THE WORD FEAR DEFINED

Fear is either expressive of reverence or terror.

Fear as terror is generally expressed by the Hebrew words magor, and pacadh, and by the Greek word phobos.

Fear as being reverence is denominated in Hebrew as yirah, and in Greek as eulabeia. However, these words are occasionally also used without this distinction.

Fear issues forth from love—either for ourselves or for God. Self-love engenders fear when something occurs which could deprive us of something good or whereby some evil could befall us. We fear deprivation, or the evil itself, and whatever or whoever would deprive us of that which is good, or whereby evil could be inflicted upon us.

God has created self-love in man and wills that we make use of it. The law requires that we love our neighbor as ourselves (Mat 22:39). It is therefore not sinful to fear deprivation and evil. This fear was inherent in Adam’s nature prior to the fall, even though there was no occasion for this fear to arise in him. The Lord Jesus also had such fear (cf. Mat 26:37; Heb 5:7). One may indeed be fearful of death and other discomforts, and thus also of wild animals and evil men.

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