What the attacks on false worship
reveal is that, in Biblical terms at least, worship of the God of Israel is
very much on his term exclusively. As the Anglican scholar David Peterson says:
…worship of the living and true
God is essentially an engagement with him on the terms that he proposes and in
the way that he alone makes possible.[1]
This is not simply a observation
about the demands of the jealous God; it is also a statement about the human
condition. True worship is not possible unless God himself enables it, because
human beings are unable to truly worship him without his enabling.
An English word which we use for
a number of biblical concepts and words, ‘worship’ thus names a kind of
relationship of response to the
divine initiative: it is a way of describing activity that ascribes to it a
significance in relation to a particular person. In his magisterial work Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of
Worship, David Peterson explains how this relationship of divine initiative
leading to human response works:
…acceptable worship in Old
Testament terms involves homage, service and reverence, demonstrated in the
whole of life. A common factor in these three ways of describing Israel’s
response to God is the assumption that he had acted towards them in revelation
and redemption, to make it possible for them to engage with him acceptably’.[2]
Yhwh is the God who reveals
himself to his people and in revealing himself redeems them. In redeeming them
he enables them to relate to him - something that was not previously possible.
God initiated a relationship with
Abraham, almost as it were out of the blue, calling him to leave his homeland
on the basis of the great threefold promise: a great nation, in a great place,
with a great blessing. The trajectory of this promise was from the outset
global, for ‘in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ (Gen 12:3)
This God reveals himself to be a covenant-making God – a deity seeking to be in
an ongoing communication with humanity. The word of God comes to Abraham in the
midst of many things which contradict it (including the great age of his body),
so that it is a struggle for him to believe it. And yet, this word is not
simply about the present, but about the future that God will bring to pass.
Abraham, and his descendants, are taught the theological lesson that God is the
God who creates and redeems out of the nothing; and thus, they are depend on
him absolutely.
The Abraham narrative is the
prelude for the main movement, which is the encounter of the people of Israel
with God in the Exodus. In the Exodus, Yhwh both reveals his name and redeems
his people – his acts of redemption and revelation are intertwined with one
another. He brings them under the leadership of the aged Moses to the ‘mountain
of God’, Mt Sinai. At Sinai, God told Moses:
"Thus
you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites: You have seen
what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought
you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you
shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole
earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.
These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites." (Ex 19:3-6)
They are the witnesses of his
mighty act in defeating the Egyptians, and of its extraordinary consequence:
that he has ‘brought you to myself’. What then follows is a description of the
ongoing terms of the relationship with Yhwh with all its stipulations and
patterns. The context for an acceptable response of worship to the Almighty God
is laid out for the people by God himself – a pattern of life that would
distinguish them as his, but that would begin with them acknowledging him as
lord and redeemer. At Sinai, God made himself known to Israel, and in doing so
revealed his intention to be a special presence among them. They were to be
known as the people among whom God himself dwelt. His special character of
holiness was to become a character that they shared, and to which they gave
expression in their manner of life.
They were to be ‘a kingdom of
priests and a holy nation’. What this signified was that the whole of Israel’s
existence would be shaped by this relationship with Yhwh. This would not be
occasional matter of observance; it would be a distinctive, identifying mark of
this people. They were in this way to be separated from the nations which
surrounded them. But the notion of priesthood is significant here, if we recall
that the promise to Abraham was for the blessing of all the families on the
earth: they were to be the people who demonstrated to all peoples what it was
like to belong to Yhwh, the Lord of heaven and earth. His character was to be
embodied in their community life.
This then is the background to
the giving of the torah, or ‘the
law'. The law is not simply ‘moral’, nor simply ‘ritual’. Both are outlined as
a matter of delimiting the boundaries for life together with God. Note that
there is no sense of opposition between the notion of a divinely-given word and
the indescribable majesty and holiness of God’s character. As at the mountain,
so in the tabernacle and in the sacrificial system: God is both hidden and
revealed, both near and present, and concealed and other. What do I mean here?
The people are to approach the mountain (or the Tent of Meeting), and encounter
the real and present God. But to encounter him is in no way to diminish his
majesty or to reduce him to simply containable categories. He is not in this
encounter revealed to be manipulable or domesticated (in contrast to the idols
of the other nations). And so, to meet God at Sinai was to hear the thunder and
see the lightning at the top of the mountain, and to hear his words through the
mediation of Moses.
The entire system of torah taught this lesson: that God was
revealed to Israel but not contained by her. The Decalogue is itself a
demonstration of this theological reality. They are all about worship: in fact
worship is the key to understanding what they are really about. The first set
of laws, which direct Israel’s attention to the singularity and uniqueness of
God and his demand for exclusive devotion – and devotion not by a manner that
takes his name ‘in vain’, but as he directs. The hinge is the Sabbath command.
