Awe—an essential of worship

A friend told me that in a certain church he visited, the person offering the morning prayer began by saying, "Good morning, Dad." This casual approach to God shocked me, because I have always felt that if a person understands the Biblical picture of God and the Creator-creature relationship, he will approach God with a feeling of awe. Awe, it seems to me, is an essential element of worship.

In the October, 1978, issue of Eternity, Deborah Barackman penned a short editorial titled "Idol Talk," dealing with the second commandment of the Decalogue. "Idols are too small to contain their subject," she wrote. "Indeed, how can the God who fills the universe fill the eye? But we who scorn lawn shrines, medallions and the like have been just as guilty of breaking the second commandment. We've cast a limited image of God as surely as if it were plaster. The new relationship of Abba, Father, was not license to create a 'Good Buddy' God. Though as believers we truly are no longer just servants but friends, to capture God in only this dimension lessens Him. This is an evangelical version of the liberals' benign grandfather God. Our God hates sin and will punish sinners but casts an indulgent eye on His chosen ones. Like a good friend He's available to be tapped for any emergencies, lavishes good gifts upon us, favors our church baseball leagues, but doesn't bring up such touchy subjects as discipleship lest it ruffle the relationship."

Miss Barackman says that "a lot of false familiarity swirls about this god. The scribes who washed their hands be fore they copied God's name would blanch at many current book titles. The God whose train filled the Temple has been shrunk to a T-shirt slogan. . . . Reverencing the Lord, acknowledging His otherness—paradoxically brings Him near. We need a greater sense of being on holy ground. Better to take off our shoes and fall on our faces than to try to go running with Him."

Some evangelicals are concerned that God has been captured, diminished, and cheapened, and that awe—one essential of true worship—has been lost. The contemporary picture of God is very different from the one set forth in the Bible. When Nehemiah approached God, for example, he addressed Him as "the great and terrible God" (Neh. 1:5; see also chap. 9:32). Moses spoke of God as the "God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible [God]" (Deut. 10:17). In similar words Daniel began his magnificent prayer of intercession, "O Lord, the great and dreadful God" (Dan. 9:4). These inspired ancients approached God with a sense of reverence that is rare today. They approached Him with awe.

Clearly, awe is a very high emotion. It is one of the emotions that distinguishes humanity from the animal creation. No animal ever looks off into the sunset with wonder and awe in its eyes. Only people do that. I have seen people filled with awe in the presence of a great piece of art, speechless at the skill and the beauty involved in it. I have seen people stand in silence at the edge of the Grand Can yon, awed by the beauty, the enormity, and the impressiveness of the panorama. I have seen people gasping with awe and wonder as they have viewed nature's autumn spectacular of brilliantly colored trees in the New England States. It seems to me that when human beings no longer have a sense of awe in the presence of God, when awe no longer fills their souls as they worship Him, they have lost both the Biblical picture of God and an essential element of the worship experience.

How is awe produced? In his book The Sacred and the Profane, Mircea Eliade used a term that says a lot just by its sound—mysterium tremendum, the awe-inspiring mystery. Eliade referred to Rudolf Otto's book Das Heilige ("The Sacred"), published in 1917, and pointed out that Otto had analyzed religion from the side of experience rather than intellectual content. Otto had read Martin Luther and had understood what the "living God" meant to a believer. The "living God" was not the god of philosophers such as Erasmus. "It was not an idea, an abstract notion, a mere moral allegory. It was a terrible power, manifested in the divine wrath." —The Sacred and the Profane, pp. 8, 9.

Eliade points out that ordinarily this feeling of awe is produced by hierophancies. These manifestations of sacred realities take many forms. Gene sis 28 provides one example. Jacob had left home and was fleeing from his brother Esau. One night as he slept with his head on a stone for a pillow, he had a dream of a ladder extending all the way from earth to heaven, with angels of God ascending and descending upon it. When he awoke the next morning, he had a very special feeling about the place where he had had this dream. "Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven" (verses 16, 17). Those accorded the privilege of a revelation of God find in their hearts a sense of profound awe.

Later, when Jacob was fleeing from Laban, he used a very interesting expression—"the fear of Isaac." "Except the God of my father, the God of Abra ham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me," he said, "surely thou hadst sent me away now empty" (chap. 31:42); "The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac" (verse 53).

