The Upper Register

Worship of God the Foundation of Righteousness

In his exposition of the Decalogue, Calvin asks why the ten commandments are divided into two tables, the first table setting forth our duty toward God and the second table setting forth our duty toward man. He answers: 

"The first foundation of righteousness undoubtedly is the worship of God. When it is subverted, all the other parts of righteousness, like a building rent asunder, and in ruins, are racked and scattered. What kind of righteousness do you call it, not to commit theft and rapine, if you, in the meantime, with impious sacrilege, rob God of his glory? or not to defile your body with fornication, if you profane his holy name with blasphemy? or not to take away the life of man, if you strive to cut off and destroy the remembrance of God? It is vain, therefore, to talk of righteousness apart from religion. Such righteousness has no more beauty than the trunk of a body deprived of its head. Nor is religion the principal part merely: it is the very soul by which the whole lives and breathes. Without the fear of God, men do not even observe justice and charity among themselves. We say, then, that the worship of God is the beginning and foundation of righteousness; and that wherever it is wanting, any degree of equity, or continence, or temperance, existing among men themselves, is empty and frivolous in the sight of God" (Calvin, Institutes, 2.8.11; Beveridge).

I like this quote because it suggests that how the church honors God in corporate worship, how the church teaches its members to revere, honor, and glorify God, has implications for the way we live the Christian life. Religion (in the sense Calvin means it, i.e., the fear of God) is the foundation of ethics. Get the vertical right, and the horizontal will follow. Get worship right, and mission will follow. This is contrary to those who imagine that the church can pursue the horizontal plane of being missional and reaching out to the culture, without first being rooted in the vertical aspect of worship. Worship is not a missional, horizontal, cultural, or evangelistic activity. In worship the redeemed covenant community gathers into the holy presence of God to be wholly occupied with God in union and communion with the Father through the Son by the Spirit. Love for neighbor flows from love for God. To subordinate worship as a means to the end of mission, is to lose the very motive of mission, for mission is a means to the end of worship. A church that structures all of its activity toward the horizontal plane becomes a body without a soul, a trunk deprived of its head. Only a church that is focused on the worship of the living, triune God will have the inner vitality needed to be a credible witness to the world. 

 

What is the Relationship Between Church and Mission? cont'd

Did you notice the big blue circle that is bigger than the church in the missional view? Although the church as an institution may be one of the agents and instruments of the Missio Dei, it is not the only agent or instrument. On this view, the mission of God is being advanced not only through the church as an institution but also through the cultural activities of Chistians in the broader world.

The Missional Manifesto (of which Tim Keller is one of the architects) fleshes out what it means to be “missional” in terms of transforming the culture. That document calls on the church and Christians to be “agents of reconciliation” who are “leaders in deeds of justice and ministry to the poor, as well as live out the implications of their faith in business, the arts, in politics, the academy, the home, and in all of life.” This mandate follows from the assumption that “God’s mission ... universally encompasses every aspect of life: personal, familial, social, cultural, and economic” (there’s the big blue circle again).

It is clear that the missional philosophy rests on a Kuyperian philosophy of “Christ the transformer of culture” (to use Richard Niebuhr’s typology) rather than on the “two kingdoms” theology which is more consistent with biblical already/not-yet eschatology. The missional philosophy blurs the distinction between the holy kingdom of God and common grace realm, between cult and culture, between the holy and the common.

That is why, as a Klinean, I am unable to jump on the missional bandwagon. People probably know that I have been a strong critic of theonomy and Christian Reconstructionism, which is essentially the same problem, albeit wedded to a rightwing political philosophy. But Kuyperianism is wrong whether its rudder is tilted to the right or to the left. In the OPC, I was besieged by the Kuyperians of the right. Now that I am in the PCA, I am confronted by the Kuyperians of the left. Kuyperians to the right of me, Kuyperians to the left of me. Who will join me in affirming that “here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb 13:14)?

 

What is the Relationship Between Church and Mission?

That is a big question that is currently a topic of intense discussion in many evangelical circles today. 

The traditional (and I believe biblical) answer to that question is that the church is the bigger category. The church has three inter-related activities:  worship, nurture, and witness. In addition to worshiping the triune God and nurturing its members, the church has been entrusted with a mission. The mission is to offer the gospel freely to all men, resting in God’s effectual call to grant faith to those who are elect, thereby bringing them into the church. The mission is subordinate to the church. Ultimately God’s glory, in both the salvation of the elect and the punishment of the reprobate, is God’s ultimate purpose. Within the positive side, the salvation of the elect, and their being gathered into and forming the church, the bride of Christ, is God’s eternal purpose. The church is not merely an instrument for some other goal. It is the goal.

