Luke 12:4,5

Be not afraid of them that kill the body

The fear of God

I. WHAT IS THAT FEAR OF GOD WHICH THE FRIENDS AND DISCIPLES OF CHRIST ARE EXPECTED TO CHERISH?

1. We are sure that this fear is not, as some would have us believe, inconsistent with the enjoyment of the hopes and consolations of the gospel.

2. This fear blends itself with the other emotions of our mind, and gives a chastened character to them all.

(1) Solemnity to our prayers.

(2) Sobriety to our hopes.

(3) Consistency to our conduct,

(4) Intensity to our love.

II. WHAT CONSIDERATIONS TEND TO PROMOTE THIS FEAR.

1. The greatness of His power.

2. The immaculateness of His purity and justice.

3. The constancy and greatness, of His love. (Anon.)

Religious fear

I. CONSIDER ON WHAT THE FEAR OF GOD. AS IT IS A DUTY AND A GOOD DISPOSITION, IS FOUNDED.

1. On a due sense of out own imperfections.

(1) In practice.

(2) In belief.

2. On a due sense of the perfections of God. God is most holy, and abhors iniquity as entirely opposite to His pure and undefiled nature. He is everywhere present, and from Him nothing can be hid. He is all-wise, and cannot be deceived. He is the just governor of the world, and as such He cannot but observe the actions of men, and will certainly render to every one according to his works. He is almighty, and can punish the rebellious many ways, by turning them out of being, or by making that being a pain to them for as long a time as He sees proper. He is also supremely good; and though this of all His perfections may seem the least suited to make us dread Him, yet whosoever judgeth so is much mistaken; for indeed there is not any one quality of the Divine nature so adapted to strike us with an ingenuous fear, with the fear of a child towards a parent, as this, and of such efficacy to deter us from sin, and to make us avoid incurring His just displeasure. Sin against God, as He is almighty, is the excess of madness and folly; but, as He is most kind and merciful, it is the basest ingratitude.

II. THE SEVERAL DEGREES OF THIS RELIGIOUS FEAR. A person is sensible that his practice is not at all suitable to his knowledge and judgment; that he deliberately and continually offends God; that he is not in His favour; that, according to the doctrine of the gospel, he shall be condemned at the last day, unless he amend; and yet he goes on in his evil ways. One who is in this situation and disposition, and who seriously reflects upon it, cannot help fearing God. He fears Him as his worst enemy; he fears Him as a righteous and inflexible judge who will not spare the guilty. This fear is indeed well-grounded and rational and natural; yet, producing no good effects, it hath no virtue in it, it is no act of religion. But, if it deter him from sin, it is then to him the beginning of wisdom, and it becomes another kind of fear, and truly religious, as will appear from a second instance. A wicked person becomes sensible of his dangerous state, resolves to deliver himself from it without delay, and begins a new course. He knows that this repentance, these good resolutions, and this change for the better, are things which God requires, which He approves, and which He hath promised to accept when they bring forth the fruits of a regular obedience. He hath, therefore, hopes of pardon, without which it is not possible for any one to amend: but these hopes are mixed with many and great fears lest he should relapse into his former vices, lest he should not accomplish all that is necessary for his salvation, lest he should be called out of this world before he has finished his important and difficult task. This is a religious fear, because it is mixed with hope, and honourable notions of God, and because it produces good actions. There is, further, a religious fear, which, bringing forth a regular obedience, and not being accompanied with so much dread and terror as that last mentioned, shows that the mind in which it is lodged is advanced to a higher degree of goodness. The fear of God, therefore, is a disposition of mind, different in degree, according as our state is with relation to God and to religion. There is a fear that God is offended at us, and will punish us; which is the fear of a wicked person. There is a fear arising from a sense of our guilt, mixed and allayed with hopes that God will accept our amendment. This is the fear of a penitent sinner. There is a fear lest we ever should forfeit the favour of God, and fall short of that future reward which at present we may reasonably expect. This is the fear of a good man, and it is capable of increase or of diminution according to his behaviour. There is an awe and reverence which a due sense of God’s perfections, and of the infinite distance between Him and His creatures, would excite in our minds, though we were secure of His favour, and had no fear of losing it. This is the happy state of those who have arrived as near to perfection as a good person can whilst he is on this side of heaven, and who are sensible that their course is nearly ended, and the time of their departure is at hand. (J. Jortin, D. D.)

The reasonableness of fearing God mare than man

I. CONSIDER THE POWER OF MAN, AND WHAT IS HE CAN DO.

1. He can kill the body, and take away our lives, which includes a power of doing whatever is less.

2. He can do not even this, however, without the Divine permission.

3. If permitted to do his worst, he can do but this. “After that they have no more that they can do.”

(1) “They can but kill the body,” that is, they can only injure the worst and least considerable part of us.

(2) When they have killed the body, by doing this, they do but prevent nature a little, they do but antedate an evil a few moments, and bring our fears upon us a little sooner; the:; kill that which must die within a few days, though they should let it alone; they do but cut asunder that thread which would shortly break of itself by its own weakness and rottenness.

