Engaging with God

A Biblical Theology of Worship

David G. Peterson

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780830898855
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Rituels et pratiques chrétiens

Worship is of immense concern in the church and ironically the source of controversy and dispute. Can we get behind the question of what style of worship we should engage in to understand the bedrock foundation for God's people--honoring him as he desires? Is the dissatisfaction with worship voiced by so many perhaps a result of our having wandered from biblical teaching on the subject? Through careful exegesis in both Old and New Testaments, David Peterson unveils the total life-orientation of worship that is found in Scripture. Rather than determining for ourselves how we should worship, we, his people, are called to engage with God on the terms he proposes and in the way he alone makes possible. This book calls for a radical rethinking of the meaning and practice of worship, especially by those responsible for leading congregations. Here is the starting place for recovering the richness of biblical worship.

Chapter one

Engaging with God in the
Old Testament

He has revealed his word to Jacob,

his laws and decrees to Israel.

He has done this for no other nation;

they do not know his laws.

Praise the LORD.

(Ps. 147:19–20)

For many Christians, the Old Testament remains a mysterious and seemingly irrelevant book. At no point does it appear more distant from the needs and aspirations of people in secularized cultures than when it focuses on the temple, the sacrificial system and the priesthood. Yet these institutions were at the very heart of ancient thinking about worship and their significance must be grasped if New Testament teaching is to be properly understood. Most books on Christian worship focus too narrowly on what people said and did in New Testament times. They fail to highlight fundamental beliefs about engaging with God that are common to both sections of the biblical canon.

A theology of worship must consider key themes such as revelation, redemption, God’s covenant with Israel and the call for his people to live as a distinct and separate nation. Once the connection between worship and these themes is established and traced through to the New Testament, the distinctiveness of biblical teaching emerges. This becomes even clearer when biblical perspectives are compared with pagan thinking and practice in the ancient world.

What the New Testament says about worship, however, also sometimes stands in stark contrast to the perspectives of the Old Testament. Despite the continuity between the Testaments, the gospel demands a transformation of many of the traditional categories and patterns of worship. History shows that Christians have sometimes wrongly applied Old Testament terms and concepts to the church and different aspects of Christian worship. One of the aims of this book is, therefore, to expose the discontinuity between the Testaments on this subject.

Worship and revelation

Holy places in the ancient world

The great concern of people in the ancient world was to know where the presence of a god could be found and to know the names of gods so that they could be approached and communion with them established. Certain localities came to be identified as the dwelling-places of the gods, and here altars were erected and patterns of worship established. Part of the tradition of the shrine or temple would be the story of how the place had come to be recognized as the abode of the god. If there were several sanctuaries dedicated to the same god, it was recognized that they were but copies of the god’s true dwelling-place, like Mount Olympus in Greek mythology, which remained remote from the world of humanity.1

Even in cultures where no prominence was given to elaborate temples, knowing the place where a god’s presence could be found was still extremely important. The people of Canaan, among whom the Israelites came to dwell, had their own flourishing religion, involving many simple sanctuaries dedicated to the gods Baal, El and Anat. According to the Ras Shamra texts, which reveal much of Canaanite mythology in the fifteenth century BC and earlier, each of these gods is said to have had a dwelling-place on a particular sacred mountain, at some inaccessible point where heaven and earth meet.2 From such mountains their rule over the land and their influence upon its life were believed to flow.

The covenant-making God of Israel

Against this background, the Old Testament affirms that the one and only creator and lord of the universe had made himself known to the forefathers of Israel at particular times and in particular places. In so doing, he initiated a relationship with Abraham, which was later confirmed with Isaac, Jacob and his descendants, promising to make them into a great nation. They were to possess the land of Canaan and be uniquely blessed by God, so that all the peoples on earth might be blessed through them (e.g. Gn. 12:1–3, 7; 13:14–17; 15:1–8, 12–16). In this way it was shown that a relationship with the true God could be enjoyed only on the basis of his own self-revelation in history.

It is a distinctive feature of Old Testament religion that when God revealed himself more was involved than displays of power in nature or supernatural phenomena. Words of covenant promise and demand lie at the heart of God’s encounters with the patriarchs. Even before God engaged with them in this way, the Bible indicates that those who called upon him and sought to serve him did so within the context of his continuing communication with them (e.g. Noah in Gn. 6 – 9).

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob built altars throughout Canaan to mark the sites where God manifested himself to them under various names (e.g. Gn. 12:7–8; 13:14–18; 28:10–22). Sacrifice was not offered at any spot which might happen to be convenient, but only at those sites in particular.3 In this way, it was demonstrated that God’s promises were believed by those who received them, that the land actually belonged to him and that he would give it to his people at the appropriate time. Since heaven was recognized as his actual dwelling-place (e.g. Gn. 11:5; 18:21; 21:17; 22:11; 24:7; 28:12), it was not considered that God was limited to special holy places but that he had simply chosen to manifest his character and will for his people at such sites. As ‘the God of Abraham’, ‘the God of Isaac’ and ‘the God of Jacob’, he was also linked to certain definite persons, as well as certain definite places. In short, ‘the religion of the patriarchs shows a real personal communion between men and the deity who acted as their leader’.4

The decisive manifestation of God’s glory and power to Israel was at Mount Sinai, after his mighty act of redeeming them from Egypt. The exodus had to take place before the promises made to their forefathers could be fulfilled and further revelation could be given. In drawing the people to that mountain, God was drawing them to himself (Ex. 19:4). At ‘the mountain of God’ (3:1; 4:27; 18:5; 24:13), Israel was enabled to approach God and acknowledge him as rescuer and lord. Here the terms of the relationship were set out in great detail and the pattern for acceptable worship was laid down by God.

