Fear of Elohim is the Beginning of Wisdom
By
Gary Primo
May 2, 2015
Introduction
We have all heard it said that the fear of Elohim is the beginning of Wisdom. But what does this saying actually mean for us today and how does it apply to our spiritual identity? These are the questions I wish to explore in this article. For those like myself, who have never experienced true terror or fear, this might be a difficult emotion to muster. And; therefore, I often question myself as to the degree of fear of Elohim I have and how that is affecting my spiritual life. Some of you might feel the same way, so hopefully this study sheds some light on the subject for all of us.
One of my questions involves loving Elohim and fearing Him at the same time. Since absolute fear is something I have never really experienced before, I have some difficulty in feeling such an emotion. Yet, anyone who has experienced war, hurricanes or tornadoes (just to mention a few such circumstances) will be very familiar with that emotion.
On the other hand, love is something I have had much experience with, as, I am sure, we all have. There is the love towards parents and siblings, towards girlfriends and wives, children and so on. We all have ample opportunity and desire to feel this emotion. It is a pleasant emotion; whereas fear is quite the opposite. Therefore, we don’t want to feel this emotion (fear) because it is so unpleasant – and we may be attempting to avoid it in our relationship with Yahuwah and Yahushua. However, if it brings with it wisdom, we might want to think on that one. What wisdom could we be missing out on?
Also, fear and love are not two emotions that go naturally together or are commonly felt at the same time. Therefore, how do we do so in regard to Yahuwah? And, how does one do so when they do not even know what true fear is or feels like?
The question that naturally follows is, “If we truly love Elohim, do we need to fear Him. Can the same wisdom evolve out of love that evolves out of fear? Or is it the wisdom of love that evolves from the fear of Yahuwah?
What the Scriptures Say
Job 28:28 - And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of Yahuwah, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.
Without the word/law of Yahuwah we would not know good from evil. Therefore, in fearing Elohim, we must study His word and His laws to learn what is good and what is evil. In the beginning, it is the fear of Yahuwah that drives us to learn His word and His law. We do our best to resist evil and to exalt righteousness. We endeavor to take on the nature of Yahuwah which is the nature of love.
Many times Yahuwah has to resort to “tough love” to wake those up whom He is calling. We sometimes have to resort to this kind of love when dealing with rebellious teenagers. It does not mean that we love that teen any less. This is simply a necessary teaching method. At its root is pure love. If we did not love our child, we would not strive to correct them. If Yahuwah did not love us, He would simply recall His spirit, which upholds all life in the universe, and begin all over again. We are indeed fortunate that Yahuwah is so patient.
Ps. 111:10 - The fear of Yahuwah is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endures forever.
The fear of Yahuwah leads to studying and learning His laws. That, in turn leads to love and understanding. So, is there a point when the fear of Yahuwah is no longer necessary? Does the need to fear Yahuwah vanish once we feel confident in our love of Yahuwah? Or should we maintain a degree of fear for good measure and to remind us not to return to sin?
The fear of Yahuwah develops in us first, usually as a result of some traumatic event in our lives. That motivates us to seek to please Yahuwah; which in turn, leads to loving Yahuwah and seeking to make His nature ours. The secret to taking on the nature of Yahuwah is to learn His laws and internalize them to the degree that they become part of our nature and we naturally obey. Since the fear begins with knowing that we are under the penalty of death, it naturally fades when we realize Yahuwah’s promise of forgiveness for repentance and turn back to Yahuwah. We invite Yahuwah into our lives instead of fleeing from him. We pray for His coming instead of dreading it.
Of course, this does not always save us from physical trauma and a violent death/martyrdom, but even that is to be seen as a final testing rather than a punishment. Rather than wail and moan that Yahuwah is giving us a trial too great to bear, we should be glorifying Yahuwah for the opportunity to prove our faith and obedience. If Yahushua could endure what he endured, then we should do also, with great gladness.
Pr. 9:10 -33 - The fear of Yahuwah is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility.
We honour many individuals in our society for different reasons. Usually it is for some achievement they have realized. It could be a movie star, a sports figure, musician of even a politician. When we begin our walk in the Way of Yahuwah, one of the first things we realize is that the only one truly deserving of all honour is Yahuwah. In giving all honour to Him, we must first humble ourselves before Him. In doing so we strip ourselves of our physical, human will and give ourselves over to His will – completely and willfully; which is the choice Adam should have made. Oh, what a different world it would be if he had!
