This month (June 2013) marks the 60th anniversary of the Schism of 1953 within the PRC, the culmination of the hard fought battle for sovereign grace in the covenant. Delve into this history with David J. Engelsma's new book, Battle for Sovereign Grace in the Covenant. This book recounts much of the gripping history of the schism, including new, important details that have not been previously published. The book also provides the history of the controversial adoption by the PRCA of the Declaration of Principles as well as a brief commentary on the document. Both print and eBook formats are available at www.rfpa.org or you may contact the office to place your order (616-457-5970 or mail@rfpa.org).

O Come Let Us Worship (Series on Reformed Public Worship)

Rev. Cory Griess, Pastor of Calvary PRC, Hull, IA

The Standard Bearer, Volume 88, Number 8 (January 15, 2012)

The Dialogical Principle of Worship (1)

And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.

Genesis 12:7-8

Introduction

Recall that in this series of articles we are to cover three great principles of public worship. In the previous two articles we saw that Scripture teaches that public corporate worship is the covenantal assembly gathered before the face of Jehovah God. In this article and the one that follows we see how that covenantal meeting is carried out, namely, as a dialogue between God and His people. God speaks, and His people respond. When we come to meet God face to face in the covenantal assembly, we do not just sit there before God. Rather, God brings us into fellowship in worship, so that there is a back and forth communication between God and His people. 

A Covenantal Principle

This principle, called the dialogical principle, arises out of the nature of the covenant of grace itself. The covenant is a bond of structured fellowship between God and His people, a fellowship where God has bound Himself to His church in sovereign grace and says to them, "I am your God and you are My people." It is a fellowship where God and His own interact with one another, where there is an actual relationship of communion and love. 

We see this covenant relationship in the record of Scripture. All of the Word of God is a history of the covenant. And as such it is the history of a dialogue—God's interaction with His church. This dialogical principle, then, is not only a principle of worship but, more broadly, it is the principle of Christianity generally. Covenant history as recorded in the Word of God is God speaking or acting, and His people responding to Him and His truth verbally and in their lives. Sometimes that response is sin and sometimes it is obedience and worship. Nonetheless, it is a history of covenantal dialogue. 

This is the covenant relationship yet today. There is communication, a dialogue between God and His people. It is impossible to have a relationship of friendship with no communication. There must be a sharing of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Therefore, covenant life is communicating life. It is that for the individual Christian in his day to day existence. The Christian reads God's Word as God's Word to him. Its promises are God speaking to him. Its commands are commands to him. The Christian prays to God in response to His Word. He speaks to God of his cares, his joys, his sorrows. He lives his days as a life of dialogue before the face of God. 

It is no wonder, then, that this becomes the way in which the special meeting of God and His people is carried out. Public worship is a covenantal assembly, and that meeting with God is carried out as the life of the covenant itself is carried out. In this meeting, God tells us we are His beloved. He speaks to us directly of His mighty acts and gracious promises. And as His people assembled we respond to Him in prayer and song and praise. This is a Reformed and biblical worship service. It has God speaking to us and His people responding to Him, so that there is an actual covenant life being lived out in the worship service. 

This dialogue is always initiated by the sovereign God. God is sovereign in all of salvation, and therefore also in the highest experience of our salvation—the dialogue of worship. It is He who calls us to worship and it is He who engages His people in this communion and fellowship. Even in worship our speaking to God is always a response to Him speaking to us. The dialogue is not between two equal parties. God is the God of heaven and earth, majestic and glorious. And we know our place, safely in His arms, yet sinful creatures of the dust before Him. 

A Principle That Speaks to the Uniqueness of Jehovah God

The fact that God calls us into this dialogue and engages us in holy conversation tells us how unique Jehovah is. There is no god like the triune God of heaven and earth. The false gods of false religions are impersonal deities. The only relationship between the false gods and their worshipers is one in which the worshiper attempts to appease the god by his worship. Worship in these religions (just think of Islam) is based upon terror. Worship is offered in order to get something, not simply to celebrate the god and his relationship with his people. The worshiper comes only on the basis of law, never on the basis of gospel. There is never peace, never assurance. There is no covenant, no dialogue, no true communion. How can there be? Part of the way "sin" is dealt with by these gods is by the payment of worship. 

But this God, the only true God, the God of heaven and earth, is a relating God of grace. He is the God who has opened the way for communion by offering His Son upon the cross, so that in Christ His people are spotless before Him and His justice is satisfied. In this way He has opened the way for a different kind of worship than is found in the natural religions of men. We don't have to come to worship to earn something with our God. We come because Christ has earned all already. We come because He loved His people so much that He took away all barriers once and for all, and opened the way for a life of relationship, faith, trust, reverential awe, and dialogue. He is a personal God, a God who communes with the people He loves, and does what it takes to open the way for that communion. 

This unique and true God we experience in the public worship of the church. We come to fellowship with Him and to adore Him and to celebrate that He is the covenant-keeping God. In worship He speaks to us of what He has done and what He is doing. And hearing His law and gospel, we are reminded of His grace, brought back into the security of the gospel, and then respond with adoration and thanksgiving. 

Scriptural Proof for the Dialogical Principle of Worship

We have said that the dialogical principle arises out of the covenant generally. Therefore when we look at worship in covenant history we would expect to find God's people carrying out this dialogue with respect to their worship. And that is in fact what we do find. The record of worship in Scripture is that of God's people responding in praise to God's speaking, or acting on behalf of His people. 

There are many instances of this, but let's look at a few key passages, restricting ourselves to the Old Testament. First, Genesis 8:15ff., which is a record of the first worship of God after the world had been destroyed by the flood. After the waters recede, God tells Noah to exit the ark. Genesis 8:15-16, "And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee." Noah exits the ark thankful for God's mighty act in delivering him and his family. 

Noah then responds in verse 20. "And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar." Noah, with his family around him (which at this point was the church), worships Jehovah God publicly in response to the deliverance He had provided. Then God, receiving Noah's worship, Himself responds (in His heart) in the next verse, Genesis 8:21: "And the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake." And then He responds to Noah directly in the next few verses by speaking to Noah promises and commands. This whole event is a covenantal meeting in dialogue. God acts to save Noah. Noah responds in worship. God speaks to Noah. 

Another passage that highlights this dialogue in worship is Genesis 12:7-8.¹ In this passage Abram is worshiping God with his family and his 318 servants after God brings him to Canaan. At the beginning of chapter 12 God told Abram to gather his tribe and leave his own country to go to a land God would show him. In verse 7 Abram is in the land of Canaan and there God speaks to him. "And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, 'Unto thy seed will I give this land.'" Abram immediately responds to that promise of God in the next part of verse 7: "And there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him." Here Abram is offering personal worship to God in response to God speaking to him His promises. And then in verse 8 Abram responds by gathering a public worship service. "And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord." That phrase, "called upon the name of the Lord," indicates that Abram this time held a more formal public worship with his family and servants.² Again, therefore, you have God acting and speaking., and His people responding to Him in praise. There is a principle, already in Genesis, that worship is in response to God's acting and speaking. 

Moving forward to the temple worship in Israel, II Chronicles 29:27-28 gives us an example of dialogical worship in the nation of Israel. This passage concerns a time when Israel is a kingdom, and official public corporate worship is a regular part of life. David was the one responsible for setting up the worship services of the church held in the temple, even formulating the order of worship. David, however, was never allowed to build the temple and institute temple worship; that was left to those who followed. In the passage, Hezekiah has restored Davidic temple worship to the nation. In examining the temple worship recorded, we see the dialogical principle in a way that is most instructive for us. For here, God's people are not responding to God speaking directly to them in visions or appearances. Rather, at this time in Israel's history God's people are responding to what God says and does and commands to be performed in His Word, and worship is given in response to that. In this way, Israel's worship is similar to ours today. 

II Chronicles 29:27-28:

And Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt offering upon the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also with the trumpets, and with the instruments ordained by David king of Israel. And all the congregation worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded: and all this continued until the burnt offering was finished.

God acted and spoke in the sacrifices He commanded in His Word, and the people began immediately to respond to what God was doing in the sacrifice with praise and worship. There is here an example of institutionalized dialogue, where God's promises are recounted in the sacrifice, and the people respond in worship. This takes place in the actual worship service of the temple. It is an embodiment of the dialogical principle in the order of worship.

O Come Let Us Worship (Series on Reformed Public Worship)

Rev. Cory Griess, Pastor of Calvary PRC, Hull, IA

Standard Bearer, Volume 88, Number 11 (March 1, 2012)

The Dialogical Principle of Worship (2)

Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? who can shew forth all his praise? Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times. Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; That I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance.

Psalm 106:1-5

Introduction

In our last article we saw that public worship, which is the covenantal assembly meeting with God, is carried out as a dialogue between God and His people. We rooted this principle theologically in the covenant of grace itself, and then in the very nature of God. We then began to prove this principle from Scripture. In this article I will expound one final Old Testament text that is helpful for understanding this principle, and then in a general way show how the principle applies to a typical Protestant Reformed order of worship. The passage is Psalm 106. 

The Psalmist Teaches the Dialogical Principle of Worship

Psalm 106 and Psalm 105 are closely connected to one another. The two Psalms were written late in Israel's history and represent a reflection back on the faithfulness of God in their history in spite of the sin of His people. The psalmist recounts the history for this purpose: to call God's people to respond to God's mighty acts for His chosen in worship and praise. 

In verse 2 the psalmist looks back and calls to Israel's mind the mighty acts of God all throughout the history of the Old Testament when he says, Psalm 106:2, "Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? who can shew forth all his praise?" He then lists many of these mighty acts of God and the people's response to them. One of these mighty acts is the deliverance from Egypt recorded in verses 9-11: "He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness. And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And the waters covered their enemies: there was not one of them left."

How did God's people respond to this deliverance? The psalmist points out that they responded dialogically in praise. Psalm 106:12: "Then believed they his words; they sang his praise." You can read Exodus 15, where on the other side of the Red Sea they wrote a song and held a worship service with two million people singing in response to what God had done: "I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." The psalmist is pointing out the dialogical principle in history. 

However, as the psalmist continues to recount the history, things start to go downhill. And the point he is making is that they went downhill, not because God was unfaithful, but because His people forgot His mighty acts and stopped responding to them dialogically with praise. Verse 13 begins, "They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel." The great contrast in the chapter is in how Israel responds to God. After verse 12 the Israelites are found responding in a wrong way. Instead of responding to God's mighty acts with belief and song (12), they responded by lusting (14), envying (15), forgetting (21), despising (24), complaining (25), provoking (29), etc. Therefore the psalmist is compelled to cry out at the end of the Psalm, "Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the heathen, to [in order to—CG] give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise." In other words, "Save us, O God, in order that we might carry out the dialogical principle again!" 

Do you see what the psalmist is doing in Psalm 106? He is teaching the Israelites the dialogical principle of worship with both a positive and negative example. He records some of God's mighty acts and the people of God responding in praise to those acts. Then he records times when they responded wrongly to His mighty acts, using these instances for a lesson. 

Both Psalm 105 and Psalm 106 end their history of Israel with the command, "Praise the Lord!" That is the nub of the psalmist's teaching here. He is saying, "Look, this is the pattern of how we are to worship. We hear God recount His mighty acts and His promises as He has revealed them in His Word, and then we praise Him in response. And now that I have recorded them in this history, praise Him in response to them as recorded! We failed at so many points in history to carry out the dialogical principle when the acts were actually happening, but now they are recorded for us, and when you hear about them in the Psalms, 'Praise the Lord!' in response." 

It is on the basis of these mighty acts of God now recorded in Scripture that the psalmist calls the people to worship in Psalm 106:1-2: "Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? who can shew forth all his praise?" Praise the Lord and keep praising in response to His mighty acts, every time you hear them, because that is worship, and because you will never exhaust the praise that is due to Him for them. 

We Follow the Command of the Psalmist in Our Worship

We also come to worship and hear God's mighty acts recorded in Scripture. Often we hear of the same mighty acts that the psalmist recounts in Psalm 105 and Psalm 106, and we are called to respond in the service the same way the Israelites were: "Praise the Lord!" But we have more to respond to than the Old Testament saints did. We have all the mighty acts recorded in the New Testament as well. We hear of His mighty acts in the cross and resurrection and ascension. We hear of His mighty act in sending His Holy Spirit. We hear of mighty acts that are happening right now in our lifetimes, and mighty acts that will be yet in the future. All throughout the service these mighty acts are recounted for us. We hear them in the reading of the law. We hear them especially in the reading and preaching of Scripture. We even hear them in the greeting and benedictions. 

And we must (and how can we help ourselves?) respond to them in praise. These mighty acts are mighty acts for us! They are declared on our behalf. They are declared over us in the service. We are the recipients of the promises that are grounded in those acts. We are motivated then to sing the songs and pray the prayers in the service because of the mighty acts we hear recounted to us in the assembly. 

The Dialogical Principle Embodied in Liturgy

The Reformed saw this dialogical principle in the covenant and more specifically in the worship of covenant history, and they sought to capture that dialogue in their orders of worship. And truly Reformed and Presbyterian churches carry this on today. A typical Protestant Reformed order of worship is governed by this principle. God speaks, and we respond. 

There are two types of elements in the Reformed worship service—those that come from God's side, and those that come from our side. And while there are certainly other ways to order the elements (the order is not inspired by any means), what we have in a typical Protestant Reformed order is for the most part the traditional Reformed order. When, the Lord willing, we go through each element I will expound this more, but for now let's get the overview and see how the whole service is a dialogue between God and us. 

God speaks first, calling us to worship. We respond in prayer and song. God speaks in the greeting. We respond with the votum: "Our help is in the name of Jehovah who made heaven and earth."¹ God pronounces upon us His blessing in the benediction. Then we respond in song. God speaks to us in His law, and we respond in song and prayer. God speaks to us in His Word and its exposition. We respond in prayer and song. God dismisses us with His blessing. We respond in song of praise.

We Know God Dialogues with Us Because He Really Speaks in His Word

It is important to be conscious of the fact that God speaks to us in the service. His mighty acts are recorded in the inspired Word of God. Not only has He performed them in history, but He recounts them to us in the present when He meets with us in the covenantal assembly. It is God Himself in His Word speaking to us in the greeting and benediction, the reading of the law, and the reading and preaching of Scripture, not the minister. It is His voice that speaks to our hearts. And we respond to Him as He speaks His mighty acts and their implications to us personally. Therefore, when we respond to what we hear, we respond not to the minister, not first of all to each other, but to God Himself. 

This is another reason why it is important that the Word of God be taken up in every point. Only if the greeting is God's Word; only if the benediction is a benediction of Scripture; only if the word proclaimed is an exposition of His Word, are we confident that God is truly speaking to us, and we are truly dialoguing with Him. When the Word speaks, God speaks. Then we can be confident that it is not the minister's words, nor a showman trying to manipulate us, but it is God in His word speaking to us. And therefore we respond back to Him.

