By those who come near Me [says the LORD] I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified (Lev. 10:3 NKJV).
"God has made you to be a worshiper of Him," Joel Beeke quotes of the Puritans (mark 31:58-32:03), reminding us of Jesus' words: "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers" (John 4:23). I am convinced that the reason why churches offer as worship to God forms of rock music, with a light show and fog machine, is because they lack a proper Doctrine of Worship. We offer God what we like, what moves us, without a single thought of what He requires. Dr. Beeke adds: "And, so, the highest activity you could ever do in your life is to worship God" (mark 32:04-32:11). The greatest priority of our lives, then, is not our career or job, our ministry, our missions outreach or any other activity no matter how significant. We must worship our Redeemer!
For the Puritans, then, worship involves "humbling myself before God, letting God be God, exalting Him, abasing myself at His footstool, and esteeming Him to be everything for my soul. ... Worship is never just a matter of the mind--it is a matter of the mind--but it is also a matter of the conscience, the will, the affections, the whole man, the entire soul. That's why they spoke so very much about worshiping God experientially--it is your whole being that is involved--it's a true experience of worship" (mark 14:39-15:33). The view of the Puritans as dogmatic fundamentalists who were sexually repressed, superstitious, and enamored by purity culture is severely and dangerously in error. In the Puritans we find a people whose hearts had been Reformed not only by the loving and regenerative grace of God in Christ but also by the effectual power of God's Word.
How are to define worship? "For the Puritans," says Dr. Beeke, "worship was the most important thing you'll ever do in your life. Worship was what God designed us for in Paradise. He put us there to worship Him, to glorify Him, and so all our worship is to glorify God. But what kind of worship does God find acceptable and pleasing to Him? Well, worship that prostrates ourselves before God, and declares that He is worthy, and honors Him," that is worship. "Acceptable worship, therefore, is always mediated by Christ because only in Christ can we commune with God. Christ is the Temple; Christ is the Priest; Christ is the Sacrifice; Christ is the Altar--the Everything in our worship" (mark 11:14-12:17). We cannot replace Christ with ornate Temples and elaborately-robed Priests / Vicars and lift up a Host (Bread as the Body of Jesus) and kneel at the Altar. Christ is all of these objects and so our focus must always remain on Him and His work as we honor God--the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in unity.
Where do we derive our instructions on how to worship God? "Acceptable worship is always grounded in the Scripture because in Scripture we have Christ revealed to us. Without the Bible, we try to worship what we do not know [John 4:22], and we offer up what does not please the Lord. So anything that is not grounded in the Bible is not worship" (mark 12:20-12:42). Luther and Anglicans like Thomas Cranmer held to the Normative Principle of Worship: whatever is not forbidden in Scripture is permitted or tolerable in offering worship to God. Reformers such as John Calvin and the Puritans held to the Regulative Principle: whatever is explicitly commanded in the New Testament is what God requires to be offered to His honor as proper worship--and only those forms of worship explicitly commanded in Scripture are proper for the worship of God. "To worship God is to bow down before His majestic glory; and in spirit and in truth to bring Him, in and through Jesus Christ and according to the scriptures, the honor and praise which belong exclusively to Him. ... Anything else is not worship" (mark 13:43-14:13). Anything else whatsoever is not worship.
MODERN "WORSHIP" AND THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH
"We'd like to thank y'all for coming out today. We're going to do a little number for you now," says the one leading a congregation in worship, "and, if you'll stand with us, you can sing along if you know the words." Is this gathering of people who "came out today" at a carnival, a hoe down, or a concert? No. They are the Lord Jesus' people bought with the price of His own blood and raised again on the third day to secure their salvation, justification, and future glorification. They have come to worship the triune God. They have not come to a performance, a concert, or a recital. They did not purchase a ticket to your show. You don't "thank them for coming out," as though it's no big deal, just a gathering to watch a show and listen to music, or a Gaither sing-song time, but to worship the LORD--Creator and Redeemer. Our worship, much like our spiritual relationship with God, is with and to God the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit.1 Are you really going to "do a little number for them," as in a performance, or are you going to lead them into the act of worship of the only living and true God (1 Thess. 1:9)? What is church for--its purpose, its function, its duty?
You must not think that I'm being unloving to this brother. He's my brother in Christ--I love him. But I love the LORD infinitely more and He is worthy of proper worship (see Luke 14:26 where one's love for the LORD is to be so singularly devoted that all other loves seem like hatred by comparison). This leader of "worship" seems to go out of his way to present songs that his people will enjoy. His mind is never set on what pleases the LORD. How can it be that someone who is supposed to lead believers into the worship of their Creator and Redeemer is so unconcerned about what pleases Him? "Guard your steps when you go to the House of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth--do not be hasty in your heart to utter [just] anything before God. God is in Heaven, and you are on earth, so let your words be few" (Eccl. 5:1-2 NIV). How does such a reading not give worship leaders pause for reflection? "Yet a time is coming," says Jesus, "and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit, and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit [the word is a noun] and in truth" (John 4:23-24 NIV).
The problem in the Church today--and this problem is especially magnified in the United States and among those sad so-called churches that have spread and grown outside of the United States in the Charismatic / Pentecostal / Third Wave / New Apostolic Reformation expressions, as well as among other churches who reject such charismatic practices but that, regardless, propogate either liberal nonsense, downright dead drudgery, or inadequate worship worthy of the Majesty of our triune God--all comes to this one tragic truth: an utter lack of a Theology of Worship. Worship is why we gather together in a building every Sunday Lord's Day. Yes, we fellowship, and we hear the Word of God preached (and perhaps share in the Lord's Supper / Communion / the Eucharist). But we are there primarily to worship. That is our primary goal and purpose: the worship of God.
The worship leader is not supposed to be worried about what songs will entertain people. The worship leader is supposed to be concerned to the utmost about God being rightly and appropriately glorified in a dignified manner--worship that is worthy of His divine majesty. From what I hear, that is tragically absent most Sundays. Church is not the Hee-Haw hour, a Southern Gospel Gaither hour, or a rock concert with a light show, complete with a fog machine, and guitar and / or drum solos, repeating mantras and phrases over and over to induce behavior modification; which, by the way, is nothing short of emotional and spiritual manipulation and is of the devil. I don't even understand what people are thinking today. Do you not know God? Have you not learned from His Word who is to worship God and the manner in which He is to be worshiped?
WHO IS TO WORSHIP GOD?
The whole earth is to give proper glory, honor, and worship to God her Creator (Ps. 66:4; Isa. 6:3; Hab. 2:14). This is the very Meaning of Life--to worship God. But the whole earth fails to perform her duty to her Maker. The earth, subjected to decaying entropy for the Fall (Rom. 8:20, 21, 22), is under the sway of the Evil One (2 Cor. 4:4). So God has determined to take from the Devil's Kingdom a people for Himself, for His possession, for His glory and this is ultimately what it means to be saved (Deut. 4:34, 35, 39; 5:29; 6:14, 15; 7:6, 7, 8, 9; 10:12, 13; 12:4, 5, 11, 12, 21; 26:15, 16, 17, 18, 19; 29:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18; Rom. 8:29, 30; 9:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24; 1 Cor. 1:30, 31; 2:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14; Eph. 1:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13; 2:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Jesus said that He will build His Church (Matt. 16:18), the People of God who will belong to His Father, and the Church is to worship God in the earth, until Jesus returns, and forever into eternity.
If someone who is not in Blood Covenant with Jesus by grace through faith in Him attempts to worship God than that is an abomination (Prov. 15:8). God will not be appeased by fallen and sinful human effort: it is an affront to God's holiness. The proper worship of God, therefore, belongs solely to those who have been made spiritually alive in Christ by the Holy Spirit (John 4:24). Such a person is now "in Christ," in spiritual union and fellowship with Jesus, and hence with His Father, by the work of the Holy Spirit (John 3:3, 5, 6, 7, 8; 6:63; 7:37, 38, 39; 14:16, 17, 26; 15:26; 16:7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15; Rom. 8:6, 7, 8, 9; 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 3:15, 16, 17, 18; Gal. 3:3; Eph. 1:3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 14; 2 Thess. 2:13, 14; Titus 3:4, 5, 6, 7). Believers belong to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, but we also belong to each other (Rom. 12:4, 5). So we must worship God together.
The Church is the People of God gathered together in fellowship with one another for the worship of God in Trinity, to listen with a disciple's ear to the Word of God preached, and to prayer (Acts 2:42 ESV). Dr. Mark E. Dever rightly summarizes: "the proper ends for a local congregation's life and actions are the worship of God, the edification of the church, and the evangelization of the world. These three purposes in turn serve the glory of God."2 Dever quotes Dr. Ligon Duncan regarding what elements should be included in worship to the effect: "'Read the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, sing the Bible, and see the Bible.' By 'seeing' the Bible, Duncan means the celebration of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which depict the Gospel."3 Though God possesses no inherent need for what we can attempt to offer Him (Acts 17:24, 25), we are right to worship Him, for He alone is worthy of worship (the old English word referring to worth-ship, that someone or some thing is worthy of accolades and honor).
