And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying, "Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen." Revelation 7: 11,12
One of the great problems facing the Church in our generation is the need to reform our public worship until it conforms more closely to biblical revelation and instruction. As with all sanctification, the Church needs to "put off" and "put on". There are plenty of accretions which must be discarded because they do not conform with Scriptural teaching. But much has been lost from the Scriptures with respect to worship which must be recovered. This is no idle matter for public worship is the most important activity and duty of the Church.
In Revelation 7: 11,12 we have an picture of the Church in worship. This is worship in the heavenly throne room--but, lest any think that because it is the heavenly church's liturgical practice which is here described it does not concern us who are yet serving upon the earth, let us remember that when we gather for worship here upon earth, in actuality we are taken up to the heavenly congregation. We participate in their worship; they do not participate in ours.
As it says in Hebrews 12: 22f we actually come to "Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant . . . ." The contrast with Mount Sinai could not be more sharp. When Israel fled Egypt then gathered to the mountain to worship, God came down to them. Now, we go up to God, because our Head has already gone up, ascended to God and He dwells there now. He is our mediator and High Priest. Therefore, when we worship we must first have Him standing at our head before God, even as the ancient Levitical high priest stood before the people at the entrance of the Holy of holies--which means that we must ascend to Him.
Now if any would demur, pointing out that our Lord said that when even two or three are gathered together in His Name, He would be in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20) they would be right. But why does our Lord come into our midst? What does He do? He comes to us, as the risen and ascended One, to lift us up that we might be where He is, in heaven (John 14: 2-3). His Spirit lifts us up into the heavenlies, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. He brings us into the presence of God the Father. (Note that the "coming again" that Jesus refers to repeatedly in His final discourse to the apostles before His passion in John chapters 14 through 16 is not a reference to His final Advent, as many assume, but to the coming of His Spirit at Pentecost, as the context clearly shows. The Spirit comes to raise us up to the Father. In the Spirit Christ comes to us to lift us up to be with Christ in the Father's house.) That is why Paul commands us to set our hearts and minds on the things above. "If you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things which are on earth." (Colossians 3: 1,2) Public worship, by taking us up into heaven to participate in the heavenly worship, helps us set our minds "on the things above".
Herein lies one of the great divergences and differences between the Old Covenant and the New. In the Old Covenant the Church worshipped upon the earth, looking for God to come down and establish His Name somewhere, at a certain place. Israel had to repair there to appear before God. Now, in the New Covenant God has been able to establish His Name and place of worship in the heavens where He dwells, since the Redeemer has risen, ascended, and taken us all captive as His people into God's presence. We are now holy enough to be there; we are welcomed with great joy because we are clothed with the Lamb's righteousness.
This could not be done before under the Old Covenant, not just because atonement for sin had not yet been made, but because no perfect atoning Man as High Priest had been able to ascend into God's presence to represent us, intercede for us, and gather us together into the very presence of God and present us there to God, perfect and holy.
Our worship upon earth now needs to be set in the light of our appearance thereby in heaven. Naturally, what we do here upon earth in public worship must be evocative of and patterned after the heavenly liturgy. We participate in their liturgy and worship, not the reverse. In this regard, David Chilton's words are salutary in his exposition of Revelation 7: 11,12:
As in many other Biblical descriptions of worship. the position of the worshipers (in heaven) is noted here: They fell on their faces before the Throne. Official, public worship in Scripture never shows the participants sitting at prayer; public prayer is always performed in the reverential positions of standing or bowing down. The modern, nominalistic platonist, thinking himself to be fore spiritually-minded than Biblical characters (even angels!), would respond that the bodily position (in worship) is irrelevant, so long as the proper attitude is filling the heart. But this overlooks the fact that Scripture connects the attitude of the heart with the attitude of the body. In public worship, at the very least, our churches should follow the Biblical pattern of physical reverence in prayer.
When rationalistic Protestants abandoned the use of the kneeling rail in worship, the contributed to the outbreaks of individualistic pietism that have brought to much ruin to the Church. Man needs liturgy and symbolism. God created us that way. When the Church denies man this aspect of his God-given nature, he will seek to fulfill it by inadequate or sinful substitutes.
A return to Biblically based liturgy is not a cure-all; but it will prove to be a corrective to the shallow, frenetic, and misplaced "spirituality" that has been the legacy of centuries of liturgical poverty. David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Fort Worth, Tx: Dominion Press, 1987), p.219
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