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“Those who receive and bear the Spirit
of God are led to the Word, that is to the Son. But the Son takes them up and presents them to the Father,
and the Father bestows incorruptibility.
Therefore one cannot see the Word of God without the Spirit, nor
can anyone approach the Father without the Son. For the Son is the knowledge of the Father, and knowledge
of the Son of God is through the Holy Spirit. But the Son, in accord with the Father’s good pleasure,
graciously dispenses the Spirit to those to whom the Father wills it, and
as the Father wills it.” (Irenaeus of Lyon)
“Christian worship is therefore our
participation through the Spirit in the Son’s communion with the Father.”
(James Torrance)
Introduction
For millennia, Christians have believed and taught that our Triune
God has drawn His people into a dynamic participation in His life. This belief in such profound divine
intimacy has either been cherished as the very goal and high point of
God’s Gospel or mistrusted as a spurious Hellenization of the truth. In this essay we will outline a
biblical case for divine participation, we will examine the precious
doctrine of union with Christ that brings us such participation, and we
will highlight the work of Christ as Mediator, guaranteeing the free
offer of this relationship.
We will show that intimacy with God is not an optional extra for
the more ‘emotional’ among us. To
‘know’ the Father and the Son, in the covenantal
and intimate sense
by which the Scriptures speak of ‘knowing’, is eternal life (John
17:3). We cannot be Christian if
we do not know and enjoy this intimacy.
It is not a carrot to be held out for the pious, nor a bonus given
in response to particularly ‘successful’ worship. Intimacy is guaranteed to the
Christian in Christ. It is
therefore the indispensable starting point of the Christian life –
not an optimistic goal.
The intimacy of God
Any talk of intimacy with God must
begin with the intimacy that is within God. As a community of Persons united in
self-giving love, the Triune God knows worship and intimacy within
Himself. The creation does not
give rise to relationship, rather relationship exists within God and this
is what gives rise to the creation. (i.e. the Father creates for the Son
(Colossians 1:16). Thus, worship
is not the self-willed response of creature to Creator but rather an
eternal dynamic within the being of God.
Before the foundation of the world the Father
delighted in the Son in the bond of the Spirit:
Every verse regarding the
pre-creation life of God describes the Father focussing His affections
and purposes on the Son: Prov 8:22-30; John 3:35; 5:20; 17:5, 24; 1 Pet
1:20; Eph 1:4-6; Col 1:15-17; Romans 8:29.
Likewise the Son, in the power of the Spirit,
commits Himself to the service of the Father:
John 17:4-5; 5:17; 12:27f; 14:31;
10:17 ó 17:24; Hebrews 10:5-7; Revelation 13:8.
The Persons of God commit to one another in a common love and
purpose. To use the technical
terminology of Trinitarian theology, these inter-relations are referred
to as the perichoresis of the Persons. To get a sense of the meaning of this Greek word, think of
a choreographed dance around a perimeter. The Trinity is described as performing
a round dance, each of the Members committing to the Others in love,
service and empowerment. The
divine life is a dance of giving and receiving in joyful communion.
Now this dance, is not simply something the Persons do. It is not a part-time hobby of the
Persons. We must not think of the
Persons in isolation, deciding to come together in this way. If we could ever conceive of a time
when the Father was not committed to the Son or when the Son was not
obedient to the Father we have imagined the Father not being the Father
and the Son not being the Son. We
have imagined false gods. The
Persons are who they are IN the relationships that they share with
one another in this dance of love.
Thus the very life of the Eternal God is being described in this
dance. The perichoresis,
or mutual indwelling of the Persons, forms the divine being. As Colin Gunton says, ‘the ousia –
general being – of God is constituted without remainder by what the
persons are to and from each other in eternal perichoresis.’ For more on this see The
God who is… love.
Participating in the Divine Nature
The God who IS this eternal communion is a God who has willed to
extend the offer of relationship.
God invites others into His dance. He does this through creation and maintains the offer in
redemption.