An Exciting Reality

This dialogical principle ought to make worship appealing to us. We are coming actually to hear Him and respond to Him! We ought to have the desire to come and hear God Himself speak over us His acts and the salvation He has purchased for us. The psalmist certainly had this desire. In Psalm 106:4-5 the psalmist shows that he grasps this dialogical principle not only as a principle that must be carried out, but as a loving condescension of God to him personally in the church. He expresses that it is his personal desire to be in the worship of God's name and to hear God speak to him. This dialogical principle has driven him to a personal, fervent love for the unique fellowship of corporate worship. Psalm 106:4-5: "Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; That I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance." The psalmist desires to hear God speak to him personally in the service, "O visit me with thy salvation!" That is, "Be present in the service with Thy people and speak to us, and we will know Thy salvation." And he desires to respond with worship, "that I may rejoice," and "that I may glory." And he desires to rejoice and glory with the assembly. He adds, "That I may glory with thine inheritance." 

Do you say that as you come to the service? "God, visit me! Speak to me! Tell me I am Your beloved in the greeting. Tell me of Your mighty acts of salvation in the preaching of the Word. And with Thy inheritance I will respond to Thy glory." Let's come to worship in this frame of mind, brothers and sisters in Christ. Our God calls us to dialogue in the worship service. We are coming here before His face to hear Him speak of all His mighty acts, and we are coming to offer our praise and adoration and thanks to Him for all He has done, is doing, and promises to do. If we are aware of this and think about this as we come to the house of the Lord, it will make our worship much more meaningful and beautiful. God will meet with us and we will dialogue with Him in covenant love.

O Come Let Us Worship

Rev. Cory Griess, pastor of Calvary PRC, Hull, IA

The Standard Bearer, Volume 89, number 8 (January 15, 2013)

Called into His Presence: The Opening Service (2)

Introduction

    Last time we examined the various aspects of what has sometimes been called “the opening service.”  This section of the liturgy includes the call to worship, doxology, salutation, votum, and benediction.  In this article we take a step back and see the importance of this first part of the order of worship in context, especially as we remember that worship is a covenantal assembly with Jehovah.

The Purpose of the Opening Service

    You have perhaps noticed that these aspects of the opening service are not strictly the elements of worship that are demanded by the Regulative Principle.  The reason for this is that though these aspects of the opening service are part of the worship service, they do not represent the heart of the service.  They are biblical, and they go back in Reformed worship at least to the time of Calvin.^[1]  The use of the benediction in particular goes back to biblical times.^[2]  But these, what I will call “minor” elements, are the opening service, not the heart of the covenantal meeting.

    However, “minor elements” does not mean “unnecessary elements.”  This opening service is necessary.  It is necessary simply by virtue of what the public corporate worship service is—the covenantal assembly meeting with Jehovah God.  The purpose of the opening service is to usher us into God’s presence.

A Formal Introduction

    We do not come into God’s presence presumptuously.  We do not come to the house of God and start speaking to Him as though we happened to bump into Him on the street.  There is a certain formality to this meeting.  He is the God of heaven and earth; we are dust creatures.  There must be a proper leading into the communion and fellowship of the meeting.^[3]

    This is similar to the way one would be called to come before a king in the Middle Ages.  You would not just waltz into the throne room as though you had a right to come before the king in yourself.  You would not start speaking as though the king were any common man.  There are the proper introductions that must take place.  The king has to beckon you into his presence in the proper fashion.  Even if you were the one who wanted the meeting, you would not come into the throne room until the king called you to come in.  When the king did call you in, you would respond with an expression of humility and praise for the king’s majesty.  Then the king would greet you perhaps.  You would in turn express that you are in need of his help, and there is nowhere else you would turn for that help. He would receive you with his blessing.  And only then, after you had been ushered into his presence in this proper way, would you get into the heart of what the meeting was about.

    This is what is happening in the opening service.  God is leading us into His presence, but in such a way that we know He is God and our sovereign, and we are His creatures.  He sovereignly calls us into His presence in the call to worship.  We respond in humility and praise for His majesty in the silent prayer and doxology.  He greets us with the salutation.  In the votum we express that we are in need of His help and depend on Him for what we need.  He receives us with His blessing, assuring us of His help in the benediction.  And only after this may the heart of the meeting between God and us take place. 

A Familiar Introduction

    But not only is there a certain formality to the way God ushers us into His presence, there is also a certain familiarity.  For not only is God our Sovereign, He is our Father and Friend.  If we go back to the illustration of coming before a king in the Middle Ages, but add another element to that illustration, this becomes clear.  Assume now that this person who seeks an audience with the king is not only the king’s subject, but also the king’s son.  In this case there would still be formality, for the son is still the king’s subject.  But the formalities would be infused with love, warmth, grace, and tenderness, for this subject is also the king’s son.

   This, too, we have in the opening service.  The formal structure is there to usher us into the presence of the sovereign God properly, but that structure is filled with language that breathes love and warmth and sonship.  We are being ushered into the presence of our Father!  He calls us His beloved as He greets us.  We are not merely citizens of His country, but citizens who are also sons!  He breathes not some vague, cold, strictly formal blessing upon us, but He pronounces the blessing of His heart upon His children whom He loves.  “Grace to you and peace, my children,” He says. And we sing not only because He is sovereign, but also because He is all love towards His children in His sovereignty.  We vow that He is our help, not simply because He is King and able, but because He is Father and willing. 

Formality and Familiarity in the Covenant

    It is this wonderful combination of formality and familiarity in the opening service that makes it so perfectly covenantal.  The covenant is the relationship between God the friend-sovereign and His people the friend-servants.  It is a structured fellowship.  There must be the recognition that He is God of heaven and earth, a consuming fire in His holiness, perfectly just, so far above us.  But at the same time there must be the recognition that this God is our Father and Friend who has redeemed us and cares for us and loves us and draws us close because He loves to have us close.  

    The opening service is a biblical and precise representation of this covenant relationship as we are ushered into the presence of God.  And having thus been brought in, we engage in the main elements of worship in reverence, and also in the sweetest, closest communion and love.  Ushered in to Him in this way, we are free to participate in the main reasons for the meeting with the same formality and familiarity.  God speaks to us His law as sovereign and Father.  He absolves our sins and speaks comfortably to us in His Word, as Holy, Just, and Merciful.  And we respond with a reverent and deep filial adoration in song and prayer and giving in the heart of the service. 

The Comfort in the Opening Service

    There are two voices in the world today speaking to us about life and purpose and meaning and joy.  There is the voice of man, and there is the voice of God.  The voice of man calls out and tells the church that life and purpose and meaning and joy are found in pursuing what is temporal.  It is a voice with no authority.  It recognizes no voice from above to lead and to guide.  Ultimately this voice is the voice of Satan himself.  And as in the Garden of Eden, Satan calls the church to come join him and fellowship with him.  He uses the world to call out with lies, “come to me, for at my side there are pleasures forever more.”  But this voice has no true ultimate authority to call us, and we are fools to respond.  Though it pretends to be fatherly and pretends to offer fatherly benefits, this voice is the voice of no father and friend.

    In the opening service of public worship, a different voice calls to us.  It is a voice that calls from above.  It is the voice of God our Creator and our Savior, the voice of true authority.  The voice comes from beyond this world and this life.  It is the voice that tells us who we are, why we are here, and where we are going.  It is the voice of true Fatherhood.  It is the voice that speaks to us of what true peace is in this life.  And this voice of God calls us in the opening service into fellowship.  It tells us that in His presence we will find true purpose, meaning, and joy.

    In the opening service we come by faith, and our response to this voice is that we have no desire to be led by the voice of Satan.  God’s voice, as the voice of power and tender love, is the voice that has our attention.  And we will come to Him for fellowship and for worship.  We will come to Him, and we will leave the world behind.

            And in the opening service, being ushered into God’s presence, God tells us we are His.  He gives us to experience that in His presence is fullness of joy; at His right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16:11).

O Come Let Us Worship (Series on Reformed Public Worship)

Rev. Cory Griess

The Standard Bearer, Volume 88, Number 4 (November 15, 2011)

The Covenantal Assembly (2)

O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

Psalm 95:1-7a

Introduction

Last time we explained what it means that the official worship services of the church are a meeting of the covenantal assembly before the face of the living God, and proved those points from Scripture. We said that the assembly is not merely a collection of individuals, but an officially constituted expression of the body of Christ. In worship, that congregation comes to experience the covenant of grace in the highest way possible on earth. She comes to meet with God Himself. We also discussed how public corporate worship is the highest expression of the antithesis. The body is called out of the world, and called unto God in worship. This is part of what makes worship so pleasing to Him. Everything else is left behind, and we come to adore His matchless name alone as we meet with Him face to face. 

In this article we discuss what motivates us to come out of the world to meet with this God, and we find some implications from this first principle that apply to Reformed and biblical worship.

The Motivation for Being a Part of the Covenantal Assembly

The motivation for this worship comes from knowing how glorious this God is who comes to meet with us in the covenantal assembly. Psalm 95, which, as we said last time, has always been recognized in the church as a call to worship, also provides the motivation for coming to worship. Psalm 95 presents God as both creator and redeemer, and in the Psalm these two are our motivation for coming to meet with Him in worship. 

First of all in Psalm 95 the motive is knowing God as our creator. Psalm 95:3: "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker." What motivates us personally and collectively to come to meet with God is that this God made us. He has the right to call us to meet with Him since He is the one who has given us existence. But more than that, what a wonderful gift to meet in fellowship with the God who formed us and knows us. 

This creator God is great and awesome, and His majesty draws me irresistibly into His presence. Psalm 95:3-5 carries on the thought, "For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land." This God is able! We don't worship a God we made up. We don't worship a puny God. No other supposed god is His rival. All the earth is His possession. He made it with His hands. Even the vast, remote depths of the oceans and the impenetrable rock of the mountains are not foreign to Him. This God is able to take care of His people. He is able to fulfill the promises He made to His church. 

This draws me to come and celebrate His majesty before Him. I come to His presence to adore Him for being a God who is able to accomplish His will—for being mighty, the ruler over all. I come to fellowship with such a God. He is Himself the motivation for my worship! Therefore in worship I take His attributes upon my lips in prayer and praise. I sing in response to hearing His mighty deeds. I ascribe glory to all that He is and does, for He is God. 

Second, the motivation is that this mighty God who made us is also our shepherd, who cares for us and loves us and redeems us. Psalm 95:6-7: "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand." He is a shepherd who holds His sheep in His hand. He cares for us, is attentive to us, and as verse 1 tells us, He redeems us. Verse 1 calls this Shepherd God the "rock of our salvation." When the psalmist uses that phrase, he has in the back of his mind the people of the Exodus at Rephidim, where God gave them water from the rock to save their life. The apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:4 that we now drink spiritually from the rock who is Christ. God is a shepherd who has provided Christ to give us life-giving water, to save us from our sins, to shepherd us away from the death of sin and hell. 

The psalmist defines our God to us as the motive for worship. There is no greater motive for being a part of the covenantal assembly than the person and character of the God with whom we meet. We have a Shepherd God who holds us in His hand, who has sent Christ for our salvation. In Christ God guides us and cares for us every step of our lives, so that there is no fear but only rest and peace and hope. 

What confidence this brings to us as sheep! This is why I come to worship, to exalt Him for this! And to be convinced of this again—to regain this identity! For it is in worship that I am assured of this, and experience this. In this world we identify ourselves by various things. We are farmers; we are college students; we are engineers; we are blondes; we are brunettes; etc. But here in the text we are defined at the most fundamental level. In worship we know we are sheep with a Shepherd for a God. Sheep in the hands of a Shepherd God. A shepherd gives what we need: protection, love, peace, and hope. Here, the picture of the covenantal assembly becomes even richer. Not only in this assembly does God meet with us face to face, but in our adoration of His name, He takes us up into His hands and He holds us. He tells us who He is, and tells us who we are. 

"O come let us worship, because this is who God is and this is who you are," says the Psalm. Come meet Him in the covenantal assembly and adore Him, sing and pray, and give yourself over to Him in love!

The Implications of the Covenantal Assembly

That worship is a covenantal assembly where we are scooped up into the hands of our mighty Shepherd God implies at least five other principles about worship. 

First, our worship will be centered on the Word of God. For if we are to meet with God in this way it will be by His Word. It is His Word that brings us to Him. It is His Word that brings Him to us. God's Word is living and active. His Word contains God Himself in Christ. And in that Word we have the Word made flesh (John 1:14). Its truth, its power, its emotion, bring us face to face with God in worship. Thus the service takes up at every point the Word of God. God's Word is sung; God's Word is read; God's Word is proclaimed; God's Word is prayed. God's Word is the focus because in the Word we will have God with us. 

Second, the implication is that the worship service will be simple. The goal of the covenantal assembly is for us to be taken mind and soul by the Word of God and therefore into God's presence. All must shine a spotlight on God in His Word. Anything that distracts from Him must be removed, for distractions take us out of His presence. 

This is what led the Reformers to have a simple order of worship, where the content, not the accoutrements, were the spiritual power. Thus, you will find the same in Reformed worship today. There is a simplicity and sobriety about it. The liturgy is simple. There are not paintings and drawings and statues on the wall. The focus is not on the people and their individual gifts. The spotlight shines upon God with whom we meet. 

Third, when we come to the worship service with such an understanding and believing heart, the worship service will be profoundly experiential. After all, we are meeting with God Himself. This is going to be an experience! What that experience is will be determined by the state of your soul before God. If you come with sin that you will not forsake, the experience will be that you will writhe as Jehovah breathes down your neck. But if you come by grace to let go of sin and hold on to the Lord, the experience will be one of comfort and pure adoration of Jehovah God. 

Fourth, the worship service will be characterized by an attitude of joyful reverence. I put joy and reverence together in the same point because Psalm 95 puts them together. Psalm 95:1-2 calls us to bring a "joyful noise." Psalm 95:6 calls us also to bow down in reverence. In true worship, there will be this combination of joy at the fact that this Mighty Shepherd is our God, and yet a profound reverence in light of the fact that we don't deserve Him. 

We are coming to meet with the God of heaven and earth. Someone once said that if we really had any idea of who it is we meet with in public corporate worship, we would come to church in shoulder pads and helmets, and tie ourselves to the seat. After all, we are coming into the presence of sheer holiness, and we are sinful creatures of the dust. 

Knowing what worship is and knowing the God we worship will affect everything about worship. When a stranger comes into a service he ought to see that we have not come here for a show, but that we are gathered before the Holy God. 

But it will also be joyful. The verbs of verse 1 are more intense than carries over into English. It is more like, "Let us give a ringing cry unto the Lord, and raise joyful shouts!" There ought to be a joy in coming to meet the God who has saved us. How can one not be joyful coming here to celebrate grace and the God who holds us in His hands? There ought to be ringing cries of thanksgiving and praise. If we put no effort to think about the words that we are singing or praying, then there will not be any true joy. But as we are taken up by and given over to, the truths and words we are hearing and singing, there will be a profound joy experienced and manifested to others. 

Fifth, since worship is an assembly called to come and adore God, God is the audience in worship. We come to meet with God face to face, and part of that meeting is God speaking to us. But in prayer and songs of praise, God is the audience, not us. Many view these aspects of worship as though we in the pew are the audience, and the worship team is putting on a show for us. But that misses the point. What is unique about this assembly is that when the songs are being played and sung the audience is not those who are sitting in the pews. God is the audience. Worship is not for me, first of all. I end up being blessed by it in the end, but it is not about me. Worship is for the adoration of our mighty Shepherd God. 

