The Basis & Nature of True Worship

Historically, members of the Lord’s church have insisted that congregational activities be limited to only those things authorized by the Bible. For the most part brethren have taken seriously Peter’s admonition:

If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. (1 Peter 4:11)

Even when congregations divided, the divisions were hardly ever because someone had denied that we must “speak where the Bible speaks, and be silent where the Bible is silent.” Take, for example, the controversy that brethren have had over instrumental music in worship. Brethren have been divided over this issue for over a century. A look at the history of apologetics for the use of the instrumental music in congregational worship reveals that, until recently, its defenders searched for some valid scriptural defense, thereby acknowledging that they still believed that they needed Bible authority for what they did.”[1]

However, in recent years those who defend instrumental music in worship have taken an entirely different turn. In a debate with Alan Highers in 1988, Given O. Blakely made the assertion that the word of God “does not represent worship as being upon the basis of authority.” (36) According to Blakely, there is no such thing as “authorized worship” (40), “regulated worship” (41), or “elements of Christian worship” (36). According to him, worship consists only of an attitude or emotion of the heart; the outward manner in which this inner feeling is expressed is unregulated by scripture and, therefore, irrelevant. In the debate, Blakely said: “I am questioning that worship can at all be regulated.”[2] When asked to consider Paul’s command in Col. 3:16 to give thanks through Christ to God the Father, brother Blakely responded:

“This is not giving thanks because He told us the rules and it is not giving thanks because He told us how to do it. It is giving thanks because we perceive somewhat of the magnitude of His redemption that is in Christ Jesus. I suggest that such an attitude cannot be achieved by law. You cannot effectually command a person to give thanks. You cannot effectually command an activity of the heart.”[3]

Not even God can “effectively command an activity of the heart,” according to brother Blakely. Therefore, there can’t be such a thing as authorized worship and, he challenges those who do not believe him to provide “a single reference where those in Christ are instructed on how to worship.”[4]

This approach, in defense of the instrument, is radically different from his predecessors. Whereas they sought to find scriptural justification for their practice, Blakely argues that no such authority is needed. This new approach to an old controversy raises some fundamental questions about issues much broader than that of instrumental music. One question has to do with authority: “Does the New Testament teach that the worship of Christians must be authorized by the word of Christ?” “A second question concerns the nature of worship. What is worship? Does it involve specific acts, or is it merely an inner feeling or attitude?” [5] Does the New Testament give instruction concerning congregational/group worship?

Before this series is concluded, I hope to answer these questions to your satisfaction. However, in this lesson I want to lay some groundwork about worship itself; I want to consider the basis and nature of acceptable worship.

The Basis of Worship

Worship is man’s response to the nature and work of God. He worships God because of who He is and because of what He has done. If he wishes to make his worship more meaningful, then he grows in his knowledge of God, he seeks to learn more about Him. For the more that one learns about the Being he worships, the more meaningful will his worship become.

·       The eternal God.

In Deut. 33:27 Moses describes God as: “The eternal God.” In Rev. 4:9, John calls Him: [the One] who lives forever and ever. In Daniel 7:9 Jehovah reveals Himself as “the Ancient of days” or, the One advanced in days. Should this revelation effect the way that we approach God in worship? How is one generally effected when he stands before a human who is of great age? Is he not inspired to venerate such a person, to show him respect because of his age? Under the Law of Moses God commanded the people to:

Leviticus 19:32 ... rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man ....

God is “the Ancient of days” - “the eternal God.” He is He:

“Who was and is and is to come!” (Revelation 4:8)

Before any man existed - He was and though many say that He is dead - He is; and He will not only out live the memory of such men, but He will continue to live even when the material universe - the heavens and earth have been destroyed. As it is written:

Hebrews 1:10-12 And, "YOU, LORD, IN THE BEGINNING LAID THE FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH, AND THE HEAVENS ARE THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS; THEY WILL PERISH, BUT YOU REMAIN; AND THEY ALL WILL BECOME OLD LIKE A GARMENT, AND LIKE A MANTLE YOU WILL ROLL THEM UP; LIKE A GARMENT THEY WILL ALSO BE CHANGED. BUT YOU ARE THE SAME, AND YOUR YEARS WILL NOT COME TO AN END."