(3) “They can but kill the body”; and what argument of power is this, to be able to kill that which is mortal? as if you should say, “ They can break a glass; they can throw down that which is falling.”

(4) The killing of the body does not necessarily signify any great mischief or harm in the issue and event. “They can kill the body,” that is, they can knock off our fetters, and open the prison doors, and set us at liberty; they can put us out of pain, thrust us out of an uneasy world, put an end to our sins and sorrows, to our misery and fears; they can “give the weary rest,” and send us thither where we would be, but are loath to venture to go.

(5) “They can but kill the body”; when they have done that, they may give over, here their proud waves must stop; here their cruelty and malice, their power and wit, must terminate, for they can reach no farther.

(6) “They can but kill the body,” they cannot do the least harm to the soul, much less can they annihilate it, and make it cease to be.

(7) And lastly, “They can but kill the body,” that is, they can but inflict temporal misery upon us; their power, as it is but small, so it is of a short continuance, it reacheth no farther than this life, it is confined to this world.

II. CONSIDER HOW MUCH THE POWER OF GOD EXCEEDS THE POWER OF MAN; which our Saviour declares in these words, “Who, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell.” Which in general signifies, that His power is infinite and unlimited.

1. God’s power is absolute, and independent upon any other.

2. His power reaches to the soul as well as the body.

3. In the other world He can raise our bodies again, and reunite them to our souls, and cast them into hell, and torment them there.

4. God can punish for ever. I proceed now to apply this serious and weighty argument, and to draw some useful inferences from it.

I. That religion doth not design to annihilate and to root out our passions, but regulate and govern them; it does not wholly forbid and condemn them, but determines them to their proper objects, and appoints them their measures and proportions; it does not intend to extirpate our affections, but to exercise and employ them aright, and to keep them within bounds.

II. We may infer likewise from hence, that it is not against the genius of true religion, to urge men with arguments of fear. No man can imagine there would have been so many fearful threatenings in Scripture, and especially in the gospel, if it had not been intended they should have some effect and influence upon us. Fear is deeply rooted in our nature, and immediately flows from that principle of self-preservation which is planted in every man; it is the most wakeful passion in the soul of man, and so soon as anything that is dreadful and terrible is presented to us, it alarms us to flee from it; and this passion doth naturally spring up in our minds from the apprehension of a Deity, because the notion of a God doth include in it power and justice, both which are terrible to guilty creatures; so that fear is intimate to our being, and God hath hid in every man’s conscience a secret awe and dread of His presence, of His infinite power and eternal justice. Now fear being one of the first things that is imprinted upon us from the apprehension of a Deity, it is that passion, which, above all other, gives the greatest advantage to religion, and is the easiest to be wrought upon.

III. THE FEAR OF GOD IS THE BEST ANTIDOTE AGAINST THE FEAR OF MEN.

IV. IF GOD BE INFINITELY MORE TO BE DREADED THAN MEN, THEN, “WHO IS TO BE OBEYED, GOD OR MEN? JUDGE YE.” I speak not this to diminish our reverence to magistrates and their authority; for by persuading men to fear God, who commands obedience to magistrates, we secure their reverence and authority; but when the commands of men are contrary to God’s, and come in competition with them, shall we not hearken to Him who is supreme, the greatest and most powerful? Shall we not obey Him who hath the most unquestionable authority over us, and right to command us? Shall we not dread Him most who is to be feared above all, who can be the best friend and the sorest enemy, is able to give the greatest rewards to our obedience, and to revenge Himself upon us for our disobedience by the most dreadful and severe punishments?

V. IF GOD BE THE GREAT OBJECT OF OUR FEAR, LET ALL IMPENITENT SINNERS REPRESENT TO THEMSELVES THE TERRORS OF THE LORD AND THE POWER OF HIS ANGER. This consideration, if anything in the world will do it, will awaken them to a sense of the danger of their condition, and of the fatal issue of a wicked life, (Archbishop Tillotson.)

The use of fear in religion

1. In the first place, the emotion of fear ought to enter into the consciousness of the young, because youth is naturally light-hearted. The ordinary cares of this life, which do so much towards moderating our desires and aspirations, have not yet pressed upon the ardent and expectant soul, and therefore it needs, more than others, to fear and to “stand in awe.”

2. Secondly, youth is elastic, and readily recovers from undue depression. There is an elasticity in the earlier periods of human life that prevents long-continued depression. How rare it is to see a young person smitten with insanity! It is not until the pressure of anxiety has been long continued, and the impulsive spring of the soul has been destroyed, that reason is dethroned. The morning of our life may, therefore, be subjected to a subduing and repressing influence, with very great safety. It is well to bear the yoke in youth. The awe produced by a vivid impression from the eternal world may enter into the exuberant and gladsome experience of the young with very little danger of actually extinguishing it and rendering life permanently gloomy and unhappy.

