by Rev. Alex MacPherson, Perth
(Sermon preached at the opening of Tomatin Church)
“And let them make me a sanctuary: that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25: 8).
The purpose of our meeting is to inaugurate public worship in a building newly erected for that purpose. Some dislike calling a building a church, but we follow the custom of past times and use the word in a way that avoids confusion with its other meanings. So, I repeat, we are met as the notice in the Free Presbyterian Magazine said, to open a church.
In this sense of the word, a church is a building used for worship, an enclosure within walls, covered by a roof. Certainly, public worship has been conducted in the open, as it often was in the covenanting times. In the Apostles’ times it was often, perhaps usually, held in private dwellings. Tents have often been used for the purpose also, but the advantage
of a church building is that it gives reasonable protection from the elements, and from noise and other disturbances that would hinder a devout and orderly approach to God. So, to facilitate public worship, there is reason for using a church. What I now wish to do is to look at the practice of public worship as we find it in Scripture, so that we may see what are the principle features that make it acceptable to God.
1. THE TABERNACLE IN THE WILDERNESS.
The divine command in Exodus 25: 8 is the first divine appointment of public worship. God had in his providence turned the family of Israel into a nation, had redeemed them from bondage and brought them to Mount Sinai to make them a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. They were to be the organised visible church of the Old Testament period. To this end, they were to make a sanctuary, to be the focus of their worship, and God would at that sanctuary dwell among them. Omitting on this occasion much that might be said of that first place of worship, and proceeding to mark certain divinely appointed features of public worship, the FIRST feature is the light that the new sanctuary cast on the infinite majesty of the God of Israel.
The only persons who could enter the tabernacle were the priests, and the inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place, where the Shekinah flame symbolised the presence of the Lord, was open only to the high priest on the annual occasion of the Day of Atonement. The divine majesty thus symbolised has not diminished, and God is still to be regarded with reverence and godly fear. Grace is needed, as Paul said, to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, “For our God is a consuming fire.” The God of glory is to be approached in public worship with a deeper humility than subjects outwardly show before an earthly monarch. Underlying “going to church” should be the feeling that we are highly privileged, and that it is of “the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.” Our whole manner should indicate that we are approaching “the King of kings and Lord of lords”.
The SECOND great feature of that early worship was the provision for sinners to draw near. There were priests, altars and offerings. Priests were the appointed intermediaries. The altars were the furnishings required for sacrifice and prayer, and the offerings were essential to the removing of sin. The message of the Most Holy Place was, “Approach to God is closed except to those who come in the appointed way,” and the whole ceremonial was the only way. A beast must be slain, its blood poured on the altar, and its flesh burnt. In the case of the obligatory morning and evening
sacrifices, incense had also to be burnt to symbolise prayer made and accepted on the basis of sacrifice made. The simple meaning of it all was that a substitute must die before a sinner could be pardoned, accepted as righteous, and blessed.
This principle is as true as ever, so that in public worship, God’s divine majesty should convince us that we must approach Him depending on the good offices of the one Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. Something better than the old ceremonies has been provided: “In those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should put away sins.” But Christ “after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; . . . for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”
Let us always remember that we come to public worship as sinners who need a Mediator to reconcile us to the God of righteousness and infinite majesty, and who know that Christ is that Mediator. Our sense of awe at thoughts of the great God we approach, will therefore be accompanied by true humility and a thankful looking to Jesus to give us acceptance with his Father in heaven.
2. THE TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM
We have considered two things that should show us how to approach public worship. I must now mention that, as far as the people were concerned, the tabernacle worship was conducted in the courtyard, in the open air. The sanctuary itself was more or less a tent, a portable structure agreeable to Israel’s wandering progress at the time. Centuries later when King David had made his country secure, and he himself dwelt in a house of cedar, he spoke to Nathan of how incongruous it was that the ark of God still dwelt within curtains. He therefore wished to build a house as a permanent sanctuary for Jehovah to dwell in and bless Israel. His wish was not granted, but he was told that his son would build a house “for God’s name” (2 Sam. 7). “For” means a house for the containing and manifesting of God’s name, a repeat on a grander scale of the symbolism in the ceremonies of the tabernacle.
It may, however, well be asked, what is meant by “God’s Name”? The expression occurs scores of times in the Bible. Among the Hebrews, a name had significance. In some way it describe the thing or person named. For example, Cain means “gotten or acquired”. Eve said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord.” The thing to be named made an impression on the beholder, and he or she tried to express that impression in a name. Eve,
thinking of the promised seed, took her first born to be that seed and felt such relief and pleasure that she called him Cain.
