The
Presbyterian Standard
The Magazine of the James Begg Society
More articles in this collection from past issues of the Presbyterian Standard are available online here.
T
HE proud heart of man in His fallen state presumes that he can worship
God when, how and where he pleases. He thinks that because God is
everywhere, God is there at his beck and call. He also presumes that so
long as he is sincere, it does not matter how he worships God; God will
hear him. But God is holy and those who presume that He is everybody's
Father will be dismayed one day to discover that He is their greatest
enemy, or worse, that they are His enemy. The truth is that God is not
everyone's Father. The Word of God tells us that we are fallen sinners.
The Shorter Catechism tells us bluntly: "All mankind by their fall lost
communion with God, are under his wrath and curse..." ( Westminster
Shorter Catechism, Q. &
A.19). Boston describes the consequences of the Fall by declaring that
Adam and Eve lost their knowledge of God, the righteousness of their
will, and the holiness of their affections (Ecc. 7:29). Thomas Watson
says: "When we lost God's image, we lost his acquaintance..." ( Body
of Divinity, p.148). In all this it
is made abundantly clear that a fallen sinner just cannot worship God
of himself. His prayer goes no further than the roof of his house. It
is all in vain. The whole of the Bible is the revelation given to us by
God of what He has done to rectify this position and to draw out from
all the children of Adam that shall be born, a people that He will make
holy (Gen. 3:15). His choice will be completely undeserved and
unmerited by them. He will choose them because He delights in them.
Their character will be holy because He will make them holy. They will
worship Him because He pours out His Holy Spirit on them and reveals
Christ dying for them (Zech. 12:10).
That fallen man has lost communion with God is proved by
Adam's
reaction immediately he and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit. They
made themselves aprons of fig leaves and when they heard God
approaching them they hid themselves from His presence (Gen. 3:8). They
could not worship Him till He made them a covering of skins from a
beast that He, the Lord Jehovah, had Himself slain and He threw about
them to cover their nakedness (Gen. 3:21). In this He signified that we
as sinners can only come to Him when we are covered with the Righteous
Christ, that is we must come to Him in Christ [Greek: εν Χριστω]. The
Apostle Paul by the Holy Spirit frequently uses this phrase to describe
the blessings that the believer enjoys from God (Eph. 1:3ff.).
That the beast which was slain for their covering was slain by
Jehovah
Himself and then thrown about our first parents was a further
revelation that sin had so completely incapacitated Adam - and us -
that everything that was needed to worship God must come from Him
alone. Here is a contrast between Adam's vain attempt to cover his and
Eve's nakedness and what Jehovah did Himself. In Genesis 3:7 we read of
what Adam and Eve did: "...they sewed fig leaves together, and made
themselves aprons." In verse 21 the Holy Spirit records what Jehovah
did: "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of
skins, and clothed them." It is clear that our first parents were not
commanded to slay the beast and flay it in order to cover themselves.
The LORD did everything for them. This is very important because it
intimated that when the Lord Jesus came to die for sinners on the cross
it was all the work of God. He decreed it from before the foundation of
the world. When the blessed Lord was born He came by His own free will
according to the eternal decree: "Then said I, Lo, I come: in the
volume of the book it is written of me." (Psa. 40:7). When our Lord
Christ finally died on the cross he did not die of the crucifixion,
even though He died on the cross, but because He voluntarily gave up
His ghost (Matt. 27:50). He died at the Father's own hand (Zech. 13:7).
By redeeming our first parents by clothing them with the skins
of a
beast that He had slain, God revealed that we are brought out of the
pit wherein there is no water by the blood of the (everlasting)
covenant (Zech. 9:11, Heb. 13:20). This blood was a promise and seal of
all future promises. The Lord's people have nothing if it is not
purchased by the blood of Christ. In shedding blood in order to redeem
our first parents the LORD revealed that there can be no worship if
there is no shedding of blood; there is no worship if we do not come to
God by Christ and in Christ. He revealed that only those whom the Lord
has chosen are included in this Covenant of Grace.
This was true of Abel and Cain. In revealing to us that the
LORD had
respect to Abel and his offering (Gen. 4:4), God revealed that first He
has respect unto the person. Why? Because He was pleased to choose his
elect from all eternity. Having chosen them, he revealed His way of
worship by the blood of the covenant, the blood of the firstling of the
flock. Was Cain completely ignorant? No, not completely, because the
LORD also appeared to him and told him of the sacrifice lying at the
door (Gen. 4:7). The phrase "sin lieth at the door" can be taken in
three different ways, and all are correct. First, there was a warning
of the power of sin. By nature as Adam's child, he was under the power
of sin. To yield to it would be to confirm his death. Secondly, it
referred to the sin-offering. This phrase was an O.T. shorthand,
telling Cain of God's answer to the power of sin. God was telling Him
that He has provided an answer to the power of sin by providing a sin
offering and telling him that he only needed to open the door. Thirdly
the LORD revealed the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Saviour and
Deliverer.
This was also true of the Patriarchs, they all offered a
bloody
sacrifice. When the LORD chose them it was by the blood of the
(everlasting) covenant and they responded by the shedding of blood. The
sacrifices that they offered were always in response to the LORD
appearing to them. He always made Himself known to them by the Lord
Jesus Christ and the blood of the everlasting covenant.
