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WORSHIP IN CREATION AND COVENANT
The church is a singular body designed by God to exist in union or in covenant with him. Covenant is thematic throughout the story of Scripture and reoccurs throughout the narrative. While Satan tries to thwart God’s plan of redemptive covenant throughout the Bible, it becomes apparent that God turns dire situations into circumstances that glorify himself (Gen 50:20). Creation is meant to glorify God, and humankind is meant to glorify God by worshipping him alone. The purpose of everyone’s existence is worship. Worship and creation and stalwartly linked in such a way that no one may escape their own dominating purpose of worship.
Humankind
Was Created to Worship
Everyone worships someone or something. What the object of one’s
worship is, however, is one of the most fundamental questions in human nature.
Furthermore, everything that has been created has been so to offer God pleasure
(i.e. worship). John writes,
“Worthy are you,
our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev 4:11). The Apostle
Paul contends that everything in existence is from God, through God, and to God
(Rom 11:36). Thus, solely for the joy and pleasure of God does all creation
subsist, including humankind.
The first use of the word translated as covenant
is seen in Genesis 6:18. It is “an understanding intended to regulate conduct and
relationships between two parties.”[1]
The implication of the term utilized in this instance is a vow from God initiated by divine creation
in which the created world and order exists for his purpose and glory but also
for the benefit of his most prized creation: humankind created in his own image
(Gen 1:27). The fundamental concept in God’s covenant with creation is that
everything has been created for his own glory. Certainly, a way God glorifies
himself is through his people’s benefit. Nonetheless, the governing purpose of
everything in existence is God’s glory and pleasure.
As created beings, humankind is not exempt from the purpose
of glorifying God. Covenant rests as a secure foundation of God’s eternal
purpose in glorifying himself. Even through the means of sin in the Garden,
William Dumbrell argues, “The
Eden account (Gen 2:4–17), by the presence of evil in Eden, cannot reflect
God’s final purpose but seems to model what is to come. This purpose is an Eden
world in which God will be continually present, from which saved humanity will
never be expelled (Rev 22:1–5).”[2]
Said another way, God’s covenant, particularly that which subsists between
himself and his beloved people, is perpetual and realizes renewals throughout
the story of Scripture, although multiple feeble attempts have been made to
thwart it. Without expositing the nuances of covenant theology in the Covenant
of Redemption (between the members of the Godhead) and the Covenant of Grace
(between the triune God and his people), sufficient is the fact that recipients
of covenant’s benefits exist, as all of creation, to glorify God [or] to
worship.
The solid
foundation of Christian worship is covenant. Vividly evident in the Exodus
story, God hears the cries of his people and responds but not based merely on
such cries. Rather, God responds to his remembrance of his covenant with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exod 2:24), for such was the foundation of his
promises and his offering of grace to his people from then and throughout
history. As worshipers of the living God, the church does not have any standing
before him without covenant. Covenant is what allows God’s people to come
boldly before him and, for the church, unambiguously the New Covenant in Christ (Heb 4:14-16).
Christian worship is replete with symbols of covenant. Even
in the disparate approaches of worship between the Old Covenant and the New
Covenant, typologies exist that point to what would be fulfilled in Jesus
Christ: a new and better covenant (Heb 8:6). Where the lamb’s blood protected
the people of God in the Exodus, the blood of the Lamb eternally secures God’s
people in the New Covenant; where sin entered humankind through Adam,
righteousness favors God’s people through Jesus; and where only an animal sacrifice
allowed God’s people to temporarily approach him, the permanent sacrifice of
Jesus Christ allows the church to boldly worship in the covering of his
righteousness. Old Testament theology and practices should be understood by
God’s people, for the exceeding goodness of the New Covenant may not be fully
realized without a proper understanding of the Old Covenant.
Upon creation of the world, God initiated a covenant between himself and creation where everything exists for his glory and pleasure. Moreover, such glory is received by his bestowing of benefits upon his people through creation. The process then is cyclic: God creates his people to worship him; God’s people receive the benefits of creation; and God is glorified through the perpetual employment of creation to his name. This is worship. Creation exists to glorify God, and humankind is no different. People were created to worship the triune God. Therefore, where worship of the living God does not occur, it is the church’s mission to ensure that it does (i.e. missions). God’s covenant with creation and (especially) with humanity is for the purpose of worship; humankind exists for the purpose of the Lord’s worship.
