The Connection Between the Fear of God and Justification

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experience, forgiveness, God's love, grace, Jesus Christ, joy, justification, peace, repentance, righteousness by faith, sin, sinner, suffering, the fear of God, The Fear of the Lord, the new self, the old self, true faith

The following is an excerpt of a (not published) book I wrote about seven years ago. I just translated a text of my journal which should clarify that the experience of the fear of God and being justified by Him usually go hand in hand.

To separate awe from God from an everyday, natural fear is not easy. For it is real fear as other languages ​​also make clear:

Gottesfurcht (German)

crainte de Dieu (French)

timore di Dio (Italian)

temor de Dios (Spanish)

The fear of God is, above all, the fear of displeasing God by transgressing His commandments. I believe a further difference compared with other fears is that our natural anxieties cause narrowness inside our mind and make us think of running away from a frightening situation. “Cut and run!” the thief might think when suddenly confronted with the policeman. He, too, is, or at least should be frightened when he must face governmental authority. Nevertheless, it might happen that the thief, instead, goes over to attacking the authority figure when he realizes that his getaway route has been cut off.

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Being led by the Holy Spirit

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, justification, killing sin, Matthew Poole, peace, prayer without ceasing, sanctification, sealed with the Holy Spirit, T.A. Sparks, the law, the new self, the old self

Photo by Susanne Schuberth

Theodore Austin-Sparks so aptly said,

The Holy Spirit’s method is to set His seal upon us as we move according to His leading; not according to our fancy, choice, aptitude, predilection or ambition. (1)

Instead of Sanctification: The crossless gospel spirit

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discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, false gospel, false spirits, following Jesus, God, Jesus Christ, justification, pain, peace, sanctification, Satan, sin

Every gospel that focuses on man instead of focusing on Christ is anti-Christian by nature.
(Picture taken from https://thepropheticnews.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/antichrist.jpg)

I am sure there are more versions of that kind of gospel today and I presume there will pop up more and more of them in these last confusing days where Satan appears as an angel of light. However, I want to merely focus on two different manifestations of the crossless gospel I have met particularly on the internet since I began to write online comments in English on December 1, 2011. I would like to refer to these two confusing sub-categories as Spiritless Salvation of the Sinner and Spiritual Self-Salvation.

Jumping into the Unknown

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Augustine of Hippo, following Jesus, freedom, joy, justification, rest, sanctification, silence, spiritual power, the new self, the old self, the promised land

God’s Hand keeps us secure – always
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

What is the goal we will reach after a comparatively short justification process and very long sanctification process? Actually, I want to offer you some food for thought here.
Although I believe that only a handful of people experienced that blissful condition of having died to self completely, it might be interesting to read Augustine of Hippo’s thoughts about how our whole inner life will have changed as soon as we have entered the invisible kingdom of God.

Different (st)ages of spiritual growth

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, being born again, following Jesus, God's love, John of the Cross, John Tauler, justification, sanctification, spiritual maturity, Taylor Marshall, the dark night of the soul, the dark night of the spirit, the new self, the old self

On a walk in the evening – Südstadtpark Fürth
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

It has been quite some time since I have wanted to deepen the issue of “The Dark Night of the Soul”, yet I did not know how to tackle that task which is anything but easy. Due to the fact that I can only write about what I know AND have already experienced, I have had to go through very deep and extremely painful valleys of dying to self recently so that I began to see more clearly what particularly the second part of the dark night is all about.

What is the Baptism in the Holy Spirit?

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anointing, assurance, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Charles G. Finney, experience, Jesus Christ, justification, light, love, repentance, spiritual power, The Holy Spirit

God’s Eternal Light from Above
(Picture taken from http://www.simplyheavenlyfood.com/2013/12/word-of-day-december-292013.html)

John the Baptist said,

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Mt 3:11 ESV)

Although I had heard about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal camp before and I had indeed found some hints in John of the Cross’s autobiographic entries as well, yet as IT would happen to me, I had no clue what THIS could be. Therefore I asked God to help me grasp that overwhelming experience that finished my justification process, during which I had been feeling my own sinfulness to an increased degree as a very painful fire burning in my heart for many weeks in 2008.
Our God was so gracious to point me to Charles G. Finney’s autobiography where I found my own experiences confirmed. Finney who was an American Presbyterian minister and leader in the in the United States in the 19th century offered a very helpful narrative that answered many of the questions I had at that time.

Justification vs. Sanctification

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A.B. Simpson, being born again, darkness, doctrine, experience, heart, justification, light, love, Martin Luther, prayer, repentance, sanctification, self-righteousness, the new self, theology, true faith, William Gurnall

Light after the Darkness (Wallpaper taken from http://www.scenicreflections.com)

“Justifying faith is not a naked assent to the truths of the gospel.”
(William Gurnall)

“The sanctified body is one whose hands are clean. The stain of dishonesty is not on them, the withering blight of ill-gotten gain has not blistered them, the mark of violence is not found upon them. They have been separated from every occupation that could displease God or injure a fellow-man.”
(A.B. Simpson)

To start off with, I’d say that we as humans are neither able to justify nor to sanctify ourselves in order to make our way to God. Instead, both transforming periods of spiritual life are gifts from our Father through Jesus Christ. While the first one, justification, changes our whole thinking regarding God, ourselves, and others, and gives us the bedrock our spiritual house can be built upon, the second process that sanctifies our whole being enables us to change our behavior, too.

You are being loved by Jesus – unconditionally at that

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baptism, being born again, church, ecstasy, homosexuality, justification, Lord Jesus Christ, love, sanctification, sin, spiritual power, the new self

Jesus Love Graphics and Comments
(Photo taken from http://www.coolchaser.com)

Today I want to focus on a group of men and women who really struggle with feeling what others don’t feel. Some people tell them that it is okay to feel that way (the liberal Christians) and some people often remind them that they are not the way God wants them to be (the conservative Christians).

As you might have already guessed it, I am speaking of homosexuals, respectively of all people who do not fit the picture of being “straight”. Actually, I do not want to canvass whether homosexuality is a sin or not because I think there has already been written that much about it. Rather, I want to point to the fact that all of us are being loved by God just the way He created us and that God alone can set us free from feeling any kind of condemnation as for our natural tendencies when He grants us access to the experience of His ecstatic spiritual love, i.e., AGAPE which includes EROS – that’s for sure.

Wanna be a Law-keeper?

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Charlton Heston, conscience, flesh, following Jesus, freedom, Jesus Christ, justification, light, Martin Luther, sin

“The Ten Commandments” [Charlton Heston as Moses (1956)]

Let’s say someone were hell-bent on being a good person, which is not a bad thing in itself, that’s for sure. However, imagine whenever that person observes something evil or uncomfortable emerging from his heart, such as pride, hatred, wrath, jealousy, covetousness, aggressiveness, enmity against God, or grief over a great loss, such a one would either follow a ritual of sorts by confessing his sins to God in the hope of getting rid of them or he would try to take his mind off these things by devoting himself fully to something which does not cause these bad feelings.

Do we believe that this procedure will be successful?

Does God hear all our prayers?

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being born again, experience, John Wesley, justification, Martin Luther, redemption, sanctification, the new self, true faith

Butterfly Born Anew
(Photo by Paul Schuberth)

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (Js 4:1-4 ESV)

Phew! What kind of Scriptures to begin with. Honestly, I was hell-bent on writing a more pleasing article, yet right now I am not sure that this very thing will turn out as I had hoped before. In particular, I want to expand on the questions, “What might be the reason when God does not give us what we wanted from Him?” AND “Is it possible to ask wrongly and not to realize it?”