What is Worship

How are we to worship? I ask this question a lot. And by this I mean what is the Sunday worship service to look like. The other six days of the week we are to worship the Triune God in what we do by acting so as to glorify him. How we conduct our lives in this day and age is directed by the calling of God and the circumstances in our lives. But when we gather together on the Lord’s Day, how should our worship look? Before we may answer this question there are several prior questions. Most people, in responding to the question how we are to worship start with the correct question, but, I believe, miss the foundational answer and so miss the ultimate purpose of worship. The first question is what worship is. Only by getting this question and answer right may we conform our conduct to the correct purpose and so answer how we are to worship. Most people answer the first question in one of two ways. Either it is an opportunity for us to praise God or it is an opportunity for us to be edified by the word of God. I will agree that both these answers are in part correct, but they fail to capture the overarching answer. Worship is a legal transaction.

What, you say, should we accept the proposition that worship is an legal formality? This is not my point at all. We should all agree that marriage is primarily a legal transaction in which two people, a man and a woman, become one. It is a legal transaction to joy and to a purpose. The consummation of that legal transaction is found in the marriage bed. What more intimate and emotional experience could there be than a loving couple consummating their covenant vows on their wedding night.

Exodus 19-24 describes this legal transaction for the nation of Israel in a paradigm worship service. In Exodus, God calls His people out of bondage, gives them His law, and vows to be their God. The people of God respond to His call in Exodus 24 and vow to be His people. God consummates the covenant with the “blood of the covenant,” and the people consummate that relationship by eating and drinking in His presence on the mountain of Sinai. They “remember” the covenant through “remembering” the Sabbath.

The Apostle Paul reminds the Corinthians that they too are entering into a legal transaction every time they gather together on the Sabbath:

17But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. 18For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, 19for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. 20When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. 21For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. 22What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
23For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 25In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

This is legal rhetoric. It is founded on tradition. They are undertaking an act that, based on that tradition may be performed properly or improperly. And how they perform that act has significant consequences.

The gravity of the event should not cause us to shun its practice. It is the consummation of our relationship with our covenant God Yahweh. Note the language. The cup is the “new covenant in my blood.” We are to partake of the bread and the cup “in remembrance of me.” Both of these phrases echo Exodus 19 and 24. We proclaim Jesus death until he comes. (Now there is an interesting irony. One who is dead is coming. I must reflect on that some more.) As the people rejoiced in the presence of the Lord in Exodus 24, we are to do likewise. Yes, this is a legal transaction, but it is a transaction of love. James Torrance has captured this idea well in his little book Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace. We have been created to commune as co-lovers with the Trinity.

So as we enter into worship, let us remember that we are consummating our relationship with our loving God. Yes, we are consummating a legal relationship, but also a loving relationship. It is a relationship of joy with a purpose. There is a progression in worship of leaving this sinful world, being cleansed and approaching Him. We consummate that relationship by hearing His law and feasting with and on Him and with each other. And in so doing, we are made proper vessels for discipling the nations in this world.