THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE
THEIR EYES: (Ge 20:11;
Ps 36:1;
Pr 8:13;
16:6;
23:17;
Lu 23:40;
Rev 19:5)
Paul is quoting David from
Psalm 36:1For the
choir director. A Psalm of David the servant of the Lord.
Transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart;
There is no fear of God before his eyes.
Kent Hughes writes that
the order is...
"First the character,
then the conduct, and now the cause: the fear of God is
left out of their thinking." (Hughes,
R. K. Romans: Righteousness from heaven. Preaching the Word. Wheaton,
Ill.: Crossway Books
Spurgeon comments on
Psalm 36:1 writing that
"Men’s
sins have a voice to godly ears. They are the outer index of an inner
evil. It is clear that men who dare to sin constantly and presumptuously
cannot respect the great Judge of all. Despite the professions of
unrighteous men, when we see their unhallowed actions our heart is
driven to the conclusion that they have no religion whatever.
Unholiness is clear evidence of ungodliness. Wickedness is the fruit of
an atheistic root. This may be made clear to the candid heart by cogent
reasoning, but it is clear already and intuitively to the pious heart.
If God is everywhere, and I fear Him, how can I dare to break His laws
in His very presence? Those eyes which have no fear of God before them
now will have terrors of hell before them forever."
(Treasury of David)
Scripture repeatedly says that we are to
"Fear the LORD and turn away from evil."
(Pr 3:7b)
"The fear of the LORD is to
hate evil." (Pr 8:13a),
"by the fear of the LORD one
keeps away from evil"
(Pr 16:6b).
Solomon summed up his wise sayings declaring
"The conclusion, when
all has been heard, is: fear God and
keep His commandments,
because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to
judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil."
(Ecc
12:13-14)
Job set the standard for godly fear, Scripture
recording that
"There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was
Job, and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God, and
turning away from evil."
(Job
1:1)
Godet
explains that "Fear
of God" is
"the normal expression for piety in the Old
Testament; it is that disposition in man which has always God present in
the heart, His will and judgment. The words: before their eyes , show
that it belongs to man freely to evoke or suppress this inward view of
God, on which his moral conduct depends. This final characteristic is
borrowed from
Psalm 36:1, which marks the
contrast between the faithful and the wicked even in Israel.."
Ray Stedman adds that...
"To put it in the words of the
street today, "man couldn't care less about what God thinks about him"
-- and this is the root of all of the problems in human life. There is
no concern for God's opinion in man's life." (Read full text of
Peale or Paul?)
When men no longer fear God, there is no restraint upon their
lusts. The NLT conveys the idea nicely --
"They have no fear of God to
restrain them”
Calvin
sums it up writing...
"In
short, as (the fear of God) is a bridle to restrain our
wickedness, so when it is wanting, we feel at liberty to indulge every
kind of licentiousness." (
Robert Haldane comments on "no
fear" that mankind has
"not that reverential fear of Him
which is the beginning of wisdom, which is connected with departing from
evil, and honoring and obeying Him, and is often spoken of in Scripture
as the sum of all practical religion; on the contrary, they are
regardless of His majesty and authority, His precepts and His
threatenings. It is astonishing that men, while they acknowledge that
there is a God, should act without any fear of His displeasure. Yet this
is their character. They fear a worm of the dust like themselves, but
disregard the Most–High,
Isaiah 51:12, 18. They are more afraid of man than of God—of his anger, his contempt,
or ridicule. The fear of man (Pr 29:25) prevents them from doing many things from which they are not
restrained by the fear of God. That God will put His fear in the hearts
of His people, is one of the distinguishing promises of the new
covenant, which shows that proof to this it is not found there."
(Haldane, R. An Exposition of Romans)
Briscoe tells the story of the
time he was...