Honour is related to pride. Both are attached to self, and/or the love and worship of oneself. Humility is the exact opposite. When we compare ourselves to the rest of humanity, we might find much about ourselves to give us a false sense of honour and pride. However, when we compare ourselves to Yahuwah or Yahushua, we find little in ourselves to be honoured and even less to be proud of. It is Yahuwah’s degree of righteousness that we wish to attain to, not some human rock star’s. Attaining Yahuwah’s righteousness is a much loftier goal than seeking after the righteousness of men. Remember that righteousness of men is like filthy rags compared to the righteousness of Yahuwah.
Isa. 64:6 - But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Prov. 15:33 - The fear of Yahuwah is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
One of the first things we learn when beginning this walk is that every word of Yahuwah is “holy” or “set-apart” as righteous instruction that will greatly benefit our spiritual walk. We learn to be righteous by following the Laws of Yahuwah until they ingrained in our nature. There are no grey areas. Everything is spelt out for us in plain black and white. We are without excuse. In fact, if we are still seeking excuses, we are not fit for the Kingdom.
When we do finally acknowledge Yahuwah’s righteousness, understanding falls right into place behind it. Understanding, in turn, makes believing all the more easy.
Everything with Yahuwah goes hand in hand and feeds off something else. It demonstrates our dependence on something outside of ourselves for our survival. It reminds us that we are not Elohim yet, and until that time are totally dependent on Yahuwah for our continued existence and our future spiritual existence afterward.
Pr 1:7 - The fear of Yahuwah is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
The ways of this world are foolishness to Yahuwah.
1 Cor. 3:19 - For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with Elohim. For it is written, He takes the wise in their own craftiness.
The foolish deny and despise Yahuwah, and therefore despise His righteous instruction in wisdom. Worldly wisdom is honoured higher than Yahuwah’s and the world continues to fight against wind mills. Worldly wisdom begets pride and arrogance. Yahuwah’s wisdom begets humility. There is a huge difference.
Eccl. 9:18 - Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroys much good.
Worldly wisdom has done nothing to rid the world of the concept of war. Instead, making war is becoming an industry that produces a great deal of global profit (approx. 40% of the global GDP). We now have weapon’s sales leading the global GDP. The only way to maintain their profit levels is to incite more wars. Thus we have new crisis’ breaking out all over the globe. Righteous wisdom would seek a peaceful resolution first.
Sin is like a cancer; or like throwing a stone in water. It produces a ripple effect affecting all that it comes in contact with. Just as the sins of the father affect his descendants for 3-4 generations to come, the sins of one man can affect many – eg. Stalin, Hitler. If men such as these had of sought the wisdom of Yahuwah, they would be remembered much differently today.
The Warnings to the Seven Churches
Beginning in Revelation 2, we have 7 letters written to 7 of the assemblies in the Middle East. They all end with pretty much the same dire warning.
Rev. 2:7 - He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches; To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
11 - He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches; He that overcomes shall not be hurt of the second death.
17 - He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the hidden manna,and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
26 - And he that overcomes, and., to him will I give power over the nations:
Rev. 3:5 - He that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
12 - Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my Elohim, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my Elohim, and the name of the city of my Elohim, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my Elohim: and I will write upon him my new name.
21 - To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
We all have our part to do in the salvation process, which is to “overcome”. Exactly what is it that we are to overcome? We are to overcome the ways of this world, which we can only do if we change our own nature. We can only change our nature by replacing it with another nature – the nature of Elohim. When we fully adopt Yahuwah’s nature as our own, we obey Yahuwah simply because it is our nature to do so. The thought to sin no longer enters our minds. Have any of us reached this stage of perfection yet? I highly doubt it! That being the case, overcoming certainly seems like a life-long pursuit. Therefore, the admonition to overcome to the end!
Is such an endeavour even possible? Of course it is, as our Eldest Brother already showed us. As I have shown in other articles, Yahushua was the beginning of the creation of Yahuwah. He was the seed of creation. Yet He remained a part of the creation – a created being, an only begotten son. He too was given the gift of free choice. Yahushua made the choice which Adam should have made – to give himself over completely to the Father and perform His will at all times.