Conclusion

Public corporate worship is the most important thing a Christian does. God loves the covenantal assembly. Individual praise of the glory of His grace is important. The regular praise of the glory of His grace by families at devotions is imperative. Yet, it is the worship of the covenantal assembly that God loves the most. Psalm 87:2 declares, "The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob." God loved the dwellings of Jacob where each family worshiped Him in their home. But what He loved more were the gates of Zion, the body gathered before His face. 

And we ought to love those gates of Zion most as well. Is not our experience that of Luther? "At home in my house there is no warmth or vigor in me, but in the church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart, and it breaks its way through."1 

May the thought and experience of the covenantal assembly lead us to cry out with David in Psalm 84:1-2, "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God." For it is in the covenantal assembly that we meet Him face to face.

1 Martin Luther, cited in Robert Rayburn, O Come Let Us Worship: Corporate Worship in the Evangelical Church (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 30.

O Come Let Us Worship (Series on Reformed Public Worship)

Rev. Cory Griess (Calvary IA PRC)

The Standard Bearer, Volume 88, Number 1 (October 1, 2011)

The Covenantal Assembly (1)

O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

Psalm 95:1-7a

Introduction

There are few subjects in the church today more controversial than worship. People talk about "worship wars." In the same church you may have services titled "traditional," to appeal to the older crowd, and services entitled "contemporary," to appeal to the younger crowd. This reveals that the driving force in worship is often personal preferences. This is something that can be a danger also for us. 

But the preeminent danger for us in the Protestant Reformed Churches is that we not understand what we are doing in worship and why we are doing it. God does not desire that His people simply go through the motions. We must worship with understanding. We bring God no glory if we do not know what we are doing in worship, and have no desire to engage in it. And we miss out on the edifying experience of worship when we do not understand our worship. 

In that light, I begin a series of articles on the principles of Reformed and Presbyterian worship. I hope to follow that, sometime down the road, with a series applying those principles to a typical Protestant Reformed worship service. The title for the series is "O Come Let Us Worship!" taken from Psalm 95:6. There is, of course, personal worship, and there is family worship; there is the fact that all of life is to be worship; and then there is corporate worship—worship officially per-formed by the congregation. In this series we consider the latter, what God has to say, in the Scriptures, about the public, corporate worship of His name. 

There are three main principles that will be treated in this series. The first is that public worship is a covenantal assembly meeting with the living God. The second is what is called the dialogical principle of worship. And the third is the regulative principle of worship. 

Let's begin by looking into the principle that public corporate worship is a covenantal assembly. 

Not Just Individuals, But an Assembly

Fundamental to the nature of Reformed and biblical corporate worship is that those who gather for it do so as an assembly. They are not a haphazard collection of individuals who get together in a building. They are an assembly made up of many, but who yet are one. 

They are a lawfully gathered assembly, constituted for the purpose of public worship. The local church is a body overseen by a council and consistory, representing the offices of Christ Himself. She is officially called to assemble together by this governing body, which speaks with the authority of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ Himself, therefore, establishes this assembly and calls her to come as one body. 

This is why most Reformed and Presbyterian churches have a "call to worship" at the beginning of the worship service. It shows that God Himself is calling and constituting an assembly through the officebearers. This is unique for Sunday worship. There is no call to worship before Bible Study or programs or lectures. The call to worship is God calling His body together into the official assembly of public worship. 

She assembles officially for worship as the body of Jesus Christ. She is a redeemed assembly. Christ has shed His blood for her. Christ has imputed to her His righteousness. And Christ has united her together. She comes therefore as an extension of who He is, just as the body is the extension of the head. Jesus is in heaven, having entered the most holy place not made with hands. There He lives before the face of God and in His human nature brings worship. Here on earth the official worship of the church is an extension of what Christ our head does before God, adoring Him in the heavenly sanctuary. When we come for public worship, we are constituted under Him as a gathering of His body, and He therefore, as our head, leads us into worship. 

The Old Testament emphasized this corporate nature of public worship. In Leviticus 23, where the people were commanded to come together for the great feasts, the phrase is repeated, "you are a holy convocation." That is, you are an assembly of the people made holy in Christ. You are officially and visibly called together as a body. The section of Psalm 95 quoted above leads us to contemplate this corporate nature of worship. Psalm 95 has been recognized as a call for the church to assemble publicly for worship throughout the entire history of the Christian church and, even before the time of Christ, in the ancient Jewish church.¹ Notice, in verses 1 and 2, how it calls us together: "O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker" (italics mine, CJG). 

In the New Testament, Hebrews 10:25 speaks of not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. That is what the worship service is, an official assembling of the body of Christ. The New Testament word for church, ekklesia, also captures this corporate idea. The word means assembly. This corporate consciousness is reflected even in our practice. The salutation is, "beloved congregation of Jesus Christ." It is not, "beloved individuals who happen to be in this building," but "beloved assembled body of which every individual is a part." 

This is important to remember in a culture where the individual and his desires are valued above the collective, and where people will forsake corporate worship because they say they can worship by themselves. We certainly come as individuals, and we bring our own personal worship on Sunday, but we do so as part of a body. This is not something we can do at home by ourselves. It is not something we can do alone with our Bibles. We are called out and called together before God. When I participate in the worship of the church, I do not stand as an individual singing, but I join my voice with the assembly of which I am a member. We come together as one. 

Called Together to Meet With God

The reason why we are officially called together as a body is to meet with our God face to face. It is a covenantal assembly, called together by God to meet with Him in fellowship. The covenant is structured fellowship with God. In corporate worship the church experiences the height of this covenantal life on earth. 

This was true of public corporate worship in the Old Testament. The tabernacle of worship was called the tent of the congregation for this very reason. Exodus 39:32: "Thus was all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation finished: and the children of Israel did according to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so did they." A better translation for tent of the congregation would be tent of meeting. It was where the congregation met with God. 

The temple worship was this as well. The people gathered in the courts of the temple. And God, dwelling in the Holy of Holies, upon the ark, met with the assembly in the structured fellowship of worship. 

Psalm 95:2 speaks of this covenantal aspect of worship explicitly when it calls, "O come before his presence!" The most literal translation of that would be, "Let us meet His face!" That is what worship is—the assembly meets the face of Jehovah God in a special way. 

In the Old Testament tabernacle and temple, however, there was still a distance between God and His people. Only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies before the face of God, and corporate worship could take place only in the tabernacle or temple. In the New Testament the idea that worship is meeting with God face to face becomes richer. Now there is no earthly high priest, and God will meet directly with us wherever we are assembled. Instead of meeting God in Jerusalem or in the tabernacle, now Jesus says in Matthew 18:20, "wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am with you." In the worship of the assembly, no matter how small or large the assembly is, we meet our God. As Calvin recognized, "After the covenant of grace has flowed to us...let us know and be fully persuaded that wherever the faithful who worship him purely and in due form according to the appointment of his Word, are assembled together to engage in the solemn acts of religious worship, he is graciously present, and presides in the midst of them."²

The Spirit works this of course. He brings us to God by giving us the desire to come to worship. He brings God to us by driving into our hearts His word that we sing, pray, read, and hear preached. The Spirit works so that we experience that. God really comes to us in the official worship of the church. This meeting with God is the experience of the covenant of grace. We do not come to church simply to talk about the covenant. We come to experience it! God with us! 

Church services are more than just hearing a sermon. The sermon is a part of the service, an essential part. But the service as a whole is, as we will see later, designed to lead us into the presence of the Almighty. Gathered together, we become the tent of meeting, the building where God condescends to meet with us. In the words of the songs that sink into our hearts, take over our thoughts, and drive our affections; in the prayers that recognize we are in His holy presence; in the gospel read and preached by which God releases overtures of love and callings for our lives—in all these, we meet with the Living God. 

If you do not experience this, it is because you do not believe it, or are distracted in the service, or do not take worship seriously enough. When we come to worship, we are seeking the presence of God. And God does condescend to come to us by His Spirit and through faith.

The Covenantal Assembly and the Antithesis

That worship is covenantal implies that it is also the fundamental expression of the antithesis. The antithesis is a God-created spiritual separation from the world and consecration to Jehovah. In public corporate worship, God is creating an antithesis. He calls us out of the world and to Himself. He says, "You are mine. Come out from among them and be ye separate." During the week we are called to live a life different from the world and in communion with God. And we seek to do that. But we are so distracted and filled with thoughts about our work, or about people, or about issues in society, that we are not captivated by Jehovah God. We are in the world, and our souls are pulled toward the things of this life. We feel ourselves tempted. Sometimes we resist temptation, other times not. Sometimes we are all-out enveloped by the world. We see that we were thinking like the world, we were acting like the world. Our minds and souls were influenced. Perhaps we were even considering making decisions that, when we think back on them after worship, were so worldly. But in worship God calls us out. That should be the experience of the service. It is relief; it is an oasis in the desert; it is a break in the battle. 

As God called Israel out of Egypt and to Himself at Sinai, so in every service He calls us out of the world and to Himself. God sends out His call, like a man to his lover, to put everything down and come apart for awhile in covenant love. It is a calling to a place of safety and spiritual security for a time as we meet with our God. It is in worship that we are set before the face of the living God, and we worship Him. It is His majesty, His glory, His gospel, His truth, that we come to adore. We ascribe to Him glory and praise and thanksgiving. It is in the worship service that we are finally set totally apart so that it is all about Him. 

During the week we have personal and family worship of course. This is important, it is lovely, and it must be meaningful and worshipful. But for most of us it is not until we get to the assembly before God's face that we really worship with all our heart and mind fixed upon Him alone. It is there that we really put everything else aside and, with God's people who are gathered there, exalt His name. It is there especially that He increases and we decrease. We say to God there, "It may have looked at times as if I did not love Thee, as if I was not consecrated to Thee. Now I repent of that and here in the public assembly I tell Thee that I love Thee more than this world." At times we have been selfish in the week. But there we can set all of self aside and simply exalt God for who He is. There we express that though the world, the devil, and our own flesh get the better of us at times, in our heart of hearts we adore Him and Him alone. That's worship. Worship is giving one's all to Him. It is humble adoration. The very word "worship" means to bow down. It is honoring Him, praising Him. It is the decrease of self, and the increase of His matchless name in our minds and hearts. And that happens as God meets with us in the covenantal assembly.

¹ Leupold, H. C. Exposition of The Psalms. 8th ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1969. 675.

² Calvin, John. Commentary on the Book of Psalms. Vol. 4. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979. 122.

O Come Let Us Worship

Rev. Cory Griess, pastor of Calvary PRC, Hull IA

Standard Bearer, Volume 89, Number 16 (May 15, 2013)

Hear Ye Him!  The Reading and Preaching of Scripture in Worship (4)

And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.  And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power:  for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Revelation 4:2, 9-11

Introduction

    In our series on Reformed worship, we have moved beyond principle to an examination of the elements of corporate worship as they are carried out according to the principles of God’s Word.  We first examined the aspects of the “opening service,” where God ushers us into His presence.  Currently, we are studying the heart of the covenantal meeting between God and His people, the reading and preaching of Scripture.  The ministry of the Word is the heart of the worship service.  Here, God speaks to us as our King and Father in the covenant of grace.  We discussed last time the necessity and importance of this aspect of the worship service.  Now we examine the carrying out of the reading and preaching of Scripture and the relationship of these elements to all worship.

The Elements Carried Out

    If the ministry of the Word is going to be God Himself speaking to us, it must be a faithful reading and faithful exposition of that Word.  Only when the Word has its say does the ministry of the Word come with the authority of God Himself to His people.  Then it is not the minister who makes exhortations; it is not the minister’s doctrine being taught; it is not the minister giving encouragement, it is God in Christ who speaks these things.

    In Nehemiah 8, Ezra and the people understood this.  That is why the message Ezra and the Levites brought to the people was not their own message, but an exposition of Scripture—the words of God.  We have in Nehemiah 8 an example of expository preaching in a public worship service.  All the people of Israel are gathered in Jerusalem; a massive crowd is there to worship the Lord. Ezra stands up and reads the law in verses 3-4.  And then, in verses 7-8, the Levites and 13 priests “caused the people to understand the law.  So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.”  Ezra read a portion, and then the other men, whom you can be sure were trained by Ezra, went around through the crowds and expounded that portion of the Word.  They “gave the sense,” or explained what it meant and applied it to the people.  Then Ezra read more, and they explained that portion to the people, so that they caused the people to understand.

    This is what true preaching is and must be.  It must take a portion of God’s Word and give the sense, that is, expound it and apply it.  Therefore, the preaching must not be the minister’s own agenda, but the Word of God Himself faithfully expounded.  The minister is an exegete of Scripture.  The word “exegete” means “to lead out of.”  This is what the minister must do.  The content of the sermon is what he has led out of the Word, so that it is God in His Word speaking to the people.  At the end of the sermon the people ought to be able to say, “I now know what that passage of Scripture means and how it applies to my life.  I know what God has to say to me in that passage.”  The people ought also to understand that the preaching they heard, if it was faithful, was God’s Word coming to them, not the minister’s.

    If the ministry of the Word is to be authoritative, the sermon must come from someone who is trained and has the gifts to understand and expound the Word of God.  He must be someone who has been taught the Word of God and its principles of interpretation, as were the Levites who preached in Nehemiah 8.  He must be someone whom the church recognizes as having these abilities, and therefore someone the church calls to expound the Word.  It must be this way because the congregation needs to hear God’s voice in His Word.  The church therefore does not put someone upon the pulpit who cannot give the sense of the Word of God.

    At Jesus’ transfiguration God declared publicly, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.”  When the preaching of the Word is faithful to the Word of God, God says the same thing:  “Christ is speaking, hear Him.”  That does not mean the minister turns into Jesus.  It means that the Word of God proclaimed is Christ’s Word.  The authority is not merely in the minister himself (although the man in the office should be respected for his office), it is primarily in the Word of God.  If the preaching is not faithful to the Word, God’s people not only may, but also must protest it (with a willingness to see that they might be wrong themselves and a willingness to submit to a multitude of counselors).  But when the preaching is faithful to that Word, then God says, “You are hearing Christ My Son in those words.  Hear Him, listen to Him.”

    Do you listen to Him?  Do you give Him your undivided attention?  It really comes down to a matter of trust.  Do you trust Him?  If you do not trust a person speaking to you, he can talk all he wants but you will not listen.  However, if you do trust the one speaking, but you do not listen, then you are a fool.  Who is more trustworthy to interpret your life than Christ?  Hear Him!  God in Christ is speaking to us in His Word.  Do not harden your heart against His words, but come prepared to hear Christ Himself speak to you—to receive comfort for the soul from Him, to receive correction from Him, to hear Him tell you that you are His.  Why would we sleep or daydream, when we could be hearing the words of Christ to us?  We must be actively involved in the sermon, giving our full attention to what is being said, following the argument carefully.

    In addition, as we receive the Word with our heads, we must receive it also with our hearts.  As our hearts receive the Word, we must praise God for it.  There ought to be worship happening in the hearts of the people of God as they are under the ministry of the Word.  In this way, there is a mini dialogue within the grand dialogue.  As God speaks, our minds and hearts are attentive, and we respond in our souls as we receive the Word.