The Father, by the Spirit, has created a love-gift through and for
the Son – the creation (Col 1:16).
His desire is that the Son be the firstborn among many brothers
(Rom 8:29). The Father wants many
brought into the life of God through the Son and by the Spirit (Gal
4:4-7). This is the goal of all
His creating and redeeming purposes.
see Creation and Redemption.
As Christ says Himself:
‘Father, I want those You have
given me to be with Me where I am, and to see My glory, the glory You
have given Me because You loved Me before the creation of the world… I
have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order
that the love You have for Me will be in them, and that I myself may be
in them.’ (John 17:24-26)
The glory of our Triune God expresses itself
in His will to share His divine life with us. The love of the Father for the Son – that which defines
both God and the creation – cascades over to His people when they are
united, by His Spirit, to the Son.
By our union with Christ (which will be discussed below), we are
thus adopted as sons and daughters in the same Family. In this way, we do not simply share in
a favoured status external to the LORD, we share in the Father-Son
relationship which is constitutive of the divine life itself. To know and appropriate the love of
God is to participate in that which forms the very being of God
- it is to be invited into the dance!
Therefore, when we know the width and length and height and depth of
this adopting love, we are then filled to the measure of all the fullness
of God (Eph 3:18-19). The God who
is a worshipping Community is experienced in His ‘fullness’ when we are
swept up by the Spirit into His life of reciprocal love. Thus the Scriptures do not call on us
to admire the LORD from afar but to participate in His divine nature (2
Peter 1:4).
Here is an extraordinary degree of intimacy with God. We do not look on God with admiration,
we participate in God, actively.
No human religion has ever conceived such vibrant and dynamic
fellowship with the divine. Only
God’s Gospel dares to declare such things.
Union with Christ
The way in to the dance of the Triune life is in the Son. We are invited into this fellowship
when we are united to Christ.
‘Scripture shows us that we hold communion with
the Lord Jesus in grace by a marriage relationship… This spiritual relationship is
accompanied with mutual love, and so in this fellowship with Christ we experience
and enjoy all the excellent things which are in Him.’
The intimacy of human marriage – the closest relationship possible
among creatures – is only a faint picture of the intimacy the Church
shares with her Bridegroom.
Christ is the Bridegroom, we (the Church) are His Bride. In this union we enjoy all His
benefits as though they were ours by right. Not least of these is His status as the Father’s beloved
Son. Therefore Christ can say to His
Father, ‘the love You have for Me will be in them.’ In this way we are caught up into God.
Our Status in Union with Christ
The bible speaks of our union with Christ at different
levels. In one sense, we share in
Jesus’ benefits as co-beneficiaries:
Thus, as Christ is the Son, we can be called sons and daughters.
While Christ is Heir, we are co-heirs.
While Christ is the Living Stone, we are living stones.
In this way we are graciously allowed to come alongside Jesus, to
be treated to His blessings on the same level.
Yet, at times, Scripture tells of a higher level of
identification. Often we are said
(in the plural) to be exactly what Jesus is in the singular:
While Christ is the Seed, we are the seed.
While Christ is the Light of the world, we are the light of the
world.
While He is the Vine, we are the branches.
Note that, with this last example, it is not that Christ is the
root structure and we are the branches.
Rather we form part of the Vine Himself! The Vine is One, we are others, but in this organic
relationship that He creates and sustains, we become part of Him.
This leads naturally to a third category by which the bible speaks
of our union. That is, in the
sense of a symbiotic relationship.
Thus, Christ is the Head, we are the Body.
Christ is the Groom, we are the Bride.
When the bible speaks in these kinds of terms, we are on hallowed
ground indeed. For it is not
merely that we need Jesus in order to be completed (that ought to be
obvious). More than this, Christ
unites His Church to Himself that our union might redound to His
greater glory. He is made more
truly Himself – more truly glorious – in union with us!
This is not to say that we sinners complete Christ in the sense of
contributing our worth to the equation.
