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Worship is Sacrificial

In some sense, this worship value is pretty obvious. In the Old Testament in particular, the sacrificial system was how Israel worshiped God. They brought sacrifices to God as a reflection of faith and obedience. Their worship flowed out of their sacrifice.

Here are just a few examples:

The Passover lambs were sacrifices from the congregation of Israel.

3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb.5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

Exodus 12:3-6

David refused to make a sacrifice or build an altar that cost him nothing.

18 And Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, raise an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19 So David went up at Gad’s word, as the Lord commanded. 20 And when Araunah looked down, he saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. And Araunah went out and paid homage to the king with his face to the ground. 21 And Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the Lord, that the plague may be averted from the people.” 22 Then Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. 23 All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.” And Araunah said to the king, “May the Lord your God accept you.” 24 But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. 25 And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord responded to the plea for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.

2 Samuel 24:18-25

In another place David testified in confession:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Psalm 51:17

It should go without saying that our worship is sacrificial. But note why and how our worship is sacrificial. We do not initiate the sacrifice of worship. God did and God does.

In Genesis 3, God sacrificed the first animal to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness (Genesis 3:21). In Genesis 22, God commanded Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. While God stayed Abraham’s hand, the even foreshadowed the ultimate sacrifice God would make on behalf of sinners. The writer of Hebrews picks up on this theme when he describes Jesus’ death in sacrificial and atonement terminology.

11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. 16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. 23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own,26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 

Hebrews 9:11-26

In the book of Romans, Paul highlights worship as a response to the gospel of Jesus Christ when he describes the kind of worship that God accepts.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:1-2

Bryan Chapell offers a helpful insight about the kind of worship Paul describes in Romans 12.

He does not say that we should offer our bodies to God so that we will become acceptable ‘living sacrifices.’ Paul says that we should offer our ‘bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God’ (12:1). ‘Holy and pleasing’ are not descriptions of what we will become; they are declarations of what we are. Before we have performed our religious duties, God makes us holy and pleasing to himself. 

Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Worship, 109. 

Here are a few important applications from this worship value.

First, worship is sacrificial because Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for us makes worship possible. It is not our sacrifices to God that make our worship acceptable; it is Christ’s sacrifice for us that makes us acceptable.

Second, when we worship sacrificially, it means that we present ourselves as living sacrifices. The imagery in Romans 12 is that we offer our bodies, not in death, but in life to Christ. This is the goal of Christian living which springs from the glories of God and his gospel represented by the “therefore” of Romans 12:1 that Paul has been describing in the first eleven chapters.

Third, sacrificial worship at the very least requires our time, attention, offerings, and song.

  • Gathered congregational worship requires invested time with God’s people (see Hebrews 10:24-25). Personal, individual worship requires time with God (see Psalm 119:105).
  • When we worship personally (our quiet times) and corporately (with the congregation), our worship must be in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). At the very least, this means that our worship must be attentive or engaged. Instead of daydreaming, sacrificial worshipers are engaged internally (minds and souls) and externally (bodies and activities).
  • Sacrificial worship offers gifts back to God. God invites generous and cheerful giving (2 Corinthians 9:6-7). Part of the way that we worship is to give back to God out of thanks and gratitude for his sacrifice that brings us salvation.
  • One of the most regular commands of the Bible (especially in the Psalms) is the command to sing. Our songs to God are praises, testimonies, and affirmations about God and for God’s people. In this sense, they are elements of sacrifice in worship.

So, I ask you this week. Will you thank God that his sacrifice makes your worship possible? Will you worship God sacrificially out of thanksgiving and praise?

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Word of the Week: Immanence

Immanence is the “counterpart” to the transcendence of God. In last week’s post, we explored how God transcends his creation and transcends us. He is other.

The immanence of God means that God is connected to his creation. He is near us and relates to us.

Immanence: The idea that God is present in, close to and involved with creation. Unlike pantheism, which teaches that God and the world are one or that God is the “soul” (animating principle) of the world, Christian theology teaches that God is constantly involved with creation without actually becoming exhausted by creation or ceasing to be divine in any way.

Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms

Immanence is applied incorrectly in worldviews like pantheism, where God and nature are one. If you want a pop culture definition of pantheism, think of the force in Star Wars. In Star Wars mythology the force is a part of every living thing, binding and connecting nature and beings. This is a false view of immanence where God and nature are one because God is neither personal nor all-powerful.

