What is Worship: Worship in Truth
What exactly is worshipping in truth and why is it so important? In our desire to focus in on this topic, let’s journey together to the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John. The setting of the narrative is that Jesus is passing through Samaria. During his travel, he stops to speak to a woman at a well. Being a Jew, Jesus should not have been speaking with her according to the norms of the day. Yet, Jesus does anyway. Jesus reveals to her that He knows her immoral situation. However, instead of repenting immediately, she simply states a fact about Jesus, “I perceive you are a prophet.” The woman follows this up with a justification for her worship practices by saying, “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” (v. 20) Notice that Jesus had not said a word to her about where people were supposed to worship, yet she knew in her heart that God had commanded worship to be done in a specific way. Why else would this bubble out of her mouth the moment she realized that Jesus was a prophet?
Jesus corrects her by saying, “...the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” (v. 21) While the woman’s justification doesn’t amount to much more than, “this is the way we’ve always done it,” Jesus makes it clear that she and her people were wrong for worshiping God in that manner. However, Jesus doesn’t stop his critique there. Not only does he say that she is wrong in her form of worship, but that “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know…” Jesus is stating that the wrong form of worship is only the fruit. The real and pressing problem is that they actually do not know God at all!
Jesus’ corrective measures to the Samaritan woman tells us why we must worship in truth—misguided worship leads us to “worship what you do not know.” The Samaritans worshiped at Mount Gerizim, yet God’s law (Deuteronomy 12:1-28) states that you are to worship God in one specific place, a “place the Lord chose” as a “dwelling place for His Name” (v. 11). The question is then—where did God choose to place His name as a dwelling place? Look to 1 Kings 9:3, “...I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever.” They were to worship in the house that Solomon built, which was located in Jerusalem. This means that Mt. Gerizim was disqualified.
Even worse, the Samaritans were a people who rejected the Prophetic writings and the Wisdom literature, while still claiming to follow the Torah. Since the book of Deuteronomy is found in the Torah, the woman’s words to Jesus basically summarized that she wasn’t going to submit to God’s law because she wanted to follow the way that things “have always been.” We see here an abandonment of truth for the following of man-made traditions. Does that not seem to be a pattern that has too often continued throughout the history of Christianity?
Finally, the passage from Deuteronomy finishes with a warning, “Be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.” (vrs 28.)
We see that God takes the worship of himself seriously. It is not only to be done in a specific way (see the rules for the furnishings of the Tabernacle, the clothing of the priests, the altars, the sacrifices, the timing of the sacrifices throughout Exodus 20-31), but also in the proper place and manner. God is worthy to be worshipped, but God desires worship to be done as he commands. In our current culture we often hear the phrase, “worship God in your own way.” We have made worship a casual, flippant, or self-seeking act that can be done however the worshiper feels is most beneficial or convenient. Yet, Jesus is rebuking the Samaritan woman for doing just this. While sobering, do we need a reminder of what God did to Nadab and Abihu for worshiping God in their own way found in Leviticus 10:1-3? Hint: It didn’t end well.
But why were the Samaritans worshipping at Mt. Gerizim? It is not as random as you may think. Directly before the commands found in Deuteronomy 12, God actually calls Mt. Gerizim a place of blessing. So, Mt. Gerizim was considered a blessed place, yet it was not the place where God placed His name. What is going on here is taking something that is good and making it ultimate. That is the definition of idolatry. It then begins to make more sense why, after the commands found in Deuteronomy 12, there is a long warning against idolatry. This is also why Jesus continues by saying to the Samaritan woman that salvation comes from the Jews (John 4:22). He is conveying that you do actually need to have some sort of knowledge to worship God correctly. Not only that, but this specific knowledge that you need to worship God correctly does, in fact, come from the Jews and the Jews alone. Thus, there is no gospel in the stars or philosophy or culture. The true gospel flows from the redemptive historical narrative found throughout the Old Testament and brought to completion and fullness in the New Testament.
Looking at the example of the Samaritan woman, we see that Jesus does care about being worshipped in truth. This truth is not man-made, flexible, or changing. This truth is based upon God’s law and commandments for how He is to be worshiped. We cannot worship God “in our own way” because there is only the way that He has prescribed. Our churches and services must focus not on pleasing the worshippers, but on the One being worshiped. To divide our worship in Spirit and Truth and only focus on one of them would be a horrendous mistake. Jesus does, in fact, command all believers to do both. He specifically labels the people who worship in spirit and truth as “true worshipers.” For us to be considered a true worshiper of God, we must have our worship based upon the truth found in God’s law, not merely in Spirit alone.