In the Wilderness God did not require burnt offerings from His people (Jer. 7:21, 22). "But this is what I commanded them, saying, 'Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you'" (Jer. 7:23). But many of them were not interested in this kind of spiritual intimacy with YHWH. "This people honors Me with their lips," quotes Jesus from God His Father, "but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me" (Matt. 15:8-9; Isa. 29:13; cf. Mark 7:6). God Himself asks: "My people, what have I done to you, and how have I wearied you? Answer Me" (Micah 6:3). "With what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts--the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:6-8 NASB).
If someone thinks that God is requiring too much, meaning the daily and the weekly honor and glory that is due to Him and to His holy Name (Exod. 3:14, 15; Ps. 29:2; 66:2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 111:9; 115:1; Luke 1:49), then such a person has probably not been saved--has not yet been inwardly changed and born again by the grace of God through faith in the Son of God by the work of the Spirit of God (John 3:3-8; Titus 3:5; James 1:18; 1 John 5:1, 18). Why? Because the mind and heart of the believer who has experienced an inward change of regeneration sets his heart and mind on those spiritual realities of the Holy Spirit who dwells within him (Rom. 8:5, 6, 9, 10). He longs to worship! "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship" (Rom. 12:1 NIV; cf. "your spiritual worship," ESV; "your spiritual service of worship," LSB, NASB). Our daily lives, then, are also daily acts of worship.
So, how do we, the Church, collectively find and live out our purpose for the proper, spiritual worship of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit? Paul commands young pastor Timothy: "devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching" (1 Tim. 4:13 ESV). "Hence, right preaching of God's Word is central to the church's worship, forming its basis and core."4 Did you know that Jesus sang a hymn with His disciples after the Lord's Supper (Matt. 26:30)? I wonder at the sound of Jesus' singing voice. Paul commands us to be in the practice of being filled with or guided by the Holy Spirit, singing to "one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody [Greek: to pluck a stringed instrument] to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Eph. 5:18-21 ESV). The commands (plural) to pray, corporately and privately, are scattered throughout the New Testament (Matt. 6:7-15; Luke 11:1-4; Acts 2:42, where in Greek the prayers refer to praying written prayers from the Psalms and the Old Testament at set hours of the day; Acts 4:24-31; 12:5, 12; Eph. 6:18; Phil. 4:6; Col. 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:17; 1 Tim. 2:8; James 5:13, 16).5
WE ARE TO WORSHIP GOD ALONE
That we must worship God is a biblical given (Ps. 95:6; 150:6; John 4:23; Rom. 14:11; Phil. 4:20; Heb. 13:15). How are we to worship God? is the only proper follow-up question. Our English word worship derives from the Old English word worthship and refers to demonstrating the worthiness of someone or some thing. How shall we demonstrate that God is worthy of honor, praise, obedience and loyalty? We do so in words, whether spoken in sermons or teaching or reading Scripture or talking to other people about God in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as well as in song. Do the words matter? Yes. Do the songs / lyrics matter? Definitely! Does even the style of the music matter? Absolutely--and those who disagree are, in my view, only intending to please themselves and not the Lord. For worship involves the whole of one's being: in worship "I come as a sinner, worthy of damnation, but I come in Christ and, so, I am an adopted son of God according to His great mercy" (mark 14:57-15:08). Worship begins within the creature as a result of the redemptive work of God the Father in God the Son through God the Holy Spirit. We will not know how we are to worship God until our soul understands what God has done for us. Perspective is, indeed, King and we, therefore, need a proper and spiritual perspective of God if we are to honor, praise, and worship Him. But the only revelation we have of our God is what He has revealed of Himself in His Word.
Since worship involves what we might call "the things of the Spirit" of God, and that requires discernment from the indwelling Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14 NIV), then the one who draws close to worship the triune God (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) must do so in spirit (John 4:23). Jesus teaches us that location does not matter when we consider the worship of God (John 4:21, 22, 23, 24). Since the Father is divine (1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 4:6), and the Son is divine (John 1:1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 12, 14, 18; 8:24, 28, 58; 10:30; 17:1, 2, 3) and the Holy Spirit is divine (2 Cor. 3:17), then all three Members / Persons of the Godhead Trinity (the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit) are worthy of worship--and, yet, we worship one God (Deut. 6:4; Mark 12:29; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 4:4, 5, 6; 1 Tim. 2:5). Is there a proper order? Yes. Our relationship / fellowship is "with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3), in the power, presence, and potency of the Holy Spirit: "But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He [the Father] saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He [the Father] poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior" (Titus 3:4-6 NASB). We might say that we pray to the Father (1 John 1:3) in the Son (Rom. 8:34; 1 Tim. 2:5) through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:26, 27).
We are right to consider the worship of God as orderly and proper: "For God is not a God of disorder but of peace" (1 Cor. 14:33 NIV). Those who minister in the Church are to be in control of themselves in their function to the honor and glory of God. "But everything," everything done within the Church during the worship of God, "should be done in a fitting and orderly way" (1 Cor. 14:40 NIV). Those who operate in any spiritual gift as given by the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:4, 7, 11) should "acknowledge that what I," Paul, "am writing is the Lord's command. But if anyone ignores this [then] they will themselves be ignored" (1 Cor. 14:37-28 NIV). Whatever is written and commanded in Scripture "was written for our instruction" (Rom. 15:4 NASB) and, so, we heartily confess that all Scripture "is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17 ESV). If we, therefore, want to know how God desires to be worshiped in the New Testament Church then we must turn to the only firm foundation and revelation we possess: the authoritative and inerrant Word of God. B.B. Warfield is right to insist: "The Bible is the Word of God in such a way that, when the Bible speaks, God speaks." Then let God speak as to how we are to worship Him and only offer the same as honest and pure worship.
WHICH GOD ARE WE TO WORSHIP?
There is only one God (Deut. 6:4): the God of Israel (1 Kings 8:23; cf. Gal. 6:16), the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:3), the only living and true God (1 Thess. 1:9; cf. Jer. 10:10; John 17:3). This God and this God alone is to be worshiped: "I am the LORD, and there is no other; there is no God but Me" (Isa. 45:5; 43:10). For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men--the man Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 2:5), who is also worshiped and glorified (John 20:28), along with the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 3:16, 17, 18). So we worship one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance (Athanasian Creed). The Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ and the Love of God the Father and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Cor. 13:14). In the Beginning the Word was already in existence, and the Word was with God the Father, and the Word was Himself God (John 1:1). The Word became flesh, revealed as Jesus the Christ, or Messiah, and He tabernacled among us (John 1:14). No mere mortal has seen God the Father at any time. But the eternally-begotten God, who is the Son of God in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed Him (John 1:18). For He has confessed the eternal truth: I and the Father are in complete and eternal union (John 10:30); This is eternal life, that they may know God the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (John 17:3). God the Father, whose name is LORD (YHWH: Ex. 3:14, 15), is glorified in acknowledging that the Person of His Son Jesus the Messiah is LORD (Phil. 2:11), and the Holy Spirit is LORD (2 Cor. 3:17). God is LORD, God is one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God in Three Persons.
Q. Are we to worship the Holy Spirit?
A. Is the Holy Spirit not God (Acts 5:3, 4, 9; 2 Cor. 3:17)? God is to be worshiped.
Q. Are we to worship Jesus?
A. Is Jesus not God (John 1:1, 14, 18; 8:24, 28, 58; 20:28; Heb. 1:3)? God is to be worshiped.
HOW ARE WE TO WORSHIP GOD?
What we really want to know is this: Since worship is to demonstrate God's worth then what do we do in church in order to show God's worth among us? How do we honor Him? What do we say? What actions do we enact? For the answer to these questions we must look to New Testament Scripture. What did the early Jewish and Gentile Christians do in church to demonstrate back to God His own worthship? On the Day the Church is given birth by the Holy Spirit, so to speak, the believers in Jesus are devoting themselves "to the apostles' teaching [doctrine], and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42 ESV). They are listening to and putting into practice the theology they are learning from sermons; they are fellowshipping with each other--a mutual, generous sharing together in commonality (Acts 2:44), and in giving to the needs of others (Acts 2:45)7; they are eating meals together or, perhaps better, sharing the Eucharist / Communion / the Lord's Supper together (cf. Acts 2:46 where "breaking bread" can be perceived of as what we now call Communion or the Eucharist); they are praying the prayers--referring to praying the written Psalms, the Hymn and Prayer Book of Israel, including other written prayers; and they are praising God together (Acts 2:47).