I used to wonder what is meant by "fear" (pachad), and I'm not sure I can make a coercive case even now, but Smith and Goodspeed translate it "the Awe of his father Isaac" (verse 54),* and The Anchor Bible translates it "the Awesome One" (verse 53).f I am sure that these translations do not do violence to the text. God is a God of awe, and awe is essential to true worship. Jacob looked upon God with awe, for he understood His greatness and majesty.

In today's secular world we need to recapture the Biblical view of God in order that we may worship Him with awe. Moses' experience at the burning bush says much to us about how we should approach God (see Ex. 3:1-6). Having removed his shoes in reverence, Moses "hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God" (verse 6). Undoubtedly he had seen this bush many times before, but now, because God was present, the bush was no longer just a bush, and the ground around it was holy.

The experience of Israel at Sinai also shows how we should feel as we come into God's presence. Exodus 19:16-18 says: "There were thunders and lightnings ... so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. . . . And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, be cause the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly."

This was a sobering experience for God's people. It would have been sobering to any of us, for the thunder, lightning, and earthquake created a sense of awe, a sense of humility. It helped the people realize how small they were in relation to God and the elements He controls.

"And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not" (chap. 20:18-20). In these manifestations of sacred realities, God designed to impress His people with the mysterium tremendum, with His awful mystery and power.

The effect on the people at Sinai was repeated on Isaiah when the prophet had a vision of God's majesty. As the pillars of the Temple trembled, the house was filled with smoke, and the shining angels sang, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts" (Isa. 6:3). Isaiah exclaimed, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (verse 5). A view of God's greatness is a perfect corrective to man's tendency to exaggerate his own importance and feel spiritually in "need of nothing" (Rev. 3:17). When one gets an understanding of God as the mysterium tremendum, he sees himself as undone and desperately in need of mercy from God.

"The seraphim around the throne are so filled with reverential awe as they behold the glory of God, that they do not for an instant look upon themselves with admiration. Their praise is for the Lord of hosts. ... As the prophet listened, the glory, the power, and the majesty of the Lord was opened to his vision; and in the light of this revelation his own inward defilement appeared with startling clearness." Ellen G. White, Gospel Workers, p. 21.

When Ezekiel saw "the likeness of the glory of the Lord," he fell upon his face (Eze. 1:28). When John the revelator beheld a representation of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, he fell as one dead (Rev. 1:17). Neither felt like calling God's attention to his importance or greatness. No, the effect of these hierophancies and the awe that accompanied them was to put mankind and life in proper perspective.

To Moses, the burning bush was never again the same, though doubtless he saw it many times afterward. The stones that Jacob slept on that night became more than stones (although they were only stones), because God had revealed Him self there. So, we should open God's Word and enter His presence with holy awe. "When we come to the Bible, reason must acknowledge an authority superior to itself, and heart and intellect must bow to the great I AM." Ellen G. White, —Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 704.

It is not enough that the heart alone bow; intellect—a source of great pride to man—must bow too. Not by chance has God presented in the Bible a view of Himself that is designed to reveal Him as an "awe-full" God. That view is depicted not to frighten us away, but to help us understand better how much we need Him. Surely this is true in Daniel 7:9 and 10, where the judgment scene is presented. How sorely we need a Mediator, an Advocate, as we appear in God's presence!

We must, of course, keep the picture of God in balance. God is not merely "awe-full," He is loving and kind. When God presented Himself to Moses in the cleft of the rock on Sinai, He emphasized some of His milder, tender attributes (see Ex. 34:6, 7). David prayed, "Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy" (Ps. 86:5). Again, he said, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust" (Ps. 103:13, 14). To me, this makes more clear why we should enter God's presence with awe. God isn't merely a mysterium tremendum, One who seeks to frighten us; His character encompasses the full range of qualities and virtues, from all-power to ultimate tenderness. He is the God who sees and notes even the sparrow that falls.

So, although God is "awe-full" and we must come into His presence with the right perspective of our own nothingness, we must not hesitate to come. We must come, not in our own name, but through Jesus, our Mediator. "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5). The writer of Hebrews calls our attention to this. "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (chap. 4:14-16). Jesus is our only hope of acceptance with God. In His name we must come.

Truly, the Bible reveals that awe is an essential of true worship. Soon this will be understood more fully by all who are privileged to gather around God's throne in heaven. With the redeemed of all ages they will declare, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. . . . Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever" (Rev. 15:12, 13).