When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper the night before his death, he told his disciples, “Do this in remembrance of me,” referring to his broken body and shed blood (Luke 22:19). The apostle Paul later adds, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). We are to return again and again to that Friday when Jesus was crucified.

As much as we might be inclined to move quickly to the resurrection, Jesus directs our attention first to his suffering and death. We are meant to linger there, to remember it, and to reflect on it often.

What follows, then, is a unified account of the crucifixion1 drawn from all four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. By bringing these together, we can see the fullest picture of that day that Scripture gives us.

The narrative begins after Jesus’s trials in the early hours of Friday morning, with Governor Pilate’s final decision to hand him over to be crucified.

The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ

Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate decided that [the Jews’] demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder. But he delivered Jesus over to their will to be crucified. So they took Jesus, stripped him of the purple cloak, and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him.

So they took Jesus, bearing his own cross. And as they led him away, they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. [They] laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus.

And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them, Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him.

And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it.

And it was the third hour when they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left, and Jesus between them. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Pilate also wrote an inscription of the charge against him and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’”

Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” So the soldiers did these things, then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And the people stood by, watching.

And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One! Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”

And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”

But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

And [Jesus] said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home.

When the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour while the sun’s light failed. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.”

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and held it to his mouth to drink.

But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.”

When Jesus had received the sour wine, [he] cried out again with a loud voice, “It is finished.” And he bowed his head and, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this, he breathed his last and gave up his spirit.

And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!”

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome the mother of the sons of Zebedee. When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.” And again, another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”

The Sinfulness of Man

Having considered the full account of our Lord’s crucifixion, we can begin by drawing attention to the sinfulness of man.

I do not merely mean that sinners were present that day. Of course they were. What I mean is that the depravity of the human heart was on full display. Consider the people gathered around Jesus and what they did and said.

First, there were the Roman soldiers. They mocked him, stripped him, nailed him to the cross, and divided his garments among themselves. As Jesus hung there in agony, they gambled for his tunic.

Then there were the religious leaders—the chief priests, scribes, and elders. If anyone should have recognized who Jesus was, it was they. They had the law, the prophets, and the promises concerning the Messiah. Yet they did not weep for the Lord of lords. They demanded his crucifixion and then mocked him, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.”

Do you hear the irony? Subtly, they were proclaiming the truth. “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” That is true, though not in the way they intended. He could not save himself because he was saving others. He had the power to save himself, but he would not, so that he might, as was said at his birth, “save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

There were also the passersby who had assembled for the spectacle. They were neither soldiers nor religious authorities. They had no reason to be there except curiosity, yet they joined in the scorn, wagging their heads and hurling insults.

Even the criminals crucified beside him joined in. As one of them later confessed, they deserved their punishment, but what had Christ done? “This man has done nothing wrong.”

Look at the scene. Everyone is represented—Gentiles and Jews, rulers and common people, civil and religious authorities, violent men and outwardly respectable citizens. What unites them? They despise Christ.

When some speak of sin, it can sound like little more than a mistake—poor decisions, perhaps, but nothing serious. The cross exposes that lie. These people are not merely indifferent to Christ’s suffering; they celebrate it and add to it. This is what Paul means when he says, “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God” (Romans 8:7). The carnal mind does not simply ignore God; it opposes him.

This sinfulness is universal. We may be tempted to look at those people and ask, How could they do such a thing? Yet what we see in them is what we all are apart from grace. Paul writes, “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). In Ephesians 2, he says,

You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:1-3)

Apart from God’s grace and Christ’s redemptive work, there is no difference between those who mocked and crucified Jesus and us. We should never treat our sin as a light matter. We opposed God himself. Our sin was so serious, so pervasive, and so offensive that nothing less than the death of his Son could atone for it.

The sinfulness of man is seen not only in the cruelty of the cross but also in the blindness of the people. What did Jesus pray? “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

They were not innocent, but their sin had blinded them. They looked upon the long-promised Messiah, the Son of God, the Righteous One, and did not recognize him. Where there was divine power, they saw weakness; where there was victory, they saw defeat; where there was glory, they saw shame. This is what sin does. It darkens the mind and hardens the heart, and it was on full display at the cross.

The Substitution of Christ

The second thing the cross reveals is Christ’s substitution. This is the heart of what is happening, so we must not miss it.

The entire narrative emphasizes Christ’s innocence. The repentant criminal says, “This man has done nothing wrong.” Pilate says the same, finding no fault in him and showing reluctance to crucify him. Herod does not condemn him. Even the centurion at the foot of the cross declares, “Certainly this man was innocent.” Jesus does not belong on that cross. He is not a criminal or a sinner. He has done nothing worthy of death. And yet, there he is.