In ourselves we could only bring shame to Jesus. Yet Christ redeems and cleanses a
Bride and then (Eph 5:26) presents her to Himself to the praise of His
own glory. In this way Christ becomes
more truly who He is because of His union with us. After all, must not the Head have a
Body? Should not the Vine have
branches? Ought not the
Bridegroom to have a Bride? If He did not have a Bride, would He
not have to give up the glory of being Bridegroom? Therefore Christ is very committed to
His covenant partner – His own Person and glory is bound up in the fate
of His Church.
Christ takes His own marriage advice and loves Himself by loving
His Bride (Eph 5:28). Thus when
the infinite powers of the Father have been committed to the Son, He
employs them solely ‘for the church’. (Eph 1:22). All divine power in heaven and earth
is employed for the good of Christ’s Bride. So the Church has its
immeasurable status both conferred by divine right but also under-girded
by divine commitment even to death.
No wonder Paul can ask ‘Who will separate us from the love of
Christ?’ This is more than
impossible.
Our union with Christ could not be closer. The Apostle Paul can speak of our
history and identity as entirely bound up in Jesus: ‘When Christ, who is
your life, appears, you also will appear with Him in glory.’ The believer is in fact seated
with Christ in the heavenly realms and has not actually appeared
yet. We are hidden with Christ in
God.
In this way, we are more united to Christ than
we are to ourselves. Certainly His
identity and not our own determines our standing in God’s eyes both now
and in eternity.
Christ’s Work
“But now in Christ, you who once were far away
have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”
We must never forget that the divine intimacy, which is freely
offered to us, has been purchased with the blood of Christ. The way into God was barred back in
Genesis 3. Ever since humanity
rejected the LORD and instead trusted Satan, the way back to fellowship
has been blocked by fiery judgement. For God to be God, He could not have
man as man had become. This
fallen flesh and blood could not participate in the life of God. Only the Eternal Man, the Man out of
the Heavens,
only He could ever belong in the inner circle of God’s life.
Yet, with infinite grace and condescension, this Man came out of
the heavens. He took the very
flesh and blood of our humanity and He redeemed it. Where we had failed, He succeeded,
where we had sinned, He obeyed, where we had fled, He stood tall, where
we had hated, He loved, where we had erred, He taught, where we were
enslaved, He set free, where we were ashamed, He gave dignity, where we
grasped at glory, He gave freely, where we clung to life, He poured it
out. And on the cross, God’s Man
took on Himself all the sin and guilt and shame of this fallen
humanity. He endured the divine
fury at sin, passing through that fiery judgement that had barred the way
into God. And now, in His
glorious resurrection body, Christ, the True Man, sits at the Father’s
right hand. He is beyond death
and judgement. Our brother is now
in the inner circle of the life of God.
We, in ourselves, would be swept away by God’s righteous anger at
sin. Yet Christ is the Way
to the Father and in Him, Who quenched the wrath of hostile heaven,
we have obtained access. Christ’s union with us establishes our own
entrance into the Triune dance.
“But now in Christ, you who once were far away
have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”
Christ’s Priesthood
We have seen how, in union with Christ, His work is accomplished for
us, that is, in our stead, on our behalf. He is God doing humanity for us. We must also see that our
union with Christ flows equally in the other direction. There is not simply a God-humanward
action in Christ but a human-Godward movement in Christ. He is not just God-for-us, He is also
Man-for-God. Thus, from Christ’s
representative humanity (for us) there is a presentation to the
Father. This is Christ’s Priestly
work – again a work done for us.
By the Spirit, Christ has made the perfect offering to the Father:
‘Christ, through the eternal Spirit… offered
Himself unblemished to God.’
Christ’s worship constitutes the fullness of all acceptable
worship to God. As the True Man –
His worship is the only true worship. Without participation in His
perfect obedience, His perfect sacrifice and His perfect
Priesthood, there is no worship worthy of the name. To offer true sacrifice to the Father
we must be in Christ. Only then
do we have a share in acceptable worship. Yet, in Him, we are pure, spotless and holy – as acceptable
as Christ Himself.
