Only later, beginning in the eighteenth century and accelerating in the nineteenth and twentieth, does awe migrate inward. Philosophical discussions of the sublime reframe awe as an emotional response to vastness. Dictionaries increasingly define awe as admiration or wonder, with fear demoted to a secondary component. Webster’s Dictionary of 1828 defines awe as “Fear mingled with admiration or reverence; reverential fear”.[vi] By the modern period, reverential has softened into tone or attitude rather than obligation. The current Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of awe: “an emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by overwhelming greatness (as in beauty, power, or size)”.[vii] Awe, today, has become something one feels, experiences, or cultivates, not an imposed state of being.

I am not going to provide the dictionary meanings over the centuries here, but a parallel shift occurs with reverential. Originally deriving from Latin revereri, meaning to fear or shrink back before what is superior, reverence names an enacted posture of deference. In early English usage, reverential behaviour is owed because of rank, office, or holiness. By the modern period, reverential has softened into tone or attitude. It reassures rather than restrains.

These lexical shifts set the stage for the two very different theological responses to God’s goodness by Manton and Bevere.

1. The Puritan Response: Awe as an Outward, Governing State

For the Puritans, and especially for Thomas Manton, awe belongs to the architecture of covenantal life. It is not a feeling to be managed but a condition to be inhabited.

Manton’s language is precise. In Sermon LXXIII on Psalm 119:65, he writes: “Certainly the more good any man findeth God to be, and the more good he himself hath received, the more good he ought to be: the goodness of God should melt us and awe us.”[viii] The grammar is decisive. God’s goodness is the agent. The believer is the recipient. Awe is something God’s goodness does to us. It is directly related to the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work upon us.

Manton’s sentence alone exposes a worldview very different from modern assumptions. Awe, for Manton, is not weaker than fear. It is greater fear, which has been intensified by the knowledge of God. The more God is known as good, faithful, patient, and gracious, the more fearful it becomes to offend Him. In Puritan cadence: “The clearer God is known in His goodness, the more dreadful it is to sin against Him.” Fear does not diminish with intimacy. It sharpens.

Manton’s pairing of melt and awe is crucial. It helps us to see that this is something that takes place outside of ourselves. Melting refers to the softening of the will. Pride yields. Resistance breaks. Hardness dissolves. Awe, by contrast, restrains. It holds the soul within bounds. It governs behaviour, speech, and intention. Melting without awe would produce sentimentality. Awe without melting would produce harshness. Together, they form the moral polarity of covenantal obedience.

Notice what awe does here. It does not merely motivate. It disciplines. It is not episodic. It is habitual. One lives under it. One is watched by it. This is filial fear: the awe imposed upon the soul that has been made aware of its sinful state in the presence of God, yet stands under the privilege of forgiveness and adoption. This can be contrasted with “servile terror”: the fear imposed upon the soul standing under the law without adoption. Indeed awe is more exacting, because it is imposed by the knowledge of a holy God and thus, to fear a gracious God is to fear Him more deeply, not less.

This explains why Puritan writers do not qualify awe with adjectives meant to reassure. They do not speak of “healthy awe” or “safe fear.” Fear is not pathological; it is formative. It is the soul’s proper posture under divine holiness encountered within covenantal relationship. Like repentance, the fear of the Lord is a gift bestowed by God Himself, and therefore to be greatly desired.

The direction of movement is always from God to the person. God’s holiness, goodness, and authority impose a moral state upon the believer. Emotions may accompany that state, but they do not define it.

Two examples from Scripture will suffice to demonstrate the state of awe into which believers may be placed. In Isa 6:1-5, Isaiah’s reaction is not cultivated reverence but collapse: “Woe is me! for I am undone.” We see the same in the New Testament. When John turns and sees the risen Christ unveiled in glory — eyes like fire, voice like many waters, face shining like the sun — the response is immediate and involuntary: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead,” Rev 1:12-17. This is not cultivated reverence or emotional posture adopted by John. This is a moral and bodily collapse imposed by divine self-disclosure. The direction of movement is unmistakable:

• Christ reveals Himself
• John is placed under that revelation
• John falls

John does not feel awe; rather, he is placed into a state of awe by the unveiled presence of the living Christ.

