NOTES for Ecc 12:13-14
About the fear of God in the Bible a lot is said, it is considered as the basis "the beginning" of any wisdom. Many people see in that only the attempt to intimidate man and subject him, intimidate, maybe, not with the fear of punishment, but with this authority, which to God is by definition absolute and which suppresses often better than any fear. However, the word which is usually translated as "fear", indicates rather awe, this sacred awe that always feels a man before something or someone superior. It can seem at first sight that the difference is not big: the fear or awe, man is in every case subject to a certain power, which is superior and stronger than him. In reality, there is a difference, and it is very important. The fact is that "superior" does not always and obligatory mean not "more powerful", although, if we talk about God, things are exactly so: He is and superior, and more powerful than us. Power is an extra moral category; it has no direct link to the problem of moral or spiritual life.
When it comes to the physical power, we understand perfectly that, but we can absolutely speak about the same thing about any other power, even the supernatural. Power is an impersonal thing, and the spiritual and moral life is always the life of the personality, and the more spirituality and morality in the private life, the more this personality becomes itself as a personality. The category "superior" is used only to the personality, only to the spiritual and moral life. Superior or inferior can be the one that we see as personality, and we estimate from this point of view; the possession of power, whatever is the nature of this power, is not important in this case. If God was only a power, If He revealed Himself to man only as a power, He would not have been superior for man, and then one could speak of fear and even of the terror of man in front of His power, but to speak about the sacred awe before the superior would be impossible.
It is not by chance that the Savior refuses to influence His potential followers by the means of supernatural power: it is necessary neither for Him, nor for His celestial Father. The Fear for the soul, generally, is useless and destructive, but here is, the sacred awe before the Superior, on the contrary, is useful: because then man will observe the commandments given by this Superior not by fear, but by consciousness. Only so become possible the internal changes, which make possible for man the way of righteousness and of this Kingdom that the arrival of the Christ reveals to him.