What Is Worship?

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“We visited the Lutheran church on the other side of town last Sunday. I didn’t recognize anything in the service.” Has this ever happened to you? How about this: “I can’t relate to the music we sang in that church’s service. It seems so outdated.”

In one sense, these are real concerns expressed by Lutheran Christians who faithfully attend worship every week. The intent here is not to oversimplify, but there are essentially these two concerns. When a Lutheran Christian has grown up nurtured by what I will call hymnal liturgy, anything else seems odd, unusual, foreign.[1] When a Lutheran Christian has not grown up nurtured in this same way, then it is the hymnal liturgy itself that seems odd, unusual, foreign. Both of these are real, equally legitimate concerns expressed by God’s people in the church. Neither of these concerns should be simply dismissed or pitted against each other. On the other hand, according to the Lutheran point of view, these are not the most important things.

The Most Important Things

Regarding worship, what matters most according to the Lutheran point of view are the Gospel preached in its truth and purity and the sacraments given according to Scripture. The Apostle Paul put it this way when he wrote to the Christians of Corinth, emphasizing the primary importance of the Gospel:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures . . . . (1 Corinthians 15:1–4)

According to the Apostle Paul, what is “of first importance” is the Gospel he had received from the risen Christ. Paul articulated this Gospel in the simplest of terms “in accordance with the Scriptures”—the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for us and for our salvation.

The Apostle also wrote to the Corinthians with reference to the sacraments (here referred to as “mysteries”): “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” (1 Corinthians 4:1) Stewards are given to make use of things that do not belong to them, to use these things in the way that the Owner has given them to be used. In another place in 1 Corinthians, Paul makes it clear that Christ is the Owner, or Giver, of the Sacrament:

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11:23–26)

The One who gives the gift desires that his gift be used in the way that he gives it. Anything else and it becomes something other than what he has given. This is why Paul wrote to the Corinthians that they had so abused their use of the Sacrament that it was “not the Lord’s Supper that you eat.” (1 Corinthians 11:20) This is also why the Apostle repeats verbatim the words of the Lord just as he received them from the Lord — “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you . . . .” This is what the steward of God’s mysteries is called to do, to give the gifts of God to the people of God as God himself has given them. These two things (the Gospel and the sacraments), and these only, are what matter most according to Scripture, and the Lutheran point of view always strives to be faithful here.

In the sixteenth century the reformers defined the church in precisely these terms. Article VII of the Augsburg Confession puts it this way:

It is also taught among us that one holy Christian church will be and remain forever. This is the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel. For it is sufficient for the true unity of the Christian church that the Gospel be preached in conformity with a pure understanding of it and that the sacraments be administered in accordance with the divine Word. It is not necessary for the true unity of the Christian church that the ceremonies, instituted by men, should be observed uniformly in all places. It is as Paul says in Eph. 4:4–5, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” (Augsburg Confession VII)

So we have these two aspects of our worship taking place at the same time—the preaching of the Gospel and the giving of the sacraments (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper) on the one hand, and ceremonies instituted by men on the other hand. The only part of this that is necessary for the true identity of the Christian church, however, is the purity of the Gospel and the sacraments given in accordance with the Word of God. What is not necessary for the true identity of the church is uniformity of ceremonies that have been instituted by men. According to Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions we may say that the church is defined sacramentally according to the Gospel.

What is the purity of the Gospel? The Gospel is this and only this, that our merciful God gave his Son to be born as a human being, to be crucified on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin. The Gospel is that Jesus suffered, shed his blood for us, and died on the cross, to redeem us lost and condemned creatures, and that in the flesh he rose alive from the grave on the third day to give us the promise and hope of the resurrection to eternal life.

We all know the passage from the New Testament where John (3:16–17) records that Jesus had a conversation with Nicodemus. Jesus told this searching Pharisee: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” This is the Gospel: God loves us, and it is because he loves us that he gives himself to us. When it comes to the Gospel, God is the one who does what needs to be done. And he does it for us, for our salvation.