The Word Produces Worship

    In God’s people the Word read and proclaimed produces worship.  Really all of worship depends upon the reading and preaching of Scripture.  First of all, all the other elements of worship depend upon the reading and preaching of Scripture being at the center of our life and worship.  How can we sing and pray to a God we do not know?  He must reveal Himself to us in His Word.  What motivation would we have to give to the Lord in the offering if He did not speak to us in His Word and declare His gospel of forgiving grace to us?  What help is the law read to us in the service, if we do not know the God who gives it?  If there is no gospel proclaimed to justify us, why would we worship at all, for the guilt of our sin would remain upon us?  Even the call to worship, the salutation, and the benediction would be meaningless were it not for the reading and proclamation of Scripture.  Who cares if we are being called to worship if we do not know the God who is calling us?  We must know Him as His Word reveals Him. 

    But when Christ speaks to us in His Word week after week, then we can respond with song and prayer from the heart.  This is what we see from Revelation 4.  In this passage, John sees a vision of heaven after the church is redeemed.  The saints are all together without sin, worshiping before the throne of God.  In this vision, John sees God upon His throne. He is glorious.  He is like a red sardius stone—a picture of His terrible wrath and justice.  He is also like a jasper stone—a picture of His righteousness and purity.  He has lightnings and thunderings and voices coming out of the throne, something that makes one think of God giving the law on Sinai—a picture again of His power and majesty and wisdom.

    John sees the 24 elders gathered about this throne.  Those 24 elders represent the whole church—the Old Testament 12 tribes of Israel, and the New Testament 12 apostles.  Every elect believer is gathered there, and all the purified creation is there too.  There are four beasts that represent all the different parts of God’s creation.  They have eyes all around their heads, and with all of them they are looking at God upon His throne.  Together they cry out, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come!”  The church, represented by the 24 elders, worships Him as well.  Verses 10-11:  “They fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power.”

    What is recorded here is the very definition of worship.  First, the elders fall down before Him.  That indicates absolute humility before God.  When the wise men came to worship the baby Jesus, they fell down before Him.  Falling down is saying that I am nothing, and Thou art everything.  Second, the elders express their humble devotion, “Thou art worthy, O Lord.”  That is worship, recognizing the worth of God and praising Him for it.  Third, the elders lay down their crowns, saying in effect, “Thou art worthy, and we are not, and we place whatever worth we have before Thee at Thy throne.”

    But the question is, why do they fall down, and why do they lay their crowns at His feet, and why do they cry out that God is worthy?  The answer is, because they saw Him.  They saw Him in His majesty and glory, and seeing Him they knew they were nothing and He was everything.

    This is what happens in the proper preaching of God’s Word, we see God upon His throne.  In the Word, God communicates Himself to us, “This is who I am, the glorious, sovereign God.”  He declares His worth to our minds and hearts.  And in the preaching of the Word He tells us who we are, nothing before Him, yet those whom He has loved and redeemed.  O, how we need this!  How quickly we lose sight of His glory and majesty! And how quickly we lose sight of our own unworthiness!  We are self-deceivers.  We need God to tell us who we are, specks of dust in this universe.  We need God in His Word to tell us that apart from Him we are damn-worthy rebels.  But we need God in His Word to tell us that we are damn-worthy rebels who are never apart from Him.  We need to hear Him say we are a people cared for by the God of the universe, redeemed in the cross of Jesus Christ, and in Him elevated to a position of honor before God’s throne.

    It is this that makes us fall down before God and cry out, “Thou art worthy, O Lord!”  Without regular preaching in our lives, we do not want to come to church for the purpose of worship.  Without God’s Word proclaimed regularly, we do not come to church with the desire in our hearts to fall down and exalt His worth.  When we do not know Him and His plan of redemption in His Word, we come to church instead for the purpose of having it out with God.  And when we do not know ourselves properly, we come to church with “why’s” in our hearts instead of worship in our hearts.^[1]  “God is going to meet with his people?  Good, because I have some questions for Him.  Why is this happening in my life?  Who does He think He is?  What is He doing with all this trouble and suffering in this world?”

    It is only when we know Him as He is in His Word, and it is only when, from His Word, we know ourselves as nothing in His sight yet redeemed by grace, that we come ready to fall down and worship.  Then the “whys” go away.  And even though we do not know all the answers, we can trust Him and simply worship, for He is God, and we are not.  We can sing to Him of His sovereignty.  We can sing to Him of appreciation for His love.  We can pray to Him, thankful that this majestic One is our Father.  And we can turn all of our questions into the statement of the elders in verse 11:  “Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” 

The Believer’s Attitude

            Knowing this, what then ought to be our attitude toward the reading and preaching of the Word in the covenantal assembly?  It ought to be the attitude of the Israelites in Nehemiah 8.  First, we ought to be as attentive to it as they were.  Nehemiah 8:4:  “and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.”  Second, we ought to have a deep reverence for the Word and know the privilege it is to hear it.  Verse 5:  “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people…and when he opened it all the people stood up.”  Standing was the Old Testament saints’ way of honoring the Word of Jehovah God.  They stood as one would stand when a dignitary walks into the room.  Third, we ought to desire it with all that is in us.  Notice verse 1 of Nehemiah 8.  The people gathered as one man, “and they spake to Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses.”  They did not wait for Ezra to bring God’s Word out.  They wanted to hear what God had to say to them, so they went to Ezra and said, “Go up to that pulpit and declare to us the Word of the Lord!”  Fourth, we ought to take great joy when the Spirit works in us to hear and understand that Word with minds and hearts.  Verse 12:  “And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them.”

Speech #1

Living Antithetically in a Technological Age

Rev. Daniel Kleyn

Introduction:

The subject before us is both an important and timely one.  One reason for this is because the word “antithesis” itself has in many ways fallen into disuse. As a result, there is a measure of ignorance today concerning what exactly the antithesis is.  It is good, therefore, that we take the time to look at and set forth the meaning of this term.

It is also an important and timely subject because the truth of the antithesis is very practical.  That is expressed in the subtitle for this pamphlet, “Godly Living in Ungodly Times.”  The antithesis, you see, has to do with how we live, and more specifically, with how we do so in relation to the world in which God has placed us.  We realize that the world we live in is not a godly world.  Society is not Christian.  Rather, we live in very ungodly times.  And that in itself makes this subject very timely and crucially important to every one of us.

However, what especially makes it important and timely is the fact that things are not improving in this world, but rapidly getting worse.  As the end of time approaches, wickedness abounds, temptations get stronger, and Satan puts greater pressure upon the people of God to conform to the world.  And as regards the specific subject we are now considering, namely, technology, the attacks of Satan in our day come especially against our children and young people.  That makes the subject all the more urgent and all the more important, for the children and youth of the people of God are, the Lord willing, the future leaders in the church of Christ in this world.

We need, therefore, to be reminded of this important truth, and to be instructed concerning our calling as God’s people in the midst of an evil world.

My subject is, “Living Antithetically in a Technological Age.”  Before specifically looking at this, however, we need first of all to consider what the antithesis itself is.

The Idea of the Antithesis

As already stated, the word “antithesis” is not one that all are familiar with.  Perhaps some have not heard it before.  As far as the English word itself is concerned it is made up of two words, “anti” and “thesis.”  The word anti means “against.”  The word “thesis” is often used in reference to a position paper that a student must write.  In that paper, the student presents a certain position or viewpoint on a subject.  Thus the word “antithesis” literally means to be against a certain position, or a certain viewpoint.

What helps further in understanding this term is to realize that it comes from a Greek word that means literally, “to set or to place against.”  And thus the antithesis can be defined, as far as the word itself is concerned, as something that is the direct opposite of something else, a person or a thing that stands in contrast, or in opposition to something else.

The Scriptures themselves, however, are most helpful in explaining what exactly is meant by this term.  And in seeking to know what the Scriptures teach concerning it, we must look first of all at the passage in God’s Word where the whole idea and thought of the antithesis is first mentioned.  That passage is Genesis 3:15.   In that verse, God is speaking to the devil after man has fallen into sin.  God says to the devil, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

That verse is the antithesis in a nutshell.  That verse gives us the definition of the antithesis.  God says to the devil, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.”  Enmity between the seed of Satan and the seed of Christ.  Enmity between the children of the devil and the children of God, between the ungodly and the righteous, between the church and the world.  That is the antithesis.

There are a few important points that must be noted from Genesis 3:15.   First of all, as we have already said, enmity is at the heart of it.  Enmity as you know is hatred, war, hostility, conflict.  And God says, “That is what exists between Satan and Christ, and that is what exists between their seeds.”  Not friendship, not fellowship, not love (under any circumstances), but enmity.  There are these two seeds in the world: the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent.  And because of the antithesis that God puts in place, these two seeds do not get on together, and may not get on together.  They are radically different – radically different spiritually.  There must therefore be separation between them.

Notice, secondly, that this enmity is put in place by God.  God says, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed.”  It is not you and I that create this enmity.  It is not you and I who decide that we must be the enemies of the devil and the wicked world.  It is not you and I that decide that there should be separation between the godly and the ungodly.  God puts it there.  It is God Who puts in place enmity, hatred, opposition, and warfare between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

God does that in three very significant ways.  First of all, God does that in the decree of predestination in eternity, in the decree of election and reprobation.  God determined in eternity, before He even created man, and before man fell into sin, and before God spoke these words to the devil, that the human race would be made up of two completely different people, the elect and the reprobate.  That is where the antithesis originates – in God’s decree of predestination.

In the second place, God puts the enmity between the two seeds in place and makes it a reality through the work of Christ on the cross.  On the cross the Lord Jesus Christ died, shed His blood, and laid down His life to redeem.  But He did not redeem everyone.  His sacrifice on the cross was not universal.  But Christ died on the cross for His sheep, for His people.  And that, you realize, was a death of Christ and a work of Christ in order to redeem the people of God from him who was their natural father, the devil.  And by being redeemed from the devil they now belong to Christ, and to God.  The fact that Christ died only for some makes the antithesis a reality.  If the Lord Jesus Christ had died to save all men, then the antithesis would not exist.

In the third place, God sees to it that this enmity exists through the work of the Holy Spirit.  This is accomplished through the Spirit’s work of regenerating those for whom Christ died.  This work radically changes us, making us very different from the ungodly.  And thus it is a work that results in enmity and conflict existing between us and the ungodly.  Thus the Spirit’s work of regeneration is a means by which God sees to it that the antithesis exists in the world.

The Spiritual Character of the Antithesis

When we speak of the antithesis, it is very important that we understand that this separation between the godly and the ungodly is a spiritual separation. It is true that sometimes, out of necessity, it takes physical form.  But essentially the separation between the church and the world is spiritual.

The antithesis does not mean world flight.  It is not the people of God turning their backs on the world, organizing themselves into separate communities, and isolating themselves from the ungodly.  That was what the Anabaptists taught and practiced at the time of the Reformation in the 15^th and 16^thcenturies.  And it is really what the Anabaptists still practice today, as seen for example in the Amish, who refuse to use technology, electricity, automobiles, and so on.

The reason some advocate such physical separation is because as they look at the world and the things that it does and produces, they notice much evil. They therefore reject all that is in the world, saying (wrongly) that evil is in the things themselves.  We know from the Word of God, however, that that is not the case.  I Timothy 4:4-5 tells us, “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”  It is not the things themselves that are evil.

Something very important is forgotten by those who think that the calling of Christians is to isolate themselves physically from the world.  What I refer to is the fact that even the child of God has the world within his own heart.  Every person in the world, even the regenerated believer, takes the world with him wherever he goes, within his own heart, and in his sinful flesh.  It is impossible, therefore, for anyone to isolate himself from the world and all its sin.

Clearly, therefore, the antithesis is to be understood as being spiritual enmity, and therefore spiritual separation from the world.  We could put it this way: not world flight, but world fight.  That is the antithesis.

The Scriptures speak of that not only in Genesis 3:15, but throughout.  The antithesis is expressed, for example, in II Corinthians 6:14 & 17: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? ... Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.”  And in Revelation 18:4 we are commanded, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

When by the grace of God we obey His Word and are spiritually separate, then we and our children are spiritually safe.  The Scriptures tell us that “Israel then shall dwell in safety alone” (Deuteronomy 33:28).

The Calling With Regard To Technology

As is clear from what has been said thus far, and as is especially clear from the Scriptures just quoted, the antithesis is not just an idea or theory, but it is also a calling.  And that calling is the command that comes to the people of God to live antithetically, to live a life of spiritual separation from the world. That is really the whole of the Christian life.  It is a life of spiritual separation and spiritual contrast.  It is a life in which we may not be friends with the world.  It is a life of being pilgrims and strangers on this earth.

We may not be those whose lives are characterized by synthesis with the world.  Such synthesis is very popular today.  There is the push for cooperation between the church and the world.  It is said that the church and the world should join forces in order to accomplish common goals.  But such synthesis amounts to trying to unite light and darkness, truth and the lie, Christ and the devil.  Not synthesis, but the antithesis.  That is our calling.

Those who are the friends of God may not be friends with those who are the enemies of God.  We are commanded (I John 2:15), “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.”  And what are those things that are in the world that we may not love?  They are (I John 2:16) “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.”  Love not the world, and love not these things of the world.  That is our calling as the people of God in this evil world.  And that is also our calling specifically with regard to the world’s technology.

I am sure we are all well aware of the fact that we live in a technologically advanced age.  Technology is all around us.  Technology is very much a part of our every day life, through such things as televisions, radios, sound systems, computers, cell phones, ipods, MP3 players, PDAs, digital cameras, CD players, DVD players, video games, and much, much more.  Technology is used today for every possible purpose and in every possible area of life – for communications, for education, for farming, for surveillance, for tracking down criminals, in tools, in appliances, in the entertainment field, in predicting the weather, in fighting wars, in discovering and curing sickness and disease, etcetera.  And none of this stands still, for all the technology that is available to us keeps advancing and that quite often at an astounding and mind-boggling pace.

The child of God is called to live antithetically in relation to all this.  What does that mean?  What does that involve?

Obviously one aspect of our calling is this: we may not view technology as or make technology a god.  I trust you understand that there is nothing wrong with technology itself.  Technology has many positive uses.  Consider how it can be used, especially the internet, for the spread of the gospel, for missions and evangelism.  It is a useful means to get the Word of God to places where otherwise we could not get it.  Because of it people all over the world have the ability to discover the truth that has been entrusted to us and that we hold to and believe.  Think too of what technology is able to accomplish in wars, and in the field of education, and in the medical world.  Astounding things!

The temptation we face because of all this is to replace God with technology.  As we consider technology and all the things it can accomplish and provide, we think to ourselves, perhaps unwittingly, that technology has attributes that God has: it is all-powerful; it enables us to be all-knowing; it is able to perform miracles.

Ungodly men and women worship technology, and the men who produce it.  They praise these.  They look to them for the answers.  They trust in them for cures.  The child of God, however, must trust in and worship God alone.  We may not, as the world does, make technology a god.

Another aspect of living antithetically with regard to technology is that we keep ourselves separate, not from technology itself, but from its misuse, from its abuse.  The world itself abuses technology, using it for humanistic goals, using it to try to rid the world of the effects of the curse, and using it to commit and to promote sin, cursing, violence, sex, homosexuality, drug use, drunkenness, and so on.  And even in the medical field the world abuses technology, as for example in its attempts to clone human beings.  The devil is behind it.  And the devil and the world are using technology to tempt the people of God to commit sin.  Satan has all of this technology at his disposal, and he is focused upon using it against the people of God and against thechurch of Christ.  He uses whatever technology he can to get us and our children to sin and to go astray.  We need to be aware of this very real danger.

