Continuity Between Prophetic Worship and the New Testament: A Puritan’s Doorway to Traditional Liturgy (Part 3)

In this post I’d like to dig right into some really good stuff.  As we look at these parallels in a little more detail we can see clearly how the New Covenant worship is to be a fuller realization of the Old, rather than a disconnect.  So what can we find by way of continuity?

Sanctus

In Isaiah the prophet is given a view into heaven.  He sees YHWH sitting on a throne above all the earth, his robe filling the temple.  Interesting that the temple is seen by Isaiah to be in heaven, not in Jerusalem.  Or is it both?  That might be an interesting idea to explore later.  It is quite possible that YHWH is in the Jerusalem temple here, as the seraphim are standing above Him.  In any case, his robe is in the Temple, and fills it.  The worship of the seraphim is responsive:

And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
~Isaiah 6:3

So YHWH is present in the Temple on earth while the angels glorify Him above.  Does this remind us of any scene of the New Covenant?  It should.  In Revelation the apostle John sees a similar sight.  Or is it identical?

At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne . . . And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” ~Rev. 4:2-8

From this we may see that the way God is to be worshiped, at least in heaven, has not changed from the time of Isaiah to Revelation.  It is no accident that the Jewish Synagogue worship included the Sanctus of Isaiah in their Sabbath liturgy.  They understood that the way God is worshiped in heaven is the way we are to worship him on earth.

It is also likely that while the Sanctus was sung in the synagogue, it originated in the service of the Temple before the time of Christ.  And it was not long before the Christian Church followed suit, incorporating the Sanctus into the liturgy of the Eucharist.

Hosanna and Benedictus

Closely related to the Sanctus in both Jewish and Christian liturgy is the Hosanna.  In Hebrew it means “save us!” and is drawn from Psalm 118.

Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.
~Psalm 118:25-26

The people of Israel in the day of Christ understood that this was to be used to inaugurate the coming of the Messiah.  They sang this Psalm as Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey, waving palm branches and spreading their garments at his feet.
(Matt. 21:9,  John 12:13)

The Hosanna also has connections to the book of Revelation.  There is a part in the vision that alludes directly to the triumphal entry, with all people of all tribes of all nations standing before the Lord with palm branches, just as the people of Israel did on Palm Sunday.

There is one marked difference, the contrast of which actually highlights a thematic continuity in the narrative of redemption.  Since Christ has conquered and is victorious, the Church now may say Hosanna (save us, Lord), but also says “salvation belongs to the Lord our God,” to which the angels reply in unison, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Rev. 7:9-12)

Hallelujah (Alleluia)

Looking at the Hosanna will bring us directly to another parallel between Old Covenant and New.  The Psalms were written specifically to enhance and fill the worship of the Tabernacle and Temple.  What we find in the Psalms, if found in parallel in the New Testament, should tell us a great deal about how worship is to be done under the New Covenant.

One series of Psalms—the Hallel Psalms—is particularly striking.  Notice how often is repeated the call to “Praise YHWH” (Psalm 106:1, 111:1, 112:1, 113:1, 117:1, 135:1, 146:1, 147:1, 148:1, 149:1, 150:1).  A total of eleven Psalms begin with “Hallelujah!”  Clearly the call to Praise the Lord was a pervasive and integral part of the Old Covenant Temple worship.  By now we should not be surprised that we find the same liturgical call in the New Testament.

For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.  As it is written,

“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles,
and sing to your name.”

And again it is said, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.”

And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him.”  ~Romans 15:8-11

Clearly, Hallelujah is not only for Israel.

After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God . . .

Once more they cried out, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”

And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne, saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!”

And from the throne came a voice saying, “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.”

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.

~Rev. 19:1, 3-6

Commentary

The people of God said and sang Hallelujah in God’s Temple under the Davidic litugical reforms, the Gentiles say Hallelujah as salvation comes from Israel and floods the nations.  The elders in heaven continually say Hallelujah before the throne of Christ.  They sing Hosanna—save us in the highest—as well as the acclamation celebrating that salvation, waving palms to welcome the king.  The seraphim say Sanctus—”Holy, Holy, Holy”—continually before the throne of God, glorifying the Three-in-One.

What’s more, in each description they do it very much in the same way throughout history, employing the same kind of language, with the same reverence and with the same manner of call and response between officiant(s) and congregation.  I find it hard to understand how Christians can read these descriptions of worship in both Old and New Covenant and then say we ought not to do it that way because it is not explicitly commanded.

But it is explicitly commanded!  The liturgy is the invasion of Heaven into Earth.  This is God’s glory breaking in upon our world and the worship of His person joining all the saints through out history in the past, present, and future, into a united divine service.  We cannot say “thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven” and then refuse to do not only what is done in heaven now and forever shall be in the future, but was already done in Israel for a thousand years.  There is no justification for a hiatus from reverent and vibrant liturgical worship.

The elements of the liturgy in the New Testament book of Revelation are not merely something to look forward to in eternity.  It is a description of how worship is to be done now, deeply rooted in an awareness of how worship was done then.  And we haven’t even touched on how incense, posture, musical instruments, and food are used in both Old Covenant worship and in the New.

