The angel said to them, "Don't be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all the people.
For wherever there is a cringing dread of the Divine Person, it alienates man completely from his God. We are by our evil nature enemies to God, and the assumption that God is cruel, harsh, and horrifying, adds fuel to the fire of our hatred. We can't love those whom we dread. You could not make your child show love to you if its little heart was full of fear; if it dreaded to hear your footstep, and was alarmed at the sound of your voice, it could not love you. You might obey some huge monster because you were afraid of him, but it would be impossible to love him. It is one of the masterpieces of Satan to deceive man by presenting to his mind a hateful picture of God. He knows that man cannot love that which terrifies him, and therefore he paints the God of grace as a hard, unforgiving person who will not receive the repentant sinner and have pity on the sorrowful person. God is love! Surely if men only had the grace enough to see the beauty of that portrait of God that was sketched with a single line, “God is love!” then they would willingly serve such a God. When the Holy Spirit enables the mind to perceive the character of God, the heart cannot refuse to love Him. Evil, fallen, depraved as men and women are, when they are illuminated by the Holy Spirit then they will have the right judgment of God, their hearts melt under the pleasant beams of divine love, and they love God because He has first loved them. But here is the masterpiece of Satan, that he will not let the understanding perceive the excellence of God's character, and then the heart cannot love that which the understanding does not perceive to be lovable.  In addition to alienating the heart from God, this fear “creates a prejudice against God's gospel of grace.” 