THE full character of worship was not known in Old Testament times. The word worship often means only homage; but if I really adore a person, relationship to that person only enhances the character of the adoration. There is worship in the Psalms, but nothing is known of relationship in them, therefore the worship of the Psalms has not the character of this worship.
Until you are established in your soul, you cannot make God an object. Christendom has lost the idea of worship. We hear of a house of worship, and the question, " In what place do you worship?" There may be sincere worship in a so-called "place of worship," but that is not the character of worship. There is a great difference between godliness and worship. Godliness is the sense of what God is. In worship I am bowed before Him, I worship in the sense of having to do with One with whom I am in the closest relationship. It is not simply that I am bowed before Him; but that my heart is bowed in adoration to the One to whom I am closely related: " The Father seeketh such to worship him."
We find a contrast to the fourth chapter of John in the second chapter. In the second we get man's utter failure. Both the natural state and the religious state of man is a failure: at the marriage feast the wine is out, and when the Lord goes into the house of God, instead of finding there worshippers for God, He finds it a place of merchandise.
But in chapter 4. we find the Lord stating two things: first, what you will be; you do not want wine; for " whoso drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst," you are put into an entirely new state. Second, you " worship the Father:" " The Father seeketh worshippers." And it is an entirely new order: " neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem;" it is not connected with any antecedents; it is a new order of things. God takes a new kind of character; that of the nearest relationship. My heart learns that the Father really seeks that I should be in this adoration, conscious of how close I am to Him, absorbed, detained by an object that controls me. And the nearer I get to the blessed God, there is, not only a sense of His Majesty, but a sense of the relationship in which I am to Him in all the unfolding of His glory.
This was not so in olden times, and the defect in the present day arises from people not understanding the character of the worship that belongs to us now. It is not that I lose the homage.
Homage is to a sovereign, and that is not lost. But I render all this homage to One to whom I am in the nearest relationship: to the Father. You do not get the right character of worship now, if you do not connect the relationship with the homage.
There is a danger of calling low things by high names. A prayer meeting is sometimes called a worship meeting. There is nothing higher than a meeting for worship. It is not only that we are gathered there, but we understand what we are there for. You come into the presence of God to be occupied with Him. One who thus comes must know he is a child. If I do not know I am a child, I cannot worship the Father. Priesthood comes before worship. In hymns people sometimes lose the idea of worship in praise. There is praise in worship, but if it is merely praising for benefits, that is not worship.
In Psa. 103 the first verse is in a higher key than the second: " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name." You are thinking of nothing but Himself. The second verse drops down to praise: " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits." You are occupied with the things you receive from Him, and not simply with what God is in Himself. "By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name." I do not want to lose the lower thing, but I must not miss the higher.
We read at the end of Luke: " And they worshipped him, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God." What is the difference between these two things? Praise is very simple; it is because He did so-and-so for me; that is very happy work. But the force of the word bless is eulogize. " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ." It is not only the sense of what is due to Him; but that you are in close relationship to that wonderful Person.
Again, in 1 Cor. 14, we read: " And so falling down on his face, he will worship God, and report that God is among you of a truth." How little we have of that now! It does not say that such an one was converted; but that, " convinced of all, judged of all," he reports that " God is among you of a truth." Not only was the Spirit of God there, but there was the activity of the Spirit of God. How much we have lost that! how feeble we are! how little our souls are brought into the sense of His presence! What trifling and self-will can be maintained in the presence of the Lord! People say now sometimes, " We do not need speaking," which shows how little they are in the mind of the Lord. It was the prophet speaking by the Spirit of God that brought this out: there was homage to the greatness of God's presence among His people.
Where does worship begin? and what really is the place connected with it? In Heb. 10 we find the right of entrance into the holiest, and the condition of the person that has a right to go in: he has " no more conscience of sins." That is the character of the person: he has no more conscience of sins; it does not say consciousness. Conscience of sins is a sense that God has a claim on me because of sins; but the purged worshipper knows that God has no more claim on him because of sins. It is a wonderful character of perfection. You approach the holiest, and find your proper place of worship. You have the right of entrance. No more conscience of sins. Do I not do them? That is another question. Here it is not a question of consciousness, but of conscience: God has no more remembrance of sins. I, a worshipper, can come into the presence of God and say, " The worshipper once purged has no more conscience of sins." " He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor perverseness in Israel."
It is an immense comfort to the heart to get hold of this. My Father is well pleased. God looks comfortably at me. He says in terms, I have never lost the efficacy of the work my Son has done; I have not a single feeling about you but love. You have boldness to enter.
People sometimes say, " I am afraid I shall lose it." I ask, Did you ever find it? Do not talk of losing a thing until you find it. Heb. 10 shows, that if we do not know entrance, we must be imperfect all through. Here it is simply the right of entrance, not yet the character of worship; it is not here what you are doing; but you have a title to go in to the very holiest scene, where the most devoted Jew could not go in from fear. Tradition says that the high priest had a rope about him when he went in, in order that if he died those without might draw him out again; when the smoke of the incense went up, they knew he was alive.
But now everything that was against me is put away by the blood of His Son. I do not look to the blood to clear me when I fail. It is the ashes of the red heifer that have done that, as we see in Num. 19, not the blood; and this is a much more severe process. The blood is grace; the ashes bring to my remembrance by the Spirit of God, what the Son of God went through for that self-indulgence, and those trifling gratifications I have so lightly given way to. The ashes in the running water sprinkled on the unclean person is the Spirit of God bringing me to the sense of the judgment executed on Christ for my sin, and what it cost Him, and I repudiate not only the thing I have done, but the nature which did it.