Christian
Worship Is Produced from the Covenant Between God and His People
Christian worship is built upon the foundation of covenant.
During the sacrament of Communion, Christ commands his people to do so in
remembrance of the New Covenant (1 Cor 1:24-25). It is such a covenant that
believers remember the unfathomable sacrifice Christ paid on behalf of his
beloved people. Nonetheless, while God’s gift of grace transcends human
comprehension, Christians worship God primarily for who he is rather than what
he has done.
The prophet Isaiah had a unique and unforgettable experience
in his vision of the Lord (Is 6). In fact, the experience was so unforgettable
that his response was one of fear and trembling rather than jubilation and
excitement. There are certainly times for joy in the presence of the Lord but
not until after one realizes who he or she is and who God is, which should
illicit the same response as Isaiah: “Woe is me” (Is 6:5). For those who
contend that worship should be fun, they have perhaps largely missed the proper
response in worship. Worship must begin with a realization of who God is and,
in response, a humbling realization of who humankind is.
Believers now seemingly worship God for what he has done or
what he is able to do. It is surely not wrong to thank God for his plurality of
undeserved blessings. Nevertheless, without the primary foundation of an
unimaginably worthy God, people may not rightly worship. Worship occurs when
the people of God are in his presence, which assuredly is evidenced by
life-change.
One day every person will bow down and declare the glory of
God (Phil 2:10-11) upon the realization of who he is. Until then, however,
those who are redeemed not only understand who God is but have also received
his matchless grace: the practical result of covenant. Thus, Christian worship
is built upon a unique foundation: God’s covenant between himself and his
people. Scripture teaches that believers love God because he first loved them
(1 John 4:19). Accordingly, Christian worship is built greater than the worship
of those who ultimately reject Christ, for not only does Christian worship
understand who God is, God’s people also receive his grace abundantly and
respond in thankfulness to him.
The corporate worship gathering is a dialogue between God and
his people. Moreover, worship is a dialogue with a solid foundation: namely
covenant. Covenant continuously produces worship, for the undeserved covenant
between God and the church, mediated by Jesus Christ, fosters a greater love
offered to God by his people. Richard Foster writes, “The point of a covenant
is commitment—the very thing to which we have such an aversion. But where would
we be if God had not committed himself to blessing the world through the
offspring of Abraham? Where would we be if Jesus had refused to commit himself
to washing away the sins of the world? Where would we be?”[3] When
believers consider the reach of God’s covenant and the extreme measures to
which he went to fulfill his covenant of grace, the only appropriate response
should be unceasing worship. Worship is built upon a foundation: namely
covenant, a covenant that may not be replicated or matched but one that should
spur God’s people to eternal worship.
Sin, in Its Simplest Form, Is Idolatry: Not
Worshiping Who We Were Created to Worship
The seriousness of sin may not be overstated. Sin, in fact,
is the element that disallows humankind to rightly worship God. The only reason
believers may rightly worship God is the mediation of Christ, for when the
Father looks upon his people, he does not view the sin of humanity but the
righteousness of the Son. Here I suggest (and with stalwart biblical and
theological support) that worship is life and life is worship. As such, sin is
nothing short of idolatry (i.e. it is wrongly placing something else in a
position higher than God). When one sins, he or she has stated, by action, that
a thing or a person is more important than honoring God: the essence of
worship.
God has created everything for his purposes, but sin has
tainted such a purpose. Humanity has violated God’s creation whether against
other people or else. “All sins are against God. If we have wronged a person we
have wronged that person’s Father in heaven. If we have violated creation, we
have offended the Creator.”[4] To
properly worship the triune God, it is obligatory that God’s people understand
the serious nature of sin.[5] In its
simplest form, sin is idolatry.
