“Prayer Book worship is, first to last, justification by faith set forth in liturgy so that it might be

re-apprehended and re-experienced in regular acts of devotion.”  

(Rev. Dr. J.I. Packer's  introduction to: Archbishop Cranmer’s Immortal Bequest: The Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England: An Evangelistic Liturgy, 2004)

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​​​A Dialogue of Covenant Renewal:

Holy Scripture teaches that when mankind fell into sin, violating the covenant of works (Hosea 6:7; Rom. 5:19-21), God Himself provided a sacrifice to cover (i.e. atone) for the sin, shame, nakedness and guilt of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21). Thus was established the Covenant of Grace, and correlative to that sacramental sign of a bloody sacrifice provided by God, was His promise of the coming Messiah (Gen. 3:15). From this point on scripturally appropriate corporate worship was centered on that outward covenant sign of a propitiatory Passover  sacrifice. Old Testament theology is clear that ultimately it is God Himself that provided those sacrifices (Lev.17:11; Ex. 12:26-27; Ex. 24:8; Gen. 22:8) as signs of atonement and witnesses of His Grace. They were not human works of obedience, but rather signs of the Gospel promise of salvation (i.e. sacraments). It was “the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made” (Ex. 24:8). In biblical worship, God’s people are reminded of the penalty for sin, and our need for God’s gracious righteous covering (Ezek. 16:8-9). And so it is clearly implied that public or corporate worship for the people of God in the Patriarchal era consisted of an acknowledgment of guilt before a Holy God, repentance, and a focus on the Gospel sign of a substitutionary sacrifice. It is a dialogic pattern, or what we might call a liturgical dialogue of Redemption. God’s law is spoken to us, we respond with repentance and faith, and God responds back with forgiveness under the sign of the bloody sacrifice (covenant signs of the ultimate sacrifice of the Messiah Himself). This is the Biblical pattern of the liturgy. We see that Abel worshipped after this form, but that his brother Cain seemed to approach God with an unrepentant spirit and with a sacrifice of his own human works. Certainly Cain recognized the true God, but the outward sign of the Lamb of God, and its spilt blood, was absent from his altar. Genesis chapter 3 makes it clear that there is a great difference between a covering of plants (fig leaves) and the propitiatory death of a substitute. This same contrast is immediately on display in Genesis 4 setting the pattern of faith and worship for the rest of the Bible.  Hebrews 11:4 states that Abel was justified by grace through faith. and that the propitiatory sacrifice was the outward sign or covenant "witness that he was righteous (justified)."

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We can see therefore that the way that God’s people publicly worship should correspond to divine revelation and an orthodox faith. We should not approach God on our own terms, but on His – a worship inspired by His Spirit and grounded on His truth (John 4:24). At the time of the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai, God gave specific instructions for the building of a Tabernacle/Temple which would be the locus of worship for His people until the coming of the Messiah, and was meant to be an earthly model of the heavenly throne room (Heb. 8:5; Ex. 25:8-9; Acts 7:44). The elements of orthodox worship formerly mentioned from the Patriarchal era remained the same in the Tabernacle, with many additional details and symbols which helped to protect Jewish worship from abuses and heretical worship practices. Daily sacrifices were offered in the Tabernacle/Temple, and there was a Liturgical Calendar established which reminded the people of God of His redemptive actions in history on their behalf (Lev. 23). A weekly Sabbath was also set aside to rest and meditate on God’s Word; and Deuteronomy teaches us that it reminded the people not only that God was the King of creation, but that He was their Redeemer as well (Deut. 5:15). So, in Judaism every Sabbath was a mini celebration of Passover. 

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We believe that God incarnate as the Messiah has renewed that covenant of grace with us at Mt Zion (Heb. 2:22). Scripture even teaches that after the ascension of the Messiah, He entered the Heavenly Temple as a High Priest: “a liturgist of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man” (Heb. 8:2).  New Testament worship practices grew naturally and directly from the Jewish Synagogue liturgy, as well as certain elements of the Passover Seder, thus maintaining the dialogic pattern of worship previously described. The  pattern of worship that deemphasizes God's Word and the centrality of atonement, in place of artificially induced euphoria is foreign to God’s true church. God has not called us to confusion or disorder in our public worship, but rather to an orderly worship (1 Cor. 14:40). Likewise, a worship pattern which consists primarily of uninspired praise and thanksgiving rather than the Word of God, is also at odds with the scriptural pattern of corporate worship. We confess that, in godly worship, God speaks to us in His Law and in His Gospel, and the people respond in faith with God’s own Word (not our own word; that would be “will worship” i.e. the self chosen, self contrived worship condemned by St. Paul in Col. 2:23). Rather worship is ordered around God’s revelation to us and our response, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

 

The Biblical order of Covenant Renewal has been the consistent traditional model of Christian corporate worship from its earliest days growing directly from its liturgical Hebrew roots. The Reformation consensus maintained this liturgical order, while reforming abuses and aberrations that had crept into the habits of public worship over time. While the private devotions and praise rendered to God by Christians may, and perhaps should, take a variety of forms,  the corporate worship of God's People, following the Biblical teaching, is to proclaim  the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah in Word and sacrament; Law and Gospel; repentance and faith. It is an antiphonal dialogue of God's inspired Word that retells the story of Redemption in His Messiah- the Lamb of God. Thus the Holy Spirit ever renews the Covenant of Grace in our lives as we approach the Savior in faith and repentance. So. St. Paul says: "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the Feast" (1 Cor. 5:7).