INTRODUCTION: THOUGHTS ON THE STATE OF WORSHIP IN EVANGELICALISM
“Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed,” said the ancient Greek thinker Heraclitus. The subject of worship commands the attention of many today just because of the endless changes. If there were ever days when the Church worshiped with one voice in a unison cadence, those days are gone, for now. After the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, the tapestry of Christian worship disintegrated. The seventeenth century became the fountain head for Protestant thought with great creedal leading to the jewels of the seventeenth century, the Westminster Confession and the systematic works of Turretin and a Brakel, though no clear unity of worship practice had been reached. Then, riding the waves of revival and revivalism, eighteenth and nineteenth century evangelicals followed many threads of the tapestry of Christian worship. The culmination of this has apexes in a quite sermon-centered, evangelism-centered worship service. Songs and a few necessary items, like offerings are to give way to the pastor’s “message.” Such revivalistic worship is at its apex, a “harvest of souls.” In the twentieth century, the high churches have seen a renewed emphasis on liturgical worship, while the low churches have been empowered by the new phenomenon of praise and worship music.
There are deeper influences which contribute to an often unhealthy diversity in worship: the emphasis on individualism and the increased role of the psychology of self. We live in a frightfully unique time in the history of the church where the concept of sin is publicly repudiated (even from some pulpits) and big glass churches. It is a sin to talk of sin. Salvation is dangerously connected to self-esteem. It seems that all the factors that make up the American mind significantly contribute to the modern kaleidoscope of American worship. With the diversity of church traditions, modern technological influences, and fundamental theological and psychological perspectives intersecting on Sunday morning, there is no end to the array of contemporary approaches to worship.
In spite of so many manifestations of worship (or perhaps because of it), it is still true that many believers are unaware of what the Scripture teaches concerning worship. Many have little motivation to go “ad fontes” (to the sources) and see what the Word declares. In addressing questions such as music, the role of Scripture, fixed forms (prayers and pronouncements), the centrality of communion, the recipients of the sacraments, many are simply “out to lunch” regarding the biblically relevant material. Either they are droned to sleep in traditionalism or they are doing aerobics with anti-traditionalists; they are defending liturgicalism or defining worship with TV variety-show techniques. Each extreme is appealed to by felt needs. “Worshipful feeling is the master and guide, rather than the sure Word of the living God. Even the mention of the Word as the ideal guide strikes many as “prideful” - because, after all, “that’s just Your interpretation.”
We must be vigilant for the precepts and relevant applications of Scripture to worship. But might we also engage in this discussion as observers of a historical church? Shall we be tabula rasa on how we got here? We cannot be blank slates with respect to tradition. If we do this we will probably imitate the least theologically rich tradition — which appears to me to be, I hate to say as a son of it, the conservative evangelical church over the last few decades. I know the fifth commandment - to “Honor my Father and Mother” and I honor the gospel truths I learned in the conservative evangelical church, and I honor the teaching of the Bible I learned - but I say as a son, let us go to our Father in Heaven and learn together, more still. We must be careful not to hastily “move the ancient boundary which your fathers have set” (Pro 22:28). Must we forever embrace, as C.S. Lewis called it, a chronological snobbery? After all is “new” really better?
A purely biblical view with a clear appraisal of historical practices, is an aim one should not be too confident in claiming to attain. No present thinker has stepped out of a time-capsule, having escaped the myriad of influences in the present. And as one untimely, ungeographically, and unculturally born, I claim no such stature. I am not a cultural zombie. Neither am I a cultural slave, since one who is free in Jesus, is free indeed. Let us all stand on the sure Word of the living God. While we are prisoners of our culture to some extent, no doubt, we have that which we need to “renew our minds” (Rom 12:2).
The Current Sermon Series on the Covenant God’s Relationship to His People
The Covenant Lord: Praise Him - Psalm 33
The Covenant People: Becoming Like-Minded - Romans 15:5
The Covenant People: Not the Steeple
The Worship of the Covenant People: True Zion
>The Worship of the Covenant People: Covenant Remembrance
The Signs and Seals of the Covenant
The Covenant Family
The Covenant Future
1. Remember, Our Foundation for Worship is the Gracious Covenant
The WCF creedilizes over one hundred years of formally developed covenant theology when it states in chapter 7:
WCF 7.1 The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto Him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of Him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which He hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.(1)
The biblical foundations of this statement are obvious. The theological foundation is the creator-creature distinction. The Worship of God’s covenant people, therefore, is based upon our relationship and our relationship is through His gracious, condescending covenant.