Speaking to professing believers, the Apostle Paul writes, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to
those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God,
or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the
weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to
be once more” (Gal 4:8-9). “Here…we have a further description of the enslavement from
which Christ has liberated his people: they were in bondage to counterfeit
gods, ‘dumb idols’ (τὰ εἴδωλα τὰ ἄφωνα), as they are called in 1 Cor. 12:2.”[6]
While literally
realized as false gods, these idols to which the Christians of Galatians turned
should bring a warning to all Christians: the war between the spirit and flesh
(Gal 5:17) is such that any professing Christian may fall sway to the most
unthinkable elements of the mind and actions of the heart. For worshipers to
honor God in spirit and truth (John 4:23), God must be greater than number one
on a priority list; he must indeed be the entire priority list.
Idolatry subsists at two levels: by nature
(nonbelievers) and against the new nature (believers). Nonbelievers do not
participate in idolatry in rebellion to the new nature, for they have never
possessed such a changed state. Christians, rather, oppose the new nature in
Christ when they sin.[7] At two different levels then, humankind engages in idolatry,
for without exaggeration, anything that is placed at greater importance than
the honor of King Jesus is an idol, and it must be severed, for it holds no
place in Christian worship. For such to occur, Christians should allow God to
examine their hearts and then rid themselves of all that hinders their totality
of worship.
Additionally, idolatry is usually expressed in a
failed personal expression of worship rather than in corporate worship. What is
meant by this is personal worship should always align with what transpires
in corporate worship (i.e. there should be no discrepancy between the two). The
world is pervaded with idolatry and without any attempt, for it is the natural
way of humanity. Thus, a Christian cannot rightly worship God and seek the ways
of the world. Paul, writing to the Romans, says:
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or
give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their
foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged
the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds
and animals and creeping things (Rom 1:21-23).
A striking description of the
world’s ways, Paul’s indictment is stark and should be heeded by all believers.
Since the ways of the world are to be avoided at all costs and Christians are
to live according to Scripture (the ways of Christ), when modern churches make
feeble attempts to draw a lost world by adopting their ways (e.g. the world’s
music, the world’s visuals, the world’s lingo, etc.), one should rightly
question the methods such a church employs.
The covenant between God and humankind was broken in the Garden originally but restored permanently through Jesus Christ. As a fallen world does not honor God and has distorted what he has created for good, Jesus Christ has reconciled his people to himself to honor him and worship him in righteousness. The church is eternally forgiven already so when God’s people sin, they are not being who they are (i.e. alive in the new nature Christ has implemented). Sin then is idolatry and, although forgiven, should be heeded with the highest warning, for God is jealous for his people’s worship (Exod 34:14).
Covenant
Includes a Right to Commune with God Which Only Christians Possess
In God’s covenant with creation, everything that exists does so for the purpose of his pleasure and glory; this includes humankind. Although seemingly thwarted in the Garden, God continued to renew his covenant throughout Scripture and realized a permanent and better covenant through the New Covenant in Christ, which affords the church a way to rightly worship God and commune with him. Such communion, symbolized through the sacraments, is an aspect of the faith that only Christians possess. No one may commune with God unless found in covenant with Christ. Without entering in that covenant, one’s attempts to worship and, thus, commune with God are futile. God’s covenant with humankind began with Adam, and although rebellion entered the hearts of humanity through Adam, “God did not give up on people altogether because he selected one man, Noah, to restart the population on earth… [yet, in an amazingly refreshing grace], God involved humans in his work.”[8] Worship is communion between God and his people: a people with a new nature who seek to exemplify the change in their lives that only comes from Jesus Christ. God has created his people for the purpose of worship. Therefore, all that the church does should endeavor to fulfill that overarching and governing goal.
[1] William J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: An Old
Testament Covenant Theology (Milton Keynes, MK: Paternoster, 2013), 1.
[2] Dumbrell, 1-2.
[3] Richard J. Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s
True Home (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992), 123.
[4] Glenn Packiam, Blessed, Broken, Given:
How Your Story Becomes Sacred in the Hands of Jesus (Colorado Springs, CO:
Multnomah, 2019), 115.
[5] Sin is employed here as a singular and broad
term because human nature should be understood as sinful rather than an
inventory of individual sins. Said another way, God’s people must realize that
their specific sins are not what separates them from God but their birth nature
as a sinner. People sin because they are sinners; they are not sinners because
they sin.
[6] F.F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek
Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1982), 202.
[7] All sin is idolatry, no matter how seemingly
big or small.
[8] Vang and Carter, 43.