Does this knowledge inspire you to approach God with respect and veneration? It ought to. But does it? When you come before God in public or private worship do you do so with respect? He deserves your respect because He is “the Ancient of days” - “the eternal God.”

·       God is holy

Another characteristic of God is revealed by John in his 1^st epistle, chapter 1, verse 5:

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

In Revelation 15:4, those who had been victorious over the beast and his image sang:

“Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy.”

To be holy is to be separated from sin. Unlike the gods who were devised by the will men - gods who were up to their eyes in sins, gods who got drunk, who fought among themselves, who lied to mortals and one another, who committed adultery and sexual immorality, the God of the Bible is absolutely holy. There is no one else like Him. As it is written:

Exodus 15:11 “Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?

God is holy and an understanding of this has a most profound effect upon those who stand before Him. It will cause them to be made aware of their own uncleanness. Consider how Isaiah was effected when he stood before God (in a vision) and saw His holiness. He said:

Isaiah 6:5 Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

As he stood before this absolutely holy Being, Isaiah understood just how spiritually unclean he was and he was afraid. On that final day, when we stand in His presence, we too will understand just how morally dirty we are. But do you know what, we stand before God now. We may not see Him as Isaiah did and as we will on the day of judgment, but we are standing before Him nevertheless. Each time we pray, each time we sing praises to His name, each time that we worship Him we are standing in His presence. And God, who is absolutely holy, expects those who come before Him in this manner to treat Him as holy. But how do we do this? Leviticus 10 gives us the answer.

Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD spoke, saying: ‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified.’” So Aaron held his peace.

Our God is holy; He does not think like we do, neither does He act like we act. (Isa. 55:8-9) Furthermore, He expects those who approach Him in worship to acknowledge His holiness. In attempting to serve God without direction, in offering a fire that God had not commanded, Nadab and Abihu failed to acknowledge His holiness. And we fail to acknowledge it as well when we worship Him with strange worship, worship which He has not commanded.

·       God is rich in grace toward mankind.

God is eternal and God is holy, but He is even more than this, He is also the God of grace. Jehovah is good, beneficent, kind and gracious, not just to those who love Him but to all men. He is the giver of all physical blessings. Jesus says:

Matthew 5:45 “[the] Father in heaven; ... makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

Paul taught that:

Acts 14:17 “[God] did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”

But God has done much more than give us what we physically need. More importantly, He has provided us with all spiritual blessings in Christ. Before we were immersed into Christ (Gal. 3:26-27), we were “dead in ... trespasses and sins ... and were children of wrath.” (Eph. 2:1-3) Before our conversion we were:

Ephesians 2:12 without Christ ... having no hope and without God in the world.

But by His grace this has changed? We are now at peace with God and are blessed beyond our wildest dreams in Christ. (Eph 1:3; 2:13-19) Should this have any effect upon the way that we approach our God in worship and service? Having received abundant favors from Him, should we have any trouble in giving Him honor and thanks? It is a pitiful thing for men and women who have received so much from the hand of God not to “honor Him as God, or give thinks.” (Rom. 1:20) What kind of people are we to do such a thing? Surely, our worship ought to become more intense as we come to appreciate how gracious He has been to us.

·       God is the creator

But I would like to mention one last thing before moving on - The God whom we serve is the Creator of all things. We are introduced to Him in the following way:

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

God deserves to be worshipped because He is the creator of heaven and the earth.

Nehemiah 9:5-6 “Stand up and bless the LORD your God forever and ever! Blessed be Your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise! You alone are the LORD; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all. The host of heaven worships You.”

God holds men accountable for not acknowledging Him through creation; for not seeing His “invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature” (Rom. 1:18-20) Because of what they see, the whole earth ought to fear the Lord, the whole earth ought to stand in awe of Him. Why? “Because by His word the heavens were made ... He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” (Psalms 33:6-9) If this were all that we knew about God it would make it worthy of worship; and though men may fail to honor Him as He deserves the heavenly host who surround His throne don’t. They say:

Revelation 4:11 “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.”

God is worthy of our worship and service because He is the Ancient of Day and the Holy One; because He is gracious and kind; and because He is the Creator.

The Nature of Worship

These are just some of the attributes that God has made known about Himself through creation and by the scriptures. The proper response to this is to “honor Him as God” and to give Him thanks (Rom 1:21). Our worship is part of this response. But the question that we want to turn our attention to at this stage is, “What is involved in worship?”