The Gospel is not me adding anything to what God did for us in Jesus Christ. The Gospel does not include me “accepting” what God did for us in Jesus Christ. The Gospel does not include me “adoring” God for what he did for us in Jesus Christ. And it does not include me “announcing” that “God alone is worthy of my praise” for what he did for us in Jesus Christ. The Gospel includes none of this. If anything, this is our response of faith to the Gospel. But it is not itself the Gospel.

The Gospel is this and only this, that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19), period. The Apostle Paul put it this way in his Letter to the Ephesians (2:1–10):

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

“. . . even when we were dead . . . .” The Apostle refers to being “dead” twice. Do you see? A corpse cannot resuscitate itself. Not only is it true that we do not contribute to our salvation by participating in the Gospel. But God’s Spirit through the holy Scriptures makes it absolutely clear that we cannot contribute to our salvation by our participation in the Gospel. The Lord told his disciples: “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” (John 15:16) This is why Paul refers to salvation as God’s work of grace, and not in any way our work of fulfilling any requirement of the Law. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans: “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” (Romans 11:6)

There is nothing, in any way, shape, or form, that this once dead, sinful bag of worms can add to what God did for us in Jesus Christ. The Prophet Isaiah’s statement, “. . . all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isaiah 64:6), is a graphic illustration of this. There is not one thing in, with, or by my person—whether thoughts, words, or deeds—that I can use even to insinuate a contribution to my salvation. I am only an unworthy recipient of this gift, this precious, costly, priceless treasure of the new life God gives me in his dearly loved Son. This is the purity of the Gospel.

What does it mean that the sacraments are to be given in accordance with God’s Word? Is this an implied reference to “the liturgy that the Lutheran Confessions assume,” as some have said? Or they refer to “the meaning and the intention of the Lutheran Confessions’ comments about worship,” with the preconceived conclusion that the Confessions are referring to a specific liturgical form. Here I would simply ask of those who say this, which liturgy is that? Would it be Luther’s Latin Mass (1523) or Luther’s German Mass (1526)? They are both very different, and they were both in existence already before the Augsburg Confession (1530) was composed.

So we need to be clear; when Augsburg Confession Article VII states that the sacraments are to be given in accordance with God’s Word, does this refer to historic traditional forms of the church’s liturgy? Some have indeed said this (and continue to say this). What does this mean? If this is not an implied reference to “the liturgy that the Lutheran Confessions assume,” then what does it refer to?

The entire context of the Book of Concord (which includes all the Lutheran Confessions), along with several historic documents leading up to the composition of the Augsburg Confession, are most helpful here.[2] These documents demonstrate precisely what the reformers meant when they referred to the sacraments being given in accordance with God’s Word. That is, they show how the reformers confessed that Baptism is God’s work of grace, and how Baptism cleanses the person from sin and gives the promise of eternal life, as opposed to the understanding that Baptism is a work that we do or that Baptism is evidence that we have “asked Jesus into our hearts.”

These documents also show how the reformers confessed that in the Lord’s Supper the true body and blood of Christ are given for the forgiveness of sins; that it is not just symbolic, but is true presence of Christ’s body and blood. There is no reference in any of these texts that makes a connection between sacraments given in accordance with God’s Word on the one hand, and humanly instituted ceremonies in liturgy on the other hand. So the phrase in Augsburg Confession VII, “sacraments given in accordance with God’s Word,” does not refer to humanly instituted ceremonies in liturgy, and it does not refer to the liturgy that the Lutheran Confessions assume.

In order further to clarify the relationship between sacraments and ceremonies in liturgy, it would be helpful to see just how the Lutheran Confessions define liturgy.

