Scripture Hebrews 8:1-13
My “New Covenant” worship
Singing private praise in
unison.
Hebrews 8:1-13
The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest,
who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2
and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by
man.
3 Every high priest is appointed to offer
both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have
something to offer. 4 If he were on earth, he would not be a
priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. 5
They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This
is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: "See to it that you make everything according to the
pattern shown you on the mountain."
6 But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the
covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded
on better promises.
7 For if there had been nothing wrong with
that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8
But God found fault with the people and said: "The
time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 9 It
will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by
the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my
covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.
10 This is the
covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the
Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will
be their God, and they will be my people. 11 No
longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the
Lord, 'because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12
For I will forgive their wickedness and will
remember their sins no more."
13 By calling this covenant "new,"
he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon
disappear.
Sacrifices, Feasts, and Tithes
As Christians,
when we think about Old Covenant or Old Testament worship, we naturally turn
our minds to the sacrificial system and the various kinds of ceremonial
washings that provided ritual purity, which in the ancient world was
closely associated with holiness. But Old Testament worship included many
things beyond sacrifices. The Feasts of ancient Israel for the most part
were not focused on sin offerings, but rather on thanksgiving for present and
past blessings. ie. Passover celebrated the Exodus from Egypt, Sukkot (Tabernacles) God’s provision for Israel in the wilderness,
Purim God’s deliverance of the Jews from
Haman’s plot, and Hanukkah the cleansing of the Temple under the
Maccabees during the Intertestamental period. Shavuot (Pentecost) celebrates the first fruits of the wheat harvest and
commemorates the giving of the Torah.
The Feasts
show that celebrating the great things God has done in history and his on-going
blessings to us are an important part of worship. An interesting aspect
of this is the provisions for the second tithe. Every year, people were to
bring in 10% of their produce to provide for the priests. On the first, second,
fourth, and fifth years of a seven-year cycle, Israel was to set aside a second
tithe that was to be spent on a party. In the third and sixth years, the “third
tithe” was to be given completely to the poor.
Tabernacle and Temple
The Tabernacle
itself, as a shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, reflected the beauty of Heaven.
It had to be made according to a careful pattern given by God to Moses (Heb.
8:5), but God gifted an artist named Bezalel with the skills to build it. The
first person described in Scripture as being filled with the Spirit was an
artist, Exod. 31:1-4. The worship space was filled with beauty and color, gold
and silver and precious stones, much like the biblical picture of Heaven.
David set
aside 4,000 Levites—a little over 10% of the tribe—to be Temple musicians to
“offer praise to the LORD with the instruments that he had made for praise” (1
Chron. 23:5).
1 Chron. 25
gives more details about the leaders of these Temple musicians. They came from
the descendants of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun. These men or their
descendants are all mentioned in the Psalms: Asaph wrote twelve Psalms (50,
73-83) Hemen wrote Ps. 88; and Jeduthun is the choir director in Ps. 62.
From these
descriptions, we can glean a number of insights into the Temple worship. Along
with the sacrificial system, the Sabbaths and festivals, and the various ritual
cleansings, music was an important part of Old Covenant worship. The music
included choirs and singing as well as instrumental music. The instrumental
music was closely connected to prophesy—today we would aquaint that to
preaching.
The Synagogue
Once the Temple in Jerusalem was
destroyed and the people of Judah went into exile in Babylon, a new approach to
worship was necessary. During this period, the synagogue developed as a place
where the Torah was read and prayers were said (or sung) to God. Old Covenant
worship. Celebration and music are important, as are giving alms and the
reading of Scripture; further, the Psalms are an important component of prayer,
giving us a vocabulary to express our deepest needs and longings to God and to
offer Him praise and thanks. So there are several things that carry over to NT
worship, however there are several things that do not and for good reason.
The Example of Jesus and the Apostles
When we look
at Jesus’ worship practices, the Gospels tell us explicitly that Jesus attended
worship in the synagogues and that He celebrated the Jewish Feasts; it is also
reasonable to assume that He prayed the Amidah three times per day since not doing so was considered a
sin, and even His most serious opponents never faulted Him on His prayer life.
He also gave alms and sang hymns such as the Psalms that were sung at the end
of the Passover.
In short,
Jesus followed the worship traditions and practices of observant Jews of his
day.
Although we
have some evidence about worship in the century following the New Testament, we
have relatively little information about the apostolic era. It is likely that
worship was based on synagogue models. Given that the majority of the first
generation of Christians were from a Jewish background, they would naturally
follow the patterns of worship that they were used to, though infused with new
meaning.
The Church in Jerusalem
We can see this in the description of
the church of Jerusalem under the apostles (Acts 2:42, 46-47): “And they
devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, the breaking
of bread and the prayers….