Yahushua overcame the will to do evil long before the creation of man and could have graduated to His eternal existence at any point in time before he created the universe. Yet it was the Father’s purpose that He was to become the perfect sacrifice for sin. Therefore, He had to wait until he performed this final test – not for His sake but for ours. His was a victory for the entire creation, but few in this world appreciate or believe in His sacrifice.
We are given this exact same glorious goal of overcoming our carnal nature and taking on the nature of Elohim. We are expected to be found working continuously towards this end. We may not achieve the same degree of perfection as Yahushua but if our hearts are dedicated to this end, we will win the victory.
Conclusion
It is fear of Yahuwah that originally brings us into this life. Fear of Yahuwah is intended to turn to love as we build His nature in ourselves. Yet, the fear of failure should dog our every step.
As the seven letters revealed, we are to be found in the process of overcoming our entire lives. Why? Because it is so easy to fall off the path and be mislead into taking a different path. I have been witness to such falling away many times over. Some were people I highly regarded. Yet, they turned their backs on Yahuwah as easily as turning off a switch; or so it seemed to me. I believe the source of their actions was that they were looking for a man to be their high priest and saviour in place of Yahushua. However, as the Book of Hebrews clears explains, we now have an eternal and incorruptible High Priest, who cannot die as human high priests. He remains the High Priest of the entire universe for all time. We need no other human high priest. We have free and open access to the only true High Priest.
For those truly dedicated to serving and taking on the nature of Yahuwah, there is only one fear – of losing out on salvation. As history and the Scriptures prove, this is a real fear, not some imagined one. It has happened to others we knew and respected. There is no reason why it cannot happen to us – maybe not anytime soon, but in the future. Just as the others had no idea that it happened to them, we might also have no idea if it happens to us. Something or someone might persuade us to follow a different path; and before we know it, we are excusing our behaviour and turning farther and farther away from Yahuwah.
Fear of Yahuwah led us to worshiping Him and learning His Way. That fear turned into love when we began learning His laws and seeking His Way. We learned of Yahuwah’s great love towards His creation and how to emulate that love in our personal relationships. We discovered a degree of love that is so above any human capacity that it was difficult to grasp at first. But, we slowly began to grasp it and apply it in our lives.
The law of love is at the core of everything that is Yahuwah. When one absorbs this one, all-encompassing law into their nature, all the other laws fall neatly in place behind it. And, once that happens, one no longer needs to fear the sentence of death that we were all once under. The only fear left is of falling away and off the true path.
But for those who do chose this wrong path, they do not seem fearful at all, but appear joyous, as if having been liberated. They return to the world with great joy and relief. I wonder what their excuse will be when standing in the final judgement. All I know is that I would not want to be standing in their shoes at the time (and certainly hope I am not).
None of us know the degree of our faith until we are put to the test. And, none of us know if we are going to pass the test until it is over. There certainly is a danger attached to being over confident. So, I maintain that we should retain an element of this type of fear with us always.
Otherwise speaking, I believe that love eventually conquers fear – at least the type of fear that we begin our journey with. Once we accept the fact that we have been forgiven and commit our lives to Yahuwah, love eventually replaces that fear. But we must retain the fear of falling away to hopefully ensure that we do not do so. If that does happen, we return to that original fear of being under the penalty of death for sin. We will have come full circle – sin to salvation to sin again. After that there remains no hope of salvation ever again. Is this something to be feared? I would certainly think so and pray that none of us ever come to this point.
The fear of Yahuwah is the beginning of wisdom. It leads us to either taking on the nature of Yahuwah or rejecting it. One does not need to have experienced horrific trauma before developing a fear of Yahuwah. For me it came simply from reading the Scriptures for the first time, as an atheist trying to disprove the Scriptures. I actually heard the voice of Yahuwah condemning my sins as they were revealed to me. It spoke to my conscience and caused me to feel great guilt and fear.
Since fear is such an unpleasant emotion, we naturally wish to replace it with an emotion that is much more pleasant – the emotion of love. Love is the only thing that conquers fear. When we have the love of Yahuwah fully in our hearts and our nature, there remains nothing to fear from Yahuwah. And, attaining the love of Yahuwah is the wisdom that evolves from fearing Yahuwah.
When we learn to love like Yahuwah, we have fulfilled all of the requirements of the law and they no longer apply to us since we are then obedient by nature.
Yahuwah Bless
G.P.