Why? Because he is not there for himself, but for others. He is a substitute.

At the beginning of the narrative, Jesus is led away to Golgotha while Barabbas, a murderer, is set free. The guilty goes free, and the innocent is condemned. Barabbas deserved death, but Jesus took his place.

Then, at the cross, one criminal says to the other, “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Again, the guilty and the innocent stand side by side. What is Jesus doing among the guilty? The prophet Isaiah answers,

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:3-5)

A few verses later, he writes, “He poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12).

Or, as Paul says, “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

This is what is happening at the cross. Jesus is not suffering for his own sins, but for the sins of many. He can serve as their substitute because he is the sinless God-Man. Having no sins of his own, he steps into our place and bears the wrath we deserved.

Derick Bingham captures this exchange vividly when he writes,

I gave Him a crown of thorns, He gave me a crown of righteousness. I gave Him a cross to carry, He gave me His yoke which is easy, His burden which is light. I gave Him nails through His hands, He gave me safely into His Father’s hands from which no power can pluck me. I gave Him a mock title, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ He gave me a new name and made me a king and a priest to God. I gave Him no covering, stripping His clothes from Him, He gave me a garment of salvation. I gave Him mockery, casting the same in His teeth, He gave me Paradise. I gave Him vinegar to drink, He gave me Living Water. I crucified and slew Him on a tree, He gave me eternal life. It was my sinfulness that put Him there. It is His sinlessness that puts me here.

This substitution is also seen in the case of the thief on the cross. He moves from reviling Christ to confessing his guilt and pleading, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Even as Jesus appears to be defeated, the man believes he still reigns, that death will not be the end, and that he can still save.

Jesus answers him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

What could that man do for himself? Nothing. He was at the point of death. There was no opportunity for restitution, no good work to perform. All he could do was cast himself on the mercy of Christ, trusting that Christ’s death was enough to save. And it was because the Righteous One was bearing the penalty of the unrighteous.

The Accomplishment of Redemption

The third thing the cross reveals is the accomplishment of redemption.

From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness covers the land. Throughout Scripture, darkness is often associated with the judgment of God. Think of the plague of darkness in Egypt or the prophetic descriptions of the day of the Lord. Darkness signals judgment; it signals divine wrath. At the end of this darkness, Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Here, the deepest agony of the cross is revealed. The nails were terrible, the scourging was terrible, and the humiliation was terrible. But the greatest suffering was not physical; it was judicial. The Son was bearing the curse of sin. As Paul writes, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

That is what is happening in the darkness. Behind that cry of abandonment is the reality that Jesus is enduring the wrath of God for our sin.

Yet at the end of this suffering, Jesus declares, “It is finished.” The work he came to accomplish is complete. The Scriptures are fulfilled, the price is paid, the sacrifice is offered, and the wrath of God has been borne. The debt is canceled. Nothing is left undone.

Immediately, the effects of this finished work become evident. The curtain of the sanctuary is torn from top to bottom, not from bottom to top, as if man were forcing his way into God’s presence, but from top to bottom. God himself opens the way. The barrier between a holy God and sinful man is removed through the death of Christ.

The earth quakes, the rocks split, and tombs are opened. Creation itself responds to the death of its Maker.

Then the centurion, seeing what had taken place, says, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” The irony is striking. Earlier, the mockers said, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” But the centurion recognizes that Jesus is the Son of God precisely because he does not come down. His remaining on the cross proves that his death accomplished redemption.

The apostle John adds, “He who saw it has borne witness—that you also may believe.” Believe what? That Jesus is the Christ; that he truly died, though he did not deserve it; that the Scriptures were fulfilled in him; that he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The crucifixion account does not leave us merely with a collection of historical facts. It calls us to believe. If we see ourselves in the mocking crowds, the indifferent soldiers, or the religious leaders who demanded his death, we must look again. See the sinfulness of man. See the substitution of Christ. See the accomplishment of redemption.

Like the thief on the cross, we should confess our sins and turn to Christ. Like the centurion, we should confess, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” Like the crowds, we should walk away, beating our breasts over what we have seen.

And even after we have trusted in Christ as our only hope of salvation, we return to the cross again and again to remember what was accomplished there. Let us say with the apostle Paul, “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).

The Public Reading of Scripture

In our study of worship, we left off considering the various parts or elements of worship. So far, we’ve looked at preaching, giving, and prayers. Next, let’s consider the public reading of Scripture.

I would argue that the most important reform of the Protestant Reformation was the return to the Bible as our sole authority. The reformers moved the table for the Lord’s Supper to the side of the sanctuary and placed the pulpit front and center, not to diminish the Supper, but to emphasize that the Bible and its preaching must come first. Without the Bible, without God speaking to us, we have no authority to practice the Lord’s Supper. We would not even know how to observe it. The same is true for all of worship and the entire Christian life. We must recognize the authority of Scripture and reflect that in all we do as the church.

