Why do we go to public worship? Some of us want to set a good example: How else could our children make church a vital part of their life? How else could we speak of the need for corporate togetherness in faith? Some because of tradition: Come Sabbath, the involuntary spiritual reflexes make us put on our best clothes, rush to church, and find our cozy seats. Some because of a bee instinct: Gather honey wherever it is found, and the instinct drives us to where popular preachers dispense their profound theology with oratory or com passion. Some find in worship the extra-strength Tylenol for all the week's headaches.
But a scene in Revelation 4 directs us to worship's only true motive: the worthiness of God. The scene describes God, glorious and majestic, seated on a throne. Around the throne are 24 elders, clothed with white raiment and wearing crowns of gold. Seven lamps are burning before the throne, out of which proceed lightnings and thunderings. Close to the throne are four living creatures, each full of eyes before and be hind, and each with six wings. The four creatures rest neither night nor day, but continually praise God by singing, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" (Rev. 4:8).* The 24 elders prostrate before the throne, cast their crowns, and cry out in adoration, "Worthy art thou, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created" (verse 11).
This heavenly model of worship presents God as the sole object of worship, and creatures as having the opportunity to engage in that worship. Between the Creator's prerogative and the creature's privilege, Revelation 4 defines worship as an act that affirms God's absoluteness and confesses human helplessness.
The absoluteness of God
Revelation 4 relates worship to four aspects of God: His holiness, His eternity, His activity, His authority.
Worship begins with the acknowledgment that God is holy. The four beasts continually sing without rest or interruption, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty." Likewise, the psalmist's call to worship is a cosmic reminder of God's holiness: "Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness" (Ps. 29:2, NIV); "Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God" (Ps. 95:6, 7, NIV).
An affirmation of the holiness of God immediately places Him apart from us. He is holy, He is entirely the other, and He is not human. Christian worship does not create the object of worship. It only calls upon the worshipers to come to terms with the reality of God. Moses learned that lesson around the burning bush. Isaiah grasped that truth in his first vision. The distinction between the worshiper and the One who is worshiped needs to be kept clear always. Without that distinction, Christian worship faces two dangers: on the one hand, there is the peril of mysticism, with the worshiper assuming the possibility of merging with the divine; on the other, there is the threat of materialistic humanism, with its presumption that God eventually becomes dispensable. So when worship prioritizes the otherness of God, it not only helps to define for us the reality of who God is and who we are, but also preserves our worship activities from becoming common, trite, and irreverent.
To so emphasize the holiness of God does not mean that public worship must become a monotonous, joyless, boring exercise of a routine nature in which adults doze off, children are busy with crayons, and the atmosphere is filled with a clock-watching anxiety. No. When we acknowledge the holiness of God, the corollary becomes obvious: we are unholy and helpless, much in need of divine grace. So every time we confess the holiness of God, we are in effect discovering our own unworthiness, like Isaiah discovered his unclean lips. Such a discovery can never be monotonous; it can lead only to a powerful experience whereby the "live coal" of God's grace can purge us from sin and help us see God, hear God, and praise God (see Isa. 6:6-8).
Second, worship in Revelation 4 recognizes the eternity of God. Three times God's eternity is stressed: the four living creatures worship God "who was and is and is to come" (verse 8), and "who lives for ever and ever" (verse 9); the 24 elders praise "him who lives for ever and ever" (verse 10). To acknowledge the eternity of God in our worship is to say that He is not governed by limitations, such as time and space. There was a time when we were not; there will be a time when we might not be. But there never was a time when He was not; and there never will be a time when He will not be. He is the eternal I AM. Our existence is temporal, and even when we cross the borders of temporality by His grace, even that shall always be because of that divine attribute: His grace to unworthy sinners such as we are. And so as we worship in time and space, can we afford to miss the opportunity to affirm the One "who was and is and is to come"?
Third, worship in Revelation 4points us to the activity of God. The 24 elders cry out that God is worthy "to receive glory and honor and power" because He created all things and by His will all things exist (verse 11). Our worship must acknowledge the creatorship and the providence of God. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1). "In him all things hold together" (Col.1:17). "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). These are axioms of faith that provide both reason and content to our worship. In worship we not only affirm that "the heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1), but also confess that God is our creator and provider: "The eyes of all look to thee, and thou givest them their food in due season. Thou openest thy hand, thou satisfiest the desire of every living thing" (Ps. 145:15, 16).
The redeeming activity of God forms a large part of praise in worship. The scene in Revelation 4 makes that abundantly clear. The throne is a redemptive throne, a victorious throne. The elders with white garments of righteousness and crowns of victory are symbolic of that redemptive activity of God. The entire worship scene revolves around the throne with its rainbow of redemptive promise. Can any worship ever begin or end without pointing to the worshiper that this God who created a billion stars hung upon a cross outside of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago for a sinner such as I am? Worship is incomplete without the cross. The songs we sing, the silence we observe, the Scripture we read, the tithes we give, the stories we tell, the preaching we do, the prayers we say, the fellowship we have must somehow or other lift up the cross. For the Man on that cross is the reason for our worship and for our being.
Revelation 5, a thematic extension of chapter 4, stresses in no uncertain terms the centrality of the cross in worship. The 24 elders and the four living creatures fall "down before the Lamb" and sing "a new song" because God's redemptive grace toward sinners was manifested by the shed blood of the Lamb (Rev. 5:8, 9). In response to that matchless revelation of God's grace on Calvary, all heaven and earth bow in adoration: "To him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might for ever and ever!" (verse 13).
Fourth, worship in Revelation 4 acknowledges God's authority. With reference to God, the word "throne" appears 12 times in the chapter and dominates the worship theme. Throne signifies authority the authority of the one who sits on it. God is the eternal sovereign, and our worship must ever be mindful of that. The entire created order, including the worshiping church, cannot escape the presence and the power of that throne. When we come to worship, corporately we confess and individually we accept the sovereignty of God. "God being who and what He is," says A. W. Tozer, "and we being who and what we are, the only think able relation between us is one of full lordship on His part and complete sub mission on ours. We owe Him every honor that it is in our power to give Him. Our everlasting grief lies in giving Him anything less."1
Our helplessness
Worship in Revelation 4 underscores not only God's absoluteness, but also human unworthiness and helplessness. The 24 elders "fall down before him who is seated on the throne," and "cast their crowns before the throne" (verse 10). The twin acts of falling down and casting the crowns proclaim forcefully human unworthiness before God. The elders, symbolic of the redeemed, wear white robes of righteousness; they have crowns of victory; they sit on thrones; they are in God's presence. But from where comes that victory, from where that privilege? By placing their crowns at the feet of the One who sits on the throne, the redeemed acknowledge that what they are and what they have are not their own.
That moment when people are con fronted with the reality that they are not their own, leading them to bow down and place their crown at the feet of the One who sits on the throne, true worship takes place. Worship is thus adorational surrender; it is a recognition that we are nothing, and He is all in all. Worship is a reminder that the battle and the victory are His. The journey as well as the reward, the forgiveness as well as the assurance, the wedding banquet as well as the garment, the beginning as well as the end, are His. The best in us cannot commend us to His presence, and the worst in us cannot insulate us from the power of His grace. Worship is that acknowledgment that we are because of Him; it is that assurance that we are a new creation because of Him. "Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of the conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of the mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose." 2
