📖 Biblical Definition
Godly fear is the reverent dread proper to a creature before the Holy God — not slavish terror, not casual familiarity, but the weight of recognized holiness. Hebrews names it as the manner of acceptable New-Covenant service: "Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28-29). Solomon names it as the beginning of wisdom: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding" (Proverbs 9:10). The man without godly fear may be religious; he is not yet wise — and he is not yet ready to serve.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
(Composite.) The reverent awe of God appropriate to the creature's relation to the Creator.
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Webster: fear — in religious sense, “a kind of awe; reverence; veneration.”
Scripture distinguishes godly fear (proper reverence) from worldly fear (anxiety, dread of man, panic). Two different Hebrew and Greek words sometimes overlap; context distinguishes them.
📖 Key Scripture
Proverbs 1:7 — "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction."
Hebrews 12:28 — "Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear."
Hebrews 5:7 — "Who in the days of his flesh... was heard in that he feared."
Psalm 111:10 — "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Modern Christianity flinches at fear-of-the-LORD vocabulary; Scripture insists it is the beginning of wisdom and the proper manner of acceptable service.
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Two errors flank godly fear. The first softens it into vague respect — God-as-grandfather, no real weight. The second hardens it into terror — God-as-tyrant, no relationship. Scripture refuses both: godly fear is reverence with weight, perfectly compatible with the saint's confidence at the throne of grace (Heb 4:16).
Christ Himself, in Hebrews 5:7, was heard in that he feared. The Son of God prayed in godly fear. The saint who never feels the weight of holiness has not yet met the God of Hebrews.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Hebrew yirat YHWH (fear of YHWH) is the great Old Testament technical term.
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Hebrew yirat YHWH — the fear of the LORD; the beginning of wisdom.
Greek eulabeia — cautious devout reverence; the word in Hebrews 5:7 of Christ Himself.
Usage
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom — not its end, but its beginning."
"Christ Himself was heard in that He feared."
"Reverence with weight is the manner of acceptable service."