This includes not only preaching but also the public reading of Scripture.

Listen to what the Apostle Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:11–16:

Command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Timothy 4:11–16)

Paul is addressing Timothy as a pastor, instructing him in his responsibilities. Among them is a devotion to the reading of Scripture in the church.

Not all translations make this as explicit. The King James Version reads, “Till I come, give attendance to reading,” which could suggest private reading or leave the object unspecified. But the Greek includes a definite article before “reading,” indicating something specific—“the reading.” Paul writes, “Devote yourself to the reading, to the exhortation, to the teaching.”

This parallels what we saw in Acts 2:42. The early church did not devote themselves merely to prayer in general, but to the prayers; not merely to teaching in general, but to the apostles’ teaching; not merely to fellowship in a vague sense, but to the fellowship and the breaking of bread. The definite article points to identifiable, established practices of the church. The same is true here with “the reading.”

When we consider the context, it becomes clear that Paul has Timothy’s public ministry of the Word in view. “The reading” is closely tied to “the exhortation” and “the teaching,” and the instructions concern Timothy’s conduct before the gathered church. This is both a public reading and a reading of Scripture. What else would Timothy read and teach from in the church’s corporate worship?

For this reason, modern translations are right to render the phrase as “the public reading of Scripture.”

Even so, it is not always obvious to churches that the reading of Scripture should be an essential part of worship. In some churches, the only Scripture reading occurs incidentally, as the pastor references verses during the sermon. I have even heard sermons in which the pastor never quoted Scripture once—only retelling or alluding to biblical stories without actually reading the text.

I once had a minister advise me never to read more than ten verses of Scripture at a time, arguing that people would lose interest. But that misses the point entirely. The one moment when the congregation can be certain that what they are hearing is true is when the Word of God is read. Everything else a pastor says must be tested against Scripture. God’s Word is sufficient, certain, and infallible. Men are not.

In the Old Testament, God’s Word was read publicly among his people. In Deuteronomy 31, Moses commands that the Law be read every seven years at the Feast of Booths so that all Israel—men, women, children, and sojourners—may hear and learn. In Joshua 8, Joshua reads “all the words of the law” before the entire assembly. In 2 Kings 23, King Josiah gathers the people and reads the Book of the Covenant, leading to national repentance. In Nehemiah 8, Ezra reads the Law from morning until midday while the Levites explain it so the people understand.

This pattern continues into the New Testament. When Jesus enters the synagogue in Nazareth, Luke writes,

As was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written— (Luke 4:16–17)

Likewise, in Acts 13:

On the Sabbath day, [Paul and Barnabas] went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.” (Acts 13:14–15)

Paul’s own letters were also intended to be read publicly in the churches, which Peter refers to as Scripture (2 Peter 3). Paul tells the Colossians, “When this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans” (Colossians 4:16). To the Thessalonians, he writes, “I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers” (1 Thessalonians 5:27).

Finally, Revelation 1:3 says, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear.”

The Old Testament establishes the pattern of publicly reading God’s Word in worship, and the New Testament continues it. This should not surprise us. Worship is, at its heart, hearing from God and responding to him with praise.

The Congregation’s Amen

Speaking of praise, consider the next element of worship: the “Amen.” This touches on the congregation’s response in worship. Singing is certainly part of that response, but so is the spoken “Amen.”

You might ask, Is the saying of “Amen” really an essential part of worship? Before answering, consider this insight from Sam Waldron:

True worship in the church should be an expression of corporate unity. It is not Pastor Joe doing his thing in the morning worship and Pastor Sam doing his thing in the evening worship, and the only one who gets excited about the worship of God is the preacher and the leader of worship. That ought not to be. When visitors come into worship, they ought to be able to easily see that there is a whole multitude that agrees. The rebel should not leave thinking that he has a controversy only with the preacher. He should realize that he has a problem with the whole church. There should be expressed a corporate unity in the worship of God.

In other words, the congregation should respond to the prayers, preaching, and reading of Scripture in a way that clearly expresses agreement. When an unbeliever visits and disagrees with what he hears, he should recognize that his disagreement is not merely with the church’s leadership but with the entire congregation. Our unity in the truth ought to be evident.

Waldron adds, “Would the unbeliever look at you and say, ‘I don’t believe a thing they’re saying, but it is clear that they do. His whole soul is involved in this matter of worship.’”

There are, of course, other ways to express engagement and unity—singing, attentiveness, posture. But few responses are as clear and unmistakable as an audible “Amen.”

