BOWING LOW BEFORE THE MOST HIGH
For though the LORD is high, He regards the lowly,
but the haughty He knows from afar.
-- Psalm 138.6
Your Majesty. Your royal Highness. We speak of human greatness of status in terms of height or elevation. The Scriptures portray the LORD the same way – the Most High, high and lifted up, high above all the nations of the earth. Theologians refer to this as God’s “transcendence” – His being and going above and beyond everything and everyone else that is.
For most of the history of Christianity, God’s transcendence was the central focus of worship. Once Christianity was legal and Christians built churches, the hearts, eyes, and souls of worshippers below were drawn heavenward by expansive arches, towering ceilings, and formidable spires. The fine details of the artwork on the ceilings couldn’t be seen by worshippers. It wasn’t intended for them. It was for God alone, the Most High who was being worshipped.
God’s transcendence draws our attention upward, to His distance from us and ours from Him. It contrasts His perfection and our imperfections, His eternity and our finiteness, His goodness and our fallenness.
It brings us low. It’s intended to. Both the Hebrew and Greek words for ‘worship’ literally refer to ‘bending or bowing’, prostrating oneself, before God’s highness.
Such worship is less about love and more about fear, and the worshippers in Scriptures had much to say about the value of the fear of the LORD. But fear, even in its tamest aspect of ‘respect’, isn’t best expressed by exuberance and excitement, noise and activity, but by more restrained responses: bowed heads, quietude, and even silence.
The fear of the LORD, the central feature of both ancient worship and the form of worship with which I was raised, seems to be given no place in today’s worship. Transcendence has been eclipsed by the opposite truth about God – His immanence – the God who has come down to us, God with us – Immanuel.
Immanence is as true as transcendence, and rejoicing and celebrating God’s closeness to us is a worthwhile thing that was lacking in Christian worship for a long time. I’ll address that side of things in another blog.
We shouldn’t abandon joy and celebration in our worship, but I am suggesting that we have become lopsided, attending almost exclusively to God with us, having lost the original sense of transcendence which originally created the very concept of worship.
I would like to see us be a balanced enough people to recognize and respond to both truths about our LORD and heavenly Father.
but the haughty He knows from afar.
-- Psalm 138.6
Your Majesty. Your royal Highness. We speak of human greatness of status in terms of height or elevation. The Scriptures portray the LORD the same way – the Most High, high and lifted up, high above all the nations of the earth. Theologians refer to this as God’s “transcendence” – His being and going above and beyond everything and everyone else that is.
For most of the history of Christianity, God’s transcendence was the central focus of worship. Once Christianity was legal and Christians built churches, the hearts, eyes, and souls of worshippers below were drawn heavenward by expansive arches, towering ceilings, and formidable spires. The fine details of the artwork on the ceilings couldn’t be seen by worshippers. It wasn’t intended for them. It was for God alone, the Most High who was being worshipped.
God’s transcendence draws our attention upward, to His distance from us and ours from Him. It contrasts His perfection and our imperfections, His eternity and our finiteness, His goodness and our fallenness.
It brings us low. It’s intended to. Both the Hebrew and Greek words for ‘worship’ literally refer to ‘bending or bowing’, prostrating oneself, before God’s highness.
Such worship is less about love and more about fear, and the worshippers in Scriptures had much to say about the value of the fear of the LORD. But fear, even in its tamest aspect of ‘respect’, isn’t best expressed by exuberance and excitement, noise and activity, but by more restrained responses: bowed heads, quietude, and even silence.
The fear of the LORD, the central feature of both ancient worship and the form of worship with which I was raised, seems to be given no place in today’s worship. Transcendence has been eclipsed by the opposite truth about God – His immanence – the God who has come down to us, God with us – Immanuel.
Immanence is as true as transcendence, and rejoicing and celebrating God’s closeness to us is a worthwhile thing that was lacking in Christian worship for a long time. I’ll address that side of things in another blog.
We shouldn’t abandon joy and celebration in our worship, but I am suggesting that we have become lopsided, attending almost exclusively to God with us, having lost the original sense of transcendence which originally created the very concept of worship.
I would like to see us be a balanced enough people to recognize and respond to both truths about our LORD and heavenly Father.