Worship originally was precipitated by the covenant instituted by God. The need for salvation itself arises from the transgression of the creation covenant. “But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant” (Hos 6:7). Beginning with Abraham the fundamental revelation to him was a covenant promise unfolded throughout the pages of Scripture.
Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. " (Genesis 12:1-3)
Abraham was justified by faith, by faith in this covenant word. It was more than a promise of a land, seed, and blessing. It was a promise of righteousness through the Seed. “Then he [Abraham] believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:16; cf Rom 4:3ff). Nevertheless, it was indeed a promise of a land, seed, and blessing. It involved the authority of God, his Word, His requirements, the commitment of Abraham, and the succession of the covenant in Abraham’s heirs. The promise of the land takes up the bulk of the narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures and we learn from Hebrews that it foreshadows the inheritance that is everlasting (Heb 11:8, 10, 1Pe 1:4).
The inheritance of the saints is a biblical concept rich in the language of Israel and in the new covenant concepts of the kingdom of God (Eph 5:5). Moreover, Romans 4:13 indicates that the world’s property was actually signified in the promise to Abraham. “For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.” This passage says that Abraham’s descendants will inherit the world. Many texts repeat this refrain: “ For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea” (Isa 11:9, cf Hab 2:14, Num 14:21, Psa 72:19, Isa 6:3).
The seed of Abraham also takes up the better part of the First Testament. From Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to Egypt and the twelve tribes in the land, all the way to the truest Seed, Christ (Gal 3:16). Moreover, there is that significant thread of the “blessing” that runs through both the Hebrew Scriptures and culminates in the Great Commission.
It is through the Abrahamic covenant that salvation has come, because it is this promise which included a prophecy of the truly unique Seed of Abraham. “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as referring to many, but rather to one, ‘And to your seed,’ that is, Christ” (Gal 3:16).
Mary, the mother of our Lord said that Christ’s coming was in “remembrance...” — “He has given help to Israel His servant, In remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and his offspring forever” (Luke 1:54-55).
Christ says of the covenantal wine, “for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Mat 26:28). Christ’s blood is the blood of “the blood of the eternal covenant” (Heb 13:20). And of the sacramental meal: “Do this in remembrance of me.”
We are told by the writer of Hebrews that “even the first covenant had regulations of divine worship” (Heb 9:1). This implies both that the new covenant has regulations of worship and that it is intimately connected with the covenant administration.
So remember: our worship is about our relationship with God. It is about the covenant.
Certainly one of the richest blessings for parents is described in Herman Witsius’ - The Economy of the Divine Covenants:
Here certainly appears the extraordinary love of our God, in that as soon as we are born, and just as we come from our mother, he hath commanded us to be solemnly brought from her bosom as it were into his own arms, that he should bestow upon us, in the very cradle, the tokens of our dignity and future kingdom; that he should put that song into our mouth, ’Thou didst make me hope, when I was upon my mother’s breast: I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly,’ Ps. xxii. 9, 10, that, in a word, he should join us to himself in the most solemn covenant from our most tender years: the remembrance of which, as it is glorious and full of consolation to us, so in like manner it tends to promote Christian virtues, and the strictest holiness, through the whole course of our lives. Nothing ought to be dearer to us than to keep sacred
2. Rejoice in Worship that is Covenant Remembrance
Worship extends from the time of fallen Eden to the formalization of Israel’s worship in the Mosaic covenant to the temple worship testified to in the pages of the NT to the sparse accounts of worship in the NT epistles.
Worship is about God. It must be God-centered. The presence of Christ is to be acknowledged our actions in worship must there for be refined by this clear recognition. If worship is people in the special presence of the Almighty God doing that which He has commanded, the casual relationships of people are to be minimized within the worship service.
If worship is cognizant of the intersect of the biblical faith of the new covenant, then worship should be pervaded by a knowledge of Christ, the Messiah. He is the Redeemer, Savior, and Lord. Worship services must therefore represent the gospel (Christ centered). As such it must acknowledge the supremacy of God, the sinfulness of human beings, the redemption we have in Christ, and the means of the application of that redemption.
Since we are the new covenant people of God, covenantal recapitulation is the primary action of worship. We are indeed the renewed covenant people.
But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY. (2Pe 2:9-10).
Because we are His redeemed priesthood. We must rehearse the transcendence of God, the terms of the covenant relationship, including the redemption of Christ and His commands and blessings, and have communion with Him and His people.
Now we must address liturgy. By the term “liturgy” I mean a prescribed order of worship events. A liturgy structures the use of all the elements that form a part of worship. The term liturgy is derived from the Greek word, leitourgia which is usually translated “ministry” or “service” (e.g., Exo 37:19, Phi 2:17).