More importantly, what does Scripture say? Is this a biblical element of worship? The answer is yes, and it appears in a variety of contexts: following curses, praises, proclamations, benedictions, and doxologies.

In Deuteronomy 27, the Levites pronounce covenant curses, and the people respond, “Amen”:

“‘Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image, an abomination to the LORD, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’
“‘Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
“‘Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor’s landmark.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ (Deuteronomy 27:15–17)

In 1 Chronicles 16, the people respond to praise: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! Then all the people said, ‘Amen!’ and praised the LORD” (1 Chronicles 16:36).

In Nehemiah 8, after the Law is read and explained, “all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen,’ lifting up their hands … and they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD” (Nehemiah 8:5–6).

Amens also follow benedictions. Romans 15:33 reads, “May the God of peace be with you all. Amen.” While Paul may have written the “Amen,” these letters were read aloud in the churches, and the implication is that the congregation would respond in kind.

Even in heaven, the corporate response includes the amen. Following a doxology in Revelation 5:

I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped. (Revelation 5:13-14)

So the amen appears in Old Testament worship, in the worship of heaven, and in the life of the apostolic church. Consider also 1 Corinthians 14:16: “If you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying?”

Paul’s point is that worship must be intelligible and edifying. If someone cannot understand what is being said, he cannot affirm it. But notice how naturally Paul refers to the offering of an “Amen.” He assumes it as a normal, expected response, even from an outsider. This suggests it was a common and familiar practice in the early church.

There is an irony here. Some today view audible responses in worship as disruptive or disorderly, preferring complete silence from the congregation. Yet Paul, writing to correct disorder in Corinth, identifies a problem that actually prevents people from offering their amens. Clearly, he does not regard the amen as disorderly, but as a proper and meaningful expression of participation.

As one pastor has said, “If you can sit under the faithful preaching of the Word of God, and there is never an arising from the heart an amen to the truth of God’s Word, then you are not a Christian.” That speaks to the inward response, but he continues, saying,

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. I believe that we can do better. Don’t you want God to be praised? Don’t you want people to know that you worship and praise God? Don’t you want people to know that you love and believe the truth? Then, beloved, say the amen.

Singing in Worship

Next, consider the singing in our worship. If any element of worship has generated controversy in the church, it is this one. Should we use musical instruments? Should we sing hymns or only Scripture? Should there be choirs or a full band? What about traditional hymns versus contemporary music? The debate has been extensive.

In fact, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, the Particular Baptists in England even debated whether it was appropriate to sing at all in worship, which is a fitting place to begin. The regulative principle requires a biblical command, so do we have one? The answer is yes.

Jesus and his disciples conclude the Passover meal and the first Lord’s Supper with a hymn (Matthew 26:30).

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14:15, “I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.” Later in the same chapter, he adds, “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up” (1 Corinthians 14:26).

Ephesians 5 says,

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:18–20)

Similarly, in Colossians 3:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:16–17)

Finally, Revelation shows the saints in heaven singing: “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God’” (Revelation 5:9).

Notably, they sing a new song, which suggests they are not limited to singing Scripture verbatim.

Today, few would question whether we should sing, but it is worth considering why we sing. These passages consistently connect singing with thanksgiving. We sing because we are thankful. More than that, our singing has two audiences: we sing to one another, and we sing to God.

In Ephesians 5:19, Paul says we are “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” while also “singing and making melody to the Lord.” Colossians 3:16 says we are “admonishing one another … singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in [our] hearts to God.”

Thus, our singing both ministers to one another and directs praise and gratitude to God.

Because of this, the words we sing are crucial. Colossians teaches that our singing flows from the word of Christ dwelling richly within us. Paul says we admonish one another through singing “in all wisdom,” and in Ephesians, he describes it as addressing or teaching one another. The lyrics, therefore, must be true and biblical. They need not be Scripture quoted verbatim, but they should be clearly drawn from it.

This is why I once refused to sing “Precious Memories” in worship. Though included in the hymnbook, it is driven more by sentimentality than by biblical truth:

Precious mem’ries, how they linger,
How they ever flood my soul;
In the stillness of the midnight,
Precious, sacred scenes unfold.

What does that have to do with the truth of God? “Mary Had a Little Lamb” comes closer to a biblical hymn than that song.

The same concern applies to some modern songs. As a general rule, if a so-called worship song could be sung to a romantic partner without the person knowing it is actually about Christ, it likely lacks the doctrinal clarity needed for corporate worship. It does not communicate biblical truth effectively.

At the same time, there is value in variety. Paul speaks of “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” indicating distinctions among them. A psalm is a song of praise, usually sung with musical accompaniment. A hymn is a song with religious content, though not always framed as direct praise. A song is a broader category, which is why Paul specifies spiritual songs.

