by Rev. K. D. MacLeod
Time and again the cry has gone up that public worship must be made more relevant to modern man. In response the sermon has too often been shortened till it scarcely merits that description, and music has been given a wholly disproportionate place. There is no doubt about the effectiveness of such an approach in many cases. Some of those who have gone over to Rome have given as their reason the appeal to the senses of the ceremonial of Roman Catholic services. Dance and drama are also introduced into church services in the attempt to communicate with the congregation in a way that is seen to be relevant. But, even on a practical level, it is more than questionable if truth can be successfully communicated in such ways.
There is a far more important question to be asked: “What saith the Scripture?” And the answer comes back, “After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1: 21). It is thus made perfectly clear that preaching is the particular means which God has appointed for bringing sinners to salvation.
Besides, nothing ought to be introduced into public worship without the express authority of God in Scripture. We do have that authority for the reading of these Scriptures — as well as for the explanation and application of them in preaching — and for prayer and praise. That praise, in accordance with the principle just mentioned, of Scripture authority, is to be confined to what is divinely inspired — the Book of Psalms — without instrumental accompaniment. On the other hand we certainly have no authority from Scripture for dance or drama. The spoken word may
no longer have the influence it once had, now that all too many people spend all too great a part of their time in front of a television screen, and so become over-dependent on visual communication. But the spoken word remains the God-appointed and God-honoured means of making known the glad tidings of a divine Saviour for a lost world. Yet to make these remarks is not to belittle the public or private reading of the Scriptures themselves.
Relevance is, however, a genuine problem, and most of all where the greatest efforts have been made to alter the form of public worship in the interests of relevance — but relevance as perceived by man in his natural state. The fact is that most modern preaching fails to address the deepest needs of man, needs which have remained unchanged since the Fall. In other words, most modern preaching actually is largely irrelevant. Individual sins may on occasion be mentioned, but the analysis is only skin-deep if sin, as sin, is not shown to be evil in and of itself, because sin is an act of rebellion against God our Creator.
If the basic fact of man’s sin is ignored, preaching can only be superficial. Sin forms a barrier between man and God, and any attempt at religious worship which ignores sin cannot satisfy for long; in the end it must induce a feeling of irrelevance. One generation may be at home with a religion which is easier to bear than the more Scriptural version followed by their fathers, but the next generation realises, albeit unconsciously, that a religion which does not address the solemn reality of sin is not relevant to the real needs of the individual or of society.
Yet there is little point in identifying and describing the needs of man if one does not have a remedy for these needs. The sad reality is that the modern church, by and large, has no effective remedy for man’s sin, nor, indeed, for the particular needs which they do identify. The Church pontificates endlessly about the need for reconciliation on the human level, which, of course, is right as far as it goes, for God commands everyone to love his neighbour as himself. But reconciliation between man and man is on a very insecure foundation where man is not reconciled to God.
The Saviour instructed, not only His first disciples, but the Church of every generation, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mk 16: 15). The good news about Christ as a crucified and risen Redeemer must therefore be at the centre of all preaching, if preachers are to be true to Him whom they claim as Master. What is more, preaching which ignores the gospel does not meet man in his deepest need and must, sooner or later, be perceived as basically irrelevant. And preaching which distorts the gospel cannot fare much better.
The relevance of the Scripture message of sin and salvation to men, women and children of all classes and of every level of intelligence has been demonstrated time and again throughout the world’s history, and especially in times of revival. Think, for instance of the effect of Whitefield’s preaching at Kingswood, outside Bristol, when the truth was applied to the miners’ souls by the Holy Spirit, and their tears made white channels as they flowed down their coal-blackened faces.
In village and town throughout Reformation Europe that same power produced effects of the same kind. Yet a recent writer on the history of the Reformation in Europe cannot understand how the preaching of the Reformers met with such widespread acceptance from peasants and princes. He finds it impossible to believe that the demanding teaching of the Reformers can have been grasped by the people generally, and considers that their message “was rather badly suited to the cultural needs and ambitions of most of the lay people.” The fact is that such preaching is based on the revelation made by an all-wise God, and is therefore adapted to the needs of human beings of every condition. It is its divine origin which gives such preaching its relevance. And it is always infallibly effective when it is applied by the Holy Spirit.
Some of these points were brought out very clearly by W. G. T. Shedd, an American professor of theology, over a hundred years ago. His remarks are by no means out of date, for the present state of the religious world is only a development of the trends of his time: “The doctrines of natural religion are differentiated from those of revealed religion by the fact that they will not bear everlasting repetition and constant expansion and illustration. You cannot preach year after year on the immortality of the soul and the nature of virtue, and preserve the theme ever fresh and new. There is a limit in this direction that cannot be passed with safety.
