And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

It is interesting to me that as we study New Testament texts that we keep running into statements that we should fear in regards to our conduct here in this world. Peter tells us to conduct ourselves with fear, and Paul tells us in Phil 2 to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.” If we could find some common ground between these texts, maybe we can understand a little better about the nature of the fear we are supposed to have. Remember that in 1 John we are told that “perfect love casts out all fear,” so we are dealing with a somewhat complicated issue here.

I think the common thread between 1 Peter and Philippians concerning fear is the connection that our behavior has toward God. In Philippians, Paul is telling them to fear because God is at work in them. Peter is telling them to fear because they know they have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. Thus, the fear should apparently be present simply because we are encountering God. Also, the fear Peter is speaking of seems to stem from the fact that Jesus’ blood is perfect and invaluable. If we are cleansed by such a perfect sacrifice, it should be a fearful thing for us to take on again the filth of sin. When we sin we are in effect making a statement about God that He is not good enough for us, and this should simply scare us to death. When we sin after we have been cleansed we are in effect saying that we prefer the filth to the cleansing; again this should make us tremble.

The wonderful truth is that we don’t fear and tremble because we might lose our salvation, but we fear and tremble because we are saved and reconciled to a holy God. The unbreakable relationship He has formed with us through faith unites us to a perfect Father, a perfect Son (the Lamb without blemish), and a perfect Spirit who lives within us. This relationship is unbreakable because as Peter already wrote, we are protected by the power of God through faith. However, the fear comes in when we sin because God still hates sin. God is still holy, and though we will one day be perfectly sanctified, we are not yet. Hence, the fear of the character of God, we fear because He is perfect and we are not. We do not fear His wrath anymore if we are in Christ, the Lamb has taken that for us, but we conduct ourselves with fear knowing the kind of God who redeemed us. When John wrote that “perfect love casts out all fear,” he was writing in the context of the day of judgment, and indeed in that day we will not fear because that is the day of our glorification. Until then, we rejoice in our salvation and fight with reckless abandon against sin because God is holy and therefore we should be holy.

One other note before I finish. We must remember that Christ was “foreordained before the foundation of the world,” and as Paul writes in Ephesians, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” This gives me great joy and security to know that God’s plan has worked and is working exactly as scripted. Neither Satan, nor anyone else has “messed up” God’s perfectly ordained plan of creation, fall, and redemption. We have always been a part of something much bigger than ourselves, and it is a greatly reassuring truth that we rest upon His power and wisdom rather than our own. Enjoy the Lamb who has been planned as your Savior when you were merely a thought in the mind of God!