The Christians
attended worship in the Temple daily: they did not separate themselves from the
Jewish community and, like Jesus, continued following Jewish worship
traditions.
The Jerusalem
Church also regularly celebrated the Lord’s Supper. The church also saw
teaching and close, intimate relations with each other as essential elements of
worship.
The Lord’s Day
Along with the
sabbath worship at the synagogue, early Christians met to worship on the first
day of the week. There were several reasons for this: Jesus was raised from the
dead on the first day of the week; the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church
on the first day of the week; as the “Eighth Day” it also represented the
beginning of the New Creation.” We also know from 1 Cor. 16:2 that the Gentile
churches gathered on the first day of the week. The Lord’s Supper was
celebrated at this service since it would be impossible to do so on the Sabbath
with the general Jewish community.
Less Structured Worship
1 Cor. 12-14
suggests that a far more spontaneous, charismatically-driven approach to
worship was in place in at least some churches, most likely in predominantly
Gentile regions.
There seems to be a diversity of
approaches to worship, including worship in the Temple, synagogue-based liturgies,
spontaneous, charismatic worship, and probably blends of these. This in turn
suggests that we should expect and allow for a diversity in liturgical
practices in different regions and from different cultural backgrounds today.
Principles of NON-Christian Worship:
Pagans and Jews
For Gentiles,
worship for the most part involved sacrifices and formal prayers to acknowledge
the god’s authority over her or his sphere of influence, but little in the way
of actual devotion: the gods were feared, not loved. Holiness was conceived in
terms of ritual purity; it did not involve behavior or ethical or moral
considerations.
Jews shared
some elements of this concept of worship, but with some significant
differences. Like Gentiles, sacrifice was an important component of worship.
There were morning and evening sacrifices, sacrifices at the New Moon, regular
festivals, etc., all of which recognized God’s authority in all areas of life.
And, of course, there were also sin offerings. But all of these sacrifices
could only be performed in one place: the Temple in Jerusalem. Even though most
Jews did not live in Jerusalem and worshiped primarily in synagogues, the
Temple was the center of Jewish worship as the one place where God had chosen
to be especially present.
In addition to
restricting the location of sacrifices, there were also restrictions on who
could participate in worship: only priests, who were descendants of Aaron,
could perform sacrifices; only descendants of Levi could join the priests in
leading worship; only Jews were admitted into the Temple, and only men past a
certain point; etc.
The Jews had a
more expansive notion of holiness that went beyond ritual purity to proper
behavior, including avoiding violations of God’s laws.
Jesus upended all of this
New Testament Transformations of Worship
In John 4,
Jesus tells the woman at the well that the time will come when the location of
worship won’t matter. Jerusalem and its Temple were being replaced as the
center of worship, and instead people would worship in Spirit and in truth.
Since after Pentecost, the Holy Spirit dwells within believers, God’s presence
is in us. We are individually Temples of the Holy Spirit, and when the church
meets, it is God’s Temple as well.
Who could
participate in
public worship also changed dramatically. In the Gospel, the door is open for
all people to come to salvation and to become part of God’s covenant people.
And once we enter into the New Covenant, 1 Peter 2:5 and 9 tell us that we are
all priests—we have direct access to God through Christ, and we are fit to
participate fully in the worship of God, whatever our ancestry, gender, age, or
social status.
Sacrifice, so central to both Jewish and Gentile
worship, was brought to its completion in Christ’s perfect sacrifice on the
cross. All that the sacrifices point to find their fulfillment in his
crucifixion. As had been hinted at In the Old Testament, worshipers in Spirit
and truth offer spiritual sacrifices, including such things as praise and thanks,
and sharing with those in need (Heb. 13:15-16).
Holiness has also been redefined. It is no
longer about ritual or ceremonial purity at all. Instead, holiness is grounded
in our inner life and expressed in outward action. What we do matters, but our
actions flow from within us, and our hearts need to be clean if we are to live
a holy life (Matt. 23:26). The hope of a clean heart, a heart given over to
obedience to God and to love of neighbor, was the great hope of the prophet
Ezekiel (Ezek. 36:25-27) and is the heart of Jeremiah’s prophecy of the New
Covenant (Jer. 31:31-34).
As we look at
the New Testament, we see elements of worship practiced from the example and
teaching of Jesus and the apostles; more significantly, we also see a
refocusing of the principles underlying worship toward the total person, a
unification of the inner life with our outer life, incorporating all of our
heart, soul, mind, and strength.
John 4:19-26
"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you
Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
21
Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is
coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in
Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans
worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from
the Jews. 23 Yet a time is
coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in
spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in
spirit and in truth."
25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is
coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." 26
Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
