50); and Peter when the miraculous draught of fishes fills him with a sense of sin (Luke 5:10); He meets the terror of the disciples on the sea with, ‘It is I, be not afraid’ (Matthew 14:27); and touches them at the Transfiguration, with similar words (Matthew 17:7). When He sends the disciples out to preach, it is with reiterated injunctions against fear. The servants will meet with hostility from the enemies of their Lord; but they must face such opposition without fear, ‘for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed’ (Matthew 10:24-27). They are to be fearless preachers of the gospel, because no hostility of men can prevent the triumph of truth. They are not to fear even those who can kill the body, for their power is strictly limited to the body (Matthew 10:28, Luke 12:4); they are to remember God’s thought for the sparrows, and to be assured of the greater value of the servants of His Kingdom, and so to escape from fear (Matthew 10:31). If they are few in number facing a hostile world—a little flock surrounded by wolves—they are to remember the sure purpose of the Father and not to be afraid (Luke 12:32).
Moral courage is a vital necessity of Christian discipleship. The Master is keenly conscious of moral paralysis which comes from the fear of man. Revelation 21:8 reflects His judgment when it groups ‘the fearful’ with ‘the unbelieving’ and ‘the abominable’ who are cast into the lake of fire which is the second death. And in our Lord’s teaching faith is the antidote of fear. A true knowledge of the Father is the unfailing source of moral courage. ‘Acquaint thyself with the Father and be delivered from fear’ is the burden of His teaching. See Courage, Cowardice.
4. The almost complete absence of direct exhortation to fear God is a very noticeable feature of the Gospels. The fear of God is, indeed, mentioned in the Magnificat (Luke 1:50), in the parable of the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:2; Luke 18:4), and by the penitent thief on the cross (Luke 23:40); but in a direct injunction of Jesus only—if at all—in Matthew 10:28 and the parallel passage Luke 12:5. Here, as already mentioned, Jesus is sending out the disciples with the exhortation not to fear—even those who kill the body. But He adds to the negative a positive injunction, ‘Rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell’; or, as Lk. puts it, ‘But I will warn you whom ye shall fear: fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him.’ It is most natural to thing with the majority of commentators that God is the object of fear in this exhortation; but there are some who urge, on the contrary, that the devil is intended.
A. B. Bruce (‘St. Matthew,’ in Expositor’s Gr. Test.) says: ‘Would Christ present God under this aspect in such close connexion with the Father who cares even for the sparrows? What is to be greatly feared is not the final condemnation, but that which leads to it—temptation to forsake the cause of God out of regard to self-interest or self-preservation. Shortly, the counsel is: fear not the persecutor but the tempter, not the man who kills you for your fidelity but the man who wants to buy you off, and the devil whose agent he is.’ Weymouth (The NT in Modern Speech) urges against the reference to God that ἐξουσία (Luke 12:5) usually denotes ‘delegated authority,’ ‘power enjoyed on sufferance’; and refers to Luke 22:53, John 19:11, Acts 26:18, Colossians 1:13, and Revelation 13:7 for illustrations of the ascription of power to Satan. On the other side Plummer (‘St. Luke’ in Internat. Crit. Com.) says: ‘There is little doubt that this refers to God, and not to the devil. The change of construction points to this. It is no longer φοβήθητε ἁτο τούτου but τοῦτον φοβήθητε, “fear without trying to shun,” which is the usual construction of fearing God. Moreover, we are not in Scripture told to fear Satan, but to resist him courageously.’
It may also be urged that the extreme punishment of the wicked is nowhere described as an exercise of Satan’s authority. Gehenna is ‘the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’ into which in Matthew 25:40-41 those on the left hand are sent by the King. The ultimate ‘destruction’ of wicked men, whatever that may actually mean, must be conceived as an act of God and as the exercise of His authority; cf. Matthew 21:40-41 ‘The Lord of the vineyard … will miserably destroy those wicked men.’
5. Looking at the teaching of Jesus as a whole, we notice that, while He constantly urges men to faith rather than to fear, and to a trust in God’s fatherly goodness, such as makes filial love the ruling motive of religious life, He does not altogether discard the appeal to fear as a motive for right conduct. There is a severity of God which cannot be ignored. Such parables as the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Unmerciful Servant, the Wheat and the Tares, and others, whatever interpretation we may put upon their details, at least suggest a Divine and holy sternness in regard to which men should keep a wholesome fear. Nor is it only in parables that we find this element of our Lord’s teaching. We have in the Sermon on the Mount such passages as Matthew 5:21-30; Matthew 7:13-14; Matthew 7:21-27 : and with these we may compare Matthew 11:20-24; Matthew 12:32; Matthew 16:25-26; Matthew 21:44; Matthew 26:24 and many others. The normal relation of the children of God to the Heavenly Father should be one of glad confidence and loving obedience. It should be ever approaching that perfect love which casts out fear; but men who are trifling with great moral issues have no right, according to the teaching of Jesus, to this happy emancipation. For them fear is wholesome and necessary; for God is the Holy Father, and persistent defiance of His will must be visited with stern and righteous doom.
Literature.—Cremer and Grimm-Thayer, δ. υυ. φοβος, φοβίω; Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, art. ‘Fear’; Maclaren, Serm. pr. in Manchester, i. 194; Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian’s talk with Hopeful after Ignorance was left behind.
E. H. Titchmarsh.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Fear (2)'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/f/fear-2.html. 1906-1918.
