Sunday, October 06, 2024

For those about to lead worship

Jesus Christ is our worship, the essence of it and the whole of it, and we may worship God in Spirit and in Truth only as we are made partakers of his worship.

Thus T.F. Torrance, in Theology in Reconstruction, 249.

Torrance's point has at least a two-fold application.  Firstly, we cannot make an acceptable offering to God by ourselves.  All our worship is soiled by our sinfulness, and inadequate as a response to God's greatness and his grace.  We cannot possibly come of ourselves to appear before God and honour him.  Remember Nadab and Abihu?  Outside of Christ, our very worship of God deserves and attracts his wrath.  So if you're about to lead worship, please remember that you cannot do it - that you depend on Christ to pour out the Spirit so that what you do might be real, genuine, acceptable.  Worship is not within your powers, and leading others in worship is something that should make you tremble.

But second, an acceptable offering to God has been made, in our human nature, by our Brother the Lord Jesus Christ.  Because he appears in heaven before God, as our great High Priest, there is human worship which is sinless and holy, and which genuinely honours the Father.  And because that worship exists, we can come to worship - not as if we were offering something alongside Christ's offering, but as we are joined to him by the Spirit in faith our own inadequate worship is clothed in his great act of worship, and made to participate in it.  There is nothing for us to add, because he has done it all; but we may participate, because he has gone ahead of us.  So if you're about to lead worship, remember that what that means is directing people to Christ, who is the real worship leader, and resting in him and his perfect worship yourself as you lead others in doing so.

No comments:

Post a Comment