This is a communion--a corporate body gathered together to commune with and to worship the only living and true God (1 Thess. 1:9): such a gathering is not an individualistic experience but a commonality of gathered worshipers. The mindset of the believers is one of union: united together to praise the worthship of God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit; and united to God their Father in God the Son by the effectual ministry of God the Holy Spirit. They are continually devoting themselves to this manner of life and the worthship of God. "Christ and His atoning work were constantly before them, daily bringing their hearts upward, in solemn and joyous contemplation."8 R. Kent Hughes rightly notes that the prayers are "most likely ... specific prayers, probably both Jewish and Christian. The early believers suddenly saw the old formal prayers through new eyes and also, in their new joy, created new prayers for praise--much as Mary did when she sang the Magnificat [Luke 1:46-55]."9
Praying from a Prayer Book, then, is biblical--a proper manner with which to commune with God and to demonstrate His worthship together and by oneself--as we pray back to Him His own inerrant Word; that is, such is biblical as long as the Prayer Book (like the Anglican Book of Common Prayer) is adopting Scripture for its prayers, being Christ-centered and God-honoring in its very nature. The early Jewish believers in Jesus also practiced the Hours--praying the prayers at set hours of the day: Morning Prayer at 9am (Acts 2:14, 15); Noontime Prayer (Acts 10:9); Evening Prayer or Vespers at 3pm (Acts 3:1; 10:30); and Midnight Prayer or Compline (Acts 16:25). The Discipline of the Hours is not commanded for believers in the New Testament. We see the pattern for such a practice but we are not given an explicit command toward the same. Strict adherence to the Regulative Principle will mitigate against the practice of anything not commanded in Scripture for the worship of or communion with God. But even with the Regulative Principle we must be careful and not radicalize the principle. After all, it is a (guiding) principle, not inerrant Scripture.
Moreover, my own experience within an Anglican context for twelve years gives me great caution about the use of a Prayer Book, not merely for the danger of praying or even worshiping by mere rote but because those prayers, uttered day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year can replace and even hinder spontaneous prayer / praying to God. Or, I should say, that is at least my experience. In a very real sense, then, I can admit that daily, weekly, monthly and yearly use of the Prayer Book actually hindered and crippled my "prayer life" and left me a bit bewildered as to what to say to God that was not already laid out for me in form. I still struggle to this day. I was so attached to the form that I lost my former ability to just speak with the Lord as I did when I first came to know Him salvifically. I cannot possibly caution you strongly enough. Pray from your heart. Remember that the Holy Spirit "intercedes" to God the Father "for us with groanings too deep for words" (Rom. 8:26). The Spirit of God dwelling within us intercedes to the Father when we pray and He inerrantly speaks for us "according to the will of God" (Rom. 8:27) so pray with your words from your heart, and pray with confidence, knowing that the Holy Spirit is praying perfectly to the Father on your behalf.
Furthermore, Jesus Himself intercedes to the Father also on our behalf (Rom. 8:34). So we do not have to worry that our prayers are so informal, or even ignorant, for God already knows our weaknesses and that "we do not not how to pray as we should" (Rom. 8:26). Pray, my brother and sister, pray from your heart. Immerse yourself in the Word of God, which will conform your heart and renew your mind (Rom. 12:1, 2), and you will begin to pray biblically, scripturally, even if you are not explicitly quoting Scripture passages. You are most welcome, I believe, to pray to the Lord the prayers in Scripture because they are God-breathed Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16), which is profitable for "training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16), giving us the confidence that the words are the very life-breath of the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21). Again, however, there is no explicit command for the New-Testament believer to pray the prayers of Scripture. So our focus should be to pray to the Lord from the heart with complete confidence that the Lord Jesus Christ our Mediator and the indwelling Holy Spirit will intercede to God the Father on our behalf--and both will do so perfectly.
So, elements of worship include hearing the Word of God spoken, taught, and preached; sharing together in the Lord's Supper / Eucharist; giving to the needs of others; and the prayers or to praying. Where is worship music mentioned? Certainly there must be music! Paul commands gathered believers to address each other, or yourselves, "in Psalms [1 Cor. 14:26] and Hymns [Acts 16:25] and Spiritual Songs [1 Cor. 14:15; Rev. 5:9], singing and making melody [Greek, psalló, to pluck a stringed instrument] to the Lord with your heart," so not by mere rote (John 4:23, 24), "giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Eph. 5:19-21 ESV). We know that Jesus and His disciples sang a Hymn after Communion (Matt. 26:30). I wonder what Jesus' singing voice sounds like.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE WORSHIP
That is the title of Jonathan Landry Cruse's book: What Happens When We Worship. Michael Horton is brilliant in his Foreword: Ultimately we must ask ourselves "What happens in worship?" We imagine we come to accomplish a great feat: to worship God in Trinity. But the most important aspect of worship "is that it's not about us but for us. We come to church not even primarily to worship but to receive once again that life-sustaining Bread of Life in the variety of ways His Word comes to us [preached, read, prayed, sung, and received in sacrament]. We come not to do something again but to have something done to us again. ... What happens in worship? God is at work and the best thing we can do is receive it."10 We need to confess that our view of worship is what we do: sing, pray, listen to the Word and ingest it entirely. But there is more--so much more.
There is no greater task in the life of the believer than to worship God because that is the purpose of our lives in Christ. We are created to worship our Creator. Picture the Garden of Eden as an organic Temple and Adam and Eve as the first worshipers of our Creator. Jonathan Landry Cruse is right, I think, to insist that worship is a supernatural event.11 He is also spot on to argue that worship is "the most important thing you will ever do."12 He echoes Augustine, in his Confessions, who said: "You have made us for Yourself, O LORD, and our heart is restless until it rests in You." When God regenerates the dead spirit of a person, worship becomes instinctual, a natural response to the awakening grace of God. The worship of God is the most important aspect of our lives--even more so than evangelizing the lost. How so? Because the result of the conversion of a soul through evangelization will require discipleship of the now-believer and that occurs within the context of corporate worship. "We are trained up in the faith and mature in our understanding of the things of God by engaging in biblically robust worship week in and week out."13
This takes place together in worship. "Therefore," Cruse continues, as he quotes Darryl Hart and Hon Muether, "'it is the church, and specifically the church at worship, that fulfills the Great Commission.' Far from favoring evangelism at the expense of the worship of the church, the Great Commission shows that evangelism properly serves the worship of the church. Craig Troxel helpfully writes, 'If the church begins to define herself in terms of her tasks and mission, this will significantly distort her self-understanding and potentially displace her primary function, the worship of God.'"14 Worship is the answer to the age-old philosophical question as the meaning of life. The meaning of life is the worship of God. The worship of God even properly contextualizes the Eternal Gospel: "And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an Eternal Gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he said with a loud voice, 'Fear [revere] God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come: worship Him who made Heaven, and earth, and the springs of waters'" (Rev. 14:6, 7).
REMEMBER BEAUTY
God is concerned about beauty--perhaps not beauty as we in our fallenness regard beauty, but, beauty all the same. For example, God gave specific instructions regarding the building of the Temple / Sanctuary where His presence would be set, including the settings and furniture that would be constructed and placed therein. For instance, with the Lampstand, six branches "shall go out from its sides," and three cups "shall be shaped like almond blossoms in the one branch, a bulb and a flower, and three cups shaped like almond blossoms in the other branch, a bulb and a flower--so for six branches going out from the lampstand," etc. (Ex. 25:31-40). The Temple Curtains "of fine twisted linen" were made of "blue and purple and scarlet material" made "with cherubim, the work of a skillful workman" (Ex. 26:1; cf. Ex. 26:2-14). The same is given for the Veils (Ex. 26:31-37).
The skillful workers God "filled ... with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship, to make artistic designs for work in gold, in silver, and in bronze, and in the cutting of stones for settings, and in the carving of wood, that he may work in all kinds of craftsmanship ...; and in the hearts of all who are skillful I have put skill, that they may make all that I have commanded you" (Ex. 31:3, 4, 5, 6; cf. Ex. 35:30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35). The hem of the Robe to be worn by Aaron was to have "pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet material all around ... and bells of gold between them all around" (Ex. 28:33; cf. Ex. 39:24). In Solomon's Temple there were to be carved Gourds and Open Flowers (1 Ki. 6:18) and carved engravings of Cherubim, Palm Trees, and Open Flowers (1 Ki. 6:29, 32, 35). In Ezekiel's vision of a Temple there were to be Palm Tree ornaments (Ezek. 40:16, 22, 26, 31, 34, 37); as well as carved Cherubim and Palm Trees over the Entrance, the Inner House, the Outside and on all Walls all round Inside (Ezek. 41:18, 19). What was forbidden regarding carved images et al. is not the carving or the images in themselves but in the worship of such, crafted as an idol, or any likeness of "what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth," to "worship them or serve them," for YHWH (the LORD) is our God and He is a jealous God (Exod. 20:4, 5).
