The Basis & Nature of True Worship
Historically, members of the Lords church have insisted that
congregational activities be limited to only those things authorized by the
Bible. For the most part brethren have
taken seriously Peters 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 Pauls command in
Col. 3:16 to give thanks through Christ to God the Father, brother Blakely
responded:
Not even God can effectively command an activity of the heart,
according to brother Blakely.
Therefore, there cant 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.
Worship is mans 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.
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:
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.
Another characteristic of God is revealed by John in his 1st epistle,
chapter 1, verse 5:
In Revelation 15:4, those who had been victorious over the beast and his
image sang:
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:
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.
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 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.
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
dont. 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.
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 dont 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 Gods way on the Lords 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 Gods 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 Lords 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 Lords
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 doesnt 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 ones worship than just a pious
heart. True worship involves not just
reverence but also acts of reverence.
[1]Dan Petty, The Worship of the Church, Reemphasizing Bible Basics in Current Controversies, Florida College Annual Lectures 1990, p. 104.
[2]The Highers - Blakely Debate on Instrumental Music, p. 61.
[3]ibid., p. 61.
[4]ibid., p. 48.
[5]Dan Petty, p. 105.
[6]Kiel Heinrich Greeven, proskuneo, proskunatas, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 6, p. 759.
[7]Bauer, Arndt & Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, pp. 723-724.
[8]Henry Thayer, New Thayers Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 548.
[9]Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, # 7812 , p. 813.
[10]H. Strathmann, latreuo, latpeia, TDNT, vol. 4, pg. 59.
[11]Thayer, pp. 372-373.
[12]p. 468.