On Sunday, my son's Sunday School class gave to him a coloring sheet with the words of Psalm 139:14 written on it. It simply said "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." I began to think about the notion of fear. What does it mean to be "fearfully" made? What is fear and where does it come from? Moreover, I began to wonder when fear began. Is it an emotion that has always existed? Am I born with the capacity to fear or is it a product of my environment? Where exactly did fear first begin? And then an additional question came to my mind, "Did fear exist before the Fall?"
Its an interesting question to ponder. I'm not sure I'm fully resolved on the issue. The Bible does not state whether Adam and Eve feared prior to the Fall or not. Did they fear being harmed by animals? Did they fear their Creator? Did they fear one another? I'm not sure. We are not told. What we are told is the encounter that occurs just after the Fall of Mankind in Genesis 3:8-10:
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself." (Gen 3:8-10, NASB)
A couple of quick observations here. Adam and his wife hid themselves from the "presence of the Lord". Clearly, prior to this point, they were not fearful of Him. They had no reason to be. Now that they had disobeyed, something inside of them clicked and they suddenly experienced the emotion of fear. God asks a rhetorical question and one that He knows the answer to - "Where are you?" However, I think He asks it to point out to Adam and Eve that something in their relationship to Him has changed. They are not acting as before. They now "know" good and evil and have chosen evil. Thus, they stand guilty before God and are afraid. Not just a little afraid either for he says "I heard the sound of You". Therefore, just the sound of God made him run. He darts into the woods like a deer running from on-coming traffic. He is afraid and states as much "I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself". This completes the circle. God points out that something has changed and they are acting unusual. Adam confirms it in his reply to God and in his reasoning for why he hid himself.
All of these things do not "prove" that fear did not exist before the Fall. However, it does make a strong case for it and is convincing in my mind. Here's the important thing though. If it is true that fear is apart of our human sinful nature that was given to us from birth as apart of the Fall then it is also true that fear was given to us to turn us back to God. God knew that the emotion of fear would be a necessary part of conviction. We need to fear that which is greater than us. Proverbs 1:7 states that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction."
Fear is a necessary part in understanding who God is and who we are not. Fear, if properly understood, should draw us back to God and create within us a desire to come clean before God, to be "naked" once again before Him, to know that we have not lived up to His standards and like Adam and Eve have sinned and turned from His commands. Fear teaches us that we are not invincible. We do not posssess all wisdom and knowledge. We cannot protect ourselves from all that is in the world.
Yet, we can turn to a Savior given to us by a God who also promised as much at this point in history. God prophesizes that One will come to bruise the serpent's head (Gen 3:14). This One to come will be Jesus and in Him all fear from God can be removed. Their can be no fear in love (1 Jn 4:18).
Joshua
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