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul also says, “When you come together, each one has a hymn” (1 Corinthians 14:26). Whether these were composed or selected, there appears to have been room for diversity in what was sung.

Still, the guiding principle remains that whatever we sing must be “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23). As Paul writes, “I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also” (1 Corinthians 14:15). Our singing must be sincere, arising from the heart, and it must be governed by the truth of Scripture.

Elements and Circumstances in Worship

What about the other questions people often raise regarding singing—choirs, hymnals versus screens, musical instruments? Under the regulative principle of worship, how do we determine what is acceptable to God and what is not? We can agree that we must sing, since both command and pattern are clearly evident in the New Testament. But what about the details?

This brings us to the distinction between the elements of worship and the circumstances of worship.

The elements are those activities Scripture commands, either explicitly or implicitly. The circumstances are the details surrounding those elements for which Scripture gives no specific instruction. For example, we are commanded to gather for worship and are even given an implied day, but we are not told what time of day to meet. Should it be early morning, mid-morning, or afternoon? That is a circumstance of worship.

How, then, do we determine the circumstances?

The 1689 Baptist Confession is helpful here. In chapter one, paragraph six, it states that “the whole counsel of God concerning everything essential for His own glory and man’s salvation, faith, and life is either explicitly stated or by necessary inference contained in the Holy Scriptures.” It then adds:

We recognize that some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of the church are common to human actions and organizations and are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian wisdom, following the general rules of the Word, which must always be observed.

Scripture gives us everything we need either explicitly or by necessary inference. Yet some circumstances are left to be ordered by “the light of nature,” “Christian wisdom,” and “the general rules of the Word.”

The light of nature refers to basic human reasoning. For instance, we would not schedule a worship service at three in the morning, when people are typically asleep.

Christian wisdom builds on this by applying reason shaped by biblical understanding. The light of nature may suggest that 10:30 in the morning is a reasonable time to meet. Christian wisdom might further suggest gathering again in the evening, recognizing that Sunday is the Lord’s Day, not merely the Lord’s morning.

At the same time, we must remain sensible. We do not meet all day without pause. The light of nature reminds us that people need rest, families need time, and children need breaks.

Finally, we consider the general rules of the Word. Even when Scripture does not give direct commands, it provides guiding principles. Are we doing all things decently and in order? Are we edifying the body? Are we promoting reverence, peace, and unity? These questions help shape our decisions.

So while there is liberty and flexibility in the circumstances of worship, we must remain faithful to Scripture in all we do.

With that framework in place, let’s consider some of the common questions about singing.

Choirs

Should we have a choir?

On one hand, a choir is singing, and singing is commanded. But we must begin with a more basic question: who is commanded to sing? In Scripture, the command is always directed to the entire congregation, and the examples consistently show congregational singing. That is our baseline.

So we must ask whether choirs support or hinder congregational singing. While there may not be a definitive answer in every case, history gives reason for caution. Prior to the Reformation, congregational singing had largely disappeared, and worship became a spectator event in which the choir performed while the people listened.

This does not mean choirs are inherently wrong, but it does mean we should be careful about adopting practices that could diminish or replace an element God has clearly prescribed.

For that reason, it may be wise to keep such singing outside the formal worship service. That approach may seem cautious, but caution is appropriate when considering how we worship God. Our guiding question should not be, Can we do this? but rather, What does God want? If there is uncertainty, wisdom calls for careful consideration.

Hymnals, Screens, and Practical Matters

What about singing from a hymnal versus a screen, or even singing from memory?

Scripture gives no specific direction on these matters. They fall under the category of circumstances.

At times, people have drawn unnecessary lines. Some have objected even to musical notation, treating it as an unbiblical innovation. But such conclusions confuse preference or tradition with biblical principle.

What Scripture does emphasize is the content of what we sing. The words must be true, biblical, and edifying. Beyond that, practical considerations come into play. Is it helpful to have musical notation? Often it is. Is it useful to project lyrics for songs not found in a hymnal? That can also be beneficial.

In these cases, the question is not simply a matter of right or wrong. Often, there is no inherent wrong. Instead, we ask what is most helpful and edifying. As Paul writes, “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up” (1 Corinthians 10:23).

This is where Christian wisdom must be applied.

A Final Word

As we evaluate the circumstances of worship, we must distinguish between biblical requirements and personal preferences. There is liberty, but not full license. There is flexibility, but always within the bounds of Scripture.

And perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the question of musical instruments, a subject that has generated considerable debate. But that is a discussion for next time.

I’ve been asked before whether I would rather preach at a funeral or at a wedding, and my answer often surprises people. If you ask me which one I would rather attend, hands down, I would choose a wedding. But believe it or not, I would rather preach at a funeral than at a wedding.

