Principles
of Biblical Worship Rev. 4:9
Some may not be aware of the fact that we are living in a time when for
the past 20-25 years the whole concept of worship as it has been taught in many
seminaries and proclaimed in many churches, as it has been understood by
numerous people, has gone through a radical change. It has led to church
splits, to a lot of strife and division, to a lot of changes in the basic
orientation of many churches. It is part of a whole matrix of different things
that have happened coming out of the late 1960s and early 70s in terms of
teaching on the local church. A primary motive that underlies much of this had
to do with growth and to somehow trying to make the Bible “more relevant” as if
sound doctrine wasn’t relevant. Bu it is not that the Bible isn’t relevant to
you, it is because you are a fallen, sinful, totally depraved creature and you
are not relevant to God. It is the creature that needs to be conformed to God
and not the church conform to the creature. There are numerous other elements
that affect all of this thinking about worship and it has changed the whole
concept of church music, and many of these things have created some radical
divisions. There is a battle today between what is very mistakenly identified
as traditional worship versus contemporary worship. And there are some problems
with that, firstly because of the way “worship” is used. Worship today does not
refer to what we are doing right now, i.e. committing ourselves to the teaching
of the Word of God, worship is being used as a synonym for singing, and not
just singing hymns to God but singing contemporary praise choruses to God.
Another term for this has come under the phrase “praise and worship.” So there
has been a change from what has been a traditional orientation for hundreds of
years in local churches. It is understood that historically there is a spectrum
in terms of worship. There is high church worship that becomes so ritualized in
liturgy that there is no longer teaching and instruction and completely loses
its meaning or its significance to modern man because not teaching, no
communication of what it is all about. Historically the church has looked at
certain basic forms of worship as being biblical and that which puts the focus
on God, and it theocentric rather than anthropocentric. But what has happened
in the last 20-30 years is that worship has not only become anthropocentric, it
has become self-oriented, it has become experientially based, and experience
and emotion become the criterion for the reality of the worship. Just within
the last couple of years solid Bible-teaching churches have had administrative
shifts, pastoral changes, and have had brought in new pastors who have brought
these in, and it is always a gradual process.
In Revelation 4:9-11 we see the focus of the worship of these who are in
heaven surrounding the throne of God. There are three groups: the living
beings, the angels, and the twenty-four elders who are the resurrected church
age believers.
Revelation 4:9 NASB “And when [whenever] the living creatures
give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives
forever and ever...” The “whenever” is an important word, it indicates that
this is not something that they did all the time, it was something that they
did at certain times in heaven. There was a designated time in heaven where
there was a convocation of creatures before the throne of God for specific
purpose, and during that time there would be this worship. The living creatures
are those angels associated with the holiness and righteousness of God and
always viewed in the Scriptures as being the closest to the throne of God. So
these are the ones who are instigating the worship and then there are others
who are participants. We something of what worship is in this verse. In one
sense it is a good summary of what worship is, it is giving glory and honor and
thanks to God. That is one aspect of worship, it is theocentric. The focal point
is not on what we are or what we are doing but upon God and what he has done,
His person and His work. The 24 elders are the representatives in their
priest-king function in the post-judgment seat of Christ period.
Revelation
The living creatures were the ones who said in v. 8, “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY {is} THE LORD GOD, THE
ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME.” These 24 elders are the
ones who said: Revelation 4:11 NASB “Worthy are You, our Lord and
our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and
because of Your will they existed, and were created.” There is an antiphonal
thing going on here. The living beings say one thing and the 24 elders say
something else. Remember, the focus was glory and honor and thanks from the
living creatures, here is it glory and honor and power attributed to the Lord.
Why? This is a basis for worship. First of all, You are worthy because you
created all things. There is an emphasis on the creator-creature distinction.
Because God is the creator of all things He is in His being worthy to be
honoured and glorified. That brings us to a pause in the action, but although
there is a chapter break here there should not be one because it all flows
together in one scene.
