To Love God Or Fear Him

Biblegems #294

Question: The Bible says that we are to love God (Dt. 6:5), but also says in the very same chapter that we are to fear Him (Dt. 6:13), even though 1 John 4:18 claims there is no fear in love. I’m confused…

Let’s begin with the passage in First John:

         1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Context is everything. From the beginning of chapter four John encourages his readers to love one another with the same love God shows them through His Son, Jesus Christ. Such love demonstrates they truly belong to God and have nothing to fear on the Day of Judgment:

         1 John 4:17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: n this world we are like Jesus.

For those who truly know the love of God through Jesus Christ and treat others with that same love, there is no fear of punishment or condemnation from God.

Deuteronomy 6:5, 13, on the other hand, specifically teach that we are to both love God and fear Him:

         Deut. 6:5  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Deut. 6:13  Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.

Love and fear are not mutually exclusive. In this context, both have little to do with emotions or feelings. You cannot make anyone feel love just by telling them to do so, nor can you make somebody feel afraid just by telling them to do so. Both love and fear are intended to convey actions in this case, not feelings.

To love God with the whole heart, soul and strength is to devote your entire being to God. To fear God, in this context, is connected with serving Him and acting as His representative when making promises and commitments. Our lives are to be spent acting as God’s emissaries, His ambassadors. We are not our own masters. Consequently, everything we do and say carries consequences beyond their own immediate impact. Every person will have to give an account to God as to how well we acted on His behalf in this life.

         Rom. 14:12  So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

The Bible teaches, therefore, that God is King as well as Creator, and that every human being is designed to be completely devoted to Him, exercising that devotion in how we live, love, work and play. To do otherwise is to rebel against God, His Kingdom and His design for our lives. Just as an earthly ambassador represents his own country in a foreign land by everything he or she says and does, so too are we ambassadors of the Kingdom of God to a world in rebellion against God. Our behavior reflects God’s character; and we who claim to be His followers are especially accountable.

         Heb. 12:28  Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”

   

Jesus: "Firstborn" Of Creation

Biblegems #163

Question: Why is Jesus called the “firstborn” of all creation?

Col. 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

The term “firstborn” (Gk. prototokos) in the Greek New Testament is used in a variety of ways—sometimes figuratively, meaning something like “the highest,” or “best,” or “preeminent.” In that case, the word can indicate the idea of supremacy above all else, or even as pre-existing all else.

Sometimes it is used at face value, meaning simply, “firstborn.” Even then, however, the sense of “firstborn” has to do with the privileges granted to the firstborn male in the Jewish family—the one who received the “greater” or “best” share of the inheritance.

Protokos derives from the more basic Greek word, protos, which means, “before, beginning, best, chief(-est), first (of all), former.”[1] It is this fundamental meaning which is at the heart of ”firstborn.”

Fortunately, the verse does not exist in a vacuum.  The meaning of the term is found in the immediate context of the passage where it occurs, and also in the broader teaching of the entire Bible regarding the nature of Jesus.

Immediate Context

The whole point of Colossians 1:15-20 is that Jesus is not only a perfect representation of God in human form (15), but that Jesus is God in human form (19). And because Jesus is God, He has always existed, and therefore pre-exists all creation (17). Therefore, Jesus is not only “before” (protokos) all creation in time; He is “before” (protokos) all creation in importance. In fact, everything that exists came into being “through” Jesus—He is the Creator—and exists “for” Jesus’ purposes (16). Chief among Jesus’ purposes in creation is to re-establish a right relationship between Himself as the Creator and the sin-broken creation (20). This immediate context makes it clear that the term “firstborn” (protokos) is used as a title describing Jesus’ importance in relation to all creation. It is not used to mean that somehow He was the first thing God ever made. He is God, supreme above all, and the reason all else exists.

Overall Bible Context

The rest of Scripture agrees with this primary use of protokos as meaning “supreme,” “highest, or “best.”

Jesus is both God and Creator:

John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Jesus, the radiance of God’s glory, “sustains” creation. He holds it all together:

         Heb. 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word…

In His very nature, Jesus is God. Yet, out of His love for lost mankind, He “made himself” human and took the penalty for our sins upon himself that we might be forgiven and have everlasting life in him:

         Phil. 2:6-8  [Jesus], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

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[1] Strong’s Dictionary of the Greek New Testament