Worship is not simply a response to God’s glory. This is the fatal flaw of so much modern worship music. It spends so much time in emotional response that it abandoned the worship core of God’s glory. It unconsciously substitutes the response for the reason. In the context of the reading of the Scriptures and the consideration of God’s glory, an emotional response is appropriate but it is not the true function of worship.
Worship cannot be generated through mood lighting or great musicians because the source of worship must be the understanding (in part, 1 Corinthians 13:12) of God’s glory in Jesus Christ. Worship is not of this world; it is an attribute of resurrection. Only those raised in Christ can truly worship.
You might ask, then what about the worship in the Old Testament? That is also the song of resurrection, even if it is written in another key. The themes of resurrection run throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, but they are present in the agricultural metaphor of spring time and harvest. They resonate in the narratives of barren women like Sarah, Rachel and Hannah who receive children from dead wombs. Resurrection is the entire point of books like Ruth and Ezekiel. What is the point of Jeremiah’s Lamentation if it is not that there will be a restoration?
And they shall build the old wastes,
They shall raise up the former desolations,
And they shall repair the waste cities,
The desolations of many generations.
(Isaiah 61:4, KJV)
Worship is only possible in resurrection, and resurrection is only possible in Jesus Christ. If we do not celebrate the resurrection, then we celebrate things that are dying and lost.
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