Just as was true of proskuneo, there’s an obvious contrast between ritualized, specified, rules-based worship of the Old Testament and a radically different kind of worship in the New Testament. The words used of Old Testament ritual are never applied to the assembly. There’s not a hint in the New Testament vocabulary that the assembly is about obeying rules and following rituals. Rather, the New Testament writers take words that are clearly and repeatedly associated with liturgy and cultic behavior in the Old Testament and use them ironically — demonstrating that the ritualized approach to worship is over and replaced.
And yet there’s a critically important point: the same words still mean what they used to mean — but in a different sense. You see, we still offer sacrifice, service, submission, and loyalty. That hasn’t changed. It’s just that the sacrifice is no longer a spotless sheep or goat but a worshiper made spotless by the grace of God. That’s right — God now accepts lame, diseased, and spotted sacrifice, because he accepts the offering of ourselves!
Hence, when we speak of “worship,” we must remember that the idea of sacrifice and service remains at the heart of the term. Not only has the ritual changed, but so has the offering. Of course, the most important sacrifice is Jesus himself. The Son of God is the only sacrifice of atonement. And yet, he’s not the only sacrifice —
(Phi 2:17 ESV) Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.
Paul’s missionary service was a sacrifice to God.
(Phi 4:18 ESV) I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.
Contributions made by the Philippian congregation in support of Paul were also sacrifices.
(Heb 13:15 ESV) Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
Our praise of God — not just singing but acknowledging him before men — is also a sacrifice.
(Heb 13:16 ESV) Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Just so, any good deed and any sharing with others is a sacrifice.
(Rom 15:15-16 ESV) 15 But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
As Gentiles are converted to the gospel, they become an “offering” to God. That is, anyone who is converted becomes a sacrifice!
You see, again the New Testament writers take a term from a highly ritualized, highly regulated Old Testament practice — nearly synonymous with “worship” under the Law — and apply it in a generalized, spontaneous, Spirit-driven way. If the Spirit prompts you to give someone in need a ride to the hospital, you’ve offered a sacrifice to God — a thanks offering, a celebration of what God has done for you through Jesus.
Look at this way. Imagine that God came to the Churches of Christ in about 1980 and announced that the “pattern” is spontaneous worship and that the assembly isn’t conducted “decently and in order” unless the Spirit is given freedom to act there and that the true “acts of worship” are gifts to the poor and acts of mercy to those in need. God’s use of these phrases would immediately indicate to us (1) that God is familiar with the vocabulary we use in reference to the assembly and worship and (2) that he wants us to drastically change our thinking.
Well, in the First Century, the apostles used the vocabulary of the Temple and sacrifice to express radically different thoughts and approaches to worship of and service to God. Their listeners, raised on the Septuagint, would have heard the language of priestly liturgy being used of every day Christian living — Christlike, sacrificial service. And they would have heard a message of freedom to serve God in better, truer ways — a better form of sacrifice.
“Worship”
Do you notice a pattern here? (And, yes, I use “pattern” ironically.) The pattern is that the New Testament writers radically and pointedly re-define the language of the Temple cult to refer to the nature of Christian living. The entirety of our lives should be sacrifice, service, and worship. But, of course, there’s another element that’s too easy to overlook —
(Eph 5:1-2 ESV) Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
As we’re discussing in the Real Restoration series, God’s goal is to restore his people to his own image. Therefore, Paul urges us to imitate God — not his omnipotence but his sacrificial nature. You see, Jesus reveals to us the true character of God — as a God who serves and sacrifices himself out of love for others. Therefore, to imitate God is to imitate Jesus is to become an offering and sacrifice — is to “worship.” And we do that by loving others, sharing with others, doing good for others, giving to others.
To be like God is to be generous — quick to give and quick to forgive. To be like God is to hang yourself on a cross so that others might be drawn to God. And this and only this is worship.
The Apostles are not ironic, Jay.
It is – again – about types and antitypes. It is not about irony, but about fulfiullment ofthe shadows in Christ. THe original pattern for worship which was shown to Moses and after which the OT worship was designed is the exact same pattern for our worship. We now have the full revelation in Christ.
But, please, this is not irony, Jay! According ti Wikipedia, "irony" is defined as follows:
But these examples of types and antitypes are not playing with oppsite meanings or intention: In fact meaning and intentions are the same in both covenants; the expression is different, the way we do things today has been changed – through God's revelation in Christ.
