In our Sunday School class for several weeks this winter, we explored the nature and attributes of God as found in the Scriptures. Our discussions were fascinating and often sobering as we considered the magnitude of the God that Christians purport to love and serve. I chose the term “purport” deliberately, because I have come to believe that through the years, and especially in the last fifty or so, Christian churches have gradually lost sight of the reality of God. We live in a casual society, today, and our religion has become equally casual to our detriment and to the detriment of the Kingdom of God.
When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and towards the Promised Land, God used the journey to deliver to them a detailed set of laws by which they were to live. Included among them were the Ten Commandments which form the basis of morality in western society. He also gave Moses intricate instructions for the building of a Tabernacle in which they would worship Him and offer sacrifices to Him. The instructions included the types of sacrifices to be made, how they were to be made, and what clothing was to be worn by the priests who offered the sacrifices. The Tabernacle, which was replaced in the Promised Land with a permanent Temple, was elaborate as was the clothing of the priests. Only certain priests entered certain areas of the Tabernacle/Temple and only when God had ordained that they should do so. God’s presence among His people was in the Holy of Holies. It was sacred ground that only the High Priest could humbly enter.
When Jesus died on the cross at Calvary, the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple was miraculously torn in two from top to bottom, symbolizing that from then on everyone who accepted Jesus’ sacrifice for their sins and became a child of God would now have access to God, Himself. No longer would they need to go through a High Priest. Protestant Christians especially have taken this to heart, remembering also that Jesus taught His disciples to pray “Our Father, who art in heaven.” Before this, people generally did not refer to God in such an intimate way, especially in prayer. Though they recognized God as the Father of Israel, they generally referred to Him reverently as Yahweh (YHWH). Even today, Jews are reluctant to write the word “God” and will instead write G-d, in order to avoid any chance of erasing or defacing the name of God. The Torah, or as we call it, the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 12:4 prohibits erasing, destroying or desecrating the name of God and religious Jews take this command very seriously.
Now, we Christians understand that our relationship to God has most certainly changed since Calvary. We are not simply God’s people as were the Israelites, but God’s children, “and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,” as Paul explains in Romans 8:17. But have we perhaps forgotten that one of the Ten Commandments also reads “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Exodus 20:12)? And have we arrogantly assumed that every commandment and Word of God uttered before Christ’s death and resurrection has now suddenly become null and void? Do we no longer recognize that God is God, Holy, Divine, far above humanity in ever y way? Do we truly honor God as we should?
In his article “From Hero’s Journey to Zero’s Journey” Lincoln Brown writes the following:
“Some years ago, pastor Andy Stanley announced his intention to unhitch the New Testament from the Old. The God of the first half of the Bible was not suitable for a day and age in which numbers and giving units matter, even under the auspices of inclusion. I vividly remember a conversation with an evangelical preacher in which I brought up the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel. He bellowed at me, “THIS IS A NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH!” That ended the discussion.
The New Testament is exponentially more palatable than the Old. Preachers and pastors in many churches have embraced the idea that congregations prefer to sit through what amounts to an Amway pitch or TED Talk, bookended by loud or syrupy worship music, designed to trigger a case of the spiritual feels. There is no requirement that one undertake labor for one’s community or even oneself. Heroes are no longer welcome. Zeroes are preferred. Zeroes, after all, are easy to mollify and manipulate.”
And thus, for many, church becomes a feel-good Sunday morning decompression after a busy week and little more. Is there real worship there? Is there real honor of God there? Do we sense that we are in the presence of the Almighty Jehovah, Creator of the Universe there? Have we any real idea of who it is we serve or why we are there? Where, exactly, in some churches, is there, to start with?
Sadly, a trend has developed in the last decade or so to become frugal beyond measure in the construction of church buildings and so many a new edifice has been constructed with a large, multipurpose room which serves as the eating hall for church socials (bring out the table and chairs), recreation room for the youth group ( lower the basketball goals), and Sunday morning sanctuary (bring out the padded chairs and sound equipment). And indeed, this is a great savings of money for the church as far as building costs go. But shouldn’t the place where we go as a group of believers to worship God together be treated as a holy place?