What place does our worship have?
If Christ is our Great High Priest, where does my worship fit
in?
Worship is the gracious invitation which the LORD makes to us to
share in His own worshipping life.
Just as Christ is the Righteous One (for us) and yet invites us to
share in His holy life, just as Christ is the Great Sufferer (for us) and
yet allows us to share in His sufferings, so we, His people are to share
in His worship.
Hebrews 8:2 calls Christ our Leitourgos – ‘the leader of
our worship’. Calvin, following Psalm 22:22, called Christ ‘the great
choirmaster’, tuning our hearts to sing the Father’s praises. Worship is the participation in
Christ’s perfect worship. As
James Torrance says,
“Whatever else our worship is, it is our
liturgical amen to the worship of Christ.”
Every act of worship or devotion that we perform is grounded on and
wrapped up in Christ’s prior and perfect offering. Thus we do not worship as those
attempting to gain intimacy with God, but as those who have been gifted
it. And the ‘direction’ of the activity is the gracious movement of God
coming to us in Christ. Any
‘upward’ movement is that done for us by Christ. Thus, the focus of all worship must be
on the LORD Jesus.
James Torrance sums up these considerations by highlighting the
difference between Unitarian and Trinitarian worship.
Unitarian and Trinitarian Worship
According to Torrance there are two broad models of worship – Unitarian and Trinitarian. Unitarian worship is not necessarily
that offered by Unitarians – most often it simply reflects the
functionally monadic doctrine of God latent in our congregations. Worship on this model sees only two
parties – the LORD who is simply the recipient of worship; and the
human worshipper (or congregation) who may be divinely enabled and
empowered but who, nonetheless, is wholly responsible for performing the
worship.
As against this, Trinitarian worship recognizes that God the
Father has set forth God the Son to be the True High Priest
who, by God the Spirit, offers to the Father that which He demands. Worship is therefore not the efforts
of humanity in approaching God but the participation in Christ’s perfect
worship of the Father, graciously offered through the Spirit.
This, in turn, leads to different accounts of intimacy. On the Unitarian model intimacy is an
ideal to be reached. We are external
to God and must figure out how to approach Him in an acceptable way. The only priesthood here is our
priesthood. The only offering
involved is our offering. The
only intercession is our intercession.
And if we get all these things right, then, perhaps, we will
attain to a measure of intimacy.
On the Trinitarian model, adoption into the life of God through
the Son and by the Spirit, is the incomparable intimacy which
guarantees true and acceptable worship.
The order is thus reversed.
Worship does not bring us near to God. Rather ‘the blood of Christ’ has brought us near (Eph 2:13)
that ‘through Him we… have access to the Father by one Spirit.’ (Eph
2:18). Blood-bought intimacy with
God is the beginning of true worship – not an added bonus when the mood
is right.
The Perfect and Eternal Priesthood of Christ guarantees our
acceptable worship before the Father.
We begin our worship, we begin our devotions in the embrace of the
divine love – our worship is merely God’s appointed means of experiencing
and appropriating this intimacy.
How then do we worship?
Our intimacy with the Father, through the Son and by the Spirit
must be expressed corporately. In
community we reflect the Triune life to which we have been called. As a community we are Christ’s
Body and Bride. An
individualistic intimacy with God is a rejection of the terms on which we
have been offered fellowship. Christians must gather,
and not so as to work up a feeling of intimacy, but in order to express
and enjoy the intimacy already guaranteed in Christ.
The Gathering
Acts
2:42 gives four characteristic marks of the post-Pentecost church: the
Apostle’s teaching, the fellowship (koinonia), the breaking of
bread and prayer.