As Reformed and Evangelical Christians, it is no credit to us that we look at the rite of the Roman Mass or the Orthodox Divine Liturgy and say,
“Oh, that’s rote.  We don’t do that” and then discard not only the corruptions but also the Scriptural elements of liturgy as “mere traditions of men.”  Or, even if we think the tradition is itself okay, we askew Biblical worship in order to avoid guilt by association.  After all, we wouldn’t want to look Catholic . . .

Methinks as Protestants we sometimes protest the wrong things, and far too loudly.  As far as I can see, the Reformed Regulative Principle not only permits us to employ a rich and engaging liturgy to worship God.  Rather, it demands it.

Next time: Keeping Time

The Lord’s Prayer: A Puritan’s Doorway to Traditional Liturgy (Part 1)

“Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

On Earth as it is in Heaven. What exactly does that mean? Of course it has an eschatological dimension. We look forward to the day when all of the earth will be subdued to Christ and His rule of law will be complete and absolute. This same dimension finds expression in the Eucharist, because our communion declares the Lord’s death, looking forward to the day when He will return in glory. At the Lord’s table we look forward to the blessed marriage supper of the Lamb.

However, like the Eucharist, these words are relevant to the Church for the here and now. If we are to continually pray “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” should we not seek to see God’s will done in the present? As the Church disciples nations, as it teaches families and individuals how to relate to one another as Christians ought, it is becoming God’s instrument for the fulfillment of this prayer in the world, one step at a time.

“On Earth as it is in Heaven.”

If this is an end toward which we have a part in working, that phrase sort of demands that we ask a question, doesn’t it? If we seek to see God’s will done here as it is in heaven, then what are we looking for?  In other words, just how is it done in heaven? Instead of writing the petition off as some vague wishful hope for a future reality, perhaps we should look at the passages of Scripture that give us lucid pictures of how things are done Heaven and . . . well, do that on Earth!

When we petition God to give us our daily bread (probable direct reference to the Eucharist aside), we do not expect God to simply drop bread out of the sky. We must work for that bread, trusting God to ultimately provide. In the same way, when we petition that God’s will might be done here as it is in Heaven, this does not mean that we ought to sit passively by just waiting for it to happen. Especially when we are given such clear visions of how it is to be done.

I suggest that the clearest view we have of the heavenly workings is in the Book of Revelation. It reveals things to us about Heaven that are only hinted at or shown in glimpses throughout the rest of the Bible, though there are many other passages that we can and should draw from to form a clear picture of what is done in heaven and how it relates to Christians in the New Covenant. And the context of Revelation is the Lord’s Day. John receives the vision as he is “in spirit.”

From that point on, the great theme throughout the book—what we see first and foremost happening in Heaven—is worship. Surely this has direct application for how our worship on Earth ought to look. When we read of the hosts of heaven—the angels, the saints, the martyrs, the elders—praising God, glorifying Christ, eating a feast, etc., we need to take note of those things. Just as importantly, we ought to take note of how they do those things. If the worship of Heaven looks like that . . . how does that inform our worship on Earth, if we pray as Christ taught us to pray: “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”?

I was planning to do this all in one post, but I think it would best be spread over several, point by point. So let this serve as my introduction. Through the next several posts in this series (or however many it takes) I want to show that if we remain faithful to our Reformed heritage of Sola Scriptura, we will find that the Biblical text not only doesn’t forbid traditional liturgies of the Church, but also properly leads us into a rich form of liturgical worship, which has been grasped and developed by the Church throughout the last 2,000 years.

And lest we get stuck in man’s tradition, we must understand that as the Spirit guides the Church to maturity, our worship should move from glory to greater glory, and our liturgy must be progressively purified, refined like gold, and brought closer and closer to that which we will be doing for eternity in the presence of Christ. This maturation has been taking place throughout the last 2,000 years, and we should expect to see it continue. God’s Spirit is not done with the Church.

A Revelation-informed Order of Worship

I’m laying out the structure of the Book of Revelation as part of my study of liturgy. This is just the structure from my initial observations. I need to compare notes with commentaries particularly in chapters 5-18 to see how these sections have been read historically. I also need to develop the implications such a structure has for Christian worship. Comments are welcome.

Chapter 1:1-3
Introduction and Authorship

1:4-8
Salutation and doxology

1:10-19
The liturgical setting. “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.” Meeting with God. Note John meets an angel (messenger) first.

Chapter 2-3
To the seven churches, a call to repentance.

Chapter 4
Ascension. Having dealt with sin, the door is opened, and John is caught up to the throne room of God. Creatures of heaven say sanctus. “Holy, Holy, Holy . . . .” The elders reply, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God . . . for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” It’s a hymn celebrating God’s work as creator.

Chapter 5-18
The Word of the Lord. These chapters recount the entire history of redemption, from the sealing of the elect (Chapter 7), to the fall of the false Bride (Chapter 18).

Chapter 19:1-10
The fall of the Harlot is cause for rejoicing because it results in the exaltation of the true Bride, Christ’s Church. The multitude sings “Hallelujah” because salvation is complete. The Bride is revealed and she adorns herself for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

19:11-21; 20:1-5
The commission of the Church for the rest of history.

Chapter 20:6-14; Chapter 21-22
The eschatological hope of Christ’s return in glory.