“But it is not so with the distinctively Christian truths. Even the dark, solemn theme of human corruption, expounded by one who has been instructed out of the written revelation, and the thronging, bursting consciousness of his own soul — even this sorrowful and abstractly repellent theme, when enunciated in a genuinely biblical manner, fascinates the natural man himself like the serpent’s eye. Such a preacher is always felt to be original. Men never charge him with weakness and feebleness. And still more is this true of that other and antithetic doctrine of the divine mercy in the blood of the God-man.”
Let us return to the question mentioned at the outset, of the attractiveness of public worship, and listen to John Owen as he points out that it “is agreed that there ought to be beauty and glory in divine worship,
and that they are most eminently in that which is directed and required in the gospel. But . . . this glory is spiritual and not carnal; so did our Lord Jesus Christ foretell that it should be; and that, unto that end, all distinctions of places, with all outward advantages and ornaments belonging unto them, should be taken away.” At this point Owen refers to Christ’s words to the woman of Samaria in John 4: 20-24, which conclude: “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
Owen goes on “to give a brief account of its glory and wherein it excels all other ways of divine worship that ever were in the world, even that under the Old Testament, which was of divine institution, wherein all things were ordered ‘for beauty and glory’.” Only the main points of Owen’s argument are given (but in his words throughout):
- The express object of it is God, not absolutely considered, but as existing in three persons, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the principal glory of Christian religion and its worship.
- Its glory consists in that constant respect which it hath unto each divine person, as unto their peculiar work and actings for the salvation of the Church. So it is described (Eph. 2: 18), “Through Him” — that is, the Son as mediator — “we have access by one Spirit unto the Father.”
- The ultimate object of it, under this consideration, is God as THE FATHER. . . . This access in our worship unto the person of the Father, as in heaven, the holy place above, as on a throne of grace, is the glory of the gospel.
- The Son is here considered as a MEDIATOR — through Him we have this access unto the Father. This is the glory that was hidden from former ages, but brought to light and displayed by the gospel. . . . To ask God expressly in the name of the Son, as mediator, belongs unto the essence of the gospel worship.
It is He who makes the persons of the worshippers and their duties accepted of God.
He is the administrator of all the worship of the Church in the holy place above, as its great High Priest over the house of God.
His presence with and among gospel worshippers in their worship gives it glory.
- It is in ONE SPIRIT that we have access unto God in His worship; and in His administration doth the apostle place the glory of it, in opposition unto all the glory of the Old Testament.
The whole ability for the observance and performance of it, according to the mind of God, is from Him alone. His communication of grace and gifts unto the Church is that alone which makes it to give glory to God in His divine service.
By Him the sanctified minds of believers are made temples of God, and so the principal seal of evangelical worship.
By Him is the Church led into internal communion and converse with God in Christ in light, love and delight, with holy boldness.
Owen makes the further point, that “there is a spiritual light required that we may discern the glory of this worship, and have thereby an experience of its power and efficacy in reference unto the ends of its appointment”. So “in the time of the papal apostasy those who had the conduct of religion could discern no glory in these things, nor obtain any experience of their power. . . . The notion must be retained that divine worship is to be beautiful and glorious. . . . To this end they set their inventions on work to find out ceremonies, vestments, gestures, ornaments, music, altars, images, paintings, with prescriptions of great bodily veneration. . . . This light and experience being lost, the introduction of beggarly elements and carnal ceremonies in the worship of the Church, with attempts to render it decorous and beautiful by superstitious rites and observances — wherewith it hath been defiled and corrupted, as it was and is in the Church of Rome — was nothing but the setting up of a deformed image in the room of it. . . . But hereby, instead of representing the true glory of the worship of the gospel, wherein it excels that under the Old Testament, they have rendered it altogether inglorious in comparison of it; for all the ceremonies and ornaments which they have invented for that end come unspeakably short, for beauty, order and glory, of what was appointed by God Himself in the temple — scarce equalling what was among the Pagans. . . .
“To obtain, and preserve in our hearts, an experience of the power and efficacy of that worship of God which is in spirit and in truth, as unto all the real ends of divine worship, is that alone which will secure us. Whilst we do retain right notions of the proper object of gospel worship, and of our immediate approach by it thereunto — of the way and manner of that approach, through the mediation of Christ and assistance of the Spirit, whilst we keep up faith and love unto their due exercise in it (wherein, on our part, the life of it doth consist) preserving an experience of the spiritual benefit and advantage which we receive thereby, we shall not be easily inveigled to relinquish them all and give up ourselves unto the embraces of this lifeless image.”
Today likewise it is only in the spiritual exercise of a renewed heart that there can be the true worship of God. And it is under the preaching of, especially, the ever-relevant truths of sin and salvation that we may expect sinners to be brought to a state in which they are capable of such spiritual exercise, first on earth, and then eternally in heaven.