In the ‘Song of Moses’ (Ex. 15:1–18), which celebrates the victory of the exodus and the anticipated conquest of Canaan, the whole land promised to Israel is described as the ‘mountain’ of God’s inheritance, the place chosen by their redeemer for his dwelling (v. 17, cf. Ps. 78:54). It is ‘the sanctuary’ where God’s presence may be found and from where ‘the LORD will reign for ever and ever’ (v. 18).5 This concept finds its ultimate expression in the Old Testament in the choice of Mount Zion as the temple site and as the place to which, in the prophetic view of the future, all the nations must eventually come in pilgrimage to Israel’s God (e.g. Is. 2:1–3).

Worship and redemption

The worship of God’s people in the Bible is distinctive in that it is regularly presented as the worship offered by those who have been redeemed. Acceptable worship does not start with human intuition or inventiveness, but with the action of God. The earliest books of the Bible emphasize God’s initiative in revealing his character and will to his people, rescuing them from other lords in order to serve him exclusively, and establishing the pattern of response by which their relationship with him could be maintained. Scholars have shown many parallels between Old Testament religious practices and those of other nations in the ancient world, but what remains unique in the Bible is the theological framework within which the various rituals and institutions were understood and used.

Mount Sinai and the faith of Israel

Fundamental to the faith which united the twelve tribes of Israel was the revelation of God at Horeb or Mount Sinai. This unique encounter explains Israel’s sense of God’s special presence with them, and indicates why they regarded themselves as his holy people and bound to relate to him in a distinctive way.6 The book of Exodus is especially important for our study because it establishes a clear connection between Israel’s pattern of approach to God and his redemptive purposes for his people. The significance of this portion of Scripture for an understanding of certain New Testament perspectives on worship can hardly be exaggerated.7

The early chapters of Exodus suggest that a pilgrimage to meet God at ‘the mountain of God’ is the immediate focus of the narrative, and that liberation from slavery in Egypt was for the purpose of divine service or ‘worship’. Exodus 3 records a prior meeting between God and Moses on the mountain. Here God assured Moses that he would rescue his people from slavery in Egypt and give them possession of the land promised to their forefathers (vv. 7–10). At the same time, Moses was told, ‘When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain’ (v. 12).8 The precise meaning of such terminology will be investigated in the next chapter, but a number of requests from Moses to Pharaoh about this meeting with God suggest that it would certainly involve sacrifice and the holding of a religious festival.9 On that mountain, the special name by which Israel was to call upon God was also revealed (vv. 13–15). It is usually represented in English translations as ‘the LORD’, but sometimes as ‘Yahweh’.

With the redemption from Egypt accomplished and Israel gathered at Sinai, we are told that Moses went up the mountain to meet God. There he was instructed to remind the people of how the LORD had graciously brought them to himself by his mighty acts on their behalf (19:3–4). Moses was then told to declare to the assembled Israelites what it meant to be the people whom God had uniquely drawn into relationship with himself:

Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Ex. 19:5–6).

Such terminology suggests that the engagement with God at Sinai was to inaugurate a total-life pattern of service or worship for the nation. Their salvation had been in fulfilment of the covenant made with the patriarchs and now they were being told how to keep that covenant and live out the relationship it implied.

A common factor in the three terms describing Israel’s vocation here (‘my treasured possession’, ‘a kingdom of priests’, ‘a holy nation’) is the note of separation from the nations in order to be uniquely at God’s disposal. The Israelites were drawn into a special or sanctified relationship with God from amongst the nations. They were chosen to demonstrate what it meant to live under the direct rule of God, which is actually ‘the biblical aim for the whole world’.10 As such, they were to be the means by which God’s original promise to Abraham of bringing blessing to all the nations would be enacted (cf. Gn. 12:1–3). As a priestly kingdom, they were to serve the LORD exclusively and thus be a people through whom his character and will might be displayed to the world. ‘Just as a priest is separated from an ancient society in order to serve it and serves it by his distinctiveness, so Israel serves her world by maintaining her distance and her difference from it.’11

The giving of the words of God

The remainder of Exodus 19 deals with the special preparations of the Israelites for their encounter with God and the account of the actual theophany or manifestation of God to them. Moses was to set boundaries around the mountain for the protection of the people, with special instructions regarding its approach and severe warnings concerning the breaking of those boundaries. The people were to be ritually pure so that they could approach God, on his terms, at his holy mountain. The awesomeness of the theophany is then conveyed with imagery that attempts to identify something supernatural and essentially indescribable. Here God in his majestic holiness confronted them and intruded into their lives. Significantly, God spoke to Moses in the midst of this display of his power and glory. Indeed, it is stated that the purpose of this awesome manifestation was to enable Israel always to trust in ...