Biblical
Worship: Fact or Feeling; Rev. 5:11
Worship isn’t a simple doctrine because worship assumes conclusions from
various areas of theology. For example, it assumes certain things about the
nature and character of God and that is the area of theology proper. It assumes
certain things about the nature of the person and work of the Lord Jesus
Christ—Christology. It assumes certain things about the role of the Holy Spirit
in this age—pneumatology. It assumes certain things about the nature of man in
terms of whether he is totally depraved or not, whether he is constitutionally
spiritually dead or whether he is just spiritually weak. And this affects your
reasons for why music has developed the way it has, because in the modern
evangelical church we too often have an anaemic view of man, an anaemic view of
God, and an anaemic view of the cross. All of this affects what has happened in
the way church is done on Sunday morning throughout the
In terms of doctrine Christian music is a major battlefield in
Christianity today because it is through music that a lot of doctrine is
communicated or taught. More people get their doctrine from what they sing than
from what they hear from the pulpit, especially when we recognise how light the
teaching is from most pulpits. We see why the content of words in contemporary
Christian music in many songs is so light, so weak and so spiritually
superficial, because they really haven’t been taught enough of the Word to
really reflect with any kind of profound thinking on the Word. All of these
facets and aspects come together but that is all part of what goes on in
worship. So underlying this thinking about singing is the doctrine of worship.
Revelation 5:11, 12 NASB “Then I looked, and I heard the
voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders;
and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands,
The author here is alluding to the same imagery that we find in Daniel
chapter
They are singing here to the Lamb, not the one of the throne. “Worthy is
the Lamb that was slain to receive,” and there is an article here in the Greek
before the first noun, none of the other nouns have an article, and what this
tells us is that the writer is viewing the seven attributes as parts of one
composite whole. He is not looking at one distinct attribute but is viewing
them as all part of the one whole referring to the Lamb. “…power and riches and
wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” It says that He is worthy
to receive these, it is not that He is receiving them at this time for the
second person of the Trinity has always possessed these, it is here that He is
receiving adoration and worship for His possession of these qualities. Why does
John add the conjunction “and” between every noun? Because by adding the “and” it
forces us to slow down and to think about each of these attributes. That is
part of what we should be doing when we sing hymns: thinking about the words.
Words are written in order to guide and direct our thinking towards the person
and the work of God the Father or the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The first of these is the word dunamis
[dunamij] which refers to ability, power, might, and is a reference to the
omnipotence of God, the ability to do exactly what He would like to do. It is
similar to the fourth attribute mentioned here, might or strength, the Greek
word ischus [i)sxuj]; the difference
is that dunamis addresses Christ’s
inherent power, His inherent omnipotence, as part of His attributes; ischus focuses on the use of His
omnipotence. We find these words in conjunction with several of these other
attributes that we find here in Revelation 5:12 in the LXX translation of 1 Chronicles
29:11, 12 which is addressed to Yahweh:
NASB “Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the
victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the
earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all.
The second word “riches” is the Greek word ploutos [ploutoj]. It means richness or
wealth, the abundance of good. When this is applied to the Lord Jesus Christ it
includes not only spiritual wealth but all wealth as befitting a sufficient
God, that His riches are in such expanse that there is enough for all for any
and every situation and circumstance. It relates to God’s power, that it is so
vast and extensive that there is no problem of difficulty that we face in life
that is too great for the power of God. He is rich in His provision of grace.
Paul wrote in Philippians 4:19 NASB “And my God will supply all your
needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” It is that sufficiency
of God’s power and provision that supplies us in every situation.
Third, He is wise; He possesses wisdom. This is the Greek word sophia [
Fourth, we have “strength,” ischus,
which relates to the application of omnipotence; that He has the ability to apply
His power and we can’t divorce that from either a sufficient way in terms of
riches or in a skilful or wise way in terms of sophia.
Then the fifth is time [timh] which is the
Greek word for honour or respect. This is a vital part of worship. Once of the
facets of worship in the Old Testament is the fear of the Lord. The fear of the
Lord is not just having a simple respect for God but it is an awe-inspired
respect for God, a recognition that failure to apply God’s Word results in
horrendous consequences of divine discipline and negative circumstances. So
there is a sense in which we have a very serious fear about God and the
obedience to His Word. That is also an aspect of worship in the Old Testament,
that we fear the Lord, we have great respect for Him.
The sixth attribute is glory. Timh, when it is used in
conjunction with doxa [doca] in the Scriptures
is a part of that doxa, the honour
that we have for Him is part of Hid glory. doxa
refers to His divine and heavenly radiance. It is related to the Old Testament
word which means to be weighty or heavy. The idea is that God ism weighty, that
this is serious matter which is profound material, that the person of God is
not to be taken lightly but that the study of God’s Word is the weightiest of
all things. So the word for glory has at its core a semantic meaning, the idea
of being very serious, very heavy, that this reflects His splendour, His
majesty and His authority. It is all part of the fact that He is unique as the
creator God of the universe.
The seventh and last attribute mentioned that is related to the Lord
Jesus Christ is blessing, eulogia
[e)ulogia]. This is where we get our English word “eulogy” which is not the same
thing and has come to mean something quite different from its Greek root. It has
to do with a commendation of blessing. We think of a eulogy as something that
is said at a funeral or memorial service where we talk about the good things
that a person has done in their life, and that has some etymological
relationship but in Scripture eulogia
has to do with a commendation, a blessing, and is often used for praise. We are
not blessing Jesus, we are praising Him, and this would be a better
translation.
