Fear of God
Via On Being a Theologian of the Cross p. 42
Thesis 7. The works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they would not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.
The point here is that when we have no fear of the Lord and we instead presume to come before the Lord bustling with self-confidence in our own accomplishments, enjoying ourselves in our works, as Luther puts it, our works are deadly sins even if we think they are done with the help of grace. For then our works stand between us and God; they usurp the honor belonging only to God. This is a transgression of the first commandment. The self sets itself as an idol. Piety is no protection.
Fear of God on the contrary means precisely letting God be God. True, the fear of God is something of a stranger in the contemporary house of religious experience with its saccharine love-piety. But perhaps there are hints and remnants of what such fear means in the argument before us. As theologians of glory we react against the idea that our best works may be deadly sins. Why? Is it out of fear? Fear that we are reduced to nothing before God? Fear that the sovereign mercy of God is an attack we as old beings cannot survive? Could that be what the Psalmist had in mind when he cried “out of the depths”: “If thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared” (Ps. 130:3-4)? Perhaps the unconditional mercy of God is the only place left now where a spark of the fear of God is kindled! It strikes at least antipathy and maybe even an echo of terror into the heart of the self-assured.