Are you sure about that? In fact, all we do is snctified through the spotless Lamb of God, as we offer ion His name and through His Spirit. No, God has not changed His demands for holyness, but He preapared a way through which we can offer acceptable worship to Him in spite of our own uncleanness: By cleansing us.
How shall our sacrifices be? Holy, acceptable, spiritual (Rom 12:1). How is this accomplished? By not being conformed to this world, by disecrning God's will and perfection, by transformation of our mind (Rom 12:2). All of this in Christ and through His name.
But the result is a clean, holy, spotless and acceptable sacrifice.
I think your intention is to find a way out of a "ritualized" understanding of worship in contemporary churches, which is absoilöutely commendable. But you terribly misunderstans (as in our IM debates) the nature of the covenants and how types and antitypes work. If you understood them you would not write:
Jay,
Yeah, i think it's weird that you affirm some of the statements you affirm here while rejecting the OT shadow/NT reality argument against IM. Seems to me like some of what you say fits rather well into a foundation for the very argument you've rejected.
And while i think you're probably right, i think Rom 15:15-16 is more ambiguous than you take it. Unless there's something specific to the Greek that demonstrates otherwise, i think it could be read that Paul was doing his priestly service as a missionary so that the offerings made by the Gentiles was acceptable. The English could be read that way anyway.
–guy
Jay wrote: "God now accepts lame, diseased, and spotted sacrifice, because he accepts the offering of ourselves!"
Alexander, countered with: "Are you sure about that? In fact, all we do is snctified through the spotless Lamb of God, as we offer ion His name and through His Spirit. No, God has not changed His demands for holyness, but He preapared a way through which we can offer acceptable worship to Him in spite of our own uncleanness: By cleansing us"
I think both parties may be overlooking one simple thing. we do not sacrifice, or give our bodies, to God we give our spirit, we simply use our body to carry out the sacrifice demanded of our spirit. No matter how many times we say "god indwells our body" it is plain he does not want or need our body he is after our soul/spirit.
Rom 8:10 And if Christ [be] in you, the body [is] dead because of sin; but the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness.
No God does not accept " lame, diseased, and spotted sacrifice" he accepts cleansed, and righteous sacrifice.
aBasnar,
Consider —
(Rom 12:1 ESV) I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Guy,
Consider these translations of 15:15-16 —
(Rom 15:16 NIV) to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
(Rom 15:16 NAS) to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
(Rom 15:16 KJV) That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.
(Rom 15:16 YLT) for my being a servant of Jesus Christ to the nations, acting as priest in the good news of God, that the offering up of the nations may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
The consensus appears to be that the Gentiles are the offering. John Murray so concludes in the New International Commentary on Romans — one of most respected commentaries on Romans.
Guy and aBasnar,
Regarding types and antitypes, I've never said that the sacrifices of OT aren't types from which the NT draws lessons. In fact, I've said that there is indeed temple typology on the NT. Of course, there is.
What I've said is that the typology isn't directed toward the assembly. The passages that draw analogies, typologies, etc. to the temple speak to other things. The assembly is not described as being like or unlike the temple or tabernacle, and we make a big mistake when we try to hammer our understanding of the assembly into tabernacle or temple typologies or interpret NT allusions to the temple as being about the assembly just because we assume it to be true.
We've covered this in some detail before, and so I hate to re-cover the same ground. For now, just pull out a concordance and see how many references to "sacrifice" or "offering" are specifically references to the assembly. I don't think there's a one. We may well engage in sacrificial activity in the assembly, but the assembly isn't designed as the place where sacrifice is particularly to occur. It's not the new Temple. It's not the unique location for worship. It's not the only place where NT priests engage in their priestly duties.
Rather, the NT repeatedly and routinely uses Temple and Tabernacle language to talk about a Christian's daily walk with God and a congregation's daily walk with God.
This is clearly Temple typology. What are these "spiritual sacrifice"? The five acts? The weekly contribution?
Or is it proclaiming the excellences of God? To "proclaim" means ""report widely, proclaim throughout, tell everywhere" (Friberg).
Well, we make known the excellences of God by telling people who don't already know about him. Reminding each other is also important, but it's not a proclamation.
V. 12 completes the thought. We are priests who minister before God by proclaiming his excellences and doing such good deeds that the pagans are brought to him. The sacrifices are our lives, our testimony, our service.
Peter uses OT Mosaic language to describe things that are radically different. The OT priests performed for the benefit of the Israelites. They killed and burned up offerings received from others.
