The Principles of Worship

Persons may be influenced by the mere outward forms of religion, and have their emotions stirred greatly, but unless the Holy Spirit moves them they fail to worship God. Many believe that they naturally have the will and the power to worship God acceptably. This is a delusion. God alone implans the spirit of worship. Therefore worship owes its origin to the sovereign activity of the Holy Spirit in the soul of man. Indeed every movement of the human soul Godward, whether in penitence, petition or praise is divinely produced. The disinclination of man, if left to himself, to seek God, is due to the ravages of sin in human hearts, and is one of the penal consequences of the transgression of Adam, as set forth in the Book of Genesis and confirmed throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Although many Christians readily acknowledge that true worship is spiritual in character, there is great diversity in the methods they adopt in worship. Some say that the "spirit" of worship is everything. Such do not look to the word of God to ascertain the acceptable mode of worship. They err in that they are concerned only with what they designate the "quality" of worship, and ignore the divinely prescribed mode. This false attitude is that of the mystics. They overlook the basic fact that to disregard Biblical precept and example is a sin which vitiates the quality of the worship rendered. Formalists on the other hand, are satisfied if the conventional forms are observed, even though the worship be unspiritual. The extremes of the mystic and of the formalist are to be avoided, for true worship is Biblical in quality and in mode.

From the earliest days of human history God has had His people. They were the objects of His sovereign choice and grace, and they worshipped Him. When the Israelites had been freed from Egyptian slavery and had arrived at Mount Sinai, God gave directions to them concerning the erection of the tabernacle, and appointed the mode of service which was to be rendered Him in it. In the book of Exodus, beginning at chapter twenty-five, we have a record of this. That worship was of a typical nature and directed attention chiefly to the coming of the Messiah, His Person and His work.

It is noteworthy that when God, with sovereign authority, appointed the tabernacle worship, He made plain that no alteration in it was allowable without His positive enactment. It was not to be subjected to addition or subtraction. This is an abiding principle in reference to all which God has appointed.

In all ages God jealously guarded His worship, and we read in the Scriptures of severe divine judgments which came upon those who did not respect what God had appointed, e.g., Nadab and Abihu "offered strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not; and there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them." (Lev. 10). God had restricted the priesthood to the descendants of Aaron; but Korah, Dathan and Abiran presumed to perform the functions of the priests, and an awful divine judgment overtook them (Num. 16). Saul was removed from being King of Israel because he intruded into the function of Samuel by offering sacrifice. (I Sam. 13:13-14). Such cases as have been recorded in Scripture are warnings to successive generations, even as the Apostle Paul intimated, "for whatsoever things were written, aforetime, were written for our learning (instruction) (Rom. 15:4). These clearly intimate that God does not look with indifference on any interference with what He has enjoined, and especially in reference to the worship of Himself. We do well to bear in mind that in addition to the right spirit of worship there is the right mode of worship.

There is another feature of the Jewish religion, the synagogue worship, which is very important. This worship consisted of the reading and exposition of the Scriptures, prayer and praise. When the Jew attended the synagogue he became the participant in a simple but highly spiritual form of worship, wherein was brought before him his responsibility to study God's Word and to offer prayer and praise. The Lord Jesus and His Apostles foretold the destruction of the temple and the cessation of its highly ornate and symbolic services; but they uttered no word to suggest that any such doom awaited the synagogue worship, for the basic principles of the worship observed in the synagogue were to be incorporated into the Christian worship and thus perpetuated throughout the whole of the Christian era. The New Testament Scriptures do not leave us in any doubt concerning the worship practised by the Apostles and the early Christian Church generally. Therefore the way to worship the Living God has not been left to man's device or choice but has been divinely authorised.