As already stated, there is nothing wrong with technology itself.  But it used to be the case that the world was more “out there.”  In the past God’s people could be more isolated from ungodliness, and less exposed to the world.  It used to be easier for parents to guard and shelter their children from the filth and garbage and uncleanness of the ungodly world.  However, that has now changed.  Technology has changed it.  Technology now enables the world to have much easier access into our lives and homes.  Technology enables the world to appear in our living rooms, in our dens, in our offices, in our bedrooms.  We can tune in to the world in our cars.  We can carry around access to the world in our pockets.  We are now living in a time when every possible evil can be placed before our very eyes, within the confines of our homes, cars, etcetera.  It is all available at the press of a button, or at the click of a computer mouse.

Let us not be blind to all this and kid ourselves concerning the dangers.  We and our children live in evil times.  We face great pressure.  It is therefore urgent that we take seriously our antithetical calling to oppose this ungodliness that would creep into our homes and lives through the means of technology.

The Dangers of the Internet

That leads me to speak for a little while about what I consider to be a very serious danger in and threat to the lives of the people of God.  What I have in mind is the internet.  Computer and communication technology enables the internet to be with us wherever we go.  It is possible to have free and open access to it from desktops, as well as wirelessly through laptops and even cell phones.  This is a grave danger, not because of the internet itself, but because of how the internet can be and is used by the world and by the devil.  It is a grave danger because of the wickedness on the internet, which wickedness can then easily enter our homes and lives.

What makes it a grave danger is that it is very easy to use as a means to commit grievous sins.  In the confines and privacy of your home you are able to gamble, you are able to listen to the world’s songs, you are able to participate in ungodly humor, you are able to desecrate the Sabbath day.  Through the use of the internet, emailing, and blogs, you are able to slander others, to pass on filth to your friends, and to establish friendships and unequal yokes with ungodly people.  And (perhaps worst of all) one is able, through the internet, to view pornography.  A link that you receive in an email can get it in front of you.  An unwanted pop-up puts it before your eyes.  Or else your own active searching for it exposes you to this great evil.  And one who heads down this path becomes addicted and gets caught up in the terrible cycle of fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the eyes.  In the course of time, he or she also becomes desensitized to the sin, and thus looks for something more explicit, something more filthy, something more vile.

These are sins that bring grievous consequences.  They can have a permanent affect on a single person who has participated in them.  And with regard to the married, they are sins that pull threads out of the fabric of marriage.  Damage is caused that can only be repaired by the almighty grace of God.

What makes all of this so dangerous is not only its availability, but also the fact that it is so easy to commit these sins and to get away with them.  You can do it all in private.  You do not have to go out of your home looking for these sins and for places to commit these sins.  In fact, you don’t even need a computer anymore.  Now one is able to access all this trash with a cell phone.  It is all very convenient, very easy, and very private.  No one needs to know or find out – not parents, or siblings, or a fellow church member, or even a spouse.  Yet a person pursues all this to the ruin of his or her life, and his or her soul.

The main reason why the filth that is on the internet is so dangerous to the people of God is because there is a strong point of contact between us and what the world presents – our sinful flesh.  We still have a sinful nature.  Because of it, we are attracted to all the sin that the world offers on the internet. It is pleasing and pleasurable to our flesh.  We are strongly tempted to take a look, or to listen to it for a moment.  And gradually one can be sucked in. It begins with a quick look.  It is justified with the excuse that something just “popped up” on the screen.  Gradually, a small step at a time, the antithesis that ought to characterize the life of the believer is broken down.  There is not enmity and fighting and separation, but instead love and friendship and fellowship in relation to the world.  One loves the world and the things of the world.  One is captivated by the things that appeal to the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes.  Indeed the internet has the potential of snaring and leading one into great sin.

The Calling to Fight

In light of all this, the calling of the Christian is, in one word, to fight!

The fight is first of all against your own sinful flesh.  It is true that we must not be ignorant of the world itself, and of how evil it is.  We need to be aware of the dangers of technology.  We must fight all this.  But especially we must not be ignorant of ourselves.  Do not be ignorant of the fact that you are attracted to what the world offers.  Do not deny that you are tempted by it.  Admit that there are specific sins you are attracted to.  Be aware of them, and fight!

The Word of God gives good instruction concerning this fight, and does so specifically with regard to the wickedness that can be viewed through today’s technology.  I have in mind two passages.

First of all there are the striking words of Job – striking because of how directly they apply to us today.  Job stated (Job 31:1): “I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?”  You and I do well to say and do the same.  Make a covenant with your eyes to behold no evil thing!

The other passage is Psalm 101:3.   We ought to make the same resolve the psalmist did: “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.”

Another necessary part of this spiritual fight is that it must be done for the sake of our children.  A parent fights for his or her children by realizing, and not being ignorant of or turning a blind eye to, the dangers that exist.  Parents fight for their children by taking oversight and control of what their children do, whether they are young children or teenagers.  They talk with their children often about what they do online, what they do with their cell phones, and what they do with their friends.  Out of loving concern for them, they seek to discover whether their children are forgetting the antithesis and establishing instead an unbiblical relationship with the world.

From a very practical point of view, that means supervising your children’s use of the computer.  It means you need to have your computer in a visible place in the home.  And it means that if you have a wireless network and laptop computers, you need to give special attention to these things.

There is also the need for parents to use monitoring and protection software.  Regardless of what anyone else might say, you have a right as a parent to monitor your children.  You have a right to know everything that they do, and to let them know that you may at any time check what they are doing on the internet, and what sites they are visiting.  And this is not only a right, but also a responsibility.  Because you are parents you have the calling to protect your children from the filth of the world, from exposure to evil, as well as from predators who are on the internet.  If you love your children, and that means having a love for their souls and a concern for their salvation, you will put much effort into monitoring and protecting them.

Conclusion

I certainly do not know what goes on in your home and in your life.  I have no idea how you might be using the technology which God enables us to have.  I have no clue as to what you watch, what you search for, and what you see.  But remember this, God knows it all.  And one day you will have to give an account to Him.

I trust that you will use wisdom to apply what has been said to all of the other areas of life in which technology is abused.  May we all seek Christ for forgiveness for the sins that we commit with technology, and for grace to fight against the sins and dangers that technology poses.

In fulfilling your calling not to love the world, remember the positive – to love the Lord your God.  Love Him Who is your faithful Friend.  Instead of loving the things of the world, love the things of God.  Instead of occupying your time with pursuing the things here below, use your time to seek the things that are above.

Remember that we have an incentive.  That incentive is given us also in Genesis 3:15, in these words: “It (i.e., the enmity between the two seeds) shall bruise thy (Satan’s) head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”  God tells us there of victory, the victory of Christ and of the cross of Christ.  At the cross, Christ overcame and crushed the devil and all his hosts.  And the victory of Christ is our victory.  Because of Him, we never lose.  Because of Him, we will never go lost, no matter how fierce the enemy.  “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).   May God grant that to us all. 

Speech #2

Living Antithetically in an Age of Covetousness

Rev. Garry Eriks

Introduction:

The antithesis is a fundamental aspect of a Reformed Christian’s worldview.  Although the term “worldview” is of fairly recent origin, the concept is not new for the Reformed Christian.  Worldview is simply an understanding from Scripture of the Christian’s place and calling in this world.  For the Reformed Christian this worldview is based upon the doctrines of God’s Word.  There is much discussion today about a Christian worldview, and even a Reformed worldview at conferences and in print.  It is not my intention to treat worldview as such.  But I call to your attention, that when we treat the antithesis we are considering a vital aspect of the Christian’s worldview.

Much of what is said about worldview today purposely excludes the antithesis.  Instead, much of what you read and hear of worldview in the church world today speaks of engaging culture and reforming and changing the world and the culture in which we live.  This is the worldview of common grace.

The antithesis is an essential element of the Reformed worldview, because it is a truth that is taught throughout Scripture.  The antithesis is that spiritual separation God has created by saving His people, the children of light, out of the world of darkness.  God separates His people from the world by saving them.  He elects His people from before the foundation of the world, redeems them from their sins in the blood of Jesus Christ, regenerates them through the working of the Holy Spirit, and calls them out of the world of darkness into His marvelous light.  God calls His separate, redeemed people to live antithetically in this world.  This antithetical life is not a life of physical separation, but a life of spiritual separation.  Essentially, when you boil it all down, the antithetical life is saying “no” to sin, and “yes” to God.

It is my contention that a consideration of covetousness and its opposite, contentment, lie at the very heart of the antithesis.  This is true, first, because a consideration of covetousness and contentment force us to face this question: who or what is your God?  And along with that then, where is your heart? What is the focus of your life?  Or, who is the focus of your life?  Those who are covetous are not focused on God, but they are focused on the things of this earth.  But those who are content are focused upon God.  They know that the one, true and living God is their God, Whom they love and serve.

If a man’s life reflects that his god is money then that man will do whatever he can to obtain riches.  This pursuit then controls his life.  But if a man’s life reflects that Jehovah is his God then the pursuit and goal of his life is living to glorify the God of his salvation.

Secondly, the Heidelberg Catechism’s explanation of the tenth commandment of God’s law, which is, “Thou shalt not covet…”, shows that covetousness and contentment are the very core of the antithetical life.  Answer 113 of the Heidelberg Catechism explains the requirement of the tenth commandment this way: “That even the smallest inclination or thought contrary to any of God’s commandments never arise in our hearts; but that all times we hate all sin with our whole heart, and delight in all righteousness.”

Thirdly, covetousness and contentment are the core of the antithesis because they are two responses to the truth of God’s sovereignty.  The Reformed Christian confesses the truth of the sovereignty of God.  This means God reigns over all.  He rules over all things.  God is the One Who sovereignly saves.  Sovereignly He chose His people.  Sovereignly He redeemed them.  Sovereignly He works in them the blessings of salvation through the Spirit of Christ.  Covetousness and contentment are two opposite responses to the truth of God’s sovereignty.  Covetousness is the unbelieving, disobedient response to God’s sovereignty.  Those who are covetous, say, by their covetousness, that they are not pleased with what God has given to them.  They want more of things.  Or they want different circumstances in their lives.  But contentment is the believing response, the obedient response to God’s sovereignty.  It is to say, “Have Thine own way, Lord.  Not my way.  Have Thine own way.”

As we develop living antithetically in an age of covetousness, we have to look at these opposites: covetousness and contentment.

Living spiritually separate from the world in this age of covetousness in which we find ourselves is of utmost importance.  This is of utmost importance, first of all, because of what the Scriptures say in Ephesians 5:5.   There we read, “For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”  Those who continue living in covetousness have no place in the kingdom of God.  So we must be aware of the importance of our consideration of covetousness.  It is a matter of life and death.

Secondly, this is important because the Scriptures tell us in II Timothy 3:2 that in the perilous and last days in which the church lives the world is characterized by covetousness.  The people of the world are covetous.  And so is vital right now that the church lives a life of spiritual separation from the world.  We must not be covetous, but content.

Finally it is important that we consider this subject because covetousness is one of the great struggles of the Christian life, as we live in an age of covetousness.  Contentment is not something that comes naturally to us.  What does come naturally to our sinful natures is complaining and covetousness.  What comes naturally is seeking happiness and joy and fulfillment in an abundance of things.  The Word of God calls God’s people to live antithetically by rejecting covetousness and walking in contentment.

The Sin of Covetousness

Covetousness is the sin of desiring what God has not been pleased to give.  It is disagreement with God concerning what He has willed for us.  Those who covet foolishly think that their lives would be happier and more fulfilling if the circumstances of their lives were different.  They think that they know better than God what they need to have a good life on this earth.

The Scriptures expose the awfulness of the sin of covetousness: at bottom covetousness is idolatry.  Ephesians 5:5 makes this connection when it says the “covetous man…is an idolater.”  Covetousness is the sin of setting one’s heart on something other than God.  This is the awful sin of thinking that there is something bigger and greater than God.  This object of coveting controls that person.  It is what he thinks about, desires more than anything else, and pursues in life.  Covetousness is the sin of having something other than God at the heart and center of life.

There are many things in this world that wicked man sets his heart on so that they become his idols.  Men think that if they have this certain dream job they will discover great happiness and fulfillment in life.  If he has this certain woman to be his wife, then he will be happy.  It doesn’t matter that he already has a wife and a family.  He says, “I don’t love her anymore.  But I do love this other woman and she makes me happy so I should be with her.” I read on the Internet a story in which psychologists now believe that playing video games fulfills a “need.”  Not only is not bad to play video games, but also it is a need.  Playing such games fulfills a certain need so that a man can find fulfillment and joy in life.  When we begin looking around we see that virtually anything in this earth can become a god and an object of covetousness.

Money, according to Scripture, often becomes the idol god of covetousness.  I Timothy 6:10 speaks of  “The love of money.”  The sin identified in this passage is covetousness.  The object identified is money.  One of the words that is translated covetousness in the New Testament, means literally, “money loving,” or “silver loving.”  That is the term that you find in Hebrews 13:5: “Let your conversation be without covetousness.”   Scripture identifies money especially as something that becomes a man’s idol god.

I Timothy 6:10 is not teaching that money, possessions, or riches, are wrong of themselves.  The remedy for money-love is not getting rid of everything that you have.  You can sell all you have and empty your bank accounts and still be covetous.  Covetousness is a sin of the heart.  Covetousness is often manifest as a desire for the money or possessions that God is not pleased to give.  It is really a denial of God’s sovereignty and His ownership of all things.  The answer is a change of heart!

The covetous man foolishly places a very high value on the things of this life.  This is a driving force in the world of today.  The thinking today is that money can provide happiness.  Many in the world today would protest saying, “No, we’ve come to the understanding that you cannot buy happiness.” They say it with their mouths, but their conduct says otherwise.  The thinking today of the world is that if you have much of the things of this earth, that you will find happiness and fulfillment in life.  If you have a nice fancy car that others notice and talk about, that will bring fulfillment.  If you have a new, large house, that will bring happiness and joy in life.  If you have big bank accounts and plush 401K plans that will bring joy.  And so that becomes the pursuit of the men of this world.

This is the covetousness, which we find in the world today.  But the question when we are considering living antithetically in this covetous age is “what does the Word of God call the child of God to do?  What does the Word of God call us, as Reformed Christians, to do?”  The antithetical life of the Reformed Christian demands that we remove from our lives all covetousness.  That comes out in Hebrews 13:5.   “Let your conversation [let your life] be without covetousness.”  At every moment of our lives we must spurn covetousness.  Ounce of covetousness must not remain in our lives.  We must rid our marriages, our homes, the church, and every part of our lives of all covetousness.  This covetousness is not just found in the world, but it is the bitter struggle of the child of God who wants to live antithetically in the world.

Jesus sounds the warning against the sin of covetousness in Luke 12:15, when He commands, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”  That was not just something that Jesus was throwing out there.  He was teaching this because there was this sin in the world at that time, in Israel.  This sin was found among the leaders of the Jews who sold animals in the temple at the time of the Passover.  Not only was this convenient for Jews traveling from all over the world so that they did not have to take their own animals to sacrifice, but the Jews made a large profit from exchanging money and from the sale of these animals.  Certainly there was the thinking among the people of that day, that there was joy and happiness in riches.