We are now called to a radically different priesthood — a service before God that shows his glory, not only to the saints, but to the pagans. We minister before the entire world, and sacrifice ourselves as the world looks on — astonished.
Laymond,
My body is considerably less than perfect. It's lame, spotted, and diseased. But it's what God asked for.
Jay you left off a little soon, if we stay one more vs. we see God wants a renewed mind, not a renewed body.
ESV – Rom 12:2 – Do not be conformed to this world,* but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
The resurrection will take care of the body.
In 1 Corinthians 1:20 we are told to "glorify God in your (our) body".
What was once yielded as a slave to sin (the mind with its affections and the body that carried them out) is now to be surrendered as a slave to righteousness. To be a "disciple" requires "discipline". It is discipline, hard work, to lean to say no to what the body wants.
Royce
laymond,
Why can't it be both? V. 1 quite plainly demands our bodies as sacrifices. It seems clear that God wants the whole person — body and mind. I think any other view risks Gnosticism.
I was thinking we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, dead to our flesh, alive in our spirit, heart and mind where true worship occurs in spirit and truth because God is Spirit we must worship by or with our renewed minds..
How does that sound?
3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Jay, I don't think we want to get into Gnosticism and Emanationism.It is not something that is in the past, and they quote the bible almost as much as a Christian does.
Jay:
When I read your essay and subsequent posts, I hear oscillation between very specific looks at Scripture and an understanding of worship under the Old Covenant that misses the graciousness of the Law.
Consider Deuteronomy 6:24:
"And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day."
Additionally, I saw, "Do you notice a pattern here? (And, yes, I use “pattern” ironically.) The pattern is that the New Testament writers radically and pointedly re-define the language of the Temple cult to refer to the nature of Christian living."
Consider a corrective, Jay. Leviticus was also about life. Our Western, postmodern mentality often looks at the book and cannot see beyond the "rules." The Hebrews were to see deeper than the "rules" too, but darkness and a spiritual siege often affected their vision and their resulting action. We face the same spiritual siege.
Let me suggest you grab a copy of Tom Olbricht's fine study He Loves Forever: The Message of the Old Testament and read chapter 7: "Love Through the Law."
In Christ,
Bruce Morton
Katy, Texas
Jay,
Here's a poor and hurried attempt:
If the word used in the OT to reference highly ritualized, ceremonial, and ornamental practices is now used of the general Christian ethical lifestyle, that ought to tell us something significant about the changing nature of what that word references and the nature of what God expects. Perhaps then, for anyone now to try and introduce highly ritualized or ornamental elements into what Christian "worship" means would be negligent of this difference between OT and NT and in a sense would be a step backward.
Now it sounded to me that you definitely endorsed the first sentence. Maybe not the second.
Also–the comments have lost their individual reply buttons on my ends. And i don't think i ever mentioned it but about three months ago, i started getting the disqus comments out of the blue. (i think i told you they never were in my spam folder.) But anyway, now they've stopped again.
–guy
Jay, the whole topic is quite simple:
Each ordinance of the Old Testament Worship as its equivalent in the New Testament Worship.
We do have a high priest
We are a priesthood
We offer different sacrifices:
our bodies
our Praise
our posessions
We eat from an altar as the priests did
We enter the holiest part of the temple through the curtain
We are cleansed with blood and water
We need to be circumcised (in our hearts) in order to be allowed to celebrate the feats of the Lord
and the list clould be continued on and on …
I do not have the impression that you understood all this or even live in this as long as you use (or misuse) the word irony in this context. It is not ironic how the Apostles interptreted the scriptures – they call it spiritual or typological. So by the way you present their thought it becomes obvious that you are not yet in line with their reasoning. Which is a pity, because you miss out on so much, even the essence of the Law.
Alexander
P.S.: I forgot to mention that OT worship was a lifestyle as well, not just a "formal" act within the boundaries of the temple courts.
The NIV is not a reliable translation !
if somebody ask why ? here is an article that show why.
A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION
THE PREFACE
The Preface of the NIV should be considered in order to gain an understanding of the perspective of the translation committee. Unfortunately, the church of Christ is listed among and referenced as a denomination. Anyone who has ever read Christ's prayer for unity in John 17:20-23 knows how disappointing it is to see the church for which He died presented as being what Anglican, Assemblies of God, Baptist, Brethren, Christian Reformed, Evangelical Free, Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, Nazarene, Presbyterian, and Wesleyan are—a denomination. The Word of God teaches, "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. 1:10). The NIV has errors in it.
