Worship: a Response to the Divine Initiative

Introduction

John Calvin’s doctrinal magnum opus, Institutes of the Christian Religion, begins with what seems at first glance to be a remarkably unoriginal statement: the knowledge of God and ourselves are interrelated. What is more remarkable is that, after a general explanation of that connection, he leaves its essential nature untouched, and begins immediately to examine the purpose of knowing God – that is, how knowledge of him is to our advantage. In so doing, he glosses over a question that was afforded a prominent place in the theological debates of the past one and a half millennia: does knowledge of God precede and predicate knowledge of self, or does knowledge of self precede and predicate knowledge of God? To this question Calvin gives no more thought than to acknowledge, “which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern.” (1) This new epistemological approach is both profound and perceptive. It is also a foundation that has proved strong enough to support the enormous weight of one of the most notable Christian documents in history.

This approach to pursuing the knowledge of God has an unavoidable impact on any study of worship in that it not only lays the foundation for assessing what true worship is, but it also necessitates a mutually-supportive conclusion as to how true worship comes about. The former Calvin sums up simply as a natural response flowing from an awakened knowledge of the benefits to be found in God: thus he says plainly, “unless [men] establish their complete happiness in him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him.” (2) And that by giving themselves he intends to signify worship is made clear a little later, when he adds, “Indeed, no one gives himself freely and willingly to God’s service unless, having tasted his fatherly love, he is drawn to love and worship him in return.” (3) Thus Calvin, in beginning with a discussion of the interrelationship of the knowledge of God and ourselves, establishes a paradigm of worship (of which the entirety of the Institutes is in reality merely an elaboration) which views worship as a response to Divine initiative, by which the responder confidently affirms that his joy resides in the Father’s love. His originality lies in his recognition of the fact that reasoning from God to man and reasoning from man to God will both ultimately fail, because, in both paradigms, man is an initiator, not a responder. Worship, for Calvin, was an unavoidable response of a man to whom the Spirit of God has taught the Word of God, applying the truth to his life so that he sees first his own misery, second God’s glory, and finally the complete amelioration that the latter entails for the former. Worship, for Calvin, was simply a response to the Divine initiative.

This paper will proceed on the supposition that a failure to recognize this premise is a foundational flaw from which virtually all faulty paradigms of worship have originated: unacceptable forms of worship have in common the characteristic that they are, in some measure, man-initiated. With that understanding as a constant reference point, I will discuss, in a cursory manner, first the foundations of right worship, and second the forms that those foundations will accommodate in acceptable worship.

Foundations of Right Worship

To attempt, in so short a space, a biblical theology of the foundations of right worship, is to a large degree presumptuous – not because the scriptures are silent on the topic, but rather because so great a portion of scriptures is dedicated to this very question that to do the study any justice at all would require volumes. Therefore, the goal of this paper is by necessity highly subjective: I only hope to produce a few of the strongest threads of commonality from passages of scripture which have worship as their predominant theme. These common elements, listed below, are by no means exhaustive; however, they are interrelated, and should serve as a grid from which to pursue more thorough studies.

  1. Worship is commonly motivated by a recognition of the benefits of God. This may be viewed as a progression: initially, worship is motivated by remembrance of God’s past acts of mercy and deliverance: “But the Lord, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice” (2 Kg. 17:36). Second, worship begins to look forward in faith to God’s future acts of deliverance: “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee…I will cry unto God most high: unto God that performeth all things for me. He shall send from heaven, and save me…My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.” (Ps. 57:1,2,3,7). Finally, worship becomes entranced by delight in who God is more even than what he has done or will do: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord.” (Ps. 42:1; 84:1).

  2. Worship is intended rightly to reflect the glory of God. The glory of God is both the end and the content of all true worship: “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name: bring an offering and come before him: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” “I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee.” (1 Chr. 16:9; Ps. 22:22).

  3. Worship is impossible apart from God’s enablement: “Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts.” “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.” (Ps. 65:4; 1 Cor. 12:3).

  4. Worship is the end for which we were created: “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” (Rev. 4:1).

  5. Satisfaction is only to be found in the fulfillment of our created purpose: “Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand.” (Ps. 84:4,10).

  6. True worship, which fills God’s purpose in securing worshipers, and our satisfaction in attaining our created end, takes place when we behold Christ’s glory: “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.” (Jn. 17:24). (4)

  7. To behold Christ’s glory – the source, content, and goal of all worship – is solely the gift of God: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 4:6).