Jesus spoke of covetousness when He addressed the rich young ruler, whom He told to go and sell everything that he had.  Jesus put his finger on this man’s great sin: he loved his money and possessions more than God.  Is there anything in our lives that we love more than God?

That is a struggle that we have as well.  Easily it happens for us that we go to work for a paycheck, so that we can buy the things that we want.  Now there is nothing wrong with that in itself.  But our hearts can be so focused on this that the pursuit of money and possessions becomes the chief goal, aim, and desire of life instead of working to serve God and to do all things to the glory of His name.  Then we begin to think it is a burden to pay Christian school tuition, the budget of the church, and then put a little in the collection plate for the other causes.  Or we think of all the things that we could possibly buy with that money.

We live in an affluent society.  But yet for a young family it is a struggle to pay the bills.  The bills add up and we begin to think, “If we just had a little bit more all of our problems would be solved.  Then it would be so much easier.  That is what we really need.”

We must be extremely sensitive to this sin because we can so easily twist what the Word of God says.  We can easily convince ourselves that it is good for us to pursue riches because we want more to give to the church and to the schools.  Giving cheerfully for the causes of the kingdom is good.   But we must not use this good goal to mask a carnal lust, thinking that both may exist in us.  The truth of the antithesis does not allow for being two-faced.  We are called to flee from sin and obey God!

There is another popular error that is worthy of mention in this connection.  Churches today feed people’s greed and use it for their own advantage.  This is what the health and wealth gospel is all about.  There are many preachers today promising untold riches from God’s hand if they will just contribute to their ministry.  They encourage people to write out checks for more money than they have, trusting that God will provide that amount and much more. God’s Word in II Corinthians 9:6 does say, “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”  This does not mean that God blesses liberal contributions with riches.  God’s Word makes clear that He will take care of those who seek first the kingdom.  But nowhere does God promise riches.  What men today are doing is using greed and covetousness as a motive for giving.  “Give and you will be come rich,” they say.  This cannot be right because God demands that we put away all covetousness.

The Grace of Contentment

When the Word of God calls us to put off all covetousness, it demands positively, “Be content.”  If the antithetical life is saying “no” to sin and “yes” to God, we must say “no” to covetousness and “yes” to contentment.

What is contentment?  The word contentment literally means, “to be satisfied,” or “to be sufficient.”  To be content is to know that we lack nothing.  It is to say, “I have everything that I need.”  It is to confess with David, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

Contentment has nothing to do with how much or how little of the things of this earth that we have.  Paul says in Philippians 4:11, 12: “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.  I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.”  The child of God can and does confess contentment no matter what the circumstances of life may be.

If a man owns nothing he can still be content.  If a man lives in an apartment, has little furniture, and lives month-to-month, or even day-to-day, he can still be content.  He can still confess, “I am content.  I have everything that I need.  I have sufficient.”  This is true because contentment is not based on how much of the things of this earth we have.  Contentment is a spiritual gift of God’s grace, in which we understand that in Jesus Christ we have everything that we need.  This is why I lack nothing.  God’s grace is sufficient for me.  That is enough.  In His grace and in His work through Jesus Christ, I have everything I need.

The Word of God comes to the people of God and says, “Be content with such things as ye have.”  Sometimes when people ask us how we are doing, we think (we don’t say it), “Things aren’t so great.  I don’t have enough money.  My house isn’t big enough.  My children are naughty.  I’m behind in my work.  I’m overburdened with all of these things.  If some of these cares and concerns could be taken away, that is what I need.”  We think, “If only I had this, or if only I had that, or if only this were different in my life, I would be so much happier.”

In Jesus Christ we have everything that we need.  We are satisfied because the Bread of Life has satisfied for all of our sins.  The Word of God reminds to be satisfied with Christ’s work, the knowledge of God, and the treasures of salvation in Jesus Christ.  Be satisfied with God’s sovereign rule over your life.  This is essentially what God said to Paul when he prayed for the removal of his thorn in the flesh (II Corinthians 12:9).   Paul asked God three times to remove that thorn in the flesh.  What was God’s answer?  “My grace is sufficient for thee.  You don’t need that thorn removed.  My grace is what you need.”  This grace is what we need.

The Reasons

As we look at this calling to live antithetically in this age of covetousness, we must understand why we are not to be covetous, and why we must be content.  Scripture does not simply calls us to put away covetousness and be content.  God teaches us why we must do this.

Why must we put away covetousness?  First, coveting riches is vanity.  Many today imagine that happiness, good self-esteem, and success are found in proportion to one’s possessions, bank accounts, house, and dress.  They try to find happiness in things: in buying and hoarding to themselves the things of this earth.  This is why gambling prospers today.  People play the lottery, play the slots, and journey to the Mecca of gambling, Las Vegas, to strike it rich and solve all their problems.  Others rack up credit card debt into the tens of thousands of dollars, thinking that buying the things their hearts desire, even though they do not have the resources, will solve all their problems and provide them happiness.

The Word of God exposes this thinking for what it is: vanity.  I Timothy 6:7 says, “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”  Jesus makes that same point in Luke 12 in the parable of the rich man, who tore down his barns to build bigger barns, so that he could fill those barns with the harvest that he had taken in.  This man thought he should rest, be merry, and enjoy the good things of this earth.  But that man’s life was taken.  What was the profit of all those things that he had?

There is nothing like death to expose the vanity of the things of this earth, because we leave them all behind.  We do not take any of these things with us. Yet is it not striking that after a person dies some families fight over the possessions that remain?  Death reminds that these things cannot provide any eternal happiness.  They are all vanity.  One day they will melt with a fervent heat.  Why would we set our hearts upon the things that moth and rust corrupt?

Covetousness in the end really makes man no different than an animal that only thinks about his next meal, and the next thing that he can have.  And so man becomes that very same thing in covetousness.

Secondly, we must not walk in covetousness because it leads to all kinds of sin.  I Timothy 6:10 makes this point: “The love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”  The idea is not that every single evil we find in this earth can be traced to the love of money.  The idea is that the love of money leads to all kinds of different sins.  For example, if a man loves money, he will do whatever he can to obtain that money.  He may even resort to stealing from his employer or clients in his work. Covetousness leads to all kinds of sin.

In covetousness we will not find happiness.  I Timothy 6: 10 says, “and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”  There is no happiness to be found in money-love.  Instead, there is only sorrow, pain, and suffering.  This is true because those who live covetously without turning from that sin will face Almighty God, the Judge of all.  Jesus said, “What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”  The love of money is spiritually bankrupt.

We must also consider the Biblical reasons for walking in contentment.  We must be content in life because, as Reformed Christians, we believe the Word of God.  The Reformed Christian believes everything that is found in the Word of God from Genesis 1:1 to the end of Revelation 22 because it is all the inspired Word of God.  It is completely without error.  The Word of God is full of God’s promises to His people.  In that Word God declares to His people what He has done for them.  The word of man cannot bring contentment.  There are bookstores and libraries filled with books about how you can find happiness.  But they are all vanity and they are all wrong, unless they point us to the Word of God.  We must listen to what the Word of God says.  The Word of God is the basis for contentment.  We believe what He says about sufficiency and that in Him is found everything that we need.

God’s Word teaches us that there are two truths that are the basis of contentment.  First, God has met our greatest need in Jesus Christ.  What is our greatest need?  Our greatest need is deliverance from punishment and power of sin.  We need to know that in God’s eyes we are whiter than snow.  We need to know that in Jesus Christ we have the forgiveness of our sins.  God met our greatest need, by sending the Son of His love to die on the cross for our sins.  He met our greatest need by pouring out His Spirit upon the church and working in His people the blessings of salvation that Jesus Christ earned for them.  God has given to us everlasting life through the finished work of Jesus Christ.  We cannot find the joy and happiness of that knowledge in any of the things of this earth.

Second, God’s Word tells us that the sovereign God of our salvation will not leave us or forsake us.  God sovereignly and constantly cares for us.  He will not abandon us, but continues to be present with us.  He controls all things and He works them all for our good.  He does not abandon us in our time of need, but instead gives grace and strength to bear the burdens that we face.  His grace is sufficient for us.  His promise to us is, “I am with you.”

Because God is with us, we have nothing to fear or worry about.  What are the things that you worry about?  Do you worry about making ends meet? Do you worry about rearing your covenant children, or your covenant grandchildren?  What are the fears that you have hidden in the recesses of your heart?  A child of God who is content and clings to the promises of God, knows that there is nothing to fear.  The child of God then confesses with David in Psalm 27:1, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”  There is no one to fear.  There is nothing to be afraid of because God is our God.  He is the One Who has done everything necessary for our salvation.  It is not God and man working together.  Man does not do anything to make that salvation apply to himself.  God has done it all.  And in the consciousness of that, we know He continues to be with us and care for us.

That is so important in life.  That is so important when we face death.  That is so important for young fathers and mothers who feel the heavy weight of the responsibility of training their children in the fear of the Lord.  We feel the weight of the other responsibilities God has placed upon us in this world. Sometimes it seems like it is too much so that we are ready to collapse.  The fears that we have in life are real fears, even for those who know and understand the sovereignty of God.  But the Word of God says there is no reason to worry about any of those things because God will give to us everything that we need.

The Result

When we live antithetically in an age of covetousness there will be the experience of joy and peace.  This is the fruit of contentment.  Covetousness can never bear such fruit.  It only bears the fruit of more covetousness, sin, and unhappiness.  Riches can never satisfy.  The reality is that no matter how much of the things of this earth we have our appetite for those things is insatiable.  The richest of men in the world, who have more of the things of this world than most others still do not have enough.  That is the way covetousness is.  It is never enough.  But knowing God’s grace we say, “It is enough.  I have everything that I need.”  The way of contentment is the way of peace and joy.

This peace and joy is evident in the confession of contentment found in Psalm 23:1, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.”  Because the LORD is our Shepherd we lie down in green pastures.  Sheep do not easily lie down and rest.  A sheep will lie down only when he has everything that he needs and has no fears.  The same is true for us.  We have everything we need and we have no fears because Jehovah is our faithful Shepherd.

As we live antithetically in this world, let us not walk in the way of covetousness.  Instead, may we be reminded that part of the Reformed worldview of the antithesis is that we be content in all of life.

Speech #3

Living Antithetically in an Age of Immorality

Prof. Herman Hanko

Introduction

The antithesis, as the previous speakers made clear, is that work of God, sovereignly executed, by means of which God reaches down into this world of sin and darkness, seemingly under the control and power of Satan, and, through the salvation of His people, causes the light of His truth and holiness to shine. Satan has made his attempt to seize control of this creation and of the human race, but God does not relinquish His world to Satan. God stakes His claim to the world by the testimony and lives of His people. The world says, “We serve Satan. We will take God’s world from Him and make it ours to do with it as we please.” Over against that loud boast, God says, through His people, “This creation is mine. I made it. I will redeem it. I will glorify it and accomplish my own eternal purpose in making it. I will punish with everlasting destruction those who claim it for their own.”

The antithesis, therefore, has its deepest cause in the eternal counsel of God, specifically in the decree of election and reprobation. The antithesis has its power in the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, by which sacrifice Christ paid for the sins of His people and earned the right for them to represent God’s cause in the world. The antithesis has its reality in the work of grace in the hearts of those for whom Christ died. The ascended Christ sends His Spirit into the hearts of His people to regenerate, convert and sanctify them. By this work of grace, Christ’s people are enabled to live the life of the antithesis here in this sorry world.

Christ’s rule is universal, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings. In the Father’s name, Christ rules over the entire creation of God – over heaven and the angels and over earth and all men in it. Christ’s rule is, however, sharply antithetical. He rules over the wicked sovereignly so that the wicked in all their rebellion serve the cause of God. The kings of the earth may take counsel against Christ to cast His yoke from them, but He that sits in the heavens laughs, for God has set His King on the holy hill of Zion ( Psalm 2). But Christ rules His people by His Spirit, by whose work He sets up the throne of His kingdom in their hearts and sways the sovereign scepter of His rule over their lives. By that rule, Christ’s people become willing, joyful and obedient servants of Christ, bowing before Him as their Lord and Master to whom they belong.     When Christ’s rule is sovereignly exercised in the hearts of His people, that rule of Christ is of such a kind that it cuts through their entire lives. Nothing in their life is untouched; nothing remains unchanged. These people are now His subjects in the whole of their life. They are obedient and willing subjects who love their Lord. While the lives of Christ’s servants are still sinful in many respects, and while the battle which God’s people wage begins in their own sinful flesh, yet they are different, strangely changed, marvelously renewed, so that Christ’s work touches everything they do.

Both wicked and righteous laugh; but in entirely different ways and for entirely different reasons. Both the wicked and the righteous weep, but no similarity exists between the righteous who weep, but not without hope, and the wicked who weep with despair. Both marry, but the wicked marry to satisfy their own personal urges, while the righteous marry to enjoy the intimacy of an institution which points to Christ and His church, and in that intimacy, to bring forth the seed of the covenant. You will find wicked and righteous in the shop, both operating a drill press, both changing tires on a truck. But the antithesis is present in the shop. The wicked work to use the fruit of their labor for pleasure; the righteous use the fruit of their labor for the support of the causes of God’s kingdom. And so it is in the whole of their life.

The Antithesis and the Covenant

The subject we discuss is living antithetically in an age of immorality. Immorality is sexual perversion of all kinds. Sex has to do with marriage. It is a part of it and limited to it. The subject with which we deal, therefore, has to do with marriage and its important sexual aspect. Because marriage is an institution of God which, purified and sanctified by grace, pictures the heavenly relation of Christ and His church, marriage has to do with God’s covenant. Perhaps the antithesis shines more brightly at this point, and the lines of the antithesis appear more sharply in this part of life than anywhere else in all man’s activities. At this point especially the relation between the antithesis and God’s covenant comes sharply into focus.

The relation between God’s covenant and the antithesis is taught clearly in II Corinthians 6:14 through II Corinthians 7:1. In that passage Scripture exhorts us to live antithetically, but does so on the basis of God’s covenant with His people.

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath thetemple of God with idols?

Then comes the covenantal description of God’s relation of fellowship with His people.

For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Then the admonition to covenant people to live antithetically.

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.

Again, the promise of the covenant.

And I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

Again the admonition.

Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

The antithesis means that God’s people are a covenant people. As a covenant people they walk in this world as members of the family of God. They walk as sons and daughters of their Father in heaven – in a world in which most walk as children of their father, the devil (John 8:44). Having fellowship with God and confessing that God is their God and they are His people, they represent God’s covenant in the world. When the world hates God and the cause of Christ, they proclaim in their words and life that Christ is their King and that God’s cause in their cause. Nothing in all life expresses this as clearly as marriage. God’s covenant with His people in Christ is a spiritual marriage consummated in Christ with whose body the people of God become one flesh. Our marriages are pictures of that heavenly marriage (Eph. 5:22-33).

An important part of marriage is sexual activity. This activity is touched, sanctified and made holy by God’s grace. This activity is a covenantal activity. This activity has been brutally corrupted by the world in which we live.

The World’s Immorality

It is better not to sing the exceedingly sad song of the terrible sins of immorality in our world today. It is better to heed the warning of Paul in Ephesians 5:12: “It is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.” We ought to take that warning seriously. Nevertheless, some aspects of the present immorality of are age must be noticed.