Why? At a wedding, people aren’t paying much attention to the preacher. It’s all about the happy couple. But at a funeral, people are far more inclined to listen. They want to hear what the preacher has to say. They hope for some word of encouragement. I may be exaggerating a bit, but at a wedding, I can feel somewhat like a placeholder.

As strange as it may seem, in Revelation 19, we have both a funeral and a wedding. It is clearly a time of celebration: “The marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready,” yet a large part of the celebration is because the great prostitute, Babylon, is now dead (Revelation 19:7, 2). We see smoke rising from her remains, prompting the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures to cry, “Amen. Hallelujah!” (Revelation 19:3, 4).

So this is both a funeral and a wedding, yet there is not the slightest hint of sorrow or grief. It is a scene of pure joy, because anyone with reason to mourn is no longer present. This moment marks a transition from the harlot of Babylon to the bride of Christ. It moves from the destruction of carnality and evil to the celebration of the righteous saints in heaven (Revelation 19:8).

If we were to imagine Revelation 18 and 19 as a movie, chapter 18 would be the dramatic climax, when the tension reaches its peak. The earth is made bright with the glory of an angel just before Babylon, with all her wickedness, is struck with death and mourning and famine and burned up with fire (Revelation 18:1, 8). Those who gained wealth from her stand far off in fear, weeping and mourning as they watch the smoke rise from their once-great city (Revelation 18:15, 18). They cry out, “In a single hour she has been laid waste” (Revelation 18:19).

As the scene unfolds, there is a tremendous amount of noise—people screaming, city walls collapsing. Then a mighty angel takes up the city and throws it into the sea. As it sinks, everything goes quiet (Revelation 18:21). Only faint ripples remain on the surface of the water.

A moment later, however, a faint roar begins to rise in the distance. The scene shifts upward, through the clouds, into heaven. Suddenly, a great multitude appears, singing and shouting:

“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” (Revelation 19:1-2)

“Hallelujah!” they cry, “Hallelujah!” (Rev 19:3, 6).

That is the scene unfolding in this part of Revelation, and we need to watch it play out before we attempt to examine its individual parts. It has been said that Revelation is a picture book, not a puzzle book. We are meant to absorb its drama and see the story. The details can be studied and better understood, but the story itself comes first. That is the nature of this kind of biblical literature. It is more like a movie than a textbook.

With that in mind, let’s work our way through Revelation 19.

A Great Multitude in Heaven

After the fall of Babylon, John “heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven” (Revelation 19:1). According to Revelation 7, this is “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9). People from all walks of life are represented here. Though that thought perplexed the Lord’s first disciples, God’s redemptive power has reached far beyond the borders of Israel. The gospel has found a home among every nation, tribe, people, and language.

Some, however, are puzzled by Revelation’s description of a great multitude in heaven (Revelation 19:1). How can there be a great multitude if the Bible elsewhere suggests that God’s redeemed people are relatively few? For example, Jesus said,

For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13-14)

Which is it? Are God’s people few or a great multitude? The answer is both.

At this very moment, there are billions of people on the planet. By one estimate, Protestant Christians alone number in the hundreds of millions. Even if we assume all of them are genuine believers, not accounting for those who have lived in the past or will live in the future, that is still an enormous number. It is certainly a great multitude. Yet, compared to the total population, it remains a relatively small percentage. Believers can be a minority in this world while still forming a vast multitude in heaven.

Regardless, there is a great multitude in heaven, and when John sees them following the collapse of Babylon, they are shouting, “Hallelujah!” (Revelation 19:1).

Hallelujah is one of the most universal words in the world. It is so significant that English Bibles do not translate it but simply carry it over from the original Hebrew. Many other languages do the same. The word is composed of two parts: hallel, meaning “praise,” and Yah, a shortened form of Yahweh, the covenant name of God. Hallelujah, then, means “Praise Yahweh,” or “Praise the Lord” (Revelation 19:1).

Interestingly, Revelation 19 is the only place in the New Testament where this word appears, and here it is used four times. In the Old Testament, it appears only in the Psalms, a total of twenty-four times. The final psalm ends with it: “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!” (Psalm 150:6).

What we have in Revelation 19, then, is another hallel psalm, or a song of praise to the Lord. It is, in a sense, Psalm 151. Yet there is something that may strike us as unusual about this song. It praises God specifically for his judgment of the great prostitute, Babylon (Revelation 19:2). “Hallelujah! … For he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality. … Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever” (Revelation 19:1–3).

We may not often sing about God’s final judgment, but it is a perfectly legitimate reason to praise him. This does not mean we take pleasure in the destruction of sinners. God himself says, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezekiel 33:11). He would rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. But if the sinner refuses, justice will be accomplished, and the punishment will be appropriate. Sinners will be judged along with Babylon, to whom they gave their allegiance.