But what we are focusing on here is the worship, for that is the word
that is used in
A number of years ago Donald Grey Barnhouse, a famous Bible teacher, was
travelling in
So today we live in a generation of so-called Christianity where the
historic, biblical patterns of worship that were hammered out by great Bible
students over the centuries has been denigrated as just dead tradition with no
spiritual value, and these are being replaced by forms of worship that are
influenced by what is popular in the market place of the unbeliever in order to
make the unbeliever feel comfortable when he comes to church. There is a deep
connection between the rise of contemporary Christian music and contemporary
Christian worship to the whole church growth movement. All of these things are
interconnected historically because the goal is to have music that doesn’t turn
off the unbeliever. Hmm!
There are two primary words that are used in the Old Testament, two
primary words that are used in the New Testament, and they are very similar to
one another in their meaning. There are some secondary words that are termed
worship here and there but these are the two main words. The first Hebrew word
that is translated “worship” is the word abab,
the word for work, the basic word for labor. Forms of this word refer to
servants. It refers to a slave in some forms of the word and is translated
“worship” is the sense of serving God. This is how it is used in Deuteronomy
6:13 NASB “You shall fear {only} the LORD your God; and you shall
worship [serve] Him and swear by His name.” Note the connection between these
two concepts: fearing the Lord and serving Him. Serving God is an outgrowth of
fearing Him. What does it mean to fear God? Fearing God is much more than
having respect for God. It is a recognition of the consequences of all the
things that can happen to you as a result of disobedience. So there is an
element of real fear and dread in the fear of the Lord. So there is a
connection here between fearing the Lord your God and serving Him. It is a fear
that is motivated by a recognition of His authority and the consequences of
disobedience. It the idea of personal service to God as a form of worship.
The second word used in the Old testament for worship is the Hebrew word
shachah, which means to fall
prostrate or to be despondent. It is something that would take place when an
inferior was before a superior and would fall down upon his face. The idea of
being despondent is one that is related to that concept of fear. There is that
concept here that going into the presence of one who has authority is not one
that is taken lightly, not something that is treated casually. The word shachah is used three times in Genesis
where they give us interesting insight into the meaning of the word. The first
time we see it is in Genesis 22:5, which is the final test that God gave
Abraham when He called upon Abraham to bring Isaac his only son to
The next time we have the word “worship” mentioned is in Genesis 24:26,
48 where Abraham is sending his servant to go find a bride for Isaac. On his
way to
When we come into the New Testament we have the word PROSKUNEO [proskunew]. This is the
rough equivalent to shachah, it means
to kiss, to adore, to throw a kiss in respect of someone, to worship or to
prostrate one’s self before a superior. One dictionary gives an interesting
illustration. He says: “The ancient oriental, especially the Persian, mode of
salutation between persons of equal rank was to kiss each other on the lips.
When the difference in the rank was slight they kissed each other on the cheek.
When one was much inferior he fell upon his knees and touched his forehead to
the ground or prostrating himself, throwing kisses at the same time toward the
superior. It is this latter mode of salutation that Greek writers expressed by
the verb PROSKUNEO.” In the New Testament it means generally to be reverent or to do homage
to someone, usually by kneeling or prostrating one’s self before him. In the
LXX it means to bow down, to prostrate one’s self in reverence and homage. So
what we have here is a parallel to shachah
and it has that idea of being completely obedient or submissive to authority.
It is a recognition of our complete subservience as creatures to the authority
and direction of the will of God.
The first place it is used in the New Testament is Matthew 2:2 NASB
“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the
east and have come to worship Him.” What did they do when they came to worship
Him? Matthew
The fourth word that is used in the Scriptures for worship is LATREIA [latreia] which, like abab in the Old Testament, focuses on
serving God, to place ourselves under His authority. This is the word that is
used in Romans 12:1 NASB “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the
mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable
to God, {which is} your spiritual service of worship.”
The basic concept of worship is to submit or subordinate our opinions,
preferences, thoughts, philosophy of life, finances, politics, emotions,
relationships, attitudes, actions, time, and priorities to the authority of
God’s Word. That is why when we have corporate worship the focal point is the
Word of God because the Word of God is that which teaches us how to think as
God thinks what those priorities are, what those viewpoints are to be, what our
preferences are to be, what our opinions should be, how we can tell truth from
error. And it is the Word of God that is that which God uses to conform us to
the thinking and the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the highest form of
worship is to come and study the Word of God and to learn the Word of God,
because as Jesus prayed to the Father the night before he went to the cross:
“Father, sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.” It is the Word of
God, the truth, that is the means of our sanctification.