In summary, for Manton and the Puritans, awe is not primarily psychological. It is ontological and relational. It names where one stands.

2. The Modern Response: Awe as an Inward, Cultivated Emotion

By contrast, modern evangelical usage operates with a different grammar. In writers such as John Bevere, awe is framed as an interior posture to be cultivated, maintained, and balanced. His book is a welcome addition to a topic that unfortunately we know little about in the modern church. It is my hope that Bevere has started the ball rolling that will lead to greater studies and expositions on the topic.

However, when Bevere speaks of “reverential awe,” he is working with words whose dominant meanings are already emotional. Awe is understood as a feeling of wonder mixed with respect. Bevere goes directly to Webster’s Dictionary of 1828 for his definition of awe. As we noted above, by 1828 a shift in meaning of awe had already begun. Bevere notes the Dictionary’s definition; “fear, dread inspired by something great and terrific”, and then he adds “Don’t be alarmed by the words dread and terror”.[ix] Reverential functions as a safety modifier. Together, they reassure the reader that fear will not become threatening.

This is not accidental rhetoric. In a therapeutic cultural context, fear is assumed to be dangerous unless carefully qualified. Too much fear damages intimacy and as the book title suggests, Bevere aims to cultivate a healthy fear. Bevere, therefore, must reframe fear as healthy, constructive, and emotionally safe. Awe becomes a motivational state. It inspires obedience. It encourages holiness. But it must be cultivated and managed.

We can best visualise the direction of movement here as being from the person towards God. This is the reverse movement we saw with the Puritans above. Here, the believer adopts an inner posture of reverence in order to relate rightly to God. Awe is something one walks in, practices, or cultivates. It is not imposed by God’s holiness but generated within the believer’s experience of God.

This represents a flattening of fear. Awe and fear are collapsed into a single emotional register. Fear no longer intensifies with knowledge. Instead, it must be moderated so as not to overwhelm. Where Puritan theology says, “Because God has drawn near, fear will come upon you,” modern spirituality often says, “Because God is safe, fear Him carefully.”

The ethical aims may overlap. Both Manton and Bevere want obedience, holiness, and seriousness. But the mechanisms differ profoundly. In the Puritan model, awe orders obedience; in the modern model, awe motivates it.

Two Different Responses to God’s Goodness

The difference can be summarised cleanly.

The Puritan response begins with God. God’s goodness acts upon the soul. It melts the will and awes the life. Awe restrains because God is holy. The more God is known, the more fear deepens. Awe is a standing condition, not a mood. It governs our lives whether or not one feels spiritually elevated.

The modern response begins with the believer. Awe is an inner experience that must be cultivated. Fear is reframed as reverential emotion. It inspires obedience but must be kept within safe bounds. Awe motivates rather than governs.

The difference is not merely semantic. It reflects two different understandings of covenant. In covenantal theology, nearness to God increases accountability. Grace heightens responsibility. Goodness intensifies fear. In modern therapeutic frameworks, nearness reduces threat. Grace softens fear. Goodness reassures.

This is why Manton can say, without qualification, that God’s goodness should awe us. And it is why modern writers feel compelled to explain repeatedly what awe is not.

Conclusion

What has been lost in the modern relocation of awe from state to feeling is not emotion, but gravity. Awe once named a reality that stood over the believer, shaping life whether or not it felt pleasant. Now it names an experience within the believer, valued for its motivational power.

Bevere’s project can be understood as an attempt to recover seriousness using emotional language. Manton did not need to do this. He lived in a world where words still carried weight, where awe restrained because God ruled.

The historical dictionaries tell the story plainly. Awe has moved inward. Reverence has softened. Fear has been defanged and domesticated. We have moved away from the Puritan response to God’s goodness which was describing a state of greater and deeper trembling. This trajectory reflects the influence of what is often described as the modern therapeutic God who increasingly resembles a wet nurse rather than the Judge of the living and the dead confessed in Scripture. So in conclusion, with Manton and Bevere we have:

  Same words → “awe,” “fear,” “reverence,” “love”

  Different grammars → inward emotion vs outward condition

  Different gods → different divine agency and authority

When God no longer imposes awe but merely invites it, authority has shifted, even if the vocabulary remains the same.