The Bitter Roots of Fear

So the Instructor of the human race, the divine Word, throws all his power into saving the children, drawing on everything wisdom has: warning, reproaching, blaming, scolding, reproving, threatening, healing, promising, granting favor — holding in our unreasoning impulses as though by many reins at once. In short, the Lord treats us the way we treat our own children. “Do you have children? Discipline them, and bend them from their youth. Do you have daughters? Look after their bodies, and do not let your face light up toward them” — and this though we love our children beyond anything else, sons and daughters alike. People who speak to a man only to please him have little love for him, since they never give him pain; people who speak for his good hurt him for the moment and do him good ever after. What the Lord has in view is not pleasure now but enjoyment later. So let us look at the way he goes about his loving discipline, with the testimony of the prophets to help us. [a]

Warning is correction that comes out of loving care, and it produces good sense. That is the Instructor when he warns, as when he says in the Gospel, “How often I wanted to gather your children, the way a bird gathers her young under her wings — and you would not have it!” And again Scripture warns: “They committed adultery with wood and stone, and burned incense to Baal.” It is a very great proof of his love that, knowing perfectly well how shameless this people were — they had kicked and bolted away like an animal — he still calls them to repentance, and says through Ezekiel, “Son of man, you are living among scorpions; even so, speak to them, in case they will listen.” Further, he says to Moses, “Go and tell Pharaoh to let my people go — though I know he will not let them go.” He shows two things at once: that he is God, in knowing beforehand what would happen, and that he loves, in giving the soul’s own power of choice an opening for repentance. He warns through Isaiah too, out of care for the people: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me.” What follows is correction by reproof: “They worship me for nothing, teaching human commands for teachings.” Here his loving care shows their sin, and shows salvation standing right beside it. Reproach is correction for what is shameful, winning a person over to what is noble. Jeremiah shows it: “They were stallions crazed for mares; each one neighed after his neighbor’s wife. Shall I not call them to account for this, says the Lord? Shall my soul not take revenge on a nation like this?” He weaves fear in everywhere, because “the fear of the Lord is where sense begins.” And again, through Hosea, he says, “Shall I not call them to account? For they themselves mixed with prostitutes and sacrificed alongside the initiated, and the people who understood embraced a prostitute.” He makes their offense plainer by stating that they understood — so they sinned deliberately. Understanding is the eye of the soul, which is why the name Israel means “the one who sees God,” that is, the one who understands God. Complaint is correction of people who are taken to be treating something with contempt or letting it slide. He uses this form when he says through Isaiah: “Listen, heaven; earth, pay attention: the Lord has spoken. I fathered children and brought them up, and they have disregarded me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s feeding trough — but Israel has not known me.” How can we not find it terrifying, that a man who knows God should fail to recognize the Lord, and that while the ox and the donkey, dull and stupid animals, know the one who feeds them, Israel turns out to be less reasonable than they are? And after complaining against the people on many counts through Jeremiah, he adds, “And they have abandoned me, says the Lord.”

Rebuke is reproach that shames, correction delivered as a scolding. The Instructor uses this treatment in Isaiah, when he says, “Woe to you, rebellious children. This is what the Lord says: you have made plans, but not from me, and struck agreements, but not through my Spirit.” In each case he uses fear as a very harsh mordant, opening the people up and at the same time turning them toward salvation — just as wool being dyed is first treated with mordants so that it will take a color that does not wash out. Reproof is bringing a sin forward and laying it out in front of the man. He uses this form of training as the most necessary of all, because so many people have a feeble faith. Through Isaiah he says, “You have abandoned the Lord and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger.” And through Jeremiah: “Heaven was astounded at this, and the earth shuddered violently. My people have done two evil things: they have abandoned me, the spring of living water, and they have cut out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.” And again through the same prophet: “Jerusalem has sinned a sin, and so she became a thing tossed about. Everyone who honored her dishonored her, because they saw her shame.” He uses the bitter, biting language of reproof even in his words of comfort through Solomon, hinting quietly at the love for children that marks his training: “My son, do not think lightly of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he corrects you; for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and whips every son he takes to himself.” “A man who is a sinner dodges reproof.” And so Scripture says, “Let a righteous man reprove me and correct me; but let the sinner’s oil never anoint my head.” Bringing a man to his senses is correction that makes him think. He does not hold back from this form of training either, but says through Jeremiah, “How long will I cry out and you not hear? Your ears are uncircumcised.” What blessed patience! And again, through the same prophet: “All the nations are uncircumcised, but this people is uncircumcised in heart.” “For the people are disobedient — children,” he says, “who have no faith in them.”