3. Thirdly, youth is exposed to sudden temptations and suprisals into sin. The general traits that have been mentioned as belonging to the early period in human life render it peculiarly liable to solicitations. The whole being of a healthful hilarious youth, who feels life in every limb, thrills to temptation like the lyre to the plectrum. There are moments in the experience of the young when all power of resistance seems to be taken away by the very witchery and blandishment of the object. He has no heart, and no nerve, to resist the beautiful siren. And it is precisely in these emergencies in his experience--in these moments when this world comes up before him clothed in pomp and gold, and the other world is so entirely lost sight of, that it throws in upon him none of its solemn shadows and warnings--it is precisely now, when he is just upon the point of yielding to the mighty yet fascinating pressure, that he needs to feel an impression, bold and startling, from the wrath of God. Nothing but the most active remedies will have any effect in this tumult and uproar of the soul.

4. In the fourth place, the feeling and principle of fear ought to enter into the experience of both youth and manhood, because it relieves from all other fear. He who stands in awe of God can look down from a very great height upon all other perturbation. When we have seen Him from whose sight the heavens and the earth flee away, there is nothing in either the heavens or the earth that can produce a single ripple upon the surface of our souls.

5. The fifth and last reason which we assign for cherishing the feeling and principle of fear applies to youth, to manhood, and to old age, alike; the fear of God conducts to the love of God. Our Lord does not command us to fear “Him who, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell” because such a feeling as this is intrinsically desirable, and is an ultimate end in itself; it is in itself undesirable, and it is only a means to an end. By it our torpid souls are to be awakened from their torpor; our numbness and hardness of mind in respect to spiritual objects is to be removed. We are never for a moment to suppose that the fear of perdition is set before us as a model and permanent form of experience to be toiled after-a positive virtue and grace intended to be perpetuated through the whole future history of the soul. It is employed only as an antecedent to a higher and a happier emotion; and when the purpose for which it has been elicited has been answered, it then disappears. “Perfect love casteth out fear; for fear hath torment” (1 John 4:18). But, at the same time, we desire to direct attention to the fact that he who has been exercised with this emotion, thoroughly and deeply, is conducted by it into the higher and happier form of religious experience. Religious fear and anxiety are the prelude to religious peace and joy. These are the discords that prepare for the concords. (W. T. G. Shedd, D. D.)

Lessons

1. An unwarrantable fear condemned, and that is, the sinful, servile, slavish fear of man--“Fear not them that kill the body.”

2. An holy, awful, and prudential fear of the omnipotent God commended--“Fear Him that is able to kill both body and soul.”

3. The persons whom this duty of fear is recommended to, and bound upon; disciples, ministers, and ambassadors, all the friends of Christ; they not only may, but ought to fear Him, not only for His greatness and goodness, but upon the account of His punitive justice, as being able to cast both soul and body into hell. Such a fear is not only awful, but laudable; not only commendable, but commanded, and not misbecoming the friends of Christ. The ministers of God may use arguments from fear of judgments, both to dissuade from sin, and to persuade to duty. It is not unsuitable to the best of saints to keep in heaven’s way for fear of hell; it is good to bid a friend fear when that fear tendeth to his good. (W. Burkitt.)

Warning words

In Luke 12:5 our Lord guards against the error of the soul’s annihilation. Also against the notion that the body will escape the ruin of the soul. Perdition is not the destruction of the being of either, but of the well-being of both. Learn, that to play false with convictions to save life will fail of its end. God can inflict a violent death in some other and more awful way.

1. There is a hell for the body as well as for the soul; consequently sufferings adapted to the one as well as the other.

2. Fear of hell is a divinely authorized and needed motive of action even to Christ’s “friends.”

3. As Christ’s meekness and tenderness were not compromised by this language, those ministers want their Master’s spirit who soften it to please “ears polite.” (Van Doren.)

How far is it to hell?

A young man met the deacon of a church one Sunday morning, and asked him the terrible question, “How far is it to hell?” “Young man,” was the reply, “don’t mock such a serious reality; you may be nearer to hell than you think.” They had only just turned the corner of the road, and ridden a few yards, when his horse threw him, and he was picked up dead.

Sweetness of life

One of the martyrs, when being led to the stake, was urged to recant; and as a motive to induce him to do so it was said, “Life is sweet, and death is bitter.” “True,” said the good man; “life is sweet, and death is bitter; but eternal life is sweeter, and eternal death is more bitter.”

Death cannot destroy the soul

Methinks I hear an accursed spirit in the nether world crying after death, and saying, “O death, pause, turn back and quench my wretched existence; in yonder world I dreaded thee, I struggled hard against thee--I now invoke thy stroke, a stroke that shall annihilate me for ever!” And methinks I hear death, heartless as ever, saying, “I cannot destroy thee; I never had any power over thine existence; I could wither landscapes, breathe destruction into the face of every green field and forest; I could quench animal life, and have reduced all past generations of men to dust; but I could never touch the soul. The soul, secured in her existence, ‘smiled at my dagger and defied the point.’ I cannot paralyze memory, I cannot extinguish the fires of conscience, I cannot destroy a soul.” (The Homilist.)