Immanence from a biblical worldview does not mean that God is in creation as if it is an extension of himself. Immanence means that God can “come down” to his creation. While we will explore God as Creator in a future post, we should keep in mind here what we noted last week: God is other. He created all things. He transcends his creation. So we cannot say that God and nature (creation) are one. Rather, a biblical view of immanence says that God comes down to creation and interacts with his creatures.

Here are some biblical references to God’s immanence:

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Genesis 3:8

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.

Genesis 11:5

In the New Testament, Paul addressed the Corinthian believers regarding idolatry. He quoted two Old Testament verses (Leviticus 26:12 and Isaiah 52:11) to reflect on God’s immanence with his people and the privilege of his people to worship him alone.

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
    and I will be their God,
    and they shall be my people.
Therefore go out from their midst,
    and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
    then I will welcome you,
and I will be a father to you,
    and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”

2 Corinthians 6:16-18

In a stunning sermon to the Athenian philosophers, Paul affirmed the transcendence and immanence of God as Creator and Redeemer.

24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for

“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

as even some of your own poets have said,

“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Acts 17:24-31

In this sermon Paul quoted secular writers Epimenedes of Crete and Aratus’ poem Phainomena (vs. 28). Paul’s use of secular sources indicates his understanding of the transcendence/immanence worldview tensions plaguing Greek religion and Greek philosophy. Greek religion offered immanent deities who could relate to humans. See for example Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey where the Greek gods played with and plagued human actors in the world. These deities were immanent, but not supreme or in any real sense transcendent. Greek philosophy had taken root in Athens by the time Paul arrived and had rejected the Greek religious system in part because of its failure to enmesh Greek deities with the real world.

What is powerful about Paul’s sermon in Athens is how he used the gospel to display the solution to the dilemma facing Greek philosophy and religion. Furthermore, Paul’s gospel here is a clear depiction of the transcendence/immanence beauty found in the gospel.

God does not only reveal himself as an out there, other, above us Deity. The God of the Bible does transcend us. He transcends us more than we might imagine. But he is also immanent with his creation. He came down to walk with Adam and Eve, to see the Tower of Babel, to call and befriend Abraham, to give the Law to Moses, and to speak to his prophets, among other examples. Ultimately, God came down in the person of his Son Jesus Christ to take on human flesh and “dwell among us” (John 1:14). This is God immanent in Jesus Christ.

At the final point in Paul’s sermon in Athens, Paul introduced Jesus Christ as the resurrected man appointed by God to judge the world. Jesus is God enfleshed. Jesus is God immanent. He is both the transcendent God of Creation (John 1:1-5; Colossians 1:15-20) and the immanent God who can know us and be known by us (1 John 1:1-3).

The God of the Bible is Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit). God’s immanence through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is anther glorious aspect of God’s relationship with his creatures (Mt. 28:20; Ephesians 1:13-14).

There are an abundance of truths that flow out of the immanence of God. Here are just a few that should encourage our relationship with God today.

  • God’s immanence means that God is knowable. It does not stretch our minds to think that God knows us. We affirm consistently that God knows everything. But when we think that God knows us in all our flaws, concerns, worries, and dreams, then God’s knowing us becomes a testimony of love and compassion toward us. Even more amazing, God made us to know him. We can know the God who transcends through Jesus Christ who is immanent in his creation by the indwelling Holy Spirit who is with us always. That very thought should humble us and drive us to adoration and appreciation.
  • God’s immanence means that God is personal. God is not some impersonal force that connects and binds all things. God is Trinity. God exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit who have existed in a perfect loving relationship from eternity past and through eternity future. The personal nature of their relationship means that we can enter into a personal relationship with the God of the universe. God made us in his image (the imago Dei) as persons that we may relate to the God who is personal.
  • The biblical affirmation of God’s transcendence and immanence make Christianity unique. One would be hard pressed to find another religious system or worldview where the ultimate reality is altogether supreme and powerful, yet knowable and relational. Christianity uniquely details the God who is ultimate, yet who enfleshed himself to know and be known by his creation. If you do not yet know this God, then have a read in the Gospel of John. John describes Jesus as both God and man, transcendent and immanent. If you know God through Jesus, then take time today to thank him for the privilege of the personal relationship you have. And don’t stop praying for those who have yet to meet Jesus. Believe me, Jesus wants to save them more than you want them saved.

Glory to God for the privilege of knowing him through Jesus Christ!