Of course God cares about beauty! Look at all His creation! "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands" (Ps. 19:1). The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ is rife with descriptions of Heaven, the Abode of God, in which is filled with the beauty of His Throne Room (Rev. 4:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; 5:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14; 8:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; 10:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; 14:1, 2, 3, 4); and then there is the New Heavens and the New Earth in God's Kingdom that will be brought to Earth (Rev. 21:9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27; 22:1, 2, 3, 4, 5). If the Old Testament Sanctuary was beautiful, and God's present Throne Room in Heaven is beautiful, because God cares about beauty, are we really to think that God is not concerned with beauty in these New Testament days, after the Son of God has given His righteous and holy life to save us sinners, as He was raised to new life, and ascended into Heaven to sit at His Father's right hand, where He intercedes for us, from where He will return to gather us to Himself one day? God loves beauty. We should also love beauty.
Yes, we, as the Bride of Christ, are not to be concerned with outward beauty but inward beauty (1 Tim. 2:9, 10; 1 Pet. 3:3, 4). Yes, we should be concerned with what concerns God, and what God has commanded us in Scripture. But God has not explicitly commanded us to build structures to gather for His own worship in the New Testament. How, then, are we to be guided? What kind of Sanctuary should we build? Should we merely meet in homes? Some believers in the first century met in homes (Rom. 16:5; Col. 4:15). But they were not commanded to meet together in homes. Some met by a river (Acts 16:11-15). Some Jewish believers still went to Temple to pray and to worship (Acts 2:46; 3:1, 2, 3, 8, 10; 5:21; 21:26) even though Jesus, Yeshua, was neither preached nor believed. (I am not advocating anyone staying in a church that does not preach Jesus!)
If we are not allowed to look cautiously to our past (the Old Testament), or to our future (the Eternal State), then how are we to know how and in what condition and context to properly worship God in the present (the New Testament era)? That our future will be filled with God's beauty should, I think, inform us to not neglect beauty in our present state--that beauty including the structure of our building, inside and out; what objects / decor are outside and inside the structure; gifted people in music and singing; song selection and arrangement--both stylistically and holistically (what songs to play in order); Scripture-reading; perhaps teachers for teaching the Bible to adults and children prior to or after the gathering together in worship; and a qualified pastor for preaching the Word of God; etc. "But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner" (1 Cor. 14:40). Why? Because "God is not a God of confusion but of peace" (1 Cor. 14:33), peace being eirḗnē, giving us "quietness," "rest," "wholeness," i.e., "when all essential parts are joined together." Peace, Quietness, and Order are beautiful. So, in worship, remember beauty.
The Regulative Principle can be misused by radicals. If we are not commanded to build a structure for worship in the New Testament then why do we? What of the pulpit, the choir loft, the organ and / or piano, the seating, the carpet, etc.? If we use the Regulative Principle properly, regarding what actually occurs during worship, then much of our other questions regarding a building, and so forth, are secondary. Still, we may not all agree on the idea of images, however conceived, but let me remind you strict Regulative Principle advocates: if there is a carved / crafted Cross in your Sanctuary then you have violated your own interpretive principle (even though I think you are missing the entire point God is making in Exodus 20:4, 5 regarding not bowing down to carved images / idols, etc.)--and I see this happening all the time in such churches. Be consistent!
WORSHIP IN THE SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH
The fact that ἐν πνεύματι, in spirit, is a noun and not an adjective informs us that Jesus is not saying to worship the Father spiritually, that this is adjectivally how we are to worship, but in spirit: for God is spirit--not a spirit but spirit--His very nature and essence is spirit and therefore the proper worship of Him should reflect His nature and not our fleshly and earthly nature. John Calvin rightly argues: "God is so far from being like us that those things which please us most are the objects of His loathing and abhorrence." Are we really so blinded by our own hypocritical ignorance to subject God and our worship of Him to our opinions, and to our own fleshly and fickle tendencies, that we fail "to regard with suspicion whatever is gratifying according to the flesh"? In other words, why are we not more critical to consider what we offer Him as worship, asking ourselves who is truly being blessed by what is offered: us or Him? "Besides," adds Calvin, "as we cannot ascend to the height of God, let us remember that we ought to seek from His Word the rule by which we are governed," and that certainly is the case when we think to worship Him.
To worship God "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23, 24), rather than place of location or temple (John 4:20), is to worship Him spiritually, or "in the realm of spirit (as God Himself is in that realm)," and we do so "by the new birth God grants (cf. John 3:6: 'that which is born of spirit [or: the Spirit] is spirit')."15 I am reminded of Jesus' words: "the Spirit ... gives life; the flesh profits nothing" (John 6:63); as well as the words of Paul: "But a natural [unregenerate] man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised" (1 Cor. 2:14). Therefore, in order to worship God "in spirit and in truth," one must become alive spiritually: born again (John 3:3, 5, 6, 7, 8; Eph. 2:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10; Titus 3:5). That which is dead cannot worship God (Ps. 115:17; Isa. 38:18; Eph. 2:1, 2, 3).
G. Campbell Morgan (1863-1945) explains that the "incense of praise is offered" to God among born-again believers "by the inspiration of the Spirit [Phil. 4:4, 5, 6, 7]; the intercession of prayer is maintained by the whole company of those who pray in the Holy Spirit [not some so-called private prayer language but the Holy Spirit's own private work: Rom. 8:26]; the work of prophecy, in its fullest meaning of forth-telling, is carried forward by such as are witnesses, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, to the eternal truths of God"16 in His Word (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). We are, in Christ, priests unto God in the Spirit who offer sacrifices of thanksgiving (1 Pet. 2:9); we are, in Christ, intercessors by the indwelling Holy Spirit for our needs and for the needs of others (Matt. 6:10, 11; 2 Cor. 13:7, 8, 9; Phil. 1:9; James 5:14, 15, 16); and we are, in Christ, prophets of the Holy Spirit forthtelling the Gospel of God to a needy world (Matt. 28:19, 20; Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8; Rom. 1:16, 17; 10:14, 15; 2 Tim. 4:2; 1 Pet. 3:15). We perform such acts for the benefit of others, yes, for their salvation. But we do all this for the eternal glory and the rightful worship of God (Rev. 5:9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14).
__________
1 "In terms of the relations between the [Three Persons in the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit], there is a clear order: from the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit. These relations cannot be reversed." Robert Letham, Systematic Theology (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 111. John reminds us to keep our theology and our relationship with God in proper order: Our "fellowship is with the Father," note that the Father is named first, "and with His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3 NASB). Jesus Himself reminds us of this very order in His prayer to His Father: "This is eternal life, that they [His disciples] may know You," the Father, "the only true God," note the order, "and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3). All Three Persons are co-equal, co-eternal, maintaining co-majesty as God. But there is an order in the Godhead--not of importance but of divine roles. Jesus teaches His disciples: "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15), because the divine Words He speaks (John 6:63; 12:49) are in reality the divine Words of the Father (John 14:10). "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another [which indicates another of the same kind as Me] Helper [Advocate--cf. 1 John 2:1], that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth" (John 16:16, 17)--the Holy Spirit.
2 Mark E. Dever, "The Church," in A Theology for the Church, First Edition, ed. Daniel L Akin (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2007), 809.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., 810.
5 Scripture passages taken from Dever, 810.
6 Ibid., 810-11.
7 R. Kent Hughes, Acts: The Church Afire (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), 48-49.
8 Ibid., 50.
9 Ibid.
10 Michael Horton, "Foreword," in Jonathan Landry Cruise, What Happens When We Worship (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2020), xii.
11 Jonathan Landry Cruse, 1.
12 Ibid., 15.
13 Ibid., 21.
14 Ibid., 21-22.
15 Gregg R. Allison and Andreas J. Köstenberger, The Holy Spirit (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2020), 70-71.
16 G. Campbell Morgan, "The Spirit in the Church," in Understanding the Holy Spirit, by G. Campbell Morgan and Charles H. Spurgeon (Chattanooga: AMB Publishers, 1995), 95. I substituted his word "verities" for "truths" regarding God and His Word.
For the Puritans, then, worship involves "humbling myself before God, letting God be God, exalting Him, abasing myself at His footstool, and esteeming Him to be everything for my soul. ... Worship is never just a matter of the mind--it is a matter of the mind--but it is also a matter of the conscience, the will, the affections, the whole man, the entire soul. That's why they spoke so very much about worshiping God experientially--it is your whole being that is involved--it's a true experience of worship" (mark 14:39-15:33). The view of the Puritans as dogmatic fundamentalists who were sexually repressed, superstitious, and enamored by purity culture is severely and dangerously in error. In the Puritans we find a people whose hearts had been Reformed not only by the loving and regenerative grace of God in Christ but also by the effectual power of God's Word.