The apostle says, " We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way;" not a carnal way. We come in on new ground entirely, by the Spirit of God. People talk of losing it, and you may lose sight of it; you may wander from it; but the right to it is established, and if you recover what you lose, it is only to get back where you were before; you get nothing new.
Light detects: that is its first action. People are often so pleased with being an object of light, that they stop there. They say, I know I am a Christian. Is that all? If I am searched by the word that is not all. The light first acts on me; it first exposes what is contrary to Him, detects it; and then I can be occupied with what is in the light, with God Himself: " In the light as he is in the light."
Nothing can be more wonderful for the soul than to have a right to enter into a scene of perfect holiness. The first thing that Moses was told to make was the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat; and yet the most pious of the people never got to it. But in Rom. 3 we read, " Whom God hath set forth to be a mercy-seat." God's first thought in Exodus is effectually carried out in Romans for the poor sinner.
If you have once tasted of being hi the holiest of all, you are never happy till you are there again. It says, "Awake, thou that sleepest;" you may have got very dull, you may have been asleep and inactive, as the bride in Sol. 5, an example of one asleep, one who misses carrying out her feelings into practical action. There is nothing more important than to carry the feelings I have into practical action, Feeling is worth nothing if not carried into effect; " I sleep, but my heart waketh." He withdraws Himself to teach her the value of Himself, and, when that is learned, she finds Him in His own proper place.
In Deut. 26 there is nothing about the right to enter; but we get that which really interests the soul in connection with what God's grace is. In verse 1 you get dwelling in the land, not only that you are come to it. Is the holiest of all the same as Canaan? you ask. The holiest of all is the moral position we occupy before God; the land is the place; it is another scene, and I am in it. Where is the holiest of all? In heaven! That is the moral side of it. The apostle in Hebrews takes up the figure of the tabernacle. He says to them, If you want a priest you must get him where He is. He has passed into, the heavens. What a sense is awakened in the soul! I am there in the sense of adoring homage to One who is in the closest relationship to me: and the more my soul is drawn out in the sense of the greatness of that blessed One, the more I have the sense that I am related to Him.
Heb. 10 gives me my condition. I am fit for God, and suited to Him. Deut. 26 tells me the nature of the place which is given to me-it is a land of milk and honey. I have the sense of being in a wealthy place. " I rejoice in every good thing which the Lord my God has given unto me." I begin with God, and go down to everything connected with me. What do you think the prodigal felt when he was brought into the Father's house? Did he not feel that he had got into a wonderful place? His condition was " a Syrian ready to perish," and now he is actually brought into this wealthy place!
Then there are the firstfruits, verse 10: the going up of the heart to Him. I am come into this wealthy place; it is not a question of getting there. That is not worship. What would you call worship? To worship I must draw near first. When I draw near, if there is anything on my conscience I am sure to find it out. I find what stops the road, The action of the word on a person who is dull prepares him to draw near. And having drawn near I have a sense in my soul of the most ineffable acceptance with God, and that the Lord Jesus Christ maintains me there in perfect fitness for that scene. And what is the character of the worship? I am adoring the Father in spirit and in truth.
If a hymn is given out to excite the feelings, the worship drops down at once. If to express all the purposes of God's grace to me, my heart is in perfect tune with it: " making melody in your hearts to the Lord." " In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee." For this we have to get the full character of worship. The Father seeks it. We have to do with Him to whom we are now brought. There is not only the ineffable sense that I am placed entirely suited to the eye of God; but, while adoring the Father, the heart conscious of relationship, I know the character of the place, and what it is to me; I lay down my basket and worship.
The second prayer in Ephesians is the result of a person knowing he is in this blessed place. Being there I pray for the present results of being in it. Chapter 2 is the result of the first prayer-of knowing the counsels of God in the heavenly places. And what does he pray for then? For the present result of that knowledge. Here the Father is the great point. It is to " the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." I am adoring the blessed God in the consciousness of the relationship which subsists between us.
It is a great thing to feel how ignorant we are, to know how very far behind we are. When we look at the Lord's concluding words to His disciples, "I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou past loved me may be in them," do they not cheer our hearts? The love He had to His Son? Have you the sense that the Lord is teaching you the love wherewith the Father loves Him?
If you had how could there be on you any traces of vexation or disappointment? You would be overpowered instead of disappointed: you would be surprised at the wonderful bounty of that heart that delights to express itself as fully as it can in every form and in every way. The glory is the measure of everything; the glory is the expression of His own satisfaction.
" That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;" that He may take a room in your heart. As He says: " If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." This is the highest divine thing I can have in this world, and this is the result of knowing the place I am set in in Christ. But it is not only that I know the place, but I know the love of the blessed One who brought me to it; the love that passeth knowledge. The proof that I love Christ is that I keep His commandments. If I really love Him I do the things He likes me to do; and the Father loves me, and they come and take up their abode with me. When Christ dwells in the heart by faith, I am brought into the length, and breadth, and depth and height; and I know His love which passeth knowledge; and am filled unto all the fullness of God. " Unto him be glory throughout all ages." There is worship!
How imperfect the servant of God feels in any attempt to set forth such a subject!
(J. B. S.)