Liturgy in the Narrow Sense and Liturgy in the Broad Sense

In ancient times one of the terms used for worship was leitourgia. This is where the word “liturgy” comes from. In the Greco-Roman world leitourgia referred to a public service rendered by an individual on behalf of the community (infrastructure, roads, bridges, public buildings), a city official giving himself for a period of service to do the administrative work of the Greek polis, or the taxes levied on individuals to support public facilities for the common good. In the Septuagint leitourgia referred to the entire system of worship in the Jerusalem temple.[3]

Let’s look at what the Apology of the Augsburg Confession teaches about leitourgia. In the sixteenth century the Roman Catholic Church defined the Mass liturgy as a sacrifice. In other words, they viewed worship as something the priest did on behalf of the worshiping community, in order to appease God’s wrath against human sin. In the Apology’s Article XXIV on the Mass, by pointing out what leitourgia meant in the classical Greco-Roman world, Philip Melanchthon was able to clarify that the term leitourgia could not be used to defend the Roman Catholic error of the Mass as a sacrifice. The Apology reads:

This word does not properly mean a sacrifice but rather public service. Thus, it agrees quite well with our position, namely, that the one minister who consecrates gives the body and blood of the Lord to the rest of the people, just as a minister who preaches sets forth the gospel to the people, as Paul says [in 1 Cor. 4:1], ‘Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries,’ that is, of the gospel and the sacraments. (Apology XXIV.80)

The definition of “liturgy” in the Apology is consistent with the Augsburg Confession’s definition of the church. As we have already seen, Augsburg Confession VII defines the church as “the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel.” This is how the Lutheran Confessions define “liturgy” or Christian worship, the preaching of the Gospel and the giving of the sacraments to the people. The Confessions clearly distinguish between this use of the term liturgy as the Gospel and the sacraments on the one hand, and the broader use of the term liturgy which refers to ceremonies instituted by men on the other hand. Not to make this distinction creates confusion.

There is both a narrow meaning of the term liturgy and a broad meaning of the term liturgy. The Lutheran Confessions use the term liturgy in the narrow sense. The broad meaning of the term liturgy, however, is what is most commonly used today.

The narrow meaning of the term liturgy in the Lutheran Confessions simply refers to the Gospel and the sacraments. This is liturgy that belongs to God and that is given by God to the church. This is liturgy that should be received as it has been given by God, without change, liturgy in the narrow sense.

The broad meaning of the term liturgy, as it is most commonly used today, refers to all of it together, the preaching of the Gospel, the giving of the sacraments to the people, and all the rites and ceremonies instituted by men, as Augsburg Confession VII refers to them. This is liturgy in the broad sense, everything from the Trinitarian invocation to the benediction.

The failure to make this distinction between liturgy in the narrow sense and liturgy in the broad sense is, no doubt, one source of so much confusion over worship today. By not separating liturgy in the narrow sense from liturgy in the broad sense, this leads some to make the claim that liturgy in the broad sense is also given by God and that this liturgy should never be changed. But this is simply not the case.

Some today speak of a liturgy that is given by the Lord or a liturgy that belongs to the Lord. If we speak of liturgy in such a way, then this is true only if we are referring to what has been given by the Lord in the Gospel and the sacraments, liturgy in the narrow sense. Then the admonition is also true that we must not be changing what belongs to and what is given by the Lord—the Gospel preached in its purity and the sacraments given according to the Gospel. Only liturgy in this sense is liturgy that belongs to God and liturgy that is given by God. It is not ours to change this. It is ours to be stewards of what God has given.

Liturgy in the broad sense is what is given by the church and what belongs to the church. Liturgy in the broad sense is not given by God. And the argument that we must not be changing liturgy in the broad sense must be revisited.

The distinction between what is given by God (liturgy in the narrow sense) and what is given by the church (liturgy in the broad sense) is a distinction that is made in the Lutheran Confessions. This is a confessional concept that should shape our Lutheran theology of worship. According to the church’s confession, the church is not defined liturgically in the broad sense, as has been said by some. According to the church’s confession the church is defined liturgically only in the narrow sense, that is, it is defined sacramentally according to the Gospel.