Reprimand is severe rebuke. He uses this kind in the Gospel: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those sent to you!” Doubling the name gives the rebuke its force. If a man knows God, how can he persecute God’s servants? So he says, “Your house is left to you deserted; for I tell you, from now on you will not see me until you say, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” If you will not take his love, you will come to know his power. Denunciation is speech with fury in it. He uses denunciation as medicine, through Isaiah: “Ah, sinful nation, lawless sons, a people loaded with sins, wicked offspring!” And in the Gospel, through John, he says, “Snakes, brood of vipers.” Accusation is correction of wrongdoers. He uses this form of training through David, when he says: “A people I did not know served me, and at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me. Foreigners’ sons lied to me and went limping off their own roads.” And through Jeremiah: “I gave her a certificate of divorce, and Judah, who broke the covenant, was not afraid.” And again: “The house of Israel disregarded me, and the house of Judah lied to the Lord.”

Lament is correction kept out of sight; it works by art, and hands over salvation as if under a veil. He used it through Jeremiah: “How the city sits alone, that was full of people! She who ruled over provinces has become like a widow; she has come under tribute; weeping, she wept in the night.” Berating is correction delivered as abuse. The divine Instructor used this help through Jeremiah, saying, “You had the face of a prostitute; you were shameless with everyone, and you did not call me home — me, your father, and the lord of your virginity.” And: “A beautiful and graceful prostitute, skilled in potions and spells.” With perfect skill, after fastening the disgraceful name of prostitution on the virgin, he then calls her back to an honorable life by filling her with shame. Indignation is deserved reproach, or reproach for behavior that has climbed above what is right. He trained them this way through Moses, when he said, “Faulty children, a crooked and twisted generation, is this how you pay the Lord back? This people is foolish and not wise. Is he not your father, who got you for himself?” And he says through Isaiah, “Your rulers are disobedient, partners of thieves, in love with bribes, chasing after rewards, giving the orphans no judgment.”

In sum, the whole method he uses to instill fear is the source of salvation. And saving is what belongs to goodness: “The Lord’s mercy is on all flesh, while he reproves and corrects and teaches, as a shepherd does his flock. He pities those who accept his training and those who eagerly seek to be joined to him.” It was with guidance of this kind that he guarded the six hundred thousand men on foot who were brought together in the hardness of heart they were found in — whipping, pitying, striking, healing, in compassion and in discipline. “For as great as his mercy is, so is his rebuke.” It is a fine thing not to sin at all, but it is good as well for a sinner to repent — just as it is best to be healthy all along, and good to recover from an illness. So he commands through Solomon, “Strike your son with the rod, and you will rescue his soul from death.” And again, “Do not hold back from disciplining your son; correct him with the rod, and he will not die.” Reproof and rebuke are the soul’s lashes, as the word itself suggests: they punish sins, keep death away, and bring back to self-control those who have been carried off into loose living. Plato too knew that reproof is the greatest power for reform and the most sovereign of purifications, and he says, in line with what has just been said, “that the man who is impure in the highest degree is uneducated and low, because he has gone unreproved in exactly those respects in which a man who is going to be truly happy ought to be purest and best.”

If rulers are not a terror to good work, how could God, who is good by nature, be a terror to a man who does not sin? “If you do wrong, be afraid,” says the apostle. That is why the apostle himself speaks sharply to the churches at every turn, following the Lord’s example; and, aware of his own bluntness and of how weak his hearers were, he says to the Galatians, “Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” In the same way, healthy people do not need a doctor — they do not need him as long as they are strong; it is the sick who need his skill. And so we, whose lives are sick with shameful desires and blameworthy excesses and the other inflammations the passions bring on, need the Savior. He gives us not only mild medicines but harsh ones. The bitter roots of fear stop the spreading sores of our sins. That is why fear is healthy, bitter though it is. Sick, we truly need the Savior; having wandered off, we need someone to set us on the road; blind, we need someone to lead us to the light; thirsty, we need “the spring of life, and whoever drinks of it will never be thirsty again”; dead, we need life; being sheep, we need a shepherd; being children, we need an instructor — and the whole human race needs Jesus. Then we will not stay unmanageable and sinners to the end and so fall under condemnation, but will be separated out from the chaff and stored up in the Father’s barn. “For the winnowing fork is in the Lord’s hand, and by it the chaff that belongs to the fire is separated from the wheat.” You can learn, if you want to, the crowning wisdom of the all-holy Shepherd and Instructor, the almighty and fatherly Word, in the picture he draws of himself as the Shepherd of the sheep. He is also the Instructor of the children. So he says through Ezekiel, turning his words to the elders and setting a healthy description of his own wise care before them: “The lame one I will bind up, the sick one I will heal, the one that has wandered I will turn back; and I will pasture them on my holy mountain.” Those are the good Shepherd’s promises. Pasture us, your children, like sheep. Yes, Master, fill us with righteousness, your own pasture. Yes, Instructor, pasture us on your holy mountain, the church, which stands high up, which is above the clouds, which touches heaven. “And I will be their Shepherd,” he says, and he will be close to them, like the clothing against their skin. He wants to save my flesh by wrapping it in the robe of immortality, and he has anointed my body. “They will call to me,” he says, “and I will say, Here I am.” You heard sooner than I expected, Master. “And if they cross over, they will not slip,” says the Lord; for we who are crossing over into immortality will not fall into decay, because he will hold us up. He has said so, and he has willed it so. Such is our Instructor: good in a way that is just. “I did not come to be served,” he says, “but to serve.” That is why the Gospel brings him on “tired out,” because he was working hard for us, and promising “to give his life as a ransom for many.” Only the man who does that does he acknowledge as the good shepherd. So he is generous, giving us the greatest of all gifts, his own life; and he does good beyond measure and loves human beings, in that when he could have been Lord he chose to be a brother man; and he was so good that he died for us.