We can vizualize the traditional view of the relationship between church and mission this way:

The church is God’s appointed ordinance for the gathering and perfecting of the saints. The saints are perfected, nourished, and nurtured through the preaching of the Word, the church’s Christian education programs, the administration of the Lord’s Supper, the communion of the saints, and through church discipline.

But with the rise of the missional movement in the last decade or so, in the minds of many the order has to be switched. In this view, mission is the bigger category, and the church is subordinate to the Missio Dei. The missional philosophy’s slogan is that “It’s not the Church of God that has a mission, but the God of mission who has a church.” This formula is attributed to various authors. (I think the one I just quoted comes from Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.) Another version of the formula is used in The Missional Manifesto (by Ed Stetzer, Alan Hirsch, Tim Keller, et al): “Although it is frequently stated ‘God’s church has a mission,’ according to missional theology, a more accurate expression is ‘God’s mission has a church.’”

We can vizualize the missional movement’s view of the relationship between church and mission this way:

What is the practical result of subordinating the church to God’s mission? Tim Keller says that “a ‘missional’ church (as we define it) gears absolutely every single part of its life—its worship, community, public discourse and preaching, education—for the presence of non-believers from the culture surrounding it.” [Keller, “Contextual and Missional,” p. 1. Lecture Three of the Urban Plant Life series of the London Church Planting Consultation, 2008-2009.]

That’s a pretty astounding statement when you think about it. Is it true that everything the church does must be adapted and reformulated so that it is engaged with non-Christian society? Corporate worship? Christian nurture? Fellowship? What about the sacraments? Most activities that the church engages are geared toward the edification of the saints, apart from any consideration of mission.

When the church is viewed as having a subordinate role within mission, then everything the church does ought to be merely a means to the end of mission. “Missional represents a significant shift in the way we understand the church,” the drafters of The Missional Manifesto candidly state. Indeed.

Evangelistic vs. Covenantal Worship, update

On February 29, 2012, I published my critique of Tim Keller's paper on "Evangelistic Worship" on my website. Over the past months, I have received helpful feedback from the session of New Life Burbank and other individuals who have taken the time to dialogue with me. As a result of these interactions, I have decided to revise the paper.

Most of the revisions pertain to clarifying two terms that I used too frequently in the earlier version of this paper but that I now realize were ambiguous:  “address” and “unbelievers.” By “address” I mean to engage apologetically with the aim of seeking to convert. By “unbelievers” I mean those not professing faith in Christ as members of the covenant community. I have also added an Appendix answering questions prompted by my paper.

One point that did not come across in the original version is that I am not opposed to welcoming visitors from the pulpit and demonstrating an attitude of hospitality to them. In addition, I am not opposed to occasional invitations to those who do not profess faith in Christ to come to Christ, as long as such invitations do not overwhelm and detract from the covenantal nature of the worship, although I do not think a preacher has an obligation to include such gospel invitations in every sermon. So those are a couple of points on which I have corrected the paper in light of the feedback. My original language came across as overly restrictive.

I appreciate the feedback and questions, from friends on both sides of this debate, which have prodded me to clarify my thinking and be more precise in my language. It is great when iron sharpens iron in a constructive manner, something that does not happen frequently enough when we have disagreements in the church.

Evangelistic vs. Covenantal Worship

Some of you may be aware that there is this thing called "the missional church" or "the missional movement" or just "missional." It is a fundamental shift in thinking in which ecclesiology is subordinated to missiology. The church exists exclusively as a means for the accomplishment of the so-called missio Dei. Therefore, everything the church does should be missional and should engage the culture for the sake of winning people to Christ. Of course, if "everything" the church does ought to be missional, then this will logically impact corporate worship. When the church gathers for corporate worship on the Lord's Day, what is occurring in that meeting and who is being addressed? The missional movement says that worship ought to be evangelistic and that the service should not only edify the saints but also address unbelievers. I have written a paper in which I critique this view. I have chosen to interact with a paper by Tim Keller titled "Evangelistic Worship." I argue exegetically that worship is not evangelistic but covenantal. It is a meeting of the triune God with his covenant people. Unbelievers may be present and God may even use the service to convert them (1 Cor 14:23-25), but unbelievers as outsiders to the covenant should not be addressed in worship. Evangelistic meetings, Bible studies, and other meetings for the purpose of apologetic engagement are valuable, but worship is not an evangelistic meeting. Read the paper here: A Critique of Tim Keller's "Evangelistic Worship"