The seventh paragraph of the Preface says, "The first concern of the translators has been the accuracy of the translation and its fidelity to the thought of the biblical writers. . . .They have striven for more than a word-for-word translation." If we are told the translators are placing emphasis on "the thought of the biblical writers" and were going for "more than a word-for-word translation," then we ought not be surprised if that is just what they have done. Those who write about what the biblical writers thought based upon the words they used in the text are called commentators, not translators. Some of the doctrines crucial to the denominations listed in the Preface did make their way into the NIV, and herein lies one of the greatest dangers of the NIV. The commentators have placed their denominational views into the text. If the NIV is easier to read and understand than the KJV or ASV and contains errors, then the error is easily grasped and in many cases more readily accepted than a creed book, manual, book of discipline, catechism, or even erroneous commentary would be because it has been presented as if it were the Bible itself.
TRANSLATION/DOCTRINAL ERRORS
Time and space afford only a brief review of the NIV errors. The reader is invited to place the NIV alongside the KJV and/or ASV at the passages to be cited for comparison. In that way more information can be compressed into the next few lines of this article.
PSALM 51:5
The Calvinistic doctrine of "Original Sin" is taught in this verse in the NIV. At one time it read, "Surely I have been a sinner from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." Now it reads, "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." You wonder why any attempt was made to change the verse because each rendering teaches the same error.
ROMANS, GALATIANS, COLOSSIANS
Another Calvinistic doctrine known as "Total Depravity" emerges from the NIV in Romans 7:5, 18, 25; 8:3, 4, 8, 12, 13; Galatians 5:16, 19; and Colossians 2:11-13. The word "flesh" is replaced with the words "sinful nature."
ROMANS 1:17
The false doctrine of salvation by "Faith Only" is supported by the NIV in this verse where it says righteousness is "by faith from first to last." The KJV has "from to faith to faith" which points to the fact that the basis of faith, the inspired Scriptures, must be brought into action within a person's life.
JOHN 3:16
A key word in this beautiful and familiar text is "should." The ones who believe in Christ "should" not perish. A combination of the false doctrines of "Once Saved, Always Saved" and "Faith Only" are supported by the NIV for it says those who believe "shall" not perish.
MATTHEW 19:9
The allowable grounds for putting away a spouse mentioned here as the sexual sin of "fornication" is broadened to "marital unfaithfulness" by the NIV. "Marital unfaithfulness" would include but not be limited to "fornication" and is, therefore, inappropriate.
The denominations listed in the Preface have for many, many years objected to the teaching of the Lord on the essentiality of baptism in order to be saved as presented in Mark 16:16. Unable to evade the force of the passage, the NIV translators cast doubt on its inspiration by drawing a line after verse eight and then placing within brackets the following statement: "The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20." A statement like that could lead the reader to believe that these verses should never have been included in any translation and could cause the reader to wonder why, with so scant a textual representation, even the NIV translators went ahead to place the verses below their offensive statement.
The truth is that only two uncial codexes omit the verses, and one of them, the Alexandrinus Manuscript housed in the British Museum in London, leaves a space into which these twelve verses could fit as if the copyist knew of their existence but without having them before him left them space. And, thousands of the cursive manuscripts include these verses.
I CORINTHIANS 2:14, 12:13, 13:10
The direct operation of the Holy Spirit as advocated by the Pentecostal groups and Calvinists is taught in the NIV at these locations. Instead of "the natural man" it has "the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God." Therefore, the Holy Spirit must come upon man directly according to the NIV to make him accept things. The apostles taught that the Holy Spirit uses His Word like a sword to influence men (Eph. 6:17). Instead of drinking "into one Spirit" or taking in the teaching of the Holy Spirit as the KJV reads, the NIV has this ridiculous statement: "We were all given the one Spirit to drink." "That which is perfect" refers to the completed revelation from God to man, the Bible (James 1:25). The NIV changes the words to "perfection" thereby opening the way for teaching Premillennialism where a state of perfection for one thousand years is believed to be just on the horizon.
CONCLUSION
The NIV is preferred over the KJV and ASV by many who believe it is easier to read and understand. If that is true, then it would also make the many errors it contains easy to understand and believe. Any translation done by men may contain errors, but the KJV and ASV are preferred over the NIV.
Pharisees….