Fear His Might and Holiness Celebrate His Mercy

Fear His Might and Holiness Celebrate His Mercy: Luke 1:49-50

Have you noticed how politically incorrect it has become to say ‘Merry Christmas’ these days? I have here a suggested, more PC holiday greetings that should keep you out of trouble this Christmas:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit my best wishes for an
environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive,
gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the
most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion or secular practices of
your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or
traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular
traditions at all;

And to go with that, here is the PC New Year greeting:

a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated
recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year, but not
without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose
contributions to society have helped make [Canada] great, (not to imply that
[Canada] is necessarily greater than any other country… and without regard to
the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of
computer platform, or sexual orientation of the wisher.

Now Here the disclaimer:

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is
subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no
alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to
actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void
where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.
This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of
good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent
holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement
of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher who
assumes no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings
may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.)

Let’s look at Mary’s lack of political correctness in the gospel (Lk 1:46-56).

Imagine if Mary had had a team of lawyers look over her magnificat for political correctness. It would probably look something like this:

That gender neutral he/she divine being who may or may not exist is impressive,
but not in a way that implies force or inequality with other divine
beings. He/she might possibly have done things that improve one’s
self-esteem. And inoffensive is his/her name. And his/her
permissiveness is to everyone from generation to generation.

I. (Holiness + Mightiness) x God = Horror.
The truth is, God is Holy and Mighty and Merciful. And no matter how many people have attempted to mute, dilute or destroy the doctrine of God’s power and holiness, His mercy is to those who fear Him from generation. But what does it mean to fear God. Is fear a kind of cowering dreadful horror that paralyzes us into submission? Is God a terrorist who uses fear to keep us in line?

What other things do we fear? We fear death; injury, violence; some people are afraid to fly; some fear public speaking; loneliness; the dark; pain; a diagnosis of cancer; the loss of our children; terrorists; war; natural disasters…. Is fear of God like those kinds of fear? It is and it isn’t.

We fear God the way we fear those things because He is the holiest and the most powerful being in the universe. His perfect holiness demands justice and his might gives him the power to carry out his justice upon us.

But fear of God is also different from any other fear because fear of God also contains ‘joy’. Joy, because of His mercy, which according to Mary is “to those who fear Him, from generation to generation.” Without joyful fear of God, your religion is not faith; it is mere servitude and empty works.

a. Holiness:
God is the most fearful, frightening being in the universe. Let’s look at the two attributes Mary declares which should cause us horror (the kind we experience on a plane when we hit heavy turbulence; or the kind we experience when a loved one is late to get home and we hear that there has been a shooting).

The first attribute is God’s holiness. What is holiness? I wonder if our limited human minds can truly understand holiness. Is there an analogy that does any service to the meaning of holiness? Revelation 15:4 says, “Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy.” And J.I. Packer writes that God’s holiness “covers all aspects of his… moral perfection and thus is an attribute of all his attributes, pointing to the “Godness” of God at every point.” [1]

The core of the concept, [of holiness] however, is God’s purity, which cannot
tolerate any form of sin (Hab. 1:13) and thus calls sinners to constant
self-abasement in his presence (Isa. 6:5). [2]

We often prefix holiness with the adjective ‘perfect’ as though there were degrees of holiness and God is the ultimate degree. But the truth is, compared to the holiness of God, everything else is corrupt. Even angels and saints derive their holiness from God. God’s holiness is light and it is unapproachable light, like a consuming fire. It means that he is set apart, free from sin. Because God’s holiness cannot tolerate evil and impurity, his holiness demands justice. RC Sproul says,

If God is holy at all, if God has an ounce of justice in His character, indeed
if God exists as God, how could He possibly be anything but angry with us?
We violate his holiness; we insult His justice; we make light of His
grace. These things can hardly be pleasing to Him.

We fallen humans are never sufficiently touched by our just how sinful we are until we consider and grasp just how sinless God is…. Horror filled Fear must be our reasonable response. Jonathan Edwards wrote,

He that sees the beauty of holiness, or true moral good, sees the greatest and
most important thing in the world. Unless this is seen, nothing is seen that is
worth seeing: for there is no other true excellence or beauty.

b. Mightiness of God
The other attribute of God mentioned by Mary is His might. Theologians prefer the term omnipotence- it means that God has all power and there is nowhere that His power cannot reach.

Power is a subject that is probably very near and dear to many of us after the last two months of hurricane strength winds and record snow falls. How many times has the power been cut off to your house in the last two months? It’s funny how when the power goes off, you suddenly realize how pervasive it is and how useless we would be without it. Making a cup of coffee takes seconds, even if we grind our own beans. We can change the channel on our televisions simply by moving our index fingers a just a few millimeters. But without power we become paralyzed.

When you consider the amount of power that surrounds us, you would wonder why it is so difficult to get it into our televisions and microwave ovens. Just look at our sun for example, every second the earth receives from the sun

…the astonishingly huge amount of 400 trillion trillion watts. To put this into
a crazy context, every second the sun produces the same energy as about a
trillion 1 megaton bombs! In one second, our sun produces enough energy for
almost 500,000 years of the current needs of our so-called civilization. If only
we could collect it all and use it! (Boston Globe).

Now if that weren’t enough energy in the universe all by itself, consider that there are 70 million million million (70 with 21 zeros after it) stars of varying size in the universe- some producing more power, some less. And that does not include all that energy that is produced by things like quasars, black holes, matter clusters, planets, asteroids and comets in the universe. It’s mind boggling to consider the amount of power there is in the universe. And yet, with less thought and energy then it takes a couch potato to push the button to change the channel, God put it all into motion when he said, let there be light. All the energy in the universe is barely a synaptic impulse that lasts a millisecond in the mind of God.

So, knowing his holiness and its accompanying demand for justice, God’s power means that He is able to judge; nothing can impede His justice.

II. (Holiness + Mightiness+ Mercy) x God = Godly Fear (i.e. Celebration)
The other attribute of God Mary praises is His mercy, which is towards those who fear His holiness and Might. Lamentation 3:22 says that it is because of the Lord’s infinite mercy that we are not all consumed. God’s mercy is best described as tender mercy. Like a mother for her nursing child. God’s mercy is to all people everywhere; otherwise He would destroy us all the moment we were born. Another word for mercy is grace. Grace implies that it is unmerited; otherwise, if we earned it, it would not be grace, but debt. Michael Haykin writes,

At the heart of the Reformation was one of the most fundamental questions of the
Christian faith: How can I be saved from eternal damnation? The answer of all
the leading Reformers was one and the same: only by God’s free and sovereign
grace.

There is a special grace given to God’s elect. In that grace, the Holiness and the power of God are most visibly displayed. That grace is found in the one who was being formed in Mary’s womb. But the ultimate act of mercy and display of God’s Holiness and power is not in the incarnation- that was just the beginning. The incarnation had the Cross for its aim. It would be at Calvary that God’s Holiness would be justified and his justice poured out against sin. At the Cross, the power of God to propitiate for our sins was proved. At that moment in time, God was able to pay the price for our sins past, present and future and give us eternal life.

Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to thee for dress.
Helpless, look to thee fro grace:
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me Savior, or I die.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee. Augustine Toplady

Does that not produce God Fear in you- fear mixed with joy? If it does, then His mercy is towards you.
The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death. By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil (Proverbs 14:27; 16:6).


Notes
[1]Packer, J. I. (1995, c1993). Concise theology : A guide to historic Christian beliefs. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House.
[2] Ibid.