Alarm or fright
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φόβος in the NT is not a problem to be solved but a posture to be calibrated. 1 John 4:18 — 'there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear' — is not a command to abandon all φόβος before God; it targets the specific fear of punishment that characterizes the relationship of a slave, not a child.
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Full entry for φόβος (G5401) · Open the biblical lexicon
φόβος in the NT is not a problem to be solved but a posture to be calibrated. 1 John 4:18 — 'there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear' — is not a command to abandon all φόβος before God; it targets the specific fear of punishment that characterizes the relationship of a slave, not a child.
The BSB source-word alignment has 47 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include fear (24), respect (4), A sense of awe (2), . . . (1), [and] reverent (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 14:26. Its strongest book concentrations include Luke (7), 1 Peter (5), 2 Corinthians (5), Acts (5).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
φόβος in the NT is not a problem to be solved but a posture to be calibrated. 1 John 4:18 — 'there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear' — is not a command to abandon all φόβος before God; it targets the specific fear of punishment that characterizes the relationship of a slave, not a child. The φόβος of punishment is incompatible with mature love because it is rooted in unresolved condemnation.
But the NT commands a different φόβος throughout: Acts 9:31 ('walking in the fear of the Lord'), 2 Cor 7:1 ('perfecting holiness in the fear of God'), Heb 12:28 ('with reverence and awe'). These are not stages to move through but continuing postures of the redeemed before their holy God. The two registers — alarm-fear and reverence-fear — cannot simply be separated, because the NT uses the same word for both precisely to say that the reverential posture retains something of the trembling quality.
Rom 3:18 ('there is no fear of God before their eyes') names the absence of fear before God as Paul's climactic diagnosis of sin's Godward disorder, not merely as a minor spiritual deficiency.
φόβος is indexed at about 47 NT occurrences in the local Greek artifact. The selected witnesses emphasize Luke-Acts responses to divine action, Pauline reverential ethics, Hebrews, 1 Peter, and 1 John 4:18 on the relationship between fear, punishment, and love.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. The one who fears has not been perfected in love.
The NT's most precise treatment of φόβος. John identifies the specific fear that love drives out: the fear that has to do with punishment (κόλασιν). This is the slave-fear of one who has not yet grasped that the condemnation has been removed. It is not a command to abandon reverential awe — the same letter commands keeping God's commandments (1 John 5:3) — but a theological description of what mature love does to the fear of condemnation.
Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria experienced a time of peace. It grew in strength and numbers, living in the fear of the Lord and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit.
The church's characteristic double posture: φόβος κυρίου (fear of the Lord) and the comfort of the Holy Spirit — held together, not in tension. This is the Acts summary of what a healthy community of the new covenant looks like: neither fear without comfort nor comfort without fear.
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Paul's catena of OT indictments of human sinfulness (citing Ps 36:1) ends here. The absence of fear before God is not merely irreverence; in Paul's catena it exposes sin's Godward disorder and helps explain the moral chaos described in vv.10-17. Fear before God is structural in Paul's diagnosis; without reverence before God, the moral field collapses.
Overwhelmed with fear, they asked one another, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
The disciples' φόβος after the calming of the storm is greater than the φόβος they had during it (v.40: 'why are you so afraid?'). The command had been not to fear the storm; the proper response to the calming is the awe-fear that recognizes divine power. The question 'Who then is this?' is what φόβος rightly generates.
And free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
The bondage-φόβος: the fear of death that enslaves. Christ delivers from this fear through His own death and resurrection. This is the negative form of φόβος — not the reverence that liberates but the dread that enslaves. The contrast with Acts 9:31 shows an important NT range: φόβος of death = slavery; φόβος of the Lord = freedom and multiplication.
Therefore, since we know what it means to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is clear to God, and I hope it is clear to your conscience as well.
Paul's φόβος of the Lord is the motivation for his apostolic work. The judgment seat of Christ (v.10) produces a reverential urgency — not terror of condemnation, but the sober weight of accountability that drives the ministry of reconciliation.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. Reverential awe of God distinct from mere terror; encompasses both fear and worshipful respect
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 47 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
fear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read versefear, terror, reverence
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 5 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 47 lexical occurrence verses.
Healthy church life includes reverence before God, not casual familiarity. 1 John 4:17-21
Holy fear preserves the integrity and seriousness of worship and community life. Acts 2:42-47
Contrasted with mature love, which removes anxious anticipation of judgment. Acts 5:1-11
The gospel transforms fearful expectation of punishment into confident assurance.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
1 John 4:18 is often read as a dismissal of all φόβος before God, but John's target is precise: fear that has to do with punishment. Perfect love casts out the slave's fear of condemnation — not the child's reverence for a holy Father. The church in Acts 9:31 walks in the fear of the Lord and grows; Paul persuades from the fear of the Lord (2 Cor 5:11); Peter commands 'fear God' (1 Pet 2:17) in the same breath as 'love the brotherhood.'
The NT does not outgrow the OT's 'fear of the Lord' tradition — it reorients it: the fear of punishment is displaced by love; the fear of God as holy sovereign is deepened by knowing His name as Father.
1John.4.18
The classical etymology of φόβος from 'flight' (panic causing someone to run) preserves in the word itself the sense that genuine fear of God reorients action. The LXX φόβος κυρίου formula imports the full OT wisdom tradition: Ps 111:10 LXX ('the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord') renders exactly what Prov 1:7 says with יִרְאַת יְהוָה. The NT in using φόβος for both the terror at Bethlehem (Luke 2:9) and the church's community posture (Acts 9:31) holds the full range together — the same word, calibrated by context, covering both registers.
The OT foundation: יִרְאַת יְהוָה (fear of the Lord) in Prov 1:7; Ps 34:9-11 ('taste and see... I will teach you the fear of the Lord') → LXX φόβος κυρίου formula → NT φόβος in Acts 9:31, 2 Cor 7:1, Heb 12:28 → Rev 15:4 ('who will not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name?'). The eschatological conclusion of Revelation is the universal φόβος of the nations before the holy God — the fullest realization of the OT's יָרֵא Niphal: YHWH fully being feared by all creation.
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