He is worthy because of who he is as the eternal second person of the
Trinity and He is worthy because of what He did as the Lamb. When we see this
term Lamb, which is John’s favourite term for referring to the Lord Jesus
Christ in the book of Revelation it always speaks of His sacrificial work on
the cross. When we read an emphasis on the Lamb what is always part of that
meaning is that He is the one who is the sacrifice for our sins. The basic
problem that man has is sin: man is born spiritually dead, he is separated from
God. God is the one who created man and only when man is in right relationship
with God can man have real happiness, when he understands the real meaning and
purpose of his life, and that begins only if there is new life in place of
spiritual death. The term the Bible uses to refer to that is regeneration, and
that takes place when a person puts their faith in Jesus Christ. Because He is
the Lamb who was slain he is worthy to be adored, to be worshipped, to be
honoured because of who He is as summarised in these seven attributes. So as we
see in the imagery of Revelation chapter five, John, standing there in the
future [future to us] sees exactly what will take place at this point of time
just prior to the beginning of the Tribulation.
It is at the point where the Lamb takes the scroll that those who
surround the throne break forth singing praise to the Lamb for what He has
done. All of the angels join in and begin to sing, verse 12, “Worthy is the
Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor
and glory and blessing.” Then in verse 13 every created thing in heaven and on
the earth and under the earth and in the sea, “I heard saying, ‘To Him who sits
on the throne, and to the Lamb, {be} blessing and honor and glory and dominion
forever and ever.’”
There are a couple of things we should note about this verse. First, the
timing. It is before the opening of the first seal when there are still mostly
unbelievers on the earth. When we see “on the earth and under the earth and in
the sea” it is not talking about fallen man or fallen angels or any of the
creatures who have rejected Christ. This is known as a figure of speech called
a merism, a term that uses two
extremes in order to talk about the whole or the entirety of something. For
example, Psalm one talks about meditating on the Law of the Lord “day and
night.” The two opposites, day and night, indicate extremities and it is
talking about the fact that man should continuously be thinking within the
framework of divine viewpoint and what the Word of God teaches. So when there
is a statement like this the writer is emphasising that this involves all of
the holy angels, the elect angels, all of the Old Testament saints who haven’t
received resurrected bodies yet, and all of the raptured and rewarded church
age believers. So this is a chorus including all of God’s creatures, those who
are in obedience to Him, men and angels. They sing to Him sho sits on the
throne, the title for the Father. Only in Revelation is the Father on the
throne; the Son is never on the throne. It is the Father’s throne and the Son
doesn’t receive His throne until the second coming when he receives the throne
of David.
The word “dominion” here is a reference to what will come about as a
result of opening the scrolls. The Son will come to establish His kingdom on
the earth and that will culminate after the thousand-year rule and reign in the
new heavens and the new earth when the Father, Son and Holy Spirit take up
their domain upon the earth and sin is no more. So it anticipates what God will
do.
Revelation
Part of the problem that we all run into as believers is that when we
first become saved we have loaded up in our minds all kinds of ideas. Some of
these ideas are consistent with Scripture, perhaps; some may be far away from
Scripture. The Bible says a whole lot of things that we were taught were kind
of screwy, and some are hard for us to understand and hard to swallow. They are
not comfortable because of whatever our background or training was, and the
whole process that we need to understand for the spiritual life is the process
of learning to exchange the human viewpoint concepts that we developed before
we were saved, and sometimes after we were saved, for those which the Bible
says in His Word. Sometimes we won’t understand these things the first time we
hear them, it is a process of growth. Ultimate where the personal worship
begins is in that process of being willing to submit our thinking to the
thinking of God. It is because God said it that it is true. We might not always
understand it or comprehend the whys and the wherefores, the mechanics and
complexities of it, but we know that if it is in the Word of God, that God has
said it and therefore it is true, even though our finite little minds may not
be able to pull it all together yet. Furthermore, no matter who we are we have
all been culturally conditioned in certain ways and so there are always things
that come out of our own world context that are comfortable to us and things in
the Word of God that may not really seem all that comfortable to us, but that
is part of the process of growing. This is what we have to understand when we
get into the doctrine of worship.
The churches involved in contemporary worship seem to be growing. They
have a lot more young people there and they are growing. What’s wrong with
numbers? What’s wrong with influencing a lot of people? The young people are comfortable,
they really like it. What could be wrong with results? That’s pragmatism;
that’s worldliness. The end doesn’t justify the means. The issue is what
conforms to biblical truth and what kind of singing or worship best fits with
the expositional teaching of God’s Word.
Words for understanding the basic meaning of worship:
1. The Hebrew word abad, the basic word that generally
means to work, to be worked or to serve, to be in servitude. It is basically a
word that has to do with doing something. Deuteronomy 6:13. It has to do with
what we call Christian service, serving the Lord.
2. The word shachah means to fall prostrate,
sometimes to be despondent. It has the idea of subordinating one’s self to
someone in authority. Genesis 22:5, the idea of subordination, and 24:26 the
idea of gratitude. In 24:48 it has the idea of praise.
3. The Greek has proskuneo, the idea of respect for
authority; secondly, latreia,
which has the idea of what we find in Romans 12:1 of serving God.
Worship is to submit or subordinate my opinions, preferences, thoughts,
philosophy of life, finances, politics, emotions, relationships, attitudes,
actions, time, priorities to the authority of God’s Word. Everything that we do
and are has to com into submission to what God has said in His Word. This means
that we have to teach the whole counsel of God. God’s Word doesn’t just address
how you can get saved or how you can get eternal life, and how you can pray or
how you can have a spiritual life, and how you can solve the problems in your life.
That is part of it, but the Bible addresses the entirety of God’s creation,
giving us a framework whereby can then interact with the world, the creation as
God has made it, and develop our thinking in all of these areas within a
biblical or divine viewpoint framework. That is part of making our life a life
of worship to God. But that is personal worship, and we also recognise the
aspects of corporate worship.