The Limits Of Worship
What’s The Standard?
‘What kind of topic is this?!’ I can already hear the questions and curiosity rising as I write this post. When someone asks you who worship is limited to, as a Christ follower, the answer should be obvious; God. And essentially, you are correct. I could finish this blog in under 5 sentences by reminding you that God and God alone is worthy of worship and move on to my next post. In fact, we’ve already discussed this concept in previous posts. However, the reason we are coming back to such a basic concept is for one basic reason. We seem to forget that God is triune. This sole idea when forgotten, can lead us down multiple false paths. First, we can undermine our worship of God by forgetting all of who He is in His glorious, triune nature, and second, we can also become blasphemous as we add more beings to our worship who are outside of God’s triune nature. This is what we will be discussing today because believe it or not, some religions participate in both of these wrong practices and still label themselves ‘Christian’. As Allen Vander Pol of Ligonier Ministries says, “The reason true worship is Trinitarian is that God’s revelation of Himself to us, especially His saving revelation, is Trinitarian. When the Father sent the Son, the Son came in the power of the Spirit. Since the Father saved us through the Son by the power of the Spirit, we approach Him using the same pathway: through Christ, we all have access in one Spirit to the Father. It becomes clear that our worship is our response to the Gospel of Christ. Our way of approaching God reflects the way He has approached us.” God has saved us with the fullness of Himself, so He deserves to be worshiped for the fullness of Himself.
The Trinity
To start off, I want to say that not every song we sing must mention the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in order to be considered trinitarian worship. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:18 “18 for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,” It is clear in this passage that the only reason we have access to the Father is because the Spirit allows us to have access through the Son. Essentially, what Paul is telling us is that when we worship God, we are unable to do so apart from the Trinity anyway. We cannot access God without His triune self to begin with! It is only because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we are given His Spirit to be able to access the Father. This is why it is so important that we understand what it truly means to worship the Lord in Spirit and Truth, as we addressed in previous posts. So if we can’t come to the Lord in worship without the Trinity anyway, why even bring up the idea? Because sometimes we forget how much God has done to rescue the lost. It’s sad to say, but it is easy for our sinful nature to look at God saving us, and take this mighty act for granted. This is, unfortunately, a common occurrence, I would argue, with the Church in America today. However, when we truly remember the heart of the gospel and keep in mind that this act that God performed took all of who He is to save us, a new kind of gratitude comes alive in our hearts. When we worship the Lord, I hope and pray that we do so in a manner that reflects our gratitude for not just all of what He’s done, but all of who He is as well.
The Trinity And…
Furthermore, the idea of adding more beings besides the Trinity in our worship is completely unbiblical, and yet, still takes place. Practices like Jehovah’s Witness believe that they are Christian and yet don’t believe in the Trinity at all! The Latter-Day Saints also don’t believe in a triune God and yet claim to be followers of Christ. You also have religions like Catholicism that acknowledge that they ‘honor’ Mary in their worship services but don’t worship her directly. Even though this is a very muddy line to try not to cross, one aspect of the Catholic faith that Catholics are unashamed about is the prayer they offer to Mary. God has made it absolutely clear that there is one mediator who has saved us unto Himself by His Spirit. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 says, “5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.” Any worship that we bring before God that does not honor and glorify the triune God is no worship of Him at all. It is a real shame when religions and practices of all types of faith think that they are worshiping the true God in their services, when in fact, they aren’t. When we take away from God or add to Him, we have made a separate god for ourselves entirely. No longer are we worshiping the God of the Bible, but we are now worshiping the god of our minds. This worship is nothing less than idolatry. As Josh Buice of G3 Ministries so beautifully says, “When we gather for worship on the Lord’s Day, our worship should be unacceptable in a Jewish synagogue because it’s Christian worship focused on our Triune God with a central emphasis upon Jesus—the Christ of God.” I hope and pray that as we go to our worship services this week, we understand just how beautiful it is to worship and honor the triune God of the universe, in all of His glory and majesty. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Sources
[1] “Access Your Bible from Anywhere.” BibleGateway.Com: A Searchable Online Bible in over 150 Versions and 50 Languages., www.biblegateway.com/. Accessed 2023.
[2] Trinitarian Worship by Allen vander Pol. (n.d.). Ligonier Ministries. https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/trinitarian-worship
[3]Buice, J. (2020, December 4). Trinitarian worship is Jesus centered. G3 Store. https://g3min.org/trinitarian-worship-is-jesus-centered/
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