Christian worship patterned after Jewish

D. Scott Meadows

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service (Rom 12.1).

OT Israel and the NT Church exhibit continuity and discontinuity. The natural olive tree continues from one age to the next, albeit with unbelieving Jewish branches broken off and believing Gentile branches grafted in. It is the same tree, yet it’s not exactly the same (Rom 11).

Something similar is true of OT worship and NT worship. The outward forms of OT worship are mostly abrogated (e.g., prayer continues, incense does not). That which was truly spiritual and evangelical remains and flourishes in Christ’s church.

Christian worship is the explicit theme of Romans 12.1. The implicit suggestion of continuity and discontinuity with OT worship is often, if not completely overlooked, at least appreciated inadequately.

Paul expressly says he has described “your reasonable service” or, “your spiritual worship” (ESV). Charles Hodge comments that the simplest interpretation is that this “is a mental or spiritual service, in opposition to ceremonial and external observances,” and that some “understand these words as expressing the difference between the sacrifices under the Christian dispensation and those under the Old. Formerly animals destitute of reason were offered unto God, but now men possessed of a rational soul” (in loc.). Both ideas are valid here. Consider carefully the relevance of John 4.23.

The OT form of worship with priests at the Temple offering animal sacrifices underlies Paul’s whole metaphorical appeal for Christian dedication to God in this text. That OT form is not to be continued any longer because the “worship in spirit and in truth” to which it had always pointed was being realized in redemptive history. First, it is realized in the redemptive mercies of God toward His chosen people. Second, it is realized in the redeemed worship offered to God by His chosen people.

Christ sacrificed Himself for you that you might sacrifice yourself to God.

I. The Redemptive Mercies of God Toward His Chosen People

Paul wrote, “I beseech you,” a word of strong appeal. It is most fitting and necessary that you Christians should do this. Paul persuades us by the term of endearment, “brethren.” He and we have been adopted into God’s forever family as redeemed sons and daughters.

Paul appeals “by the mercies of God” as a basis for our proper response. Those are mercies of salvation won for us by Jesus Christ.

Consider how Christ saves us in His roles as Priest and sacrifice. His life was wholly devoted to doing the will of God. Jesus presented Himself to God as the Servant of the Lord. “Not My will, but Thine be done” was His daily commitment throughout His whole life. Jesus was the perfect Worshipper, glorifying God and enjoying Him impeccably.

Jesus Christ also acted as Priest and sacrifice in His Passion, including His death on the cross for our sins. “No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again” (John 10.18). In giving Himself to be crucified, Christ was also “the Lamb of God,” sacrificed to atone for the sins of God’s elect from all the nations of the world (John 1.29). Though He died, His was a “living sacrifice” because He rose from the dead to live forevermore.

II. The Redeemed Worship Offered to God by His Chosen People

The worship Christians are to perform now is also patterned after Jewish worship following Christ’s example. “Present your bodies a living sacrifice” is a call to entire consecration to the revealed will of God. Being purchased by Christ for God, the whole trajectory of our lives has been changed. “Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor 6.20). Paul elaborates some of what this devotion entails in his moral directives found in the remainder of Romans. We are believer-priests, offering “the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name” (Heb 13.15). But prior to doing anything is an offering up by faith of our bodies as sacrifices in gratitude and for the honor of God (2 Cor 8.5).

When Christians do this, our persons and works are “holy, acceptable unto God,” on account of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Ye . . . are . . . a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by [or through] Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2.5). Hebrews 13.15, just quoted, includes the all-important phrase, “by him,” that is, through Christ. Only Christian worship offered by Christians is acceptable to God because it is offered upon the foundation of Christ’s person and work, and through His constant heavenly mediation between us and God (1 Tim 2.5).

As Christian believers hear the call to us as priests to offer up our own bodies as living sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, the pattern of sacred worship imaged by the OT forms comes to be realized spiritually in the world. The true, spiritual worship found first in Jesus and then in His devoted church was the divine intention all along. Ω