In addressing liturgy, the direct NT is very minimal, resulting in the diversity of worship forms. But that which the NT says is very instructive. Look at 1Co 14:21ff:
If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and let one interpret; but if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in the church; and let him speak to himself and to God. And let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment. But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, let the first keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted; and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets; for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. Therefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues. . . But let all things be done properly and in an orderly manner. (14:21-40)
This is The Order Principle
In order to unpack the concept of order in the passage, we should look more carefully at the terms. The word translated “properly” is used in two other New Testament passages and has a strong moral connotation: “ Let us behave properly . . .” (Rom 13:1); “. . . behave properly toward outsiders” (1Th 4:14). The Greek word here is euschemonos and is related to the term from which “schematic” is derived. Especially since it is in conjunction with “orderly,” Paul is calling for intelligible structure, not confusion or unpredictable chaos. The term “orderly” (taxis) means “an ordered or arranged sequence,” or “fixed succession” and often involves “an arrangement.” It is used in Luke 1:8, “It happened while he was serving as a priest in the order of his division.” By combining these two terms, there can be no question that the Apostle gives warrant for a predictable, controlled, sequence of worship in this injunction.
The Bible is clear, then, the service should be “orderly.”
But what should it include? And in what sequence?
The Content of Worship must be according God’s own Self-revelation in His Word. This I believe is the essence of the Reformed Regulative Principle of Worship: WCF 21.1 “The light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all; is good, and doth good unto all; and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might.(1) But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.(2)” (1)Rom 1:20; Acts 17:24; Ps. 119:68; Jer. 10:7; Ps. 31:23; Ps. 18:3; Rom. 10:12; Ps. 62:8; Josh. 24:14; Mark 12:33. (2)Deut. 12:32; Matt. 15:9,10; Deut. 15:1-20; Exod. 20:4,5,6; Col. 2:23.
Upon full examination, what do we find are the biblical elements of worship for the New Covenant assembly: Scripture, Prayer, Music, Sacraments, Giving/Offering
Many in the Reformed tradition have suggested that the structure of the worship service should follow the Gospel: the declaration of God’s authority, the expression of repentance and faith, and the means of salvation. From this structure we would expect worship to begin by declaring the greatness, holiness, mercy, and sovereignty of God. The response to this would follow in the confession of sin and exulting in the grace of God in the work of Christ. From this gospel kernel, the balm of Gilead is applied in the means of grace, namely prayers, the preaching of the Word, the sacraments, and finally the benedictory blessing of God to send the people of the Lord into the world for service.
James Jordan, in Theses on Worship, argues similarly that there is a definitive five-fold liturgy of worship: call, confession/pardon, word, table, and commission. He argues on the basis of OT type from the Levitical sacrifice pattern that this is the direct intention of Scripture.
Perhaps a critical question is when do the sacraments fit. Is the Lord’s Supper to be weekly?
If we ask this question to The Early Fathers, we get an emphatic yes!
So says, the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: "The glimpses given us in the earlier Fathers of the Eucharist are in entire accord with the more articulate expression of the church’s corporate eucharistic worship, which we find in the liturgical documents and writings of the Nicene era.
(1) Ignatian Epistles:
The Ignatian Epistles show us the Eucharist as the focus of the church’s life and order, the source of unity and fellowship. The Eucharist consecrated by the prayer of the bishop and church is the Bread of God, the Flesh and Blood of Christ, the communication of love incorruptible and life eternal (compare Ephesians, 5,13,10; Trallians, 7,8; Romans, 7; Philadelphians, 4; Smyrnaeans, 7,8; Magnesians, 7).
(2) Justin Martyr:
Justin Martyr tells us that the Eucharist was celebrated on the Lord’s Day, the day associated with creation and with Christ’s resurrection. To the celebrant were brought bread and wine mixed with water, who then put up to God, over them, solemn thanksgiving for His lovingkindness in the gifts of food and health and for the redemption wrought by Christ. The oblations of bread and wine are presented to God in memorial of Christ’s passion, and become Christ’s body and blood through prayer. The Eucharist is a spiritual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving commemorative of Christ’s death; and the consecrated elements the communion of Christ’s body and blood, by reason of the sacramental character bestowed upon them by the invocation of the Divine blessing (compare 1 Apol., 13,15, 66, 67; Dial. with Trypho, 41,70, 117).
(3) Irenaeus:
Irenaeus, also, emphasizes the fact that Christ taught His disciples to offer the new oblation of the New Covenant, to present in thank offering the first-fruits of God’s creatures--bread and wine--the pure sacrifice prophesied before by Malachi. The Eucharist consecrated by the church, through the invocation of God’s blessing, is the communion of the body and blood of Christ, just as He pronounced the elements to be at the institution (compare Against Heresies, i.13,1; iv.17,5; 18,1-6; 33,1; v.22,3).