One hundred years ago or so divorce was a shame and was discouraged by the laws of the land and the courts. Even in a wicked world where marital problems abounded, wicked people rarely sought escape from marriage in divorce. Today divorce is common. Over half the married population in our country has been divorced and remarried at least once and many have been divorced and remarried frequently. Divorce and remarriage is immorality, for our Lord makes clear that one who is separated from his/her spouse and marries again commits adultery. Adultery is immorality.

One can see how closely this sin relates to God’s covenant. Scripture teaches that the covenant which God establishes with His people in Christ is an unbroken covenant which endures into eternity. Marriage is also an unbreakable covenant which only death can dissolve. Covenant conscious people, out of gratitude to God for His covenant mercies, maintain the earthly picture of that covenant in their married life.

Yet, not only has the world so loosened the laws concerning marriage that any book, newspaper column or marriage counselor quickly advises divorce and remarriage as the solution to any problems which people think they face in the marriage state, but the evangelical church joins with the world. The church approves divorce; the church approves remarriage. It is a rarity in any church circles to find anyone who still holds sacred the God-instituted bond of marriage. The Protestant Reformed Churches have become the objects of ridicule and scorn because of their stand opposing divorce (except for fornication) and remarriage. Our churches have been accused of lack of sympathy for people in bad marriages, lack of love to those who are unhappy, lack of willingness to help those who encounter serious and difficult marital problems. This almost universal approval of immorality is new.

It is also new that marriage is no longer considered necessary for two people who live together in the intimacies of marriage. Fifty years ago such a practice was called “shacking up.” Today it is approved and encouraged. The argument is even made that it is good for people to experiment with marriage and with living together before finally entering the marriage state. Even to have children is not considered wrong. The Grand Rapids Pressrecently carried an article in which, to my astonishment, current figures showed that slightly over half of couples living together were not married. This practice is gross fornication and dreadful immorality. How can such a practice reflect God’s covenant?

The law of this “Christian” nation promotes divorce and remarriage not only, but increasingly, under the pressures of feminism and the homosexual lobby, supports open homosexuality. Laws are being passed sanctioning homosexual marriages and the raising of children by homosexual people. Not only does the law promote these terrible sins, but builds a wall of protection around them to prevent anyone from condemning this heinous crime. In other countries, and increasingly in our own, criticism of homosexual practices is labeled a hate crime and makes the one who witnesses to the truth liable to punishment. One can be put in jail for saying what the Scriptures say. And, if that all were not bad enough, churches throughout the country approve homosexual practices not only but ordain into Christ’s sacred offices in the church those who commit such dreadful sins.

While once sexual perversion was kept secret, today every form of sexuality is openly discussed and frequently taught children from early years in the schools. All this is done under the guise of teaching children to use the gift of sex properly and wisely; but sex education is only an excuse for sex-crazed teachers and sexual perverts burning with lust to drag young children into the net of fornication.

We are bombarded with sex on every side. If one turns off his TV because it makes him gag at the foul debauchery found even in advertisements, one must be on guard when turning on the computer. If one’s spam detectors and filters screen out pornography, one must cautiously go through almost every secular and news magazine that comes into the home to see whether it is fit for the children to page through. The news tells us that over eight million pornographic sites can be accessed on the web, and that pornography is readily available in public libraries to anyone who wants such material.

That which is most holy, most sacred, almost of sacramental importance within the God-ordained bonds of marriage is made vile, filthy, corrupt to an extent unimaginable in past centuries. The picture of Christ and His church has become a toy, a plaything, an instrument for self-seeking pleasure, a recreation used freely. The perversion of sexual practices is beyond belief. No judgments of God upon man of sexually transmitted diseases has the least impact on man’s degradation, and one who dares to say that AIDS is God’s judgment upon the sinner runs the risk of public condemnation. Paul, inRomans 1, calls homosexuality the punishment of God upon man for the sin of idolatry. Man calls homosexuality his right and punishes the one who dares speak of God’s judgment upon the sin. The Dutch have an expression (zo’n groot geest, zo’n groot beest.), which translated means, “The greater the spirit, the greater the beast.” Even animals are not guilty of the perversions common among men.

It has become literally impossible for a godly person to escape the perversion of sex. The whole world has become a sewer, filled with filth and excrement, in which today’s generation delight to swim. The world has found its pleasure in drinking the water in a septic tank. How does this sad state of affairs call upon the people of God to live antithetically in such a world! Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy! (I Peter 1:16).

The theory of common grace has done more to destroy the antithesis than any other single doctrine in the history of the church. Common grace insists that the wicked world is capable, by the grace of God, to produce good people who do good deeds. Common grace finds “redeeming elements” in everything man does. Common grace tells us that there are broad areas of life in which, because of the good found in all men, there is much room for cooperation between Christ and Belial, between righteousness and unrighteousness. And, with regard to the subject of marriage and sex, common grace would have us believe that a cup of water taken from the wrong side of a filtration plant is good to drink. Or, if I may change the figure, common grace says that although there is a certain bad smell to the river of life which flows through the world, one finds also a delightful perfume.

The Antithesis in Marriage

To live an antithetical life requires that we live in two dimensions as it were. The one dimension is life in this present evil world; the other dimension is the life of heaven, firmly planted in our hearts, which is a principle of our calling and life as citizens of the kingdom of Christ. Such being the nature of the antithesis, the child of God is called by His heavenly Father to live a no/yes life: that is, to live a life in which he must say No! to sin and Yes! to God. It is quite impossible to say Yes to God without saying No to sin. It is equally impossible to say No to sin without saying Yes to God. Already in Paradise Adam was called to say No to the forbidden tree and Yes to the tree of life.

The servant of Jesus Christ says his loud No to all the corruption in marriage and sex. But he must say Yes to God. Marriage is wonderful institution of God. It is a relationship of life where man and woman become one flesh in a very real, but also profoundly spiritual sense. Becoming one flesh is so sublime, so pure, so beautiful that God has said it is a picture of the transcendent relation of Christ and His church. In the heavenly marriage, as well as in our earthly marriages, Christ and his people become one flesh; we are the body of Christ, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, very really, more fully than the earthly can imagine. God made woman from the flesh of man; in marriage they once again become one flesh. Such great blessedness belongs to those who marry in the Lord and live holily in the marriage state.

Marriage is the fundamental institution of society. God married Adam and Eve and thus created the institution of marriage. It is the only institution of life God created with the original creation. The rest of life’s institutions develop organically from marriage: the home with children, the church, the school, the shop, government, and the public square. Marriage, after the pattern laid down by God in society, produces a well-regulated, crime-free, holy society with holy institutions. When marriage is corrupted, the home is corrupted, schools are failures, government becomes itself a decayed institution from which little good can come, disorder reigns in society at large. Governments appoint blue-ribboned committees who spend millions studying how crime in society, deterioration of education, and sexually-transmitted disease can be overcome. Usually the answer from committee after committee is: More money needs to be spent. No one mentions that the home is to blame for all society’s ills and no improvement anywhere will be made until marriages are reformed.

One has some trouble understanding Satan’s strategies. He is not stupid. He knows, perhaps better than we do, that the home is fundamental to society and that if the home is wrecked, society will be destroyed. Yet he and his fellow demons have launched an unprecedented attack against the home and have enlisted the aid of sinful men in their determination to destroy the home. These demons, under Satanic leadership, are committing suicide. They are destroying the very world they want to steal from God. They want to drive the owner from his premises (so they can live there); but in doing so, they burn down the house to attain their goals.

Is this stupidity on Satan’s part? Does he not know what he is doing? Do not the wicked with him sense the futility of their plots? Yes, they really do. The trouble is not ignorance; the trouble is hatred of God and His creation. The wicked are bent on destroying marriage (though through success they destroy society) because marriage is an institution of God and their hatred against God is so intense that they will destroy themselves in order to destroy God.

To live the antithesis means that the believer says in word and deed: “No. We understand you, Satan. We know what you are up to. We want no part of your plots.” It also means that we say, “Yes, Lord. We will be faithful to Thy covenant in the world no matter what the cost to us, and no matter what suffering may be our lot. We will maintain our marriages and build our homes upon the foundation of Thy Word. We will fight to maintain the sanctity of Thy glorious institution, made heavenly in Christ. We will live in holiness and purity.”

To live the antithesis means that we continue to condemn divorce and remarriage. We continue to warn against its evils and its evil consequences. We continue to strive to maintain our marriages as pictures of Christ and His church.

To live the antithesis means that we understand that marriage is a union of love, of life and of joy. Husband and wife love each other not only when a handsome and strong man stands with his beautiful wife before the minister in marriage, but also when each of them has become old and decrepit, wrinkled and disabled, worn and dying. Love for each other within marriage reflects the love of God that pervades all of married life. Husbands and wives are gifts of God to each other, for they are not only husband and wife, but brother and sister in Christ. They are given the blessedness of spending their earthly years in the joys of marriage, and they will spend eternity in the joys of a greater, higher, more blessed marriage when they are with Christ.

To live the antithesis means to thank God for the privilege of having children. It is to use the sanctity of that mysterious wonder of sex, that marvelous gift of God, to bring forth the seed of the covenant. It is to believe that God will be our God and the God of our children through all the generations of time. It is to lay hold on God’s promises that God in mercy uses us to bring forth those whom He has elected from eternity and redeemed with the great price of His own Son.

When children come in a home, to live the antithesis is to protect, as much as possible, the home from the attacks of Satan. It is to make the home a harbor of safety, of peace, of love, a place of tranquility and serenity, a place to flee from the terrors and horrors of the world. No longer can the home be protected from the perversity of fornication and moral degradation. To live the antithesis is to show children their calling before God to live lives of purity. This can only be taught children when husband and wife are joined in a common effort to live lives of purity themselves. Then homes, too, will be reflections in this life of the family of God’s everlasting covenant of grace.

Our Bodies, Temples of the Holy Spirit

We are told that marriage is a picture of the heavenly and covenantal relation between Christ and His church. The question is: How does the earthly picture become a reality in the profoundly spiritual sense of the word? How do we and Christ become one flesh?

Christ Himself works this by His Spirit when He sends His Spirit into the hearts of His people. By the in-dwelling of the Spirit, we are united to the body of Christ. In its discussion of the Lord’s Supper and the mysterious spirituality of eating and drinking Christ, the Heidelberg Catechism (question and answer 76) tells us that to eat the body of Christ and to drink His blood means “not only to embrace with a believing heart all the sufferings and death of Christ, . . .  but also . . . to become more and more united to his sacred body by the Holy Ghost, who dwells both in Christ and in us; so that we, though Christ is in heaven and we on earth, are notwithstanding ‘flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone’; and that we live and are governed forever by one Spirit, as members of the same body are by one soul.”

It is because we are united to Christ that our bodies are, as Paul expresses it in I Corinthians 6:16, where he warns against fornication, the temples of the Holy Spirit. It is terribly wrong to become one flesh with a harlot when the Holy Spirit dwells in our bodies.

The meaning is this. First, although the apostle speaks only of our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, he does not mean to exclude our souls. Our souls (our minds, wills, emotions) are also part of the Temple of the Spirit. Paul emphasizes the body especially because it is with our bodies that we commit fornication. And so, with respect to the matter of fornication, we must be especially careful of our bodies. How we use our bodies will be determined by how we use our minds and wills. If our wills burn with an unquenchable fire of lust, we will use our bodies to fulfill our lusts. If our minds are filled with pornography and all sorts of sordid sexual corruption, our bodies will become instruments of fornication. But if our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, this will be because our minds are filled with the Word of God and our wills made obedient to the will of Christ.

Second, when our bodies are the temples of the Spirit, Christ dwells in us, for the Spirit unites us to Christ and makes us one with Him. When Christ dwells in us, we have fellowship with Christ and through Christ, with God. We are, in other words, brought into fellowship with God through the indwelling of the Spirit. The apostle uses the word “temple” to describe our bodies. The temple was the place where God dwelt with Israel in covenant fellowship.

Third, to use our bodies for perverse sexual behavior is to make the temples of the Holy Spirit whorehouses. When we use our tongues for dirty jokes and sexual innuendo, we use part of the Spirit’s temple as a house of prostitution. When we engage in sex outside of marriage, we use our bodies to commit whoredom. And activity with perverse sexual implications is tantamount to turning the Spirit’s temple into a place for all the sexual sins associated with heathen idolatry to be practiced.

But our bodies will be used as temples of the Holy Spirit when our minds and hearts are filled with thoughts of God.

Jesus taught a parable once. It is not usually considered to be a parable, and perhaps is not according to the precise definition of parable. But in it Jesus illustrates what I have in mind. He speaks of a man who owned a house which was filled with an unclean spirit. He expelled the unclean sprit and cleaned up the house. He remodeled, refurbished, scrubbed and polished until the house looked like new. But he made a mistake. He left it empty. And the result was that the evil spirit which had been expelled could find no rest. And so he returned to the house from which he had been expelled, found it empty and moved in. But he took seven other unclean spirits with him, and so the house was in worse shape than it had ever been.

The meaning is clear. If you are weary of fornication, you may expel the devil of lust and try to be done with it. You may say, “I am not going to have anything to do any more with pornography.  I am not going to let my body be used for such evil.” But what if you leave your mind and body empty? When our whole being is filled with the things of God and of His Word, then there is no room for the devil of immorality. That is the antithesis. That is saying No to Satan and Yes to God. A No, no matter how emphatic, is not enough. A Yes to God is essential.

The battle against immorality starts therefore, in our own sinful natures. It starts in that fierce battle to make our bodies temples of the Holy Spirit. It starts with the fight against the power of sin within us. And from our own struggle with sin and the conquest of sin within us, the battle spreads to our marriages, then to our homes; and, by God’s grace, to our churches, our schools, our whole lives in the world. The festering wound of immorality will prove fatal in us, in our marriages, in our homes, schools and churches unless we fight against the swelling tide of immorality around us.

Antithesis Means Warfare and a Pilgrimage

Scripture uses different ways to describe the life of the antithesis. Sometimes Scripture defines this life in terms of warfare. The people of God are an army. We have spiritual armor and spiritual weapons. Jesus Christ is the Captain of our salvation. We are therefore in this world to fight. Most of us, it seems, think that this world is a playground, with sex as one of our toys. But it is a battle, a fierce battle, a battle to the death. It is a battle that from every earthly point of view is hopeless, for the powers of evil are strong. But it is a battle in which the victory is certain. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world, for faith puts us in union with Christ and Christ has overcome the world for us. Our strength is in His cross and our victory in His rule at God’s right hand. Let us then fight; fight for our marriages, for our homes, for sanctity in our own lives. Let us not lack courage, for we shall be victorious.

Sometimes Scripture speaks of the antithesis in terms of a pilgrimage. Peter does this in his first epistle. It is a marvelous epistle and no minister could do better in this evil day than preach a series on this book. There are two ways, two roads on which one may walk. There is a wide, double-laned, divided highway that is smooth and broad, easy to travel, crowded with people who are laughing and joking. They are enamored with pleasure, earthly pleasure, pleasure that satisfies the yearning of sinful hearts. But the way leads to hell. The child of God, because of his sinful nature, is never out of sight of that easy way. On it there is no suffering to speak of, no difficulty on the journey, no loneliness, for many people travel it.