I once caught a couple of young people flying a paper airplane across the sanctuary at the end of the service as people were milling about, talking. I confiscated the airplane and gave my teacher lecture about paper airplanes and how God’s house was not the place to fly one. When I related this to another pastor’s wife, she laughed and said she always cautioned children not to run in the sanctuary because there was too much danger of them bumping into older parishioners and perhaps knocking them down. True. But that should not have been the reason for not running. The reason given to the children should have been that the sanctuary is where we meet to worship God and therefore it should be treated with reverence and orderly behavior.
Oh, but it is just a room, you say. It is not like God is there any more than He is anyplace else. After all, doesn’t Jesus say in Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them”? And, yes, that is true. We can gather anywhere and worship God. Yet the designated place where God’s people go to worship Him together regularly has always been called “the House of the Lord.”
In 2 Chronicles 3 it reads, “Now Solomon began to build the House of the Lord at Jerusalem. . .” and in Psallm 122:1 King David writes “I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the house of the LORD.” And then let us remember Jesus’ words to the merchants at the Temple in Jerusalem when he told them ““It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”(Matthew 21:13) Might He not be saying to us, “My House shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a restaurant and a gymnasium!”?
And Peter writes to Timothy in his first letter a list of instructions about the behavior of church leaders ending his advice with these words “These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly; but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and [h]ground of the truth.”
“How you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God.”
When access to the Holy of Holies was given to all upon the death of Jesus, that did NOT wipe away the sanctity of the Temple of God! When we became children of God, it did NOT remove the honor and devotion and obedience that we owe to God! Remember that even Jesus bows to God’s will!
Jonathan Black wrote, “While many first century assemblies met in houses, the sphere of the home and the sphere of the assembly were kept distinct. We too must guard the holiness God assigns to the local assembly, keeping it distinct from the sphere of the home, especially in a world of Zoom where the distinction may be blurred and the uniqueness of Christ in our midst be lost.” (Peculiarpilgrim.com)
We have heard over and over that God is a God of love, but He is also a God of Justice. We have spent, perhaps, too many years singing, “What a Friend we have in Jesus,” and not remembering that Jesus is above all the Son of God and our Lord and Master to whom we owe reverence and love and obedience.
In our study of the nature of God, we learned that God is Self-existent, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient/wise, Eternal, Unchangeable, Infinite, Sovereign, Holy, Spiritual, Personal (feels emotions), Triune (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit), Truth, Incomprehensible, Self-sufficient, Righteous, Just. Because He feels emotions, He is the God of love, and this is the message that the Church has focused on for the last few decades perhaps to its detriment. Yes, God is a God of love. But flashing messages such as “God loves you” and “God forgives you” perhaps leads people to forget that God is not a sugar daddy dispensing goodies to all and sundry at their request. He is above all a God of justice, a God of righteousness who cannot abide sin. And only those who repent of their sins and seek forgiveness through the blood and sacrifice of Jesus Christ will be saved from the ultimate price of sin: eternal death and damnation. Yet, how many pastors preach about heaven and hell these days? How many give altar calls? How many even know what an altar call is?
Instead, we dress in our finery for our daughter’s wedding on Saturday afternoon, and then, if we haven’t exhausted ourselves by staying too long at the reception Saturday night, we don our jeans and sweatshirt and trundle off to the church’s all purpose room (after all, God doesn’t care what we wear. He looks on the inner man, right? Not the outer man?) to sit in the recently added padded seats and listen to the TED Talk sermon about being kind to others, sing along to a rousing upbeat song or two by the praise band, and bow our heads for the closing prayer. Then we hasten off to beat the crowds to our favorite restaurant for lunch before heading home for a day of rest or maybe some shopping at the mall. It’s all very casual, you see. Casual Christianity. God understands. It’s just the way it is these days.