And then his righteousness called out: “If you come to me straight, I too will come to you straight; but if you walk crooked, I too will walk crooked, says the Lord of hosts.” By the crooked ways he means the punishments of sinners. The straight and natural road, the one marked by the iota in the name of Jesus, is his goodness, which is firm and sure toward those who believed when they heard: “When I called, you did not obey, says the Lord; you made nothing of my advice and paid no attention to my reproofs.” So the Lord’s reproof does the greatest good. David also says of them, “A crooked and provoking generation, a generation that did not set its heart right, and whose spirit was not faithful with God; they did not keep God’s covenant, and they refused to walk in his law.” These are the provocations for which the Judge comes to inflict punishment on people who would not choose a life of goodness. That is why he went at them more roughly afterward — to drag them back, if it could be done, from their headlong rush toward death. So through David he gives the plainest cause of the threat: “They did not believe in his wonderful works. When he killed them, they went looking for him; they turned and searched for God early; and they remembered that God was their helper, and God Most High their redeemer.” So he knew that they turned out of fear, while they thought nothing of his love. As a rule, goodness that is always mild gets despised; but the one who warns with the loving fear that righteousness brings is held in awe.

Fear comes in two kinds. One of them comes with respect — the kind citizens show good rulers, the kind we show God, the kind sensible children show their fathers. “For a horse that is never broken turns out unmanageable, and a son left to take his own way turns out reckless.” The other kind of fear comes with hatred: what slaves feel toward harsh masters, and what the Hebrews felt, who made God a master and not a father. And where reverence for God is concerned, what is willing and comes of itself differs greatly — no, differs altogether — from what is forced. “For he is merciful,” it says; “he will heal their sins and not destroy them, and he will turn his anger right away and not kindle all his wrath.” See how the Instructor’s righteousness, which works by rebukes, is displayed, and God’s goodness, which works by acts of compassion. So David — that is, the Spirit through him — takes in both together and sings of God himself, “Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of his throne; mercy and truth will go before your face.” He is declaring that judging and doing good belong to one and the same power. Power reaches over both together, and judgment is what separates the righteous from its opposite. And the one who is truly God is righteous and good — who is himself everything, and everything is he; for he is God, the only God. A mirror does an ugly man no harm by showing him what he looks like, and a doctor does a sick man no harm by telling him he has a fever; the doctor did not cause the fever, he only pointed it out. In the same way, the one who reproves is not ill-disposed toward the man whose soul is diseased. He does not load the offenses onto him; he only shows the sins that are already there, so as to turn him away from doing the same again. So God is good on his own account and righteous on ours, and he is righteous because he is good. And his righteousness is shown to us by his own Word, from up there, from where he became Father. Before he became Creator he was God; he was good. And that is why he wanted to be Creator and Father. The nature of all that love was the source of righteousness, and the reason too that he lit up his sun and sent down his own Son. And he first announced the good righteousness that comes from heaven when he said, “No one knows the Son except the Father, nor the Father except the Son.” That knowledge, each of the other and both ways, is the sign of the righteousness that was there from the beginning. Then righteousness came down to human beings in letter and in body alike, in the Word and in the law, pressing the human race toward a repentance that saves; for it was good. But do you refuse to obey God? Then blame yourself: you are the one dragging the judge toward you.