All of these foundational elements of right worship are developed in the first chapter of Ephesians: Paul “blesses” (and so worships) the God who has blessed us in Christ. This blessedness of the believer is founded solely upon God’s divine decree of election to mercy, which he has graciously enacted for the ultimate goal of the praise of the glory of his grace. Paul’s worship is therefore motivated by God’s benefits; directed to God’s glory; enabled by God’s grace; filled with the joy of God’s benefits; and saturated with the glory of Christ’s person and redemptive work. No form of worship based upon any other foundation than that which is so marvellously demonstrated in Ephesians 1 (Paul’s response to the divine initiative) will be acceptable. The reminder of this paper, therefore, will note a few characteristics of forms of worship that are compatible with these preliminary considerations.

Forms of Right Worship

In evaluating forms of worship two fundamental considerations should be kept in mind: worship is only acceptable if it is a genuine response, structured in a biblically appropriate manner. These considerations will eliminate two forms of error: first, cold, dead (or hypocritical) orthodoxy: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” (Hos. 6:6). “I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them.” (Amos 5:21,22). Second, sincerity not according to divine mandates: “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” (Rm. 10:2). These two essential elements of true worship Christ clearly enjoins when he tells the Samaritan woman “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” (Jn. 4:23). By “spirit” and “truth”, what did Christ mean, but that genuine worship arises from man’s spirit, not from perfunctory duty, and aligns itself with God’s revealed word, not according to subjective whims born of a desire to express heartfelt fervency? An error in either of these arenas completely negates the legitimacy of worship; and I would further contend that both sorts of errors arise from the same fundamental flaw – man the worshipper as an initiator, not a responder to the divine initiative. A person that gives orthodox service to God, with no heart in his worship, signifies that he is offering something that will please God: he thinks that by his dutiful sacrifice, he can bring something before God that will bring him pleasure. In short, he supposes that he is doing God a favor, at some personal cost. But, “God [is not] worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.” (Acts 17:25). When a man initiates worship in a dutiful attempt to bring something pleasurable to God, he is blasphemously presumptuous. But the man who has heartfelt fervency, and supposes the divinely-mandated means are insufficient for him to display his sincerity, is essentially in the same condition as the first. This man, in initiating some form of worship not according to God’s revelation, is likewise presumptuous in thinking that he can produce some form of worship which, arising from his own heart, can bring pleasure to God. True worship of God has its origin in God alone, and reflects God’s worth and work in a sincere heart of gratefulness, which, as a mirror trained on the revealed beauty of God’s person, reflects back to God the joy that is sourced in God himself. To the extent that man supposes he can produce worship from himself, rather than respond to the worship that God is forming within him, he is arrogant and displeasing to God. All errors in worship need to be corrected at this fundamental level. If one person thinks that through music, drama, etc., he can create a “sincere” atmosphere of worship, and another, recognizing that error, attempts to rectify it by taking the emotional element out of worship, he is merely changing the outward appearance of the same problem.

What is the answer then? “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.” (1 Cor. 14:15). Every human emotion expressed at any degree of intensity is permissible in worship if it arises from a proper understanding of God’s truth. If the theology of worship is right, forms that express fervent emotion are right – even indispensable. When the Word of God occupies its central position as the primary means by which God pours into hearts the glorious truths of Christ’s person, emotional responses will be unstoppable, so overwhelming is the gratitude and joy that comes from seeing the beauty of Christ’s glory. And when the emotions are genuine and worshipful, emotional modes by which to express them are only natural. So David made use of every form of music in his day – percussion, winds, strings, dance, and so on (cf. Ps. 150), even when others who had no heart for God despised his fervency (e.g. Michal [2 Sm. 6:16]). My fervent hope for the church of God is that both dead, dutiful “orthodox” worship, and chaotic, anthropocentric “sincere” worship will give way to genuine, Christ-exalting, Word-driven, joyous outpourings of God-saturated gratefulness. This will only happen when Christians recognize that they are not doing God a favor when they worship him. They are only responding to the beauty of holiness, through scripturally-directed avenues, because they cannot contain their joy at seeing how glorious God is in the person of Christ.

Let us worship with spirit, but let us worship also in truth. Let us bow before our Creator and Redeemer, because we have found him to be infinitely satisfying. In a word, let our worship show forth Christ, giving his church an appropriate venue to display her emotional and intellectual response to the beauty of his person, in an essential, corporate, Christocentric unity.

  1. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford L. Battles, in vol. XX of The Library of Christian Classics ed. John T. McNeill (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), p. 35.

  2. Ibid., p. 41.

  3. Ibid., p. 55.

  4. John Owen, The Glory of Christ, abridged and edited by R. J. K. Law, (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1994) has been instrumental in developing my thoughts on this point. This last completed work of the great theologian exemplifies, to a large degree, the philosophy of worship which this paper is espousing.

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