Another word that was used for worship in the Lutheran Confessions is cultus. The reformers used this word, cultus, to refer to both the preaching of the Gospel and the human act of worship as a response of faith to the Gospel. In other words, sometimes they used the word cultus to refer to liturgy in the narrow sense, the preaching of the Gospel. But sometimes they used the word cultus to refer to liturgy in the broad sense, in contrast to the word leitourgia, which they used to refer to liturgy only in the narrow sense. This latter use of the word cultus in the Lutheran Confessions simply referred to the human act of worship as response of faith. At that time it did not have the specialized sense that it has today, when we use it to refer to a religious cult.

Two passages from the Apology of the Augsburg Confession will illustrate how the reformers used the word cultus. Apology XV.42 states that “the chief worship of God (cultus Dei) is to preach the gospel.” With regard to worship, the Gospel should be at the center of everything, “. . . of first importance,” as the Apostle Paul wrote. This use of cultus corresponds to liturgy in the narrow sense.

The second example is taken from Apology IV.154, where we have a description of worship as our reception of forgiveness from God. Here Melanchthon describes the experience of the woman who wet Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair:

The woman came, believing that she should seek the forgiveness of sins from Christ. This is the highest way of worshiping Christ.[4] Nothing greater could she ascribe to him. By looking for the forgiveness of sins from him, she truly acknowledged him as the Messiah. Truly to believe means to think of Christ in this way, and in this way to worship[5] and take hold of him. . . . [Christ] points to the woman and praises her reverence,[6] her anointing and crying, all of which were a sign and confession of faith that she was looking for the forgiveness of sins from Christ.[7]

This is what the reformers referred to as cultus, liturgy in the broad sense, the human act of worship as response of faith to God’s unconditional love for us, his forgiveness, in Jesus Christ.

There is yet a third term the reformers used when they referred to the worship of God’s people. That term is Gottesdienst. Literally translated Gottesdienst means “the service of God.” The reformers used this word in three different ways. They used Gottesdienst to refer simply to liturgy in the narrow sense, that is, the purity of the Gospel and the sacraments administered in accordance with God’s Word. They also used Gottesdienst to refer only to ceremonies in liturgy instituted by men, in contrast to the Gospel and the sacraments. And finally, they used Gottesdienst to refer to all of it at the same time, the Gospel and the sacraments together with all the humanly instituted ceremonies in liturgy. Each use of the word Gottesdienst in the Lutheran Confessions must be carefully understood in its own context, without confusing the uses or misconstruing the meanings. Misconstruing Gottesdienst, to mean only all the liturgy together as having been given by God (both in the narrow and the broad sense), has also contributed to much of the confusion in the conversation about worship today.

According to the Lutheran point of view on worship (based on Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions) the most important things are the Gospel in its truth and purity and the sacraments given in accordance with God’s Word. The Lutheran point of view on worship (again based on Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions) also has this twofold understanding of worship: liturgy in the narrow sense and liturgy in the broad sense. One is given by God (liturgy in the narrow sense). One is given not by God, but by the church (liturgy in the broad sense). One must never be changed (Gospel and sacraments). One may be changed (humanly instituted ceremonies).

To say that these things may be changed is not to say that they necessarily should be changed. Neither is it a reasonable position to insist that everyone must change from historic liturgical forms to contemporary forms, in order for the church to grow. The growth of the church depends primarily on what is given by God in the Gospel and the sacraments, and second on the needs of the local congregation in any given place.

Peace

James Alan Waddell

 

Notes

[1] My use of the term “hymnal liturgy” is not derogatory and is in no way to imply that the hymnal is not to be valued. On the contrary, the historic liturgical forms of the hymnal are a great treasure of the church.

[2] For access to these documents in English see Sources and Contexts of the Book of Concord, Robert Kolb and James A. Nestingen, eds. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001).

[3] The Septuagint is the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament.

[4] The Latin wording here is Hic cultus est summus cultus Christi.

[5] Here the Latin word is colere, which is a form of the Latin word cultus.

[6] Here we have cultum, yet another form of the Latin word cultus.

[7] The account cited in this passage is located at Luke 7:36-50; see also Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:1-11; John 12:1-8.

 

[This essay was excerpted from A Simplified Guide to Worshiping As Lutherans.]

 

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