Recently, in the Caribbean, I
observed expert scuba divers at work. I was impressed by their sober
assessment of the dangers related to their diving and the ways in which
they made responsible procedural precautions to obviate the danger. This
led to a very high degree of safety and a resulting high standard of
efficiency and enjoyment. Others less knowledgeable tend to take
terrible risks through lack of respect and finish up in dire danger and
not infrequently suffer serious consequences. The more you know God and
respect Him, the more conscious you are of the dangers inherent in
ignoring who He is. But little knowledge leads to no respect, and that
is the road to disaster. (Briscoe,
D. S., & Ogilvie, L. J. The Preacher's Commentary Series, New
Testament. 2003; Thomas Nelson)
William Newell writes that
"This
great passage then, (Romans 3:9 to 18) needs to be pondered,
prayed' over, thoroughly believed, and preached continually, in these
last days, when God-consciousness is dying out. It is no kindness, but a
terrible wrong, to hide from a criminal the sentence that must surely
overtake him unless pardoned; for a physician to conceal from a patient
a cancer that will destroy him unless quickly removed; for one
acquainted with the hidden pitfalls of a path he beholds someone taking,
not to warn him of his danger!" (Romans 3: Devotional
and Expositional)
Charles Hodge adds that by the phrase
"the fear of God” we may understand, according to its use in
Scripture, reverence for God, piety towards him; or fear in the more
restricted sense, dread of his wrath. Either way, the reckless
wickedness of men proves that they are destitute of all proper respect
for God. They act as if there were no God, no Being to Whom they are
responsible for their behavior and Who has the intention and power to
punish them for their iniquity." (Hodge, C. Romans)
"before" (561) (apénanti
from apó = from + énanti = before, over
against, in the presence of) means in a position that faces against an
object or other position = opposite to, over against, in front of,
before, in the presence of.
Cranfield comments on "before
their eyes"
writing that
"by his eyes “a man directs his steps. So to say that
there is no fear of God before his eyes is a figurative way of saying
that the fear of God has no part in directing his life, that God is left
out of his reckoning, that he is a practical, whether or not he is a
theoretical, atheist."
Warren Wiersbe adds that
"The effect is total, because
his entire being is vitiated. Observe at this point the various members
of the body referred to: the throat, the tongue, and the
lips (v13); the mouth (v14); the feet (v15); and the eyes (v18). This list serves to
affirm what theologians speak of as total depravity, i.e., not
that man in his natural state is as bad as he can possibly be, but
rather that his entire being is adversely affected by sin. His whole
nature is permeated with it." (Wiersbe,
W: Bible Exposition Commentary. 1989. Victor)
Ray Stedman adds that
"When you
read this terrible description of the human race as God sees it, it is
almost impossible for us to believe that God is not going to say,
"Enough! Wipe them out!" If all he sees is wretchedness, misery, evil,
deceit, hypocrisy, vulgarity, profanity, slander, and all these evil
things that are in every heart -- every one without exception -- our
natural instinct is to say, "Then God doesn't want us." But the amazing
thing is that across this kind of verse He writes, "God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son," (John
3:16a KJV). God did not send the Law to destroy us (and
this is very important); he sent the Law to keep us from false hope."
(Stedman, R.
Sermon Notes)
William Barclay sums up this
section writing that...
Paul never underrated the sin of man
and he never underrated the redeeming power of Jesus Christ. Once, when
he was a young man, William Roby, the great Lancashire Independent, was
preaching at Malvern. His lack of success drove him to despair, and he
wished to leave the work. Then came a seasonable reproof from a certain
Mr. Moody, who asked him,
“Are they, then, too bad to be
saved?”
The challenge sent William Roby back
to his work. Paul believed men without Christ to be bad, but he never
believed them too bad to be saved. He was confident that what Christ had
done for him Christ could do for any man. (Barclay,
W: The Daily Study Bible Series, Rev. ed. Philadelphia: The Westminster
Press)
Tozer wrote that...
No one can know the true grace of God
who has not first known the fear of God.
Note that Paul's list of 14 moral
defects does not mean to convey that all the characteristics of sin
listed are in evidence in every life. Frederic Godet has written that
"Some, even most of them, may remain
latent in many men: but they all exist in germ in the selfishness and
natural pride of the ego, and the least circumstance may cause them to
pass into the active state."
