The Highest Duty of the Church (Part 1)
The true, holy and biblical worship of God is the highest privilege and duty of the Body of Christ.1 “We worship God because God created us to worship him. Worship is at the center of our existence, at the heart of our reason for being.”2 The Church most directly serves her Lord when she worships God in spirit and in truth.3 Therefore, in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, the Church militant on earth gathers with the Church triumphant before the throne of God above to give Christ the glory due His name.4
However, we cannot rightly worship God if we do not understand God and we cannot understand God without the Bible. The late James Boice once remarked, “To worship God we must know who God is, but we cannot know who God is unless God first chooses to reveal himself to us.
God has done this in the Bible, which is why the Bible and the teachings of the Bible need to be central in our worship.”5 It only follows that the only acceptable way of worshiping God is according to His Word, limited and regulated by God’s revelation of Himself, and therefore cannot result from the vain imaginations of men, the demands of culture, sincere emotionalism, or “any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.”6 This is the “regulative principle” of worship.
THE REFORMATION OF WORSHIP
Consider this axiom of the Reformation: “The Church reformed, always being reformed, by the Word of God.” The Reformers did not attempt to create new beliefs or practices, but sought to establish biblical orthodoxy in matters of polity, doctrine and worship. No significant differences existed between the branches of the Reformation as they united in one voice to answer from the Bible the question of “How are men justified in the sight of holy God?” All Protestants rejected human works of righteousness and embraced the biblical doctrine of God’s sovereign grace. Anglicans, Lutherans and Calvinists alike concluded that according to God’s written revelation, men are justified in the sight of God by grace, through faith, in Christ alone, to God alone the glory!7
Notwithstanding the importance of the doctrine of justification by faith to all Protestants, the Reformed branch of the Reformation seemed equally concerned with “How is God to be worshiped?” John Calvin knew from Scripture that within the heart of men was an “factory of idols;” he knew that left to their own devices men would never turn from idols to serve the living and true God.
Calvin and his followers were adamant against icons, altars and the sacrificing of Christ again and again in the Roman Catholic Mass. For Calvin, false worship was not simply one style or preference of worship set against another but idolatry of the worst kind. “Calvin defines the place of worship as none of his predecessors had done before . . . Worship, he says, is the central concern of Christians. It is not some peripheral matter, but ‘the whole substance’ of the Christian faith.”8
A significant minority of evangelical Christians in America are now advocating a 2nd Reformation and a return to the biblical doctrines of grace and faith. For this we are grateful. But precious few are willing to go contra mundum (against the world) and work toward the biblical reformation of worship in the American church that the doctrines of the Reformation demand.
Never before in the history of our nation has the need for a worship reformation been greater. Michael Horton speaks of the modern church and her “greasy familiarity” with God and the generational narcissism” that has resulted in the loss of God-centered, transcendent and holy worship.9 People in our day demand worship move them emotionally, that worship speak to their “felt needs,” all without making a serious demand on their lives. That is not to say that all modern notions regarding worship result in heresy. But contemporary worship innovations do inevitably result in the trivialization of God and the weakening of the faith of God’s people. New “alternative worship” is often not prescribed by Scripture and is too often designed for someone
other than God. Worship cannot be like Wal-Mart where the masses go because there is something for everyone and it doesn’t cost much.
The “worship wars” are not simply about traditional worship set against contemporary expressions of love for God. It is not about one set of preferences over another. It is however about truth, form and substance. It is about, “one, holy, apostolic and catholic Church.”10 It is about us conforming to God and not God conforming to us. It is about worshiping the true God according to His commands.
Those of us who love the Reformation understand that were it not for the Reformers biblical Christianity may have been lost in the 16th Century. Sadly, by the end of the 19th Century “Modernism” infiltrated the Protestant churches with ideas that undermined the evangelical Church in Europe and severely weakened her in America. Mainline Protestant liberals wanted
less theology and more humanism with less doctrine and more experience. They wrongly believed they could be more evangelistic by being less biblically dogmatic and more culturally relevant. The historic Protestant Church soon lost what it scripturally meant to be a Christian. The holiness of God and the sinfulness of man were replaced by the universal fatherhood of God
and brotherhood of man.
We are at the beginning of the 21st Century facing a new enemy every bit as destructive to biblical faith as “modernism.” The new enemy is “pragmatism.” Pragmatic contemporary Christianity has theologically, musically, liturgically and intellectually “dumbed down” the faith in exchange for whatever works, whatever pleases the crowd, whatever makes people comfortable with God. This is the 21st Century equivalent of the recurring theme of the Book of Judges where everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
Once before, our Reformed and Presbyterian fathers, “Through the faithful implementation of this regulative principle, the various Reformed churches effected a renovation of Christianity, established a discipleship program unparalleled in Christian history, created a culture that survives to this day . . . and rejuvenated apostolic norms of corporate worship.”11 God help us to
see the restoration of faithful biblical worship in our generation. Let us “contend for the faith that was once for all given to the saints.”12
THE OTHERNESS OF GOD
God said, “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.”13 The one attribute of God almost completely lost on contemporary culture is the transcendent holiness of God. When Isaiah saw the Lord he heard heavenly beings calling to one another saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” He
knew instinctively his unworthiness to be in God’s presence. He was immediately convicted of sin. He confessed his sin. His only remedy was in God’s assurance of pardon – “your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”14
People are created in the image and likeness of God, but He remains distinctly “other” than those whom He created. We cannot fully comprehend the holiness, the transcendent purity, or perfection of God. Yet, it is this holy transcendently pure God we are commanded to meet with and worship each Lord’s Day. The Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs put it this way, “The reason men
worship God in a casual way is because they do not see God in His glory. If a man has ever had Isaiah’s vision of the holiness of God, he would be changed in an instant. But until men have seen God as He truly is (as ‘The High and Lofty One’), they will forever be guilty of the same rebuke God gave to the wicked in Psalm 50:21, ‘You thought I was just like you.’”15
The otherness of God requires worship to be different in language, decorum, music, posture and purpose from all other human relationships and interactions. If we enter the church doors and wonder whether we are at a rock concert, a Broadway show, a sports event or a family reunion, chances are we have forgotten the uniqueness of our God and the “reverence and awe” demanded by His Word and character. “Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”16 (Continued in Part 2)
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1 Westminster Shorter Catechism, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever,” Answer #1
2 Hughes Oliphant Old, Worship: Reformed According To Scripture, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, 2002, p. 1
3 John 4:23-24
4 Revelation 1:9-11, 4:1-5:14
5 James Montgomery Boice, quoted in “Give Praise To God, P&R Publishing, Philipsburg, NJ, 2003.
6 Westminster Confession of Faith, Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day, Chapter XXI.
7 Terry L. Johnson, Worship That Is According To Scripture, Reformed Academic Press, Greenville, 2000, p. 16-17
8 Ibid, p.18 quoting, Carlos M. N. Eire, War Against the Idols, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986, p. 85.
9 Michael Horton, A Better Way, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 2002, p. 40.
10 The Apostles Creed
11 J. Ligon Duncan, Give Praise To God: A Vision for Reforming Worship, P&R Publishing, Philipsburg, NJ, 2003, p. 24
12 Jude 3
13 Leviticus 10:3
14 Isaiah 6:3-6
15 Jeremiah Burroughs, Gospel Worship, Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1990
16 Hebrews 12:28-29