(4) Cyprian:
Cyprian, too, gives evidence of the same eucharistic belief, and alludes very plainly to the "Lift up your hearts," to the great thanksgiving, and to the prayer of consecration. This last included the rehearsal of what Christ did and said at the institution, the commemoration of His passion, and the invocation of the Holy Spirit (compare Epistle to Caecilius, sections 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 14, 17; Epistle to Epictetus, sections 2, 4; On the Unity of the Church, I, 17; On the Lord’s Prayer, section 31; Firmilian to Cyprian, sections 10, 17).
Apart from appealing to this early historical precedent, ought we not to simply and plainly do what Jesus commanded in worship: the eating of bread, not crackers or wafers; and the drinking of wine (1Co 11:21), not unfermented juice? If Jesus’s spiritual presence is to communicate through the sacrament why not do it each Lord’s Day? There is a severe disharmony between the church that doctrinally professes the “Real Presence” of Christ in the Supper, as Calvinistic churches do, and yet reserves this “Real Presence” for four or five times a year. The thoughtless objection of many is that a weekly observation of the Lord’s Supper ritualizes (a ritual) is not even deserving of a response. The preaching of the Word is much more in danger of becoming “old hat.” But try and find a command that says there must be sermon in every worship service. As a matter of fact, the revivalistic tendency to subjugate all of worship to the supremacy of the sermon (and subsequent alter call) is an indictment that a false theology has been king of worship for many generations. This is not to minimize the Word, since the Word permeates each worship action: prayer, praise, the Supper, baptism, etc. Rather, it is to reclaim that which each all Old Testament sacrifices, meals, and biblical imagery allude to, that which the Gospel, Acts, and the Pauline apostolic instruction command for the meeting of believers. Since the Supper is the repeatable and tangible Gospel, it truly appears very distorted that it would become a ten minute irregular event tacked onto the normal service.
To reserve its celebration to only a handful of times a year really denies the significance and the fullest and true nature of the sacrament, that it is a koinonia, a fellowship. Perhaps it is true that no frequency rule is stated in just so many words in Scripture. Perhaps there is liberty within congregations about this to some extent. Still when the priority of congregational worship on the Lord’s Day is coupled with the covenantal realities underneath worship, a weekly covenant meal seems quite requisite for a robust biblical worship theology and practice.
What can we take home from this?
Let us fear that worship has the most precisely correct liturgical forms and yet our hearts are far from the worship of a living Savior and Lord.
1. Let us be like Spurgeon in our preparation: “Beloved brethren and sisters, this morning I felt, before I came to this place, very much in the spirit of adoring gratitude. I cannot communicate that to you, but the Spirit of God can; and the thoughts that helped me to praise God were something like these--let me give them to you as applied to yourselves--glorify and praise God, for he has saved you, has saved you, saved you from hell, saved you for heaven. Oh, how much is comprehended in the fact that you are saved! Think of the election which ordained you to salvation, the covenant which secured salvation to you; think of the incarnation by which God came to you, and the precious blood by which you now have been made nigh to God. Hurry not over those thoughts though I must shorten my words. Linger at each one of these sacred fountains and drink, and when you have seen what salvation involves in the past, think of what it means in the future. You shall be preserved to the end; you shall be educated in the school of grace; you shall be admitted into the home of the blessed in the land of the hereafter. You shall have a resurrection most glorious, and an immortality most illustrious. When days and years are passed, a crown shall adorn your brow, a harp of joy shall fill your hand. All this is yours, believer; and will you not praise him?”
2. Learning from the worship of heaven: Rev. 5:11ff tell us, "And I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing." 13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, " To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." 14 And the four living creatures kept saying, "Amen." And the elders fell down and worshiped." This means that they responded together. Their worship had order and dialogue, not chaos and cacophony.
3. Spiritual preparation: Let us be as the Psalmist says, desiring to dwell in the house of the Lord, that is in Zion, His presence. Psalm 27:4 One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple.
4. Sunday preparation: Let us be glad to come: Psalm 122:1 A Song of Ascents. Of David. I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go into the house of the LORD."
Therefore, worship should be conscious of the covenant relationship between God and man, fulfilled in Christ. Worship should repeat the fundamental terms of the covenant, in His Law and gospel; Worship should be guided by the book of the covenant, the Bible; Worship should focus on the mediator of the covenant, our Reigning Lord Jesus Christ; Worship should the signs and seals of the covenant, baptism and communnion. Worship should be the joy of those who share in the blood of the covenant, His people; it should be covenantal in the fullest sense.
