Religion of Fear and Trembling

For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. For they could not bear the command, "IF EVEN A BEAST TOUCHES THE MOUNTAIN, IT WILL BE STONED." And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, "I am full of fear and trembling." (Hebrews 12:18-21)

It is extremely clear that these verses are being contrasted with the following verses to highlight the differences between two ways of religion, two very different paradigms of reality, two very different perceptions of God and of what is important to us.

As I meditate carefully on the contrasts presented here it becomes evident to me at least two characteristics that can be seen about this description. One is that this first paradigm is based mostly on externals and the second characteristic is that it is also filled with the element of fear. I find this very interesting because those are the two things that have become transition issues in my own life and relationship with God over the past few years. I don't think that it is just a coincidence that these are prominent in this passage.

The Old Covenant, which was formed most openly at Mount Sinai, was the attempt of humans to be good enough to please God and be saved. It was a response of fear mixed with self-dependence and a definite lack of understanding their own weakness and the overwhelming difference between themselves and the goodness of God. (see Exodus 19:8; 24:3,7) Their perceptions of God were seriously distorted by years of ignorance and slavery and the infiltration of false ideas picked up in Egypt and absorbed into their thinking about the supernatural. Their motivation for life had been for so many years based on fear instilled in them by slave-masters employing force and fear to motivate them that they almost could not conceive that any other way of living might exist.

Because God wanted to move them toward a real relationship with Himself (which is always God's primary purpose for all of us) the only way that He could communicate with them in such a way as they could even comprehend that someone was actually addressing them was to use the only language they could comprehend to some extent. At that point in their existence and with the severe handicaps of thinking and perceiving that they had, it would have had little connection with their minds or hearts to reveal Himself to them primarily as the kind, gentle humble example that Jesus demonstrated when He came to earth. Moses was that example for them as much as possible, but it was also necessary to gain their respect by getting their attention in the only ways they paid attention to in their slave mentality.

It was necessary in some respects to display the superiority of the power and abilities of God to convince them that this God was indeed much more to be respected and honored than any of the other supposed gods of the world around them. All of the other gods were not only powerful in various degrees and specialties but were also generally very selfish and abusive in their exploitation of their power over humans. It was popularly believed by all religions of the time that humans were created to be the slaves of the gods and that humans had to do all sorts of things to appease the capricious, selfish emotions of the gods to keep them happy enough to not abuse their slaves too much.

All of these misconceptions and many more about God were necessary to address if God was to get their attention sufficiently to get them to pay attention to Him as the real God who wanted them to follow Him instead of any other gods. But the problem became that in addressing all of these misconceptions assumed from their beliefs in false gods He also ran the risk of being very much misunderstood, which is exactly what happened.

It was quite necessary for God to display His superior power and authority in order to gain their respect and attention, but He did so with the intent that they would realize their total inability to live up to His high standard of character and would turn to Him in hopelessness and despair and ask what they were to do about it. If they had done that God would have immediately been able to introduce the real plan of salvation and grace in much more fullness and they could have lived in the same kind of relationship to God that Jesus clarified much later.

But instead, they mistakenly believed that what God wanted was perfect obedience above relationship. Now that is not to say that perfect obedience is not extremely important. But the problem is that anyone who jumps onto that issue as their primary emphasis above pursuit of an intimate relationship with Jesus is still caught in the same cycle of thinking and false assumptions that tripped up the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. They are attempting an impossibility and they are headed into a gloomy path of fear-based religion focused on external compliance with rules and standards. They will be sucked into the vortex of the tornado of fear and discouragement, the whirlwind of obsessing with trying to become good enough to please God.

This is the very kind of thinking that is addressed by the book of Hebrews and is coming to a focal point in this passage. It is very clearly not just a problem of the Jews but is just as much the same problem today. It is the problem that I struggle with on a daily basis as I try to unlearn the ways of thinking that I received from the religion of my family and church and culture and try to have my heart and mind retrained to live and perceive and think and feel in completely different ways that are mostly foreign to me. That is not to say that they were completely wrong about everything, but the emphasis was generally on the wrong elements.

I am learning very slowly how to live with more attention to the condition of my spirit and what that tells me about my relationship with God instead of measuring myself by lists of external symptoms. It is not that those externals are meaningless anymore, but I am learning to view them strictly as symptoms to give me clues as to what is really going on at the more important level of my heart relationship with God instead of the other way around.

This transition also involves working to extricate myself from the many habits of my mind based on fear that suffocate my ability to be loved and to love. It also means exposure of more and more of my pride and self-dependence that block me from enjoying the freedom of being influenced and used by God to live and thrive as I was designed to do. My religion for most of my life could be much more accurately explained and aligned with the description in these four verses than in the following ones. But praise God, He is leading me into the exciting reality of living life at Mt. Zion and transforming me into a person in whom He can demonstrate His glory and love.

But right now while I am still in the transition stage I am a strange and many times confusing amalgamation of ideas and practices from both mountains. It is confusing to me as well as to those observing me many times. But I am not in charge of this transformation, Jesus is. And He has promised to bring to completion what He started – He is faithful. That process involves learning a whole new way of thinking and having my paradigms challenged and replaced as I listen with my heart and my mind to what He is showing me from His Word. His Spirit is also busy opening my understanding everyday and taking many things and rearranging them in my thinking and my subconscious belief system. I am definitely a work in progress – be patient with me, God is not finished with me yet.

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