How are to define worship? "For the Puritans," says Dr. Beeke, "worship was the most important thing you'll ever do in your life. Worship was what God designed us for in Paradise. He put us there to worship Him, to glorify Him, and so all our worship is to glorify God. But what kind of worship does God find acceptable and pleasing to Him? Well, worship that prostrates ourselves before God, and declares that He is worthy, and honors Him," that is worship. "Acceptable worship, therefore, is always mediated by Christ because only in Christ can we commune with God. Christ is the Temple; Christ is the Priest; Christ is the Sacrifice; Christ is the Altar--the Everything in our worship" (mark 11:14-12:17). We cannot replace Christ with ornate Temples and elaborately-robed Priests / Vicars and lift up a Host (Bread as the Body of Jesus) and kneel at the Altar. Christ is all of these objects and so our focus must always remain on Him and His work as we honor God--the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in unity.
Where do we derive our instructions on how to worship God? "Acceptable worship is always grounded in the Scripture because in Scripture we have Christ revealed to us. Without the Bible, we try to worship what we do not know [John 4:22], and we offer up what does not please the Lord. So anything that is not grounded in the Bible is not worship" (mark 12:20-12:42). Luther and Anglicans like Thomas Cranmer held to the Normative Principle of Worship: whatever is not forbidden in Scripture is permitted or tolerable in offering worship to God. Reformers such as John Calvin and the Puritans held to the Regulative Principle: whatever is explicitly commanded in the New Testament is what God requires to be offered to His honor as proper worship--and only those forms of worship explicitly commanded in Scripture are proper for the worship of God. "To worship God is to bow down before His majestic glory; and in spirit and in truth to bring Him, in and through Jesus Christ and according to the scriptures, the honor and praise which belong exclusively to Him. ... Anything else is not worship" (mark 13:43-14:13). Anything else whatsoever is not worship.
MODERN "WORSHIP" AND THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH
"We'd like to thank y'all for coming out today. We're going to do a little number for you now," says the one leading a congregation in worship, "and, if you'll stand with us, you can sing along if you know the words." Is this gathering of people who "came out today" at a carnival, a hoe down, or a concert? No. They are the Lord Jesus' people bought with the price of His own blood and raised again on the third day to secure their salvation, justification, and future glorification. They have come to worship the triune God. They have not come to a performance, a concert, or a recital. They did not purchase a ticket to your show. You don't "thank them for coming out," as though it's no big deal, just a gathering to watch a show and listen to music, or a Gaither sing-song time, but to worship the LORD--Creator and Redeemer. Our worship, much like our spiritual relationship with God, is with and to God the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit.1 Are you really going to "do a little number for them," as in a performance, or are you going to lead them into the act of worship of the only living and true God (1 Thess. 1:9)? What is church for--its purpose, its function, its duty?
You must not think that I'm being unloving to this brother. He's my brother in Christ--I love him. But I love the LORD infinitely more and He is worthy of proper worship (see Luke 14:26 where one's love for the LORD is to be so singularly devoted that all other loves seem like hatred by comparison). This leader of "worship" seems to go out of his way to present songs that his people will enjoy. His mind is never set on what pleases the LORD. How can it be that someone who is supposed to lead believers into the worship of their Creator and Redeemer is so unconcerned about what pleases Him? "Guard your steps when you go to the House of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth--do not be hasty in your heart to utter [just] anything before God. God is in Heaven, and you are on earth, so let your words be few" (Eccl. 5:1-2 NIV). How does such a reading not give worship leaders pause for reflection? "Yet a time is coming," says Jesus, "and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit, and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit [the word is a noun] and in truth" (John 4:23-24 NIV).
The problem in the Church today--and this problem is especially magnified in the United States and among those sad so-called churches that have spread and grown outside of the United States in the Charismatic / Pentecostal / Third Wave / New Apostolic Reformation expressions, as well as among other churches who reject such charismatic practices but that, regardless, propogate either liberal nonsense, downright dead drudgery, or inadequate worship worthy of the Majesty of our triune God--all comes to this one tragic truth: an utter lack of a Theology of Worship. Worship is why we gather together in a building every Sunday Lord's Day. Yes, we fellowship, and we hear the Word of God preached (and perhaps share in the Lord's Supper / Communion / the Eucharist). But we are there primarily to worship. That is our primary goal and purpose: the worship of God.
The worship leader is not supposed to be worried about what songs will entertain people. The worship leader is supposed to be concerned to the utmost about God being rightly and appropriately glorified in a dignified manner--worship that is worthy of His divine majesty. From what I hear, that is tragically absent most Sundays. Church is not the Hee-Haw hour, a Southern Gospel Gaither hour, or a rock concert with a light show, complete with a fog machine, and guitar and / or drum solos, repeating mantras and phrases over and over to induce behavior modification; which, by the way, is nothing short of emotional and spiritual manipulation and is of the devil. I don't even understand what people are thinking today. Do you not know God? Have you not learned from His Word who is to worship God and the manner in which He is to be worshiped?
WHO IS TO WORSHIP GOD?
The whole earth is to give proper glory, honor, and worship to God her Creator (Ps. 66:4; Isa. 6:3; Hab. 2:14). This is the very Meaning of Life--to worship God. But the whole earth fails to perform her duty to her Maker. The earth, subjected to decaying entropy for the Fall (Rom. 8:20, 21, 22), is under the sway of the Evil One (2 Cor. 4:4). So God has determined to take from the Devil's Kingdom a people for Himself, for His possession, for His glory and this is ultimately what it means to be saved (Deut. 4:34, 35, 39; 5:29; 6:14, 15; 7:6, 7, 8, 9; 10:12, 13; 12:4, 5, 11, 12, 21; 26:15, 16, 17, 18, 19; 29:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18; Rom. 8:29, 30; 9:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24; 1 Cor. 1:30, 31; 2:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14; Eph. 1:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13; 2:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Jesus said that He will build His Church (Matt. 16:18), the People of God who will belong to His Father, and the Church is to worship God in the earth, until Jesus returns, and forever into eternity.
If someone who is not in Blood Covenant with Jesus by grace through faith in Him attempts to worship God than that is an abomination (Prov. 15:8). God will not be appeased by fallen and sinful human effort: it is an affront to God's holiness. The proper worship of God, therefore, belongs solely to those who have been made spiritually alive in Christ by the Holy Spirit (John 4:24). Such a person is now "in Christ," in spiritual union and fellowship with Jesus, and hence with His Father, by the work of the Holy Spirit (John 3:3, 5, 6, 7, 8; 6:63; 7:37, 38, 39; 14:16, 17, 26; 15:26; 16:7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15; Rom. 8:6, 7, 8, 9; 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 3:15, 16, 17, 18; Gal. 3:3; Eph. 1:3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 14; 2 Thess. 2:13, 14; Titus 3:4, 5, 6, 7). Believers belong to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, but we also belong to each other (Rom. 12:4, 5). So we must worship God together.
The Church is the People of God gathered together in fellowship with one another for the worship of God in Trinity, to listen with a disciple's ear to the Word of God preached, and to prayer (Acts 2:42 ESV). Dr. Mark E. Dever rightly summarizes: "the proper ends for a local congregation's life and actions are the worship of God, the edification of the church, and the evangelization of the world. These three purposes in turn serve the glory of God."2 Dever quotes Dr. Ligon Duncan regarding what elements should be included in worship to the effect: "'Read the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, sing the Bible, and see the Bible.' By 'seeing' the Bible, Duncan means the celebration of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which depict the Gospel."3 Though God possesses no inherent need for what we can attempt to offer Him (Acts 17:24, 25), we are right to worship Him, for He alone is worthy of worship (the old English word referring to worth-ship, that someone or some thing is worthy of accolades and honor).
Hear, O My people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God--your [one and only] God [cf. Deut. 6:4]. I do not reprove you for your [animal] sacrifices, and your burnt offerings are continually before Me [so they were performing sacrifices as required]. I shall take no young bull out of your house, nor male goats out of your folds, for every beast of the forest is Mine--the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains and everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is Mine and all it contains. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of male goats [the obvious answer being No]? (Ps. 50:7-13 NASB).What then? What does God truly desire? "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High; call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you and you will honor Me" (Ps. 50:14-15 NASB). "For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise" (Ps. 51:16-17; cf. Ps. 40:6, 7, 8). The God of Israel was sick and tired of mere animal sacrifices when the people did not truly love Him (read Isaiah 1:10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15): "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow" (Isa. 1:16, 17). A person might unknowingly ask: Is God asking too much from us? Hardly!