The principal word translated “worship” is proskuneo. Originally it meant “to kiss reverently” while prostrating oneself on the ground. The adoration of the gods of the earth “offers a simple explanation of the development of the usual meaning of the term. The man who wants to honor an earth deity by kissing must stoop to do so. ...”[6] In ancient literature proskuneo was “used to designate the custom of prostrating oneself before a person and kissing his feet, the hem of his garment, the ground, etc.; the Persians did this in the presence of their deified king, and the Greeks before a divinity or something holy - they would fall down, prostrate themselves before the object of their adoration.”[7] In the New Testament proskuneo means to. kneel or to prostrate oneself to do homage, it is a gesture of respect, an act of reverence.[8] The corresponding Hebrew word (shah-`ghah) means to “to bow oneself down ...to prostrate oneself before any one out of honor.”[9]

Having the definition before us, we should not surprised to learn that there are two dimensions involved in true worship - an inward and an outward. Since worship is “an act of reverence” it is necessarily implied that the worshipper really does revere, honor, respect the One whom he is worshipping. We ignore this inward dimension to our peril. For though men may outwardly act as if they revere God, God is able to see what is in their heart; and He has never accepted acts of reverence from individuals who did not inwardly revere Him. In fact, the worship of such individuals is an abomination to God.

Proverbs 15:8 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.

Proverbs 21:27 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination; how much more when he brings it with wicked intent!

Proverbs 28:9 One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.

In these instances the worshipper was simply acting as if he revered God; inwardly he had no respect or reverence for Him whatsoever.. How do we know? Because of the life that he lived when he was not worshipping. He is described as a wicked person - one who had turned away his ear away from hearing the law. God says that worship from such an individual is “an abomination.” It is a wicked thing to act as if you revere God - to pretend that you respect him by going through certain motions.

But many people don’t get the message and they continue to “play church.” Like the Jews, they go through the motions of respect but by their daily lives they make it clear that it is nothing but a sham. They live God’s way on the Lord’s day, but on every other day they do it their way. This is not acceptable and you will not get away with this sham. In the past some of God’s people felt as if they could get away with this, but they all eventually learned just how wrong they were. The Lord told Jeremiah to:

Jeremiah 7:1-11 “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD!’” Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Do not trust in these lying words, saying, ‘The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these.’ “For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations’? Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” says the LORD. (cf., Isaiah 1:11-17; Amos 5:21-24)

Acceptable worship is not possible from men who do not inwardly revere God; from individuals who (apart from the Lord’s day) turn away their ears from hearing the law. This was unacceptable in the OT and it is unacceptable today. True worshippers worship from their inward person, from their hearts.

But true worship includes more than a pious heart, it also involves the performance of specific, overt acts. The view that worship consist only in an attitude or emotion of the heart doesn’t hold up under investigation. Remember, proskuneo means “an act of reverence.” Worship, then, includes not only reverence but also acts.

This is also made clear by another Greek word latreuo. Originally latreuo meant to serve for wages. As time went on it came to mean simply to serve “with no thought of reward and irrespective of whether the one who serves is a slave or free.”[10] However the word continued to evolve until took on a purely religious character. According to Thayer it is used in the NT to mean: “to render religious service or homage ... to perform sacred services, to offer gifts, to worship God in the observance of the rites instituted for his worship.”[11] Arndt & Gingrich say that in the NT latreuo means to “serve ... carrying out ... relig. duties”.[12] Jesus used this word with proskuneo when He said:

Matthew 4:10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”

Throughout his epistles Paul used this word to describe his way of life before God:

Romans 1:9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son ....

2 Timothy 1:3 I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did ....

Furthermore, he told the Hebrew Christians to show gratitude:

Hebrews 12:28-29 by which we may serve (render religious service to] God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.

In writing to the Philippians Paul told them that Christians are those:

Philippians 3:3 who worship God in the Spirit ....

Worship, then, includes much more than a pious heart. It involves doing things as well - performing religious duties. In another lesson we will discuss what some of these duties are, but in the meantime it is enough for us to understand that there is more involved in one’s worship than just a pious heart. True worship involves not just reverence but also acts of reverence.