So while we are more inclined to praise God for his mercy and grace, as we should, it is no less appropriate to praise him for his justice.

Salvation Through Judgment

“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.” (Revelation 19:1-3)

Notice the reasons the saints in heaven give for praising God. We have already considered the first: his justice will prevail.

Second, there is salvation (Revelation 19:1). Salvation cannot be accomplished apart from the destruction of wickedness.

Consider the flood in Noah’s day. Peter writes, “Eight persons were brought safely through water” (1 Peter 3:20). Some translations make the point even more explicit, saying Noah and his family were saved through or bythe floodwaters. They were not merely saved from the water by the ark; they were saved by the water. From what were they saved? Genesis tells us that “the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).

The flood saved Noah and his family from the rampant evil that had filled the world. God delivered them by removing that evil, physically and decisively.

That event gives us a glimpse of what he will do again at the end of time. He will take every last trace of wickedness and destroy it once and for all. Hallelujah. Praise God.

The older I get, the more I find myself meditating on a passage in Romans 8. The apostle Paul writes,

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:18-23)

I suspect many of us can relate to the kind of groaning Paul describes. Even on the best days, life is marked by frustration and decay. We grow tired. We fall sick. Small inconveniences pile up. Even moments of rest are not free from discomfort. And beyond our personal experience, we see a world filled with suffering—reports of believers enduring persecution, headlines marked by injustice, war, corruption, and violence.

It produces a longing, a desire to be free from this world in its present condition. We long to be free from tyranny, corruption, violence, persecution, injustice, materialism, unthankfulness, godlessness, suffering, sorrow, and death. We long to be free even from our own struggles with sin. Like Paul, we groan inwardly as we wait for the day when God will bring it all to an end (Romans 8:23). He will save us from it, not temporarily, but forever.

Babylon will fall because God will judge the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality (Revelation 19:2). And the saints will cry, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God” (Revelation 19:1). We will be free, and as the smoke from the harlot rises forever and ever, we will never forget what God has saved us from (Revelation 19:3).

Glory and Power Belong to Our God

The third reason the great multitude in heaven praises God is for his glory and power (Revelation 19:1).

In the Hebrew mind, glory conveys a sense of weightiness. God is not small or insignificant. He is not to be treated lightly. Yet those seduced by Babylon regard him as negligible—someone who can be ignored without consequence. They dismiss his power, if they acknowledge it at all.

The truth is that a day is coming when every knee will bow to God and every tongue will confess to him (Romans 14:11). The whole world will see his glory, recognize his undeniable weightiness, and behold his power. And when that day comes, the saints will cry with joy, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God” (Revelation 19:1). Amen.

The saints, however, are not alone in their praise. “The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne, saying, ‘Amen. Hallelujah!’” (Revelation 19:4). Even the angelic beings in heaven join in, affirming that his works are true and worthy of celebration.

Then a voice from the throne calls out, “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great” (Revelation 19:5). Every God-fearing servant is summoned to worship—to turn away from Babylon and give glory to the one true God.

If the thought of celebrating the destruction of wickedness, and, consequently, the wicked, remains troubling, then fix your eyes on the God of our salvation (Revelation 19:1). Consider his glory. Consider his power. Aren’t his judgments true and just? (Revelation 19:2). Does not the great prostitute, who corrupted the earth with her immorality, deserve the judgment she received? Has not God avenged on her the blood of his servants?

She was an unrelenting temptress, intent on drawing the saints away from God. And when she could not entice them, she killed them. But the Lord has delivered his people. “The smoke from her goes up forever and ever” (Revelation 19:3). Her end is final.

From Funeral to Wedding

As we come to verse 6, the sound intensifies. John hears what seems to be “the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out” (Revelation 19:6). The focus of the scene begins to shift. The harlot of Babylon fades into the background as the bride of Christ comes into clearer view.

In other words, we have reached a transition in the text. The song of praise continues, but the vision moves from the destruction of Babylon to the wedding of Christ and his bride—that is, the church. We leave the funeral behind and enter the wedding.

And the multitude cries out,

“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure.” (Revelation 19:6-8)

Now, to be clear, there has never been a moment when God was not reigning as the Almighty Lord. But this is the moment when the entire world sees it (Revelation 19:6). Today, as Psalm 2 describes, the nations rage and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord (Psalm 2:1–2). But in this moment, every such rebellion is brought to an end. As the psalmist says, “He who sits in the heavens laughs” (Psalm 2:4).

Once again, the church declares, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns” (Revelation 19:6). No one is higher. No one is more powerful.