It is the institution in the midst of the people’s common life which recalls
the divine work in the days of the creation – themselves a reminder of the
saving acts of God.
The Tabernacle and the Levitical
Code, with its system of priests and bloody sacrifices became in time the remarkable
sermon in stone at the heart of the nation’s life, the temple of Jerusalem. The
notion of sacrifice and ritual is not unique to Israel of course. Pagan cults
of sacrifice abounded. It was in a sense a familiar religious concept adapted
for the expression of the particular theology of ancient Israel. To the pagan
mind (illustrated amply by ancient literature, for example in Homer’s Illiad), sacrifice was the way by which
the goodwill of the various gods was secured. Indeed, security is the underlying theme. Sacrifice was (to generalize) an
act of taking out insurance against the contingencies of life in an uncertain
world.
For Israel, sacrifice would be
described as something else again. It was marked by a pattern of grace and
gratitude: the pattern of rituals and festivals ensured that the narrative of
the great acts of God for his people was not forgotten by them; and it enabled
a response of thanksgiving for the blessings brought about by those acts. In
addition, the sacrifices were a graphic illustration to Israel of the ebbing
away of human life under the impact of sin. Being in the presence of God was
not simply established by God moving closer; there was also the need for the
atonement of sin. The shedding of blood for sin on the annual ‘day of
atonement’ was to purify the tabernacle and the people (Leviticus 16). Peterson
explains:
The life of an animal,
represented by its blood splashed over the altar, is the ransom at the price of
a life. Animal blood atones for human sin, not because of some magical quality
or life-power in it but simply because God chose and prescribed it for this
purpose.[3]
Israel’s response to God is on
the basis of his revelation of himself and his redemption of them. But what
were Israel given to do? They were to
do homage to God; they were to serve him, and they were to revere him. These three biblical concepts are all
contained within our English word ‘worship’.
First, they were to do homage to God. To ‘do homage’ to another person is
often indicated by a physical gesture such as bowing or curtsying. The Old
Testament vocabulary contains the sense of ‘bending over at the waist’. But of
course, the outward gestures are expressions of an inner reality which can be
expressed in all kinds of ways. The idea of the nations ‘bowing down before
Yhwh’ (Psalm 22:27, 29) is a great vision of all the nations recognizing his
kingly rule and authority. Thus the concept of worship as ‘doing homage’ is not
simply one of observing a physical gesture in a great display of submission to
the rule of God, but of actually enacting that rule as the reality in which one
really believes. Nevertheless, this kind of worship communicates. It is bears witness to a kind of relationship with
God – to God and to others. It is an act, or a word, which speaks of God’s
rule.
Second, they were to serve him. A word frequently translated as ‘worship’
is the Greek word latruein, which has
the connotation of ‘serve’. The people of Israel were released from bondage to
Pharaoh and called into the service of God (Ex 3:12). The switch between these
two kinds of bond-service is made clear in Deuteronomy 6:12-13:
…take
care that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery. The LORD your God you shall fear; him you shall
serve, and by his name alone you shall swear.
This form of devotion to God
involved the worshipper in an absolute sense:
O
Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you? Only to fear the LORD your
God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all
your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD
your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own
well-being. (Deut
10:12-13)
Every aspect of the community’s
and the individual’s life was to be marked by whole-hearted and affectionate
service of God by means of observing his commands. God is a great king, who
demands faithful obedience from his people. When this notion of worship as
service was extrapolated in relation to the rituals and ceremonies of ancient
Israel, it did not lose the sense in which it was an observance of the true and
just rule of God the King.
In the notion of homage and of
service as the Bible treats them we see a pattern developing – namely, that the
worship of God includes the whole of the worshipper’s life, but also specific
acts and words of adoration. The one does not exclude the other, as if a life
lived in a certain way is sufficient to embody true worship of Israel’s God.
Partly this is because worship is, as we have already noted above, communicative. It does not merely do
things at God’s behest: it says things to him and about him.
Third, the people were to revere or respect God. The Hebrew
notion of ‘the fear of the Lord’ is included under this heading. It indicates
not simply the performance of a particular set of gestures, but an attitude of
heart. This disposition opens up the individual to the voice of the Lord (1 Sam
12:14; Hg 1:12), so as to do his will and to walk in his ways. In particular,
the fear of the Lord is ‘the beginning of wisdom’ (Prov 9:10; see also 1:7) –
that is, the proper attitude to God, which respects his judgment on all people,
inevitably leads to the wise human life.
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