In the elaborate system of Tabernacle Worship instituted by
Jehovah
Himself, the shedding of the sacrificial blood was the central and most
important feature. Here lies the reason for the importance of the whole
burnt offering (Lev. 1). All the sacrifices revealed one or other
aspect of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ and the blood of the
everlasting covenant. The whole burnt offering, however, was the only
sacrifice that always had to be offered in conjunction with the other
ones. The reason was that the death of Christ, totally consumed by the
wrath of God the Father, was central to all the worship of God. The
Lord's People were given no choice. They were strictly forbidden either
to add or subtract from this worship. It was the sin of future
generations that they added to it, particularly the Baal worship as we
read in the Bible from Judges onward. This was a supreme provocation of
the Most High and was the sin that finally brought about the
destruction of the Temple and their captivity in Babylon. The sin of
worshipping Baal and the other deities of the surrounding nations was a
denial that fallen man was a sinner and that he could worship Jehovah
in any other way than having the righteousness of Christ about him. It
was will-worship, the proud attempt of proud man to worship God in his
own way. Our holy God, however, would have none of it. Those, however,
who believed in Him, worshipped God in His revealed way. This was the
significance of Elijah's confrontation with the priests of Baal (1
Kings 18) and later on of the life of the godly Kings of Judah (2 Kings
18-20; 22, 23).
A further revelation concerning true worship is found in
Nathan's reply
to David when he wanted to build the Temple. God through the prophet
refused him permission but David went on to pray and to give thanks to
God for His faithfulness in appointing Solomon to do it. He concludes
his prayer with the words; "The LORD of hosts is the God of Israel,
even a God to Israel" (1 Chron. 17:24). This phrase opens up a
completely new relationship between God and His elect. God had made the
same promise to Abraham when He gave him the sign and seal of
circumcision (Gen. 17:7). In this the LORD showed that He would not
only reveal His eternal Covenant to them but that He would undertake to
perform His elect's part in keeping the Covenant. This was their
security. It is still ours.
Solomon also was one of the elect and at the commandment of
God he
built the Temple according to the pattern given to David. In 2 Chron. 6
we read of his prayer at the dedication of the Lord's House, and He was
clearly looking at Him Who dwelt between the cherubim, and he prays
that the Lord would keep a watch over them "day and night" (v. 20). He
repeated the truth that David had in Psalm 121:3, 4 where he knew that
the LORD neither slumbers, nor sleeps. Clearly he was addressing Him,
the Lord Jesus Christ, Who ever lives to make intercession for us (Heb.
7:25).
A remarkable thing happened when Moses first reared up the
Tabernacle.
Fire came down to consume the sacrifice (Lev. 9:24). God repeated this
gift of grace when David offered up his sacrifice at the altar he built
at the threshing floor of Ornan (1 Chron. 21:25, 26). Later on when
Solomon had dedicated the Temple at Jerusalem God answered him by fire
from heaven (2 Chron. 7:1). These are significant incidents because
they reveal to us the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit in order to
the worship of God. The only ones that receive Him are the elect. This
is why when the Holy Spirit fell on the first disciples he came in the
form of cloven tongues like as of fire (Acts 2:3).
The Lord's People always considered that being cut off from
the public
ordinances was a solemn judgment of God and therefore they cried out
after these ordinances. In Psalm 42, we read of David's panting after
the tabernacle worship, and while Jonah was in the fish's belly he
directed his prayer toward His holy temple (Jon. 2:4). This was their
faith. They knew that the only way to worship their God was by the
blood of the everlasting covenant and this was their faith in the
coming Messiah. If they could not worship God with actual sacrifices
they had to do so by faith looking to the holy temple; "Looking unto
Jesus" (Heb. 12:2).
The destruction of the first temple proved a great problem to
the
godly, because God had made no alternative provision to worship Him
when the temple was destroyed. Hence the jubilations recorded by Ezra
when the second temple was rebuilt (Ezra 6:16-22). At last they were
free to worship God as He had ordained. Artaxerxes was only fulfilling,
albeit unwittingly, the eternal purpose of Jehovah.
It is the great tragedy of the Truth that when our blessed
Lord came
into the world, His own People did not receive Him. This was their
great sin, and it provoked the apostle Paul to great heaviness and
continual sorrow of heart that his people had rejected the Lord Jesus
Christ (Rom. 9:1,2). Our blessed Lord had told them that their great
sin was that they did not believe on Him (John 16:9). He was the
fulfilment of all the worship and therefore when He died the Temple was
finally destroyed.
Worshipping God is not something that we can take into our heads to do when and how we like. Proud man likes to think that God is at his beck and call and so invents his own worship. But his cries and prayers go no further than the ceiling. He may cut himself like Baal's priests did - but no answer came (1 Kings 18:25-29). It is otherwise with the Lord's people, God's elect. They cry unto Him and He hears them. The answer is not always exactly what they ask but the Lord gives them something better (Rom. 8:26). What is their secret? They come because they have been chosen from eternity; they come because they have been called; they come because they come in Christ; they come because they are taught by the Holy Spirit.