Firstly, the Word is set forth. This is essential. The Spirit brings us Christ through
the Word
since, as Calvin would say, Christ comes clothed in His promises. There is no unmediated or
self-generated approach to divine encounter. It is of the essence of grace that God approaches us at His
initiative and by His appointed means. In the Bible, Christ is offered to us
freely in words of promise. God
has ordained that ‘faith comes by hearing’,
thus the Bible must be at the absolute centre. There ought not to be any meeting without the Word at the
centre. When Luther
wrote ‘Concerning the Order of Public Worship’ he advised: ‘Let
everything be done so that the Word may have free course… We can spare
everything except the Word. Again
we profit by nothing as much as by the Word.’.
‘The fellowship’ is an objective, Spirit-created, communion to
which believers are to be ‘devoted’.
This fellowship subsists in the organic union we share as the Body
of Christ. In it we are given
various gifts and roles for our mutual edification and mission to the
world. To be devoted to this involves the
exercise of gifts in ministering to one another
and practical and costly service. Thus our gatherings must provide
opportunity for the exercise of gifts such as those mentioned in the
Pauline lists. As well as our traditional sermons,
therefore, we ought to be open to times of prophesy and testing against
the Word and
to the offering of help in line with the spiritual gifts the Spirit has
given the congregation. In
addition, meeting the material needs of the congregation and community is
a spiritual must. This ought not to be done ‘in a
corner’ but as part of the public worship of the Church. Therefore, at the very least, there
should be opportunity to share needs in the congregation – this is a
vital part of devoting ourselves to the fellowship.
The
breaking of bread we take to be a celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Along with the preached Word, the
dispensing of the sacraments was taken by reformers to be the other
defining mark of a true Church. Christ has given us Himself in this
memorial supper through visible words
– the bread and wine. Via these,
we ‘feed on Christ in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.’
This sacrament is communal by its very nature – uniting us with Christ
and each other. It ought to be
the high point of our gatherings though always attended by the Word,
by clear teaching on its purpose, and eaten in peaceable fellowship with
all.
Conclusion
Right worship is possible only on the basis of our intimate union
with Christ, under-written by His blood and sealed by His Spirit. Intimacy should not be held out as the
goal of Christian worship but the ground. Our experience of intimacy with the Triune God comes
as we appreciate that which is already ours in Christ.
Grace, therefore, is the very atmosphere of Christian worship
since Christ, our great High Priest, has already performed the perfect
service to God. Even worship is a
gift that comes from on high – not a work to be generated by us. We
receive the benefits of His priestly worship through faith-union with Him,
and we experience, understand and deepen that union especially in
corporate worship.
The Communion of Father, Son and Spirit is known most fully in the
communion of His people. This
happens as the Spirit works through word and sacrament, through a
communal lifting of our hearts in prayer and through mutual
encouragement, to awaken us to Christ’s presence in and with us. As we grasp and appreciate Him, we are
lifted to the Father. In this way
we are caught up into the intimate life of God Himself.
Bibliography
J. Torrance, Worship, Community, and the
Triune God of Grace, Paternoster, 1996
M. Horton, In the Face of God, Word Publishing, 1996
J. Piper, The Pleasures of God, Christian Focus, 2001
J Piper, Desiring God, IVP, 1986
C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, from Selected Books,
Harper Collins, 1999
J. Owen, (Abridged R. Law) Communion with God, Banner of
Truth, 1991
C. Gunton, The One, the Three, and the Many, CUP, 1993
J. Packer, Knowing God, Hodder & Staughton, 1984
D. Peterson, Engaging with God, Apollos, 1992
D. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, IVP, 1992
J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Ed: J. McNeill, Westminster Press, 1960
J. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, St Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1985
J. Edwards, Directions for Judging of Persons Experiences,
http://www.biblicaltheology.com/classics/Jonathan%20Edwards/edwards27.html
- last checked 19 May 2005
M. Luther, ‘Concerning the Order of Public Worship’, from Martin
Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, Ed: T. Lull, Fortress Press,
1989
C. Spurgeon, The Limitless Love of Christ, Whitaker House,
1996
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