[This is an excerpt from the first in my three-week Sunday School series on the topic of worship. Taught on 12/23/07. Click here for part one: Worship Is Worthship]

God’s Presence And God’s Glory

The Psalmist calls us to worship in Psalm 100, saying “come before Him,” “enter His gates,” and “[enter] His courts.” In worship, we come before God, into His presence.

And the worshiper comes into God’s presence longing to see God’s glory. Look at Moses’ example: Moses walked in God’s presence (speaking with God face to face as a friend, Ex. 33:11), and he desired to see God’s glory (Ex. 33:18). To tie this in with part one, to be glorious is to have exceedingly great worth, and God’s glory is the fullness of His magnificence, splendor, beauty, wonder, brilliance, and majesty.

The popular song by Third Day, Show Me Your Glory, puts it well: “Show me Your glory / Shine down Your presence / I want to see Your face.” This is our desire in worship; to experience God’s presence and to behold His glory. In fact, worship has always been and always will be about God’s glory and God’s presence.

We will trace this through Scripture in two subpoints:

1. God’s Glorious Presence Represented in the Old Testament Through Sacred Spaces
2. God’s Glorious Presence Revealed in the New Testament Through Jesus Christ

God’s Glorious Presence Represented in the Old Testament Through Sacred Spaces

[To first give credit where due, the term "sacred spaces" and the material within this first subpoint are largely derived from Tremper Longman III's Immanuel In Our Place: Seeing Christ In Israel's Worship, P&R Publishing 2001.]

There are two places in Scripture of perfect worship: the Garden of Eden and Heaven. These two bookends of human history are the places of perfect worship because they are the places where we find perfect communion with God and perfect, sinless, guiltless entry into God’s glorious presence.

The Garden Of Eden

We begin in paradise, with perfection. In the Garden of Eden, Adam had a special relationship with God, a direct connection in which God walked in the garden and communicated with man directly. Eden was perfect in its relationship between God and man; it was harmonious, personal, and intimate.

But then man sinned. Sinful man could not bear to commune with God, and so he hid. Then Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden – that is, sin exiled them from perfect harmony with God – and sin became the rift between God and man. Sinful man could not bear to be in the presence of the perfect God, and as Rom. 3:23 says, sin is the rift between us and God’s glory.

The Patriarchal Altars

What became of worship after the fall? The next significant places of Old Testament worship were altars. The patriarchal altars built by Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, etc. were often erected at sites where they experienced God’s presence (e.g. Abraham (Gen. 12), Isaac (Gen. 26), Jacob (Gen. 35), Moses (Ex. 17)). The altar was a holy place because here God met with man and blessed him. When God made His presence known, He commanded an altar be built there (Ex. 20:24-26). Thus altars were built all over the land as places of God’s meeting and symbolic reminders of God’s presence.

The Tabernacle

After the Exodus, the places of worship were still always about God’s presence. Consider Mount Sinai, the mountain of God’s special presence. No one could approach the foot of the mountain, not even livestock, lest they die (Ex. 19: 21-25). They worshiped at the foot of the mountain, and Moses worshiped on the mountain. They worshiped there because it was the place of God’s presence.

Then God commanded the tabernacle be built. This portable structure was Israel’s place of worship because it was where God’s presence resided on the mercy seat (the lid of the ark of the covenant), in the Holy of Holies, in the Holy Place. Exodus 25:8 says that God’s tabernacle was the place of His presence (dwelling) among Israel.

The Temple

The tabernacle was the precursor to the temple in Jerusalem. The temple, built by King Solomon and later rebuilt after the exile, was God’s house, and it remained Israel’s place of worship for years to come.

See the trend? Even as the times, locations, and people changed, the underlying truth is that worship was always centered on the glorious presence of God.

God’s Glorious Presence Revealed in the New Testament Through Jesus Christ

But worship was transformed from the Old Testament to New Testament, through Jesus Christ. Let us take a look at Christ and his relationship to the temple, which was the standing place of worship at the time of Christ’s birth.

The Presence Of Christ Is The Presence Of God

When John 1:4 speaks of Jesus Christ, saying “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” the term used is actually the noun tabernacle turned into a verb: “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” That is, Christ brought God’s presence to mankind in bodily form (as the tabernacle was God’s presence dwelling among Israel). In fact, his name, Immanuel, means “God with us.”

Christ’s Love For The Temple

As a child, the young Jesus loved the temple, recognizing it as his Father’s house (asking his worried parents in Luke 2, “Did you not know that I must be at my Father’s house [or about my Father's business]?”) Then, nearly the first (John 2) and nearly the last (Matthew 21) acts of Jesus’ earthly ministry were to cleanse the temple with a righteous zeal for God’s house.

Christ As The Temple

Christ made some claims about the temple that ultimately caused him to be reviled as a blasphemer. In Matt. 12:6, saying, “something greater than the temple is here,” Christ revealed that he was indeed God’s incarnate presence among men. In John 2, saying, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” Christ spoke of His own body, connecting Himself with the temple.

The Transformation Of The Temple

Upon Christ’s death on the cross, the curtain of the temple was torn in two (Matt. 27:51). This curtain had previously separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place. Because of Christ, there is no longer a separation or distinction there, no need for a high priest to atone for sin on man’s behalf (apart from Christ himself), and through Christ God was made accessible to man.

Implications on Worship

As we have been studying in Sunday School through the gospel of Luke, we know that the Kingdom of God has come with the coming of the King (Jesus Christ). In the presence of the King we may now worship, through Christ, without the need for the “sacred spaces” of the Old Testament. And we eagerly await Heaven, the eternal place of perfect worship, where we will see God as fully worthy and valuable, and we will be in His perfect presence, beholding the fullness of His glory.

Thus far we have seen that 1) worship is about worth, and 2) worship is about God’s glorious presence. To combine these ideas together, let us consider how much we value and treasure God’s glory and God’s presence. Let us, in our worship, be like Moses, appealing to the Lord crying “show me your glory!” Do we strive to walk with God as Moses did, or yearn for the perfect communion of Eden and long for the perfect worship of Heaven? Until then, on this side of the cross, as we even now remember the birth of Christ in this holiday season, how much should we value and treasure, wonder and marvel at the glorious supreme worth of the King, Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God with Us!

Next: How must we worship?