True worship is always spiritual: "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24)
Men, however, are prone to lose sight of the spiritual nature of worship and retain only the letter; the form, without the life. With men, the mere letter is of much value. With it they can satisfy their neighbors, and very often their own hearts, as regards their Christian attainments.
But it is of no value in the sight of God. No forms and ceremonies, in themselves, have any value whatever. To worship God in the letter only, without the Spirit, is more offensive to God than not to worship at all.
Without the Spirit the worship of God becomes perverted, so that God and the real nature of His requirements are not discerned. Perverted worship is not the worship of God, but of something else. He who worships God must know God; otherwise he cannot give honor and glory to Him, for He will not know in what His honor and glory consist. Paul tells us that: "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God." (1 Corinthians 10:20)
They do not intentionally sacrifice to devils; but not knowing God (for he who knows not God is a Gentile and a heathen), the devil puts himself in the place of God in their minds, and they do not know the difference. He does not, of course, present himself in the traditional hoofs, horns, tail, and other diabolical features with which popular theology has clothed him. He knows better than that. He presents himself as an angel of light: "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." (2 Corinthians 11:14)
His character is not shown by his appearance, but by his words and actions.
Satanic Conceptions
Among the more ignorant heathen, prayers are commonly offered to the deity for success in stealing or murdering or for some other design which enlightened people recognize as intrinsically wrong. It is the devil which prompts such design; yet the prayers are supposed to be offered to God. This is how the devil puts himself in the place of God, so that the worship which belongs to God, and is supposedly rendered to Him, is given to himself.
The conception which the heathen have of God is nothing else than a conception of the devil; hence their worship cannot but be the worship of the devil.
And this is just as true of the enlightened and civilized heathen as of those who are ignorant, only the example of the latter is a little better for illustration. No one, however "enlightened" and "civilized" can know Him but he to whom the Son reveals Him: "All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." (Matthew 11:27)
And whoever does not know God, makes God such a one as themselves; he clothes Him with the attributes of humanity. He must do so, because naturally, he has no higher conception in his mind. God says His ways are as much higher than man's ways as the heavens are higher than the earth: "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9)
Therefore no man can possibly know God's ways and His thoughts by his own wisdom. He can know them only by revelation. And until he knows them by revelation, he attributes to God such actions as he himself would do, and such motives as he himself would have were it left to him to deal with the world and with sinners.
But a man's own natural attributes are the attributes of the devil; for they were acquired, as the devil acquired his, by sinning against God. Through Adam, every man is by nature evil. And therefore when a man clothes the being whom he worships with his own attributes,--with envy, pride, spite, revenge, and all or any of those which make up the sum of human nature,--he simply clothes Him with the attributes of the devil and worships the devil in the place of God.
And this is what everyone does whose worship is of the letter without the spirit, for no one, without the Spirit, can know God. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God, and reveals them unto us, so that we may have the mind of Christ. "But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ." (1 Corinthians 2:10,16)
Knowing God, we can worship Him intelligently; we can do that which meets His mind, and which meets the requirements of the case; and only thus can our worship contribute to His honor and glory. To worship Him without knowing Him (if such acts could be called worship) would be like an African bushman offering himself as assistant to an astronomer.
The Jews knew not God, and therefore their worship degenerated into the mere letter of worship, which was nothing more than an attempt to observe the commandments of God in the wisdom of man. It was not the true letter of the commandments, for that cannot exist alone, but is quickly perverted when the Spirit is lacking.
So the Jews had perverted and added many things to the letter of the commandments-"grievous burdens," as our Saviour called them-and the history that is given us of their deeds and their words in the days of our Saviour afford some striking illustrations of the truth we are here considering.
Keeping the Sabbath
For example, consider the case of the impotent man whom Christ healed at the pool of Bethesda. He had had an infirmity thirty and eight years, and when the Saviour found him he was lying beside the pool waiting for the angel to trouble the waters. "When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, He said unto him, Will you be made whole?" (John 5:6)
And when the impotent man had stated his case to the Saviour, "Jesus said to him, Rise, take up your bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked; and on the same day was the Sabbath. The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the Sabbath day; it is unlawful for you to carry your bed." (John 5:8-10)
They were outwardly strict observers of the Sabbath; but it was all mere form and ceremony. Of observance in the spirit and in truth they knew nothing. To their assertions the man who had been healed replied, "He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up your bed and walk." (John 5:11)
Such an answer should have been satisfactory to any one of sufficient intelligence to comprehend that something more than human power had been exercised in his miraculous restoration; but it was not so to the Jews. They had entirely lost sight of the real nature of the Sabbath and the object of Sabbath observance. They were not observing it to the glory of God; and therefore notwithstanding all their professions and outward show, they were not observing it at all.
Had they been worshiping God in spirit and in truth,--had they known God and what He requires and what constitutes His glory,--they would have seen that the course of the restored invalid was in strict harmony with the true spirit of Sabbath observance.
They would have understood that the object of Christ's miracle and the object of the Sabbath are one and the same; namely, to call attention to the true God, who alone has creative power to manifest in bringing into existence a world with all its various forms of life, or in restoring to strength a man who has lain helpless for thirty and eight years.
By taking up his bed and walking, the attention of all would be signaling a call to the power which had wrought so mighty a change, and thus God would be glorified and the real purpose of Sabbath observance would be fulfilled.
All man's worship amounts to nothing if its end be not the glory of God; and the end cannot be the glory of God if the worshiper does not know God and what is required to honor Him. God is a God of mercy, and has said, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice." (Matthew 9:13; Hosea 6:6)
And Jesus said to the Jews that had they known what these words meant, they would not have condemned the guiltless: "But if you had known what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless." (Matthew 12:7)
Had they believed the words which God spoke to Moses when He passed by before him and proclaimed His name on Mount Sinai, they would not have lost sight of the good done to the impotent man in his seeming violation of the strict letter of the Sabbath law.
And this truth has a practical application in our own day. No one, however learned and great, can know God except the one to whom Christ will reveal Him; and no one who knows not God can worship Him in Spirit and in truth. And he who does not so worship Him will not keep the law of God, and will condemn the one who does keep it. Jewish history in the days of Jesus of Nazareth will repeat itself--is already doing so--in our own time.
Christ has revealed the Father to the world, and all may know Him who sincerely desire to know Him and do His will. God has no favorites; He gives equal privileges to all. God has spoken to the world by His Son Jesus Christ: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom Hehas appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds." (Hebrews 1:1-2)
And whosoever will believe His words and take the Spirit that is freely given to guide us into all truth, will have understanding to worship God aright. By the word of God we are born again, and passed from the natural man, which discerns not the things of God, to the new man, and become capable of spiritual discernment.
That word is the Bible. Therefore let us diligently search it and receive it into our hearts in faith, that we may be made wise unto salvation.--Present Truth, February 1, 1894--Timeline: III-5 (The Samaritan Woman)--John 4:24.