True Worship:

“But an hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness” (John 4: 23-24 23).

When the Lord Jesus  said, “An hour is coming and now is,” it meant that the age had changed. In the past, according to the Law of Moses, God ordained that His people worship Him at a specific place where He would establish His habitation with His name (Deut. 12:5). All of God’s worshippers had to go to that unique place—Jerusalem. That was a type. Now the age has been changed, and the type is fulfilled. Typically speaking, the place of worship should not be a place any longer; it must be the human spirit, where God has set up His habitation with His name. According to Ephesians 2:22, God’s habitation is in our spirit.

Why did God ordain in the ancient times that His people had to worship Him in one place? It was for the purpose of keeping unity. The Lord Jesus also said that now is the time for the true worshippers to worship God not only in their spirit, but also in reality. This is difficult for today’s Christians to understand. However, if we consider the type, we shall understand what the Lord was talking about. In ancient times, God ordained that His people worship Him at the appointed place and with the offerings. The people could not worship God at any place they chose, and they could not worship Him without the offerings. They needed the offerings because they were sinful. When they came to contact God, they had to offer many types of offerings—the trespass offering, the sin offering, the peace offering, the meal offering, the burnt offering, the wave offering, and the heave offering. All the offerings were types of the various aspects of Christ. Christ is our real trespass offering. He is also our real sin offering, meal offering, peace offering, and burnt offering. Today, instead of worshipping God in a specific place, we should worship Him in our spirit. Furthermore, instead of offerings, we should worship Him with Christ as the reality of all the offerings. This word was given to instruct the Samaritan woman regarding her need to exercise her spirit to contact God the Spirit. To contact God the Spirit with the spirit is to drink of the living water, and to drink of the living water is to render real worship to God.

But what exactly is our spirit or the human spirit? 1 Thessalonians 5:23 strongly indicates that man is a tripartite being—spirit, soul, and body.  “And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”. The spirit as our inmost part is the inner organ, possessing God-consciousness, that we may contact God (John 4:24; Rom. 1:9). The soul is our very self (cf. Matt. 16:26; Luke 9:25), a medium between our spirit and our body, possessing self-consciousness, that we may have our personality. The body as our external part is the outer organ, possessing world-consciousness, that we may contact the material world. The body contains the soul, and the soul is the vessel that contains the spirit. In the spirit, God as the Spirit dwells; in the soul, our self dwells; and in the body, the physical senses dwell. God sanctifies us, first, by taking possession of our spirit through regeneration (John 3:5-6); second, by spreading Himself as the life-giving Spirit from our spirit into our soul to saturate and transform our soul (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18); and last, by enlivening our mortal body through our soul (Rom. 8:11, 13) and transfiguring our body by His life power (Phil. 3:21).

This is confirmed and developed in Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The writer of this book said that the word of God, could divide our soul from our spirit. As the marrow is concealed deep in the joints, so the spirit is deep in the soul. Our soul is our very self which the Lord Jesus told us to deny in Matthew 16:25 (cf. Luke 9:23) in order to follow Him. Our spirit is the deepest part of our being, a spiritual organ with which we contact God (John 4:24; Rom. 1:9). It is in our spirit that we are regenerated (John 3:6). It is in our spirit that the Holy Spirit dwells and works (Rom. 8:16). It is in our spirit that we enjoy Christ and His grace (2 Tim. 4:22; Gal. 6:18). In the context of the book of Hebrews, our spirit may be likened to the good-land where God dwells, our soul to the wilderness, and our body to the land of Egypt.  Israel was saved out of Egypt by the Passover Lamb but then lingered for forty years in the wilderness before pressing forward into the good land.

Now is the hour, or the age, in which we must worship God in our spirit as the unique place and with Christ as the reality. How can we do it? How shall we apply the matter of worshipping the Father in our spirit? Suppose several believers come together for the purpose of worshipping God, yet they do not exercise their spirit. Instead they exercise their minds. They begin to discuss the matter of worshipping God and soon are divided due to their conflicting opinions. They become unhappy with one another and separate. Likewise, true worship is not rendered to God solely in the emotions of the soul.  Many believers conduct worship services by being carried away in their emotions by inspirational music. While spiritual psalms, hymns, and songs (in contract to music that stimulates the fleshly body (c.f. 1 Cor. 3:1) or the emotional soul (c.f. 1 Cor. 2:14)) may help the believer to be filled in spirit (Eph. 5:19), the emotional soul should not be the goal as it cannot render true worship based on the Lord’s own words, “God is Spirit and those who worship Him MUST worship in spirit and truthfulness” (John 4:24). We should not linger in the experience of the emotional soul, but we must press on to worship the Lord in our spirit! Mary gives us a good example as first, her spirit exalted in God her Savior; then her soul magnified the Lord (Luke 1:46-47). Her praise to God issued from her spirit and was expressed through her soul. Her spirit was filled with joy and directed her soul to manifest that joy for the magnifying of the Lord.  We must simply exercise our spirit, praise the Lord, call upon His name, and see how He as the anointing Spirit will lead the worship (1 John 2:20,27; Rom. 8:15).

This brings us to the application of the second point, that is, to worship God with Christ as the reality of the Old Testament offerings? When meeting together for worship, we must exercise our spirit. If we do this, the Holy Spirit who indwells our spirit will have the opportunity to move. He may move in one brother, giving him a burden to offer a living testimony of Christ. Then that brother will testify of his living experience of Christ. One brother may have an experience of Christ expressed in a psalm, another may have a teaching of Christ, and yet another a revelation of Christ (1Cor. 14:26). All may function one by one (v. 31). In doing so, they all offer Christ as one of the offerings. When you give a testimony of your experience of Christ, in the eyes of God, that is offering Christ to God. Eventually, such an offering will become food to the brother who gave the testimony and to all of the other worshippers. This is not the traditional way of worshipping God; this is the way of worshipping in the spirit with the experienced Christ offered to God for His satisfaction and as food for all the other worshippers. This is the real worship of God and the today the Father is seeking such worshipers.

 “Gleanings from the Bible” is a seven-part series contributed by a local Christian home meeting group that loves the Lord Jesus, believes that the Bible is God’s Word, and cares for the oneness of the Body of Christ. For more information please visit our website at www.fromhouse2house.org or email us at info@fromhouse2house.org.  This article is based in part on footnote 244 in chapter 4 of the Gospel of John from the Holy Bible Recovery Version published by Living Steam Ministry.