The Worship of God

In talking about how people improvise apart from scripture in the Lord’s Supper, Calvin says, “But this, indeed, is the stubborn boldness of men, which cannot restrain itself from always trifling and wantoning in God's mysteries. Let us, however, remember that God so esteems obedience to his Word that he would have us judge both his angels and the whole world in its light” [I Cor. 6:2-3; Gal, 1:8]. What is it about the sinful human heart, even after we profess faith in Christ, that we are not content with God’s Word but must introduce our own devices and even our own songs?

In the early 1700’s, Isaac Watts expressed what many in the Protestant world still say today. He wanted to “Christianize David.” He believed that Christians need their own worship songs and should not rely on the Psalms which were only able to look ahead to Christ from a far distance. Protestants can be quick to see why the Roman Catholic Church has compromised with uninspired human tradition, but not as quick to see it in themselves.

If Isaac Watts was right, then where would we get such songs? He believed he was able to write them for us. However, the clear difference is that his songs are not part of the inspired Word of God. There is not book of songs in the New Testament. Any such “Christian” songs must rely on bringing in an uninspired song into the worship of God.

Yet, the root of his error was in his diminishing the Psalms. The best way to become a Psalm singer is to fall in love with the Psalms because of their depth of insight into the Christina life. An old Presbyterian minister once told me: The Gospels tell you how Christ got to the cross, the Psalms tell you what Christ thought on the cross. The Psalms are not a minimal and far-off viewing of Christ. They are the songs of Christ. They tell us what he thought, felt, and did. They are full of Christ. Yet, most Christians have not been taught how to see this.

When we hear statistics about declining church attendance, this isn’t merely about the fading of a social club, a place to learn morality, or a once-popular hobby. It reflects something far more significant—the decline in the worship of God. Yet, in my experience, when you ask people why they go to church, “to worship God” often isn’t among their top three reasons. Even when it is mentioned, there’s often confusion about what worship truly means.

One of the most common misconceptions is equating worship with praise. Many say they go to church to sing praises to God, describing how it makes them feel close to Him. I once heard someone explain, “It grounds me for the week.” While these feelings may accompany worship, they do not define it. Others say they don’t need to go to church because they can praise God at home or in nature.

Worship is unique. True worship is directed exclusively at God. While it may include praise, it is not the same as praise. A person can praise God throughout the week, and, in a sense, they can even praise other things. But worship is reserved solely for God and is uniquely expressed by the church gathered on the Lord’s Day. True worship of God must be founded on the perfect holiness of God.

There are things we can know about the worship of God from general revelation (what all men can know at all times). We can know that God is real, that we have sinned against God and are alienated from Him, that we are physically dying as a call back to repent of our sin, that we cannot be restored to God unless sin is atoned for, and that neither ourselves nor another human can make that atonement or earn forgiveness through works. However, we can also know that how God will accomplish redemption is only told to us in special revelation (Scripture, the inspired and infallible Word of God, the Bible). Only there will we learn how God commands us to worship him as sinners. This is called the Regulative Principle of Worship and is also taught in the Second Commandment.

The Second Commandment governs how God is to be worshiped. He is not to be worshiped according to our imagination but only as he has revealed Himself. Idolatry can be physical (such as a statue) but it can also be conceptual (a false belief about God). Both are forbidden in the Second Commandment. The commandment adds: you shall not bow down to them or serve them [false images]. That means the opposite is true: we are to bow down to God and serve Him. In the wilderness, the Devil asked Jesus to violate this commandment and bow down to him, but Jesus “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve” (Luke 4:8). This is the essence of true worship—that we listen to God, bow down, rather than that we do it our way.

So, what exactly is worship? To answer that question, we must go all the way back to the beginning.

What we will learn here is that 1) God is holy, 2) God directs us how to worship Him in our public worship, 3) We are to sing the inspired, infallible, inerrant Psalms of God, 4) instruments were part of the Levitical ceremonial law at the Temple and they ended with the Temple—now we sing a cappella as did Jesus and the disciples at Synagogue.