But the other way is quite different. It is a dirt, rocky, narrow trail. It is rugged and steep and requires constant exertion. It is a trail on which are a few people, and for the most part, they are weeping. It sometimes leads through dark and swampy ways, but sometimes over cold snowy peaks where icy winds blow. On each side lurk ogres and strange creatures bent on devouring the few travelers that pass. It is a way that Jesus characterizes as one of self-denial and cross-bearing, a way of suffering and pain, a way of persecution and affliction, a way in which the joys are not earthly pleasures but simply obedience – obedience to God.

This road goes to heaven. The difficulties of that way are enormous, but the end of it is what John Bunyan called “The Celestial City.” It is the way of the fulfillment of all God’s covenant promises. It is the way to that heavenly city where we shall see Jesus face to face. It is the way to the home of that host of elect who are now in the company of just men made perfect, and to the home of the angels.

What road are you on? What road do you want to be on? I know everything in our flesh says, “Not the hard way. I want to enjoy life. I want the treasures and pleasures of this present time. I fear self-denial and cross-bearing.” But by the grace of God we do not want that way at all, though our flesh craves it. We want the way to glory, no matter how difficult.

I am on that way. Come with me. We will travel together. We will face the cruel jeering of the world and the hatred of the ungodly. There is pleasure on this way, though it be difficult to walk. It is the pleasure of God’s favor and love. We will stumble on that way and sometimes fall. We will grow desperately weary on that way and think sometimes that we cannot go on. But, though we bear a cross, it will remind us of the cross of our Savior on which He earned for us everlasting salvation. And to His cross we will run with haste to find forgiveness for our sins and strength to go on. By the power of His cross we will stagger forward and onward as we wend our way home. There will be blessedness forever, rest from our labors, joy unspeakable. There the battle is over and the journey completed. There we will be with Christ. It is the Celestial City.

O Come Let Us Worship

Rev. Cory Griess, pastor of Calvary PRC, Hull IA

Standard Bearer, Volume 89, Number 11 (March 1, 2013)

Hear Ye Him!  The Reading and Preaching of Scripture in Worship (3)

And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up:  So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them.

Nehemiah 8:5, 8, 12 

Introduction

    We are engaged in a study of the elements of a Reformed worship service, as those elements are carried out according to the three great principles of Reformed worship.  Recall that last time we finished an exposition of the “opening service.”  We saw that God ushers us into His presence through these first aspects of the service, opening the way for the main elements of our covenantal assembly with Him.  In this article and the next we go straight to the heart of this meeting between God and His people.  We do that by examining the related elements of the reading and preaching of Scripture.  These elements of worship have God speaking most extensively and freely to us in this covenantal assembly. 

The Elements

    The reading and preaching of sacred Scripture are two separate elements of worship that normally go together in the service.  We see that in Nehemiah 8.  In verses 3-4 Ezra first reads the law.  And then Nehemiah 8:7-8 says that he and the Levites preached that word of God.  Since these elements go together they are often lumped together under one heading, as they are in the Heidelberg Catechism when Lord’s Day 38 calls them simply “the hearing of His Word.” 

    There is liberty in how often the Word is read in the service of course.  The Protestant Reformed Churches generally read the Word twice in the morning—in the reading of the law and in the reading of the Scripture that the sermon expounds.  We generally read God’s Word once in the evening in the passage the sermon expounds.  Some churches have an Old Testament and New Testament reading each service, and that is a good practice too.

    There is liberty also in length and form of the sermons, although justice must be done to the exposition and application of the text. And the clamor for shorter and simpler sermons is often indicative of spiritual weakness in the church.

Necessary Elements for Corporate Worship

    As for the elements themselves, there is no liberty.  Both the reading and preaching of Scripture must be part of public corporate worship.  The regulative principle demands the reading and preaching of Scripture in worship.  This is made explicit in II Timothy 4:1-2, where the apostle Paul commands Timothy and all preachers to preach:  “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”  And if the minister is called to preach the Word, then it is implied that that Word must be read as well.  Nonetheless, an explicit call to read Scripture in worship may be found in Colossians 4:16.  

    Besides these texts, the example of the church has always been a church that reads and preaches the Word of God in worship.  When the Christian church began to spread and establish itself, it took over the worship of the Jewish synagogue, only making some changes due to the fact that the Messiah had now come.  The apostle Paul’s mission method was to start working in the synagogue of whatever city he was in, and if the Jews believed in Christ, that synagogue would become a Christian church.  If that happened, the same basic elements of worship in that synagogue also rolled over into Christian worship, only now the content reflected the worship of the name of Jesus and His victory over the curse of the law.  If the Jewish synagogue did not wholly believe, then those who did believe would break off and start a Christian church that looked very much like the synagogue, again with basically the same elements of worship.  Therefore, in the main, the elements of worship in the synagogue were taken into the apostolic church.

    When the Reformation restored biblical worship to the church, the Reformers went back to the New Testament example and saw what the New Testament church did and what elements were used in their worship.  They then established the church’s worship essentially after that New Testament example.  As churches explicitly carrying on the Reformed tradition, we therefore have the same elements in our worship today that Acts 2:42 says were in the worship of the New Testament church.  In fact, the elements we have in Reformed worship are basically the same elements that have been in the worship services of God’s people since the time of the Babylonian captivity, when the Jewish synagogue arose.

    The chief element of synagogue worship, going all the way back to the start, was the reading and preaching of Scripture.  Indeed, one authority on the subject states that “the primary purpose of the synagogue was to enable men to hear the law read and expounded.”^[1]  The ministry of the Word was at the heart of the Jewish worship service, and this remained true in New Testament worship as well.  The reading and preaching of Scripture was the primary, central element of worship and the heart of the covenantal assembly. 

    Where did the Jews learn to have the reading and preaching of Scripture primary in their synagogue worship?  Besides the fact that it was logical to do so (their whole history revolved around their response to the revelation of God), the answer is, in Nehemiah chapter 8.  Nehemiah records the history of God’s people shortly after the Babylonian captivity, when synagogue worship had recently begun.  In Nehemiah 8 the people of God held a worship service in which the entire law was read and expounded.  Ezra stood up upon a wooden pulpit (8:4) and proclaimed the Word of the Lord to the people.  This, of course, is very similar to the way we preach our modern sermons.  This practice in which Ezra read and preached to the people was carried on in the Jewish synagogue after this.  Thus, we here in 2013 can trace our element of the preaching and its primary place in worship at least all the way back to Nehemiah 8, the day Ezra got into his pulpit in the re-settled city of Jerusalem.^[2] 

The Importance of These Elements

    The reading and preaching of Scripture are the heartbeat of the church.  Without them there is no church and there is no worship.  If there is to be any commitment to God and understanding of His will, there must be the ministry of the Word amongst His people.  All throughout the Old Testament one sees the truth of this. 

    Whenever there was spiritual decline in Israel, it was because people refused to have the Word of God.  Whenever there was reformation in Israel’s history, it was because the Word was brought back to its place of central importance in the people’s life and worship.  The reformation at the time of King Josiah, for example, was a reformation produced by the Word.  After years of the temple being boarded up under a time of great apostasy, Josiah tells the high priest Hilkiah to open the temple to get things ready for repair.  When he did that, the high priest found the book of Deuteronomy in the temple and had it read to the king. When the king heard the Word of the Lord, he realized how Judah had forsaken God, and he brought God’s people back to the worship of God prescribed in the Word.  He put the Word back into its central place, and that caused reformation in Judah. 

    No surprise, then, that the Reformation of the sixteenth century was a reformation produced by this element of worship.  In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church had removed the Word from its central place.  In place of the exposition of God’s Word, the Roman Catholic Church put the altar and the mass, with the result that the darkness of ignorance and evil crept over the entire continent of Europe.  The Word was brought back to its central place in the sixteenth century, and over all of Europe the church was reformed according to that Word.  The work of Luther and Calvin and the reformers was to push the altar out of the center of the church, and to replace it with the pulpit.  It was the ministry of the Word that turned the world upside down.

    The Reformed carry that conviction on, by God’s grace, in their worship of God.  The reading and preaching of Scripture is the heart of the service.  That is seen even in the way we order the furniture in the church.  The pulpit stands in the center, indicating that the essence of the covenantal meeting with Jehovah is God speaking to us in His Word.  We must have Him speak His will to us, for we are His people.

    We have said that the worship service is the covenantal meeting between God and His people, and that that meeting is carried out as a dialogue between God and us.  There are other parts of the service where God speaks—the salutation, benedictions, etc.  But it is here at this point in the service where God speaks to us fully and freely as the God of the covenant.  In the opening service God ushers us into this meeting, but He does so for this purpose, that He might speak to us intimately and substantially in His Word.

    Who would not want this to be the central and primary part of worship?  It is sad when one sees the pulpit in churches today moved off to the side to make room for the band or the choir.  That often is a sign of what is happening to the reading and preaching of Scripture.  The ministry of the Word is being pushed to the side.  It is losing its chief place, and God’s voice is not favored in worship.  This is why we come week to week, to meet with God, to hear Him apply His gospel to our souls and to give us marching orders for the week that lies ahead, and to praise Him and worship Him in response.

            Here we receive the life of God.  Here the Spirit works through the Word to fill our weary souls.  In the preaching, as in the opening service, God speaks to us as our Friend-Sovereign.  Here there is both the formality and familiarity of the covenant of grace.  There is authority and there is love.  With His Word He convicts us, He corrects us, He charges us.  With His Word He also frees us in Christ, protects us, delights in us.  He speaks as a king and a father speaks to his subjects and sons.

The Reformed Worldview (The Standard Bearer, October 15, 2013)

Rev. Steven Key

Truth and Its Consequences (5)

The History of the Concept Worldview

    In considering the transition from the Old to the New Testament, we have seen the glory that the light of Christ shines upon our way of living as God’s people.

    Having been redeemed by Christ, we have been made children of our heavenly Father, taken into the very fellowship of God Himself, His own covenant life.  With joy we confess with the apostle in I John 3:1, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!”

    To live in that covenant relationship with the Holy One, to live as the bride of Christ, is to live in the liberty with which Christ has made us free.  With the perfect law of liberty written in our hearts, we are free to serve God in thankfulness for our relationship to Him and for the treasures that are ours in Christ Jesus. 

    The New Testament, therefore, with its clearer light of revelation, points us to Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament ordinances and inveighs against the children of God being brought into bondage again to the law or to the commandments and doctrines of men. 

    Legalism would rob us of the treasures of Christ by making our religion one of externals and placing the focus on what we do rather than on who we are—children of the kingdom of our Father.

    If we are to lay hold of the Reformed worldview, it is important that we understand this error.

    From a certain point of view, legalism is appealing to us.  If there were not an attractiveness to legalism, this would not be a threat to us, and the Holy Spirit would not have had to give us warning through the inspired apostle.  To our sinful flesh there is a certain appeal in legalism, even a strong attraction—especially when we don’t want to come to grips with our personal spiritual deficiencies and sins.

    To keep the focus on that which cannot be seen, to look to Christ, not only in what we believe but in our life’s practice, is not easy for us who are so earthly-minded.  To put off the old man, to guard our tongues, to live in love one for another, to walk in holiness—those are difficult for us, indeed impossible, when we are not holding to the preeminence of Christ. 

    Much easier it is to make religion a mere outward expression of what we think it ought to be.  Much easier to set the standards as low as following this rule and that rule, than it is to strive after God’s standard of love.

    And so legalism produces a surface religion, with its adherents emphasizing things that have no basis in the Bible or that are not important, while at the same time ignoring the deep things of God, even the proper place of the law in the life of the Christian. 

    Legalism would limit us to a shallow self-righteousness, ignoring such deadly sins as gossiping and coveting, bitterness and hatred, slandering and refusing to forgive.  And, as is evident from Colossians 2:16, legalism breeds a certain judgmental attitude that is not grounded in biblical principle, but is rather a wretched, soul-destroying expression of pride.  Those who don’t abide by those self-determined ordinances of the legalist are judged to be lesser Christians, if they are Christians at all.

    No greater threat is there to joyful Christianity, to peace in the church, to joyful living in covenant fellowship with the God who made us free.  No greater threat is there to the Reformed worldview than that of legalism. 

    To be brought back into bondage, to be held to ordinances after the commandments and doctrines of men, is to be led into a form of Christianity—and it is only a form—that is without joy, that is oppressive, that will certainly drive the youth of the church away.  God forbid we succumb to such foolishness, as attractive as the devil might make it to our flesh! 

    The reason for guarding the treasures of the Christian faith and soundly rejecting every form of legalism is that we and our children must live in the consciousness of the glory of our Redeemer.  That must guide our life.  The glory of our Redeemer and our life in Him must be the foundation of the Reformed worldview.

    With “the mind of Christ” (I Cor. 2:16) we view all things, including our calling in the midst of this world.  In the light of His Word we bring to expression the mind of Christ, seeking to do the will of our heavenly Father. 

    So we also understand the warning of the apostle against legalism in Colossians 2:20:  “Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?” 

    The apostle is not denying the place of God’s ordinances in our lives.  He is rejecting and telling the members of the church in Colosse to reject those ordinances that would bind us “after the commandments and doctrines of men” (v. 22). 

    We love the ordinances that Christ has established.  We yet sing with the psalmist, “O, how love I Thy law.”  That Word of God is the rule for us as we long to express our thankfulness to God for these great treasures that are ours in Christ Jesus.  To walk in the light of the Word, in obedience to the God of our salvation, is our delight as those who love Him with all our heart and soul and mind.  Indeed, that law is written upon our hearts (Heb. 8:10). 

    But Paul sounds a clear warning against those who would make our Christian life one of externals, who would bind us to practices and ordinances that rob us of the joy of living in fellowship with our Redeemer, who would take our minds off the preeminent Christ and His glory.

    Christ alone is the One to whom the entire church owes her spiritual growth. 

    In Christ alone the entire body is supported and held together.

    In Christ alone we have our life, and by His Holy Spirit our sanctification. 

    To live, therefore, with the exalted Christ before our minds is foundational to the Reformed worldview.   

    Apart from Christ, apart from living in the consciousness of the treasures that are ours in Him, our spiritual life will deteriorate, our perspective will be clouded, and our purpose will be corrupted. 

    A church so affected can only disintegrate. 

    In Christ we have been made full.  In Christ we have been given the calling to live to His glory, seeking the things above, and putting all earthly things to the service of that end.  In the fellowship of Christ alone is the fullness of joy (I John 1:4). 

    We can easily fall into legalism and its accompanying self-righteousness, fault-finding, and joylessness.

    We can easily succumb to a proud, elitist spirit that contributes nothing to the welfare of the congregation or Christ’s church. 

    We can easily fall before those errors because the sinfulness of our nature is inclined to such proud rebellion against God. 

    The answer to legalism is the continual focus upon the riches of Christ. 

    Let us understand the profound nature of our salvation. 

    Let us live with our consciences free from the bondage of ordinances that are against us.

    Let us know that in Christ all is ours, and we are God’s—to the glory of His name. 

    Let our gaze as penitent sinners be upon the preeminent Christ, as we look up to Him from the foot of the cross.  In Him is our joy, and the joy of our children. 

    That comes to expression even in our life in the midst of this world. 

            In the words of Colossians 3:1, it comes to expression especially in seeking the things above.