In the Wilderness God did not require burnt offerings from His people (Jer. 7:21, 22). "But this is what I commanded them, saying, 'Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you'" (Jer. 7:23). But many of them were not interested in this kind of spiritual intimacy with YHWH. "This people honors Me with their lips," quotes Jesus from God His Father, "but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me" (Matt. 15:8-9; Isa. 29:13; cf. Mark 7:6). God Himself asks: "My people, what have I done to you, and how have I wearied you? Answer Me" (Micah 6:3). "With what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts--the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:6-8 NASB).
If someone thinks that God is requiring too much, meaning the daily and the weekly honor and glory that is due to Him and to His holy Name (Exod. 3:14, 15; Ps. 29:2; 66:2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 111:9; 115:1; Luke 1:49), then such a person has probably not been saved--has not yet been inwardly changed and born again by the grace of God through faith in the Son of God by the work of the Spirit of God (John 3:3-8; Titus 3:5; James 1:18; 1 John 5:1, 18). Why? Because the mind and heart of the believer who has experienced an inward change of regeneration sets his heart and mind on those spiritual realities of the Holy Spirit who dwells within him (Rom. 8:5, 6, 9, 10). He longs to worship! "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship" (Rom. 12:1 NIV; cf. "your spiritual worship," ESV; "your spiritual service of worship," LSB, NASB). Our daily lives, then, are also daily acts of worship.
So, how do we, the Church, collectively find and live out our purpose for the proper, spiritual worship of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit? Paul commands young pastor Timothy: "devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching" (1 Tim. 4:13 ESV). "Hence, right preaching of God's Word is central to the church's worship, forming its basis and core."4 Did you know that Jesus sang a hymn with His disciples after the Lord's Supper (Matt. 26:30)? I wonder at the sound of Jesus' singing voice. Paul commands us to be in the practice of being filled with or guided by the Holy Spirit, singing to "one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody [Greek: to pluck a stringed instrument] to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Eph. 5:18-21 ESV). The commands (plural) to pray, corporately and privately, are scattered throughout the New Testament (Matt. 6:7-15; Luke 11:1-4; Acts 2:42, where in Greek the prayers refer to praying written prayers from the Psalms and the Old Testament at set hours of the day; Acts 4:24-31; 12:5, 12; Eph. 6:18; Phil. 4:6; Col. 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:17; 1 Tim. 2:8; James 5:13, 16).5
Behind the assertion that Christian worship must consist of these elements is the Protestant understanding of the sufficiency of Scripture, the idea that the Scriptures sufficiently reveal everything God's people need for salvation, perfect trust, and perfect obedience [cf. 2 Tim. 3:15-17 ESV]. The sufficiency of Scripture has many implications, including the conviction that Scripture should regulate the way God's people should approach God in worship. This principle has often been called the Regulative Principle. The Regulative Principle applies the Protestant belief in the authority of God's Word to the particular Doctrine of the Church; and it is most often referenced in discussions of public worship.6The Normative Principle declares that whatever is not forbidden by Scripture is permissible in Worship. This is how excess is created, established, and normalized: everything from praying to Mary to blaring guitars, a light show, a fog machine and interpretive dance. The Regulative Principle seeks to look in Scripture to see how God desires to be worshiped. After all, God Himself is seeking those who worship Him in spirit and in truth.
WE ARE TO WORSHIP GOD ALONE
That we must worship God is a biblical given (Ps. 95:6; 150:6; John 4:23; Rom. 14:11; Phil. 4:20; Heb. 13:15). How are we to worship God? is the only proper follow-up question. Our English word worship derives from the Old English word worthship and refers to demonstrating the worthiness of someone or some thing. How shall we demonstrate that God is worthy of honor, praise, obedience and loyalty? We do so in words, whether spoken in sermons or teaching or reading Scripture or talking to other people about God in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as well as in song. Do the words matter? Yes. Do the songs / lyrics matter? Definitely! Does even the style of the music matter? Absolutely--and those who disagree are, in my view, only intending to please themselves and not the Lord. For worship involves the whole of one's being: in worship "I come as a sinner, worthy of damnation, but I come in Christ and, so, I am an adopted son of God according to His great mercy" (mark 14:57-15:08). Worship begins within the creature as a result of the redemptive work of God the Father in God the Son through God the Holy Spirit. We will not know how we are to worship God until our soul understands what God has done for us. Perspective is, indeed, King and we, therefore, need a proper and spiritual perspective of God if we are to honor, praise, and worship Him. But the only revelation we have of our God is what He has revealed of Himself in His Word.
Since worship involves what we might call "the things of the Spirit" of God, and that requires discernment from the indwelling Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14 NIV), then the one who draws close to worship the triune God (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) must do so in spirit (John 4:23). Jesus teaches us that location does not matter when we consider the worship of God (John 4:21, 22, 23, 24). Since the Father is divine (1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 4:6), and the Son is divine (John 1:1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 12, 14, 18; 8:24, 28, 58; 10:30; 17:1, 2, 3) and the Holy Spirit is divine (2 Cor. 3:17), then all three Members / Persons of the Godhead Trinity (the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit) are worthy of worship--and, yet, we worship one God (Deut. 6:4; Mark 12:29; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 4:4, 5, 6; 1 Tim. 2:5). Is there a proper order? Yes. Our relationship / fellowship is "with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3), in the power, presence, and potency of the Holy Spirit: "But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He [the Father] saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He [the Father] poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior" (Titus 3:4-6 NASB). We might say that we pray to the Father (1 John 1:3) in the Son (Rom. 8:34; 1 Tim. 2:5) through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:26, 27).
We are right to consider the worship of God as orderly and proper: "For God is not a God of disorder but of peace" (1 Cor. 14:33 NIV). Those who minister in the Church are to be in control of themselves in their function to the honor and glory of God. "But everything," everything done within the Church during the worship of God, "should be done in a fitting and orderly way" (1 Cor. 14:40 NIV). Those who operate in any spiritual gift as given by the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:4, 7, 11) should "acknowledge that what I," Paul, "am writing is the Lord's command. But if anyone ignores this [then] they will themselves be ignored" (1 Cor. 14:37-28 NIV). Whatever is written and commanded in Scripture "was written for our instruction" (Rom. 15:4 NASB) and, so, we heartily confess that all Scripture "is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17 ESV). If we, therefore, want to know how God desires to be worshiped in the New Testament Church then we must turn to the only firm foundation and revelation we possess: the authoritative and inerrant Word of God. B.B. Warfield is right to insist: "The Bible is the Word of God in such a way that, when the Bible speaks, God speaks." Then let God speak as to how we are to worship Him and only offer the same as honest and pure worship.
WHICH GOD ARE WE TO WORSHIP?
There is only one God (Deut. 6:4): the God of Israel (1 Kings 8:23; cf. Gal. 6:16), the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:3), the only living and true God (1 Thess. 1:9; cf. Jer. 10:10; John 17:3). This God and this God alone is to be worshiped: "I am the LORD, and there is no other; there is no God but Me" (Isa. 45:5; 43:10). For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men--the man Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 2:5), who is also worshiped and glorified (John 20:28), along with the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 3:16, 17, 18). So we worship one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance (Athanasian Creed). The Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ and the Love of God the Father and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Cor. 13:14). In the Beginning the Word was already in existence, and the Word was with God the Father, and the Word was Himself God (John 1:1). The Word became flesh, revealed as Jesus the Christ, or Messiah, and He tabernacled among us (John 1:14). No mere mortal has seen God the Father at any time. But the eternally-begotten God, who is the Son of God in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed Him (John 1:18). For He has confessed the eternal truth: I and the Father are in complete and eternal union (John 10:30); This is eternal life, that they may know God the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (John 17:3). God the Father, whose name is LORD (YHWH: Ex. 3:14, 15), is glorified in acknowledging that the Person of His Son Jesus the Messiah is LORD (Phil. 2:11), and the Holy Spirit is LORD (2 Cor. 3:17). God is LORD, God is one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God in Three Persons.
Q. Are we to worship the Holy Spirit?
A. Is the Holy Spirit not God (Acts 5:3, 4, 9; 2 Cor. 3:17)? God is to be worshiped.
Q. Are we to worship Jesus?
A. Is Jesus not God (John 1:1, 14, 18; 8:24, 28, 58; 20:28; Heb. 1:3)? God is to be worshiped.
HOW ARE WE TO WORSHIP GOD?