The name which described as much as possible of the object was thought to be the most appropriate one. But when the object is God, the greatest of all beings, it is not possible to do that. There is a partial description given by God Himself to Moses in Exodus 34: 5-7 — “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious . . . and to the fourth generation.” Partial it is, though, and in view of the indescribable greatness of the Most High, the usage became to simply speak of “the Name of the Lord”. “Name” being understood to imply God’s whole nature and character inasfar as He has revealed it to us.
So, the building “for God’s Name” was to be a place of public worship whose ceremonies like those of the tabernacle, would manifest God’s nature and character to the worshippers. It would present the Lord as One apart from all creatures in his greatness and holiness, and also in his mercy and grace as a sin-pardoning and sin-cleansing Saviour.
The THIRD feature of public worship therefore, is that when we attend church, we are confronted with “the Name of the Lord” as Christ has revealed it; “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.” (John 17: 6). From the Bible read and preached, the worshippers should learn what God is, our natural relationship to Him, and the grace that calls us to a new relationship through repentance and faith in his Son. But it also has to be said, that to be a habitual worshipper and to be Christless marks that person as unbelieving and in great danger.
The temple provides another lesson. In asking Hiram, King of Tyre for assistance in the work, Solomon spoke of building “an house unto the Lord”. Even small words are important in God’s Word, and this word “unto” has its special meaning, namely, movement towards. Thus, “a house to the name of the Lord” meant that the place of worship was toward God and for no other purposes.
The FOURTH feature of public worship, therefore, means that this new building is towards God. It is not for socials, indoor games, choir practice, dramatic clubs or anything that is so common today in church buildings, but for worship. Nor is it for pre-worship conversations on matters quite unrelated to divine worship.
3. A NOTABLE PROPHECY.
At the end of his prophetic book, Isaiah speaks of Israel’s return from Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple. The Jews are warned that mere
restoration of the worship would be insufficient. The worship had to be true, in view of who was being worshipped. They must not think that the temple was a sufficient dwelling place, because God is infinitely immense. His dwelling in the temple was an act of divine condescension, and Isaiah stressed this in the words in Isaiah 66: 1, 2: “Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.”
We know from the Scriptures that in Christ’s day the Jews idolised the temple, and when they persecuted Stephen, they alleged that he had said that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy the temple. In his defence, Stephen quoted the text from Isaiah 66 to emphasise that if men would put the temple and the externals of worship in the place of spiritual worship, the Lord would not accept what they did.
Now Isaiah, clearly, was looking forward to the times of the Gospel, those we live in. Thus his words warn us also. Mark therefore that the FIFTH feature of public worship is that it is meant to be the means by which church-attenders may become true worshippers of God through faith in his Son. One must come to church needing the worship, viewing it as a means of knowing God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, and heartily giving God the glory. The visible church, sadly, has always had its quota of those who take pride in their church and churchgoing, and at the same time live in complete ignorance of Christ and his salvation. If there be any such present, let them take heed to the words, “to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.”
4. THE FULLY REVEALED DWELLING PLACE.
In the Old Testament sanctuaries we found four features of public worship. Then in Isaiah 66 we saw God’s disclosure of the insufficiency of any earthly sanctuary for a dwelling place, and a declaration that his true temple would be the hearts of saved sinners — “To this man will I look . . . my word.” In the New Testament this fact became perfectly revealed, for example, “And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God: as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Cor. 6: 16).
In this we find the SIXTH feature, that God alone is to be worshipped.
It would have been a terrible sin to put an idol in Solomon’s temple, and it is equally so to mix the public worship of God with any sort of idolatry. Be it noted, however, that one’s god is what we trust in most, and what gives us most pleasure, and what can be seen everywhere is men making gods of self, other persons, wealth, fame, power, and much else. Christians have to be careful to keep free from all such idols. Their worship in public should therefore be dominated by the thought that God has saved them, and blessed them in many ways, not least by coming to dwell within them by his Spirit. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you” (1 Cor. 3: 16). The Lord is therefore their God and they are his people, owing Him and Him alone worship, love, obedience and service. Bear in mind too that idolatry can apply to such things as devotion to human learning, as was the sin of those who embraced rationalistic, biblical criticism a century ago. They forsook the God of Scripture for a false god which was unable to fully inspire Scripture, and brought about the spiritual ruin of multitudes of Scottish people. “Flee from idolatry” is a much needed warning.
Now, having given these six features of scriptural public worship, let me finish by saying, may this church, as long as it is used, contain as worshippers many men, women and children who would appreciate these features that I have attempted to set before you. And may they be marked among men by hearts and lives consistent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.