What we really want to know is this: Since worship is to demonstrate God's worth then what do we do in church in order to show God's worth among us? How do we honor Him? What do we say? What actions do we enact? For the answer to these questions we must look to New Testament Scripture. What did the early Jewish and Gentile Christians do in church to demonstrate back to God His own worthship? On the Day the Church is given birth by the Holy Spirit, so to speak, the believers in Jesus are devoting themselves "to the apostles' teaching [doctrine], and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42 ESV). They are listening to and putting into practice the theology they are learning from sermons; they are fellowshipping with each other--a mutual, generous sharing together in commonality (Acts 2:44), and in giving to the needs of others (Acts 2:45)7; they are eating meals together or, perhaps better, sharing the Eucharist / Communion / the Lord's Supper together (cf. Acts 2:46 where "breaking bread" can be perceived of as what we now call Communion or the Eucharist); they are praying the prayers--referring to praying the written Psalms, the Hymn and Prayer Book of Israel, including other written prayers; and they are praising God together (Acts 2:47).
This is a communion--a corporate body gathered together to commune with and to worship the only living and true God (1 Thess. 1:9): such a gathering is not an individualistic experience but a commonality of gathered worshipers. The mindset of the believers is one of union: united together to praise the worthship of God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit; and united to God their Father in God the Son by the effectual ministry of God the Holy Spirit. They are continually devoting themselves to this manner of life and the worthship of God. "Christ and His atoning work were constantly before them, daily bringing their hearts upward, in solemn and joyous contemplation."8 R. Kent Hughes rightly notes that the prayers are "most likely ... specific prayers, probably both Jewish and Christian. The early believers suddenly saw the old formal prayers through new eyes and also, in their new joy, created new prayers for praise--much as Mary did when she sang the Magnificat [Luke 1:46-55]."9
Praying from a Prayer Book, then, is biblical--a proper manner with which to commune with God and to demonstrate His worthship together and by oneself--as we pray back to Him His own inerrant Word; that is, such is biblical as long as the Prayer Book (like the Anglican Book of Common Prayer) is adopting Scripture for its prayers, being Christ-centered and God-honoring in its very nature. The early Jewish believers in Jesus also practiced the Hours--praying the prayers at set hours of the day: Morning Prayer at 9am (Acts 2:14, 15); Noontime Prayer (Acts 10:9); Evening Prayer or Vespers at 3pm (Acts 3:1; 10:30); and Midnight Prayer or Compline (Acts 16:25). The Discipline of the Hours is not commanded for believers in the New Testament. We see the pattern for such a practice but we are not given an explicit command toward the same. Strict adherence to the Regulative Principle will mitigate against the practice of anything not commanded in Scripture for the worship of or communion with God. But even with the Regulative Principle we must be careful and not radicalize the principle. After all, it is a (guiding) principle, not inerrant Scripture.
Moreover, my own experience within an Anglican context for twelve years gives me great caution about the use of a Prayer Book, not merely for the danger of praying or even worshiping by mere rote but because those prayers, uttered day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year can replace and even hinder spontaneous prayer / praying to God. Or, I should say, that is at least my experience. In a very real sense, then, I can admit that daily, weekly, monthly and yearly use of the Prayer Book actually hindered and crippled my "prayer life" and left me a bit bewildered as to what to say to God that was not already laid out for me in form. I still struggle to this day. I was so attached to the form that I lost my former ability to just speak with the Lord as I did when I first came to know Him salvifically. I cannot possibly caution you strongly enough. Pray from your heart. Remember that the Holy Spirit "intercedes" to God the Father "for us with groanings too deep for words" (Rom. 8:26). The Spirit of God dwelling within us intercedes to the Father when we pray and He inerrantly speaks for us "according to the will of God" (Rom. 8:27) so pray with your words from your heart, and pray with confidence, knowing that the Holy Spirit is praying perfectly to the Father on your behalf.
Furthermore, Jesus Himself intercedes to the Father also on our behalf (Rom. 8:34). So we do not have to worry that our prayers are so informal, or even ignorant, for God already knows our weaknesses and that "we do not not how to pray as we should" (Rom. 8:26). Pray, my brother and sister, pray from your heart. Immerse yourself in the Word of God, which will conform your heart and renew your mind (Rom. 12:1, 2), and you will begin to pray biblically, scripturally, even if you are not explicitly quoting Scripture passages. You are most welcome, I believe, to pray to the Lord the prayers in Scripture because they are God-breathed Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16), which is profitable for "training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16), giving us the confidence that the words are the very life-breath of the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21). Again, however, there is no explicit command for the New-Testament believer to pray the prayers of Scripture. So our focus should be to pray to the Lord from the heart with complete confidence that the Lord Jesus Christ our Mediator and the indwelling Holy Spirit will intercede to God the Father on our behalf--and both will do so perfectly.
So, elements of worship include hearing the Word of God spoken, taught, and preached; sharing together in the Lord's Supper / Eucharist; giving to the needs of others; and the prayers or to praying. Where is worship music mentioned? Certainly there must be music! Paul commands gathered believers to address each other, or yourselves, "in Psalms [1 Cor. 14:26] and Hymns [Acts 16:25] and Spiritual Songs [1 Cor. 14:15; Rev. 5:9], singing and making melody [Greek, psalló, to pluck a stringed instrument] to the Lord with your heart," so not by mere rote (John 4:23, 24), "giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Eph. 5:19-21 ESV). We know that Jesus and His disciples sang a Hymn after Communion (Matt. 26:30). I wonder what Jesus' singing voice sounds like.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE WORSHIP
That is the title of Jonathan Landry Cruse's book: What Happens When We Worship. Michael Horton is brilliant in his Foreword: Ultimately we must ask ourselves "What happens in worship?" We imagine we come to accomplish a great feat: to worship God in Trinity. But the most important aspect of worship "is that it's not about us but for us. We come to church not even primarily to worship but to receive once again that life-sustaining Bread of Life in the variety of ways His Word comes to us [preached, read, prayed, sung, and received in sacrament]. We come not to do something again but to have something done to us again. ... What happens in worship? God is at work and the best thing we can do is receive it."10 We need to confess that our view of worship is what we do: sing, pray, listen to the Word and ingest it entirely. But there is more--so much more.
There is no greater task in the life of the believer than to worship God because that is the purpose of our lives in Christ. We are created to worship our Creator. Picture the Garden of Eden as an organic Temple and Adam and Eve as the first worshipers of our Creator. Jonathan Landry Cruse is right, I think, to insist that worship is a supernatural event.11 He is also spot on to argue that worship is "the most important thing you will ever do."12 He echoes Augustine, in his Confessions, who said: "You have made us for Yourself, O LORD, and our heart is restless until it rests in You." When God regenerates the dead spirit of a person, worship becomes instinctual, a natural response to the awakening grace of God. The worship of God is the most important aspect of our lives--even more so than evangelizing the lost. How so? Because the result of the conversion of a soul through evangelization will require discipleship of the now-believer and that occurs within the context of corporate worship. "We are trained up in the faith and mature in our understanding of the things of God by engaging in biblically robust worship week in and week out."13
This takes place together in worship. "Therefore," Cruse continues, as he quotes Darryl Hart and Hon Muether, "'it is the church, and specifically the church at worship, that fulfills the Great Commission.' Far from favoring evangelism at the expense of the worship of the church, the Great Commission shows that evangelism properly serves the worship of the church. Craig Troxel helpfully writes, 'If the church begins to define herself in terms of her tasks and mission, this will significantly distort her self-understanding and potentially displace her primary function, the worship of God.'"14 Worship is the answer to the age-old philosophical question as the meaning of life. The meaning of life is the worship of God. The worship of God even properly contextualizes the Eternal Gospel: "And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an Eternal Gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he said with a loud voice, 'Fear [revere] God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come: worship Him who made Heaven, and earth, and the springs of waters'" (Rev. 14:6, 7).
REMEMBER BEAUTY
God is concerned about beauty--perhaps not beauty as we in our fallenness regard beauty, but, beauty all the same. For example, God gave specific instructions regarding the building of the Temple / Sanctuary where His presence would be set, including the settings and furniture that would be constructed and placed therein. For instance, with the Lampstand, six branches "shall go out from its sides," and three cups "shall be shaped like almond blossoms in the one branch, a bulb and a flower, and three cups shaped like almond blossoms in the other branch, a bulb and a flower--so for six branches going out from the lampstand," etc. (Ex. 25:31-40). The Temple Curtains "of fine twisted linen" were made of "blue and purple and scarlet material" made "with cherubim, the work of a skillful workman" (Ex. 26:1; cf. Ex. 26:2-14). The same is given for the Veils (Ex. 26:31-37).
The skillful workers God "filled ... with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship, to make artistic designs for work in gold, in silver, and in bronze, and in the cutting of stones for settings, and in the carving of wood, that he may work in all kinds of craftsmanship ...; and in the hearts of all who are skillful I have put skill, that they may make all that I have commanded you" (Ex. 31:3, 4, 5, 6; cf. Ex. 35:30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35). The hem of the Robe to be worn by Aaron was to have "pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet material all around ... and bells of gold between them all around" (Ex. 28:33; cf. Ex. 39:24). In Solomon's Temple there were to be carved Gourds and Open Flowers (1 Ki. 6:18) and carved engravings of Cherubim, Palm Trees, and Open Flowers (1 Ki. 6:29, 32, 35). In Ezekiel's vision of a Temple there were to be Palm Tree ornaments (Ezek. 40:16, 22, 26, 31, 34, 37); as well as carved Cherubim and Palm Trees over the Entrance, the Inner House, the Outside and on all Walls all round Inside (Ezek. 41:18, 19). What was forbidden regarding carved images et al. is not the carving or the images in themselves but in the worship of such, crafted as an idol, or any likeness of "what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth," to "worship them or serve them," for YHWH (the LORD) is our God and He is a jealous God (Exod. 20:4, 5).
Of course God cares about beauty! Look at all His creation! "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands" (Ps. 19:1). The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ is rife with descriptions of Heaven, the Abode of God, in which is filled with the beauty of His Throne Room (Rev. 4:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; 5:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14; 8:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; 10:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; 14:1, 2, 3, 4); and then there is the New Heavens and the New Earth in God's Kingdom that will be brought to Earth (Rev. 21:9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27; 22:1, 2, 3, 4, 5). If the Old Testament Sanctuary was beautiful, and God's present Throne Room in Heaven is beautiful, because God cares about beauty, are we really to think that God is not concerned with beauty in these New Testament days, after the Son of God has given His righteous and holy life to save us sinners, as He was raised to new life, and ascended into Heaven to sit at His Father's right hand, where He intercedes for us, from where He will return to gather us to Himself one day? God loves beauty. We should also love beauty.
Yes, we, as the Bride of Christ, are not to be concerned with outward beauty but inward beauty (1 Tim. 2:9, 10; 1 Pet. 3:3, 4). Yes, we should be concerned with what concerns God, and what God has commanded us in Scripture. But God has not explicitly commanded us to build structures to gather for His own worship in the New Testament. How, then, are we to be guided? What kind of Sanctuary should we build? Should we merely meet in homes? Some believers in the first century met in homes (Rom. 16:5; Col. 4:15). But they were not commanded to meet together in homes. Some met by a river (Acts 16:11-15). Some Jewish believers still went to Temple to pray and to worship (Acts 2:46; 3:1, 2, 3, 8, 10; 5:21; 21:26) even though Jesus, Yeshua, was neither preached nor believed. (I am not advocating anyone staying in a church that does not preach Jesus!)
If we are not allowed to look cautiously to our past (the Old Testament), or to our future (the Eternal State), then how are we to know how and in what condition and context to properly worship God in the present (the New Testament era)? That our future will be filled with God's beauty should, I think, inform us to not neglect beauty in our present state--that beauty including the structure of our building, inside and out; what objects / decor are outside and inside the structure; gifted people in music and singing; song selection and arrangement--both stylistically and holistically (what songs to play in order); Scripture-reading; perhaps teachers for teaching the Bible to adults and children prior to or after the gathering together in worship; and a qualified pastor for preaching the Word of God; etc. "But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner" (1 Cor. 14:40). Why? Because "God is not a God of confusion but of peace" (1 Cor. 14:33), peace being eirḗnē, giving us "quietness," "rest," "wholeness," i.e., "when all essential parts are joined together." Peace, Quietness, and Order are beautiful. So, in worship, remember beauty.
The Regulative Principle can be misused by radicals. If we are not commanded to build a structure for worship in the New Testament then why do we? What of the pulpit, the choir loft, the organ and / or piano, the seating, the carpet, etc.? If we use the Regulative Principle properly, regarding what actually occurs during worship, then much of our other questions regarding a building, and so forth, are secondary. Still, we may not all agree on the idea of images, however conceived, but let me remind you strict Regulative Principle advocates: if there is a carved / crafted Cross in your Sanctuary then you have violated your own interpretive principle (even though I think you are missing the entire point God is making in Exodus 20:4, 5 regarding not bowing down to carved images / idols, etc.)--and I see this happening all the time in such churches. Be consistent!
WORSHIP IN THE SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH
The fact that ἐν πνεύματι, in spirit, is a noun and not an adjective informs us that Jesus is not saying to worship the Father spiritually, that this is adjectivally how we are to worship, but in spirit: for God is spirit--not a spirit but spirit--His very nature and essence is spirit and therefore the proper worship of Him should reflect His nature and not our fleshly and earthly nature. John Calvin rightly argues: "God is so far from being like us that those things which please us most are the objects of His loathing and abhorrence." Are we really so blinded by our own hypocritical ignorance to subject God and our worship of Him to our opinions, and to our own fleshly and fickle tendencies, that we fail "to regard with suspicion whatever is gratifying according to the flesh"? In other words, why are we not more critical to consider what we offer Him as worship, asking ourselves who is truly being blessed by what is offered: us or Him? "Besides," adds Calvin, "as we cannot ascend to the height of God, let us remember that we ought to seek from His Word the rule by which we are governed," and that certainly is the case when we think to worship Him.
To worship God "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23, 24), rather than place of location or temple (John 4:20), is to worship Him spiritually, or "in the realm of spirit (as God Himself is in that realm)," and we do so "by the new birth God grants (cf. John 3:6: 'that which is born of spirit [or: the Spirit] is spirit')."15 I am reminded of Jesus' words: "the Spirit ... gives life; the flesh profits nothing" (John 6:63); as well as the words of Paul: "But a natural [unregenerate] man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised" (1 Cor. 2:14). Therefore, in order to worship God "in spirit and in truth," one must become alive spiritually: born again (John 3:3, 5, 6, 7, 8; Eph. 2:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10; Titus 3:5). That which is dead cannot worship God (Ps. 115:17; Isa. 38:18; Eph. 2:1, 2, 3).
G. Campbell Morgan (1863-1945) explains that the "incense of praise is offered" to God among born-again believers "by the inspiration of the Spirit [Phil. 4:4, 5, 6, 7]; the intercession of prayer is maintained by the whole company of those who pray in the Holy Spirit [not some so-called private prayer language but the Holy Spirit's own private work: Rom. 8:26]; the work of prophecy, in its fullest meaning of forth-telling, is carried forward by such as are witnesses, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, to the eternal truths of God"16 in His Word (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). We are, in Christ, priests unto God in the Spirit who offer sacrifices of thanksgiving (1 Pet. 2:9); we are, in Christ, intercessors by the indwelling Holy Spirit for our needs and for the needs of others (Matt. 6:10, 11; 2 Cor. 13:7, 8, 9; Phil. 1:9; James 5:14, 15, 16); and we are, in Christ, prophets of the Holy Spirit forthtelling the Gospel of God to a needy world (Matt. 28:19, 20; Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8; Rom. 1:16, 17; 10:14, 15; 2 Tim. 4:2; 1 Pet. 3:15). We perform such acts for the benefit of others, yes, for their salvation. But we do all this for the eternal glory and the rightful worship of God (Rev. 5:9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14).
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1 "In terms of the relations between the [Three Persons in the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit], there is a clear order: from the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit. These relations cannot be reversed." Robert Letham, Systematic Theology (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 111. John reminds us to keep our theology and our relationship with God in proper order: Our "fellowship is with the Father," note that the Father is named first, "and with His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3 NASB). Jesus Himself reminds us of this very order in His prayer to His Father: "This is eternal life, that they [His disciples] may know You," the Father, "the only true God," note the order, "and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3). All Three Persons are co-equal, co-eternal, maintaining co-majesty as God. But there is an order in the Godhead--not of importance but of divine roles. Jesus teaches His disciples: "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15), because the divine Words He speaks (John 6:63; 12:49) are in reality the divine Words of the Father (John 14:10). "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another [which indicates another of the same kind as Me] Helper [Advocate--cf. 1 John 2:1], that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth" (John 16:16, 17)--the Holy Spirit.
2 Mark E. Dever, "The Church," in A Theology for the Church, First Edition, ed. Daniel L Akin (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2007), 809.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., 810.
5 Scripture passages taken from Dever, 810.
6 Ibid., 810-11.
7 R. Kent Hughes, Acts: The Church Afire (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), 48-49.
8 Ibid., 50.
9 Ibid.
10 Michael Horton, "Foreword," in Jonathan Landry Cruise, What Happens When We Worship (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2020), xii.
11 Jonathan Landry Cruse, 1.
12 Ibid., 15.
13 Ibid., 21.
14 Ibid., 21-22.
15 Gregg R. Allison and Andreas J. Köstenberger, The Holy Spirit (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2020), 70-71.
16 G. Campbell Morgan, "The Spirit in the Church," in Understanding the Holy Spirit, by G. Campbell Morgan and Charles H. Spurgeon (Chattanooga: AMB Publishers, 1995), 95. I substituted his word "verities" for "truths" regarding God and His Word.