We can see how the world continually attempts to create its own version of a utopia. People strive to build perfect societies, yet those efforts consistently fail. More often than not, they result in oppression and moral chaos. Babylon presents herself as having all the answers, as if she can offer hope and perfection. But something essential is missing: she denies God. A perfect kingdom cannot exist without God. It cannot exist without man’s submission to him. And it cannot exist where sin remains.

By this point in the vision, however, all of that is behind us. There are no more nations raging or plotting against the Lord (Psalm 2:1–2). No one is attempting to construct a perfect world on flawed foundations. As Paul writes, “When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away” (1 Corinthians 13:10). Here in Revelation 19, the perfect has come, and the saints respond, “Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory” (Revelation 19:7).

The saints have waited long for this moment. They have suffered, endured, and hoped. Now they have reached the consummation of all that God has been accomplishing from the beginning.

God promised this day soon after the fall into sin and continued to reveal it through the generations. In time, the promised Messiah came. We saw his life and ministry, his death and resurrection, and his ascension into heaven. And then came the waiting.

Even in the first century, some began to wonder if the promise would be fulfilled. Peter writes,

Do not overlook this one fact that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness” (2Pe 3:8-9).

He goes on to say,

The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God. (2 Peter 3:10-12)

We must not lose sight of the day of God.

There are times when the weight of the world feels overwhelming. The sin and godlessness of our culture, along with our own struggles, can produce anxiety, fear, and even anger. We may feel the urge to fix what is broken, to reclaim what has been lost, to build something better here and now.

But Christ redirects our gaze. He reminds us that our time here is brief. He reminds us that we were not redeemed to find satisfaction in a fallen world. We were redeemed for something far greater. As Paul writes,

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. (Romans 8:22-24)

Our hope is not that humanity will finally succeed in building a utopia on earth. Our hope is in Christ, who says, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Only he can accomplish the perfect world that we long for.

The Marriage of the Lamb

The focus of the latter part of this passage is not merely on the perfect world to come. That is implied in the celebration over Babylon’s destruction, but the central focus is Christ himself and, more specifically, the church’s ultimate union with him.

“Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory” (Revelation 19:7). Why? “For the marriage of the Lamb has come.”

The Bible uses many analogies to describe salvation, but the imagery of a wedding conveys a uniquely deep level of intimacy. To be the Bride of the Lamb implies profound closeness (Revelation 19:7). Few relationships are as intimate as that between a husband and his wife.

Consider John 17. On the night of his arrest, just before his crucifixion, Jesus prays for his disciples and defines for us the essence of eternal life. Notably, he does not speak of mansions, streets of gold, or even a painless existence. Instead, he says,

“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:1-3)

According to Christ, the crowning joy of eternal life is to know him and his Father. This is not mere intellectual knowledge. It is more than understanding facts about God. Even the demons believe, and in many ways their theology is more accurate than ours (James 2:19).

Yet the demons do not enjoy a personal, intimate relationship with God. When Jesus speaks of knowing, he refers to a deep, personal knowledge, like that of a husband and wife (John 17:3). It is the kind of union that Scripture describes when it says, “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain” (Genesis 4:1), and again, “Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth” (Genesis 4:25).

It is difficult to understand how someone can claim to be a Christian and yet have no desire to read the Bible, hear it preached, or grow in the knowledge of Christ.

“Do you want to go to heaven?”

“Of course.”

“Do you realize that the greatest feature of heaven will be our marriage to Christ?”

“Okay.”

“Then why is there no desire to cultivate that relationship now? Did you not pursue your spouse before marriage? Did you not want to learn everything you could about him or her?”

How can we say we long to be joined to Christ in heaven if we show little interest in knowing him now?

Think of Mary. Her desire to know Christ led Jesus to say, “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42). While Martha was distracted with much serving, Mary devoted herself to the one thing necessary. She sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching (Luke 10:39–40). She wanted to hear every word he spoke.

Mary was devoted. She wanted to know Christ, to be near him, to understand what pleased him. She longed for closeness with her Savior.

I’m reminded of my own relationship with my wife. For much of our courtship, we lived hundreds of miles apart, and there were times when I felt a deep longing simply to be with her. I could hardly wait for the day when we would be married and no longer separated.

Paul expresses a similar longing at the end of his life:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7-8)

Do we share that longing? Do we desire the day when we will be perfectly united with Christ, free from every hindrance, especially sin? And do our daily habits reflect that desire? I pray they do.

The Bride Made Ready

The saints and angels in heaven declare, “The marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure” (Revelation 19:7–8).

The true Bride of Christ will be ready (Revelation 19:7). As Jesus teaches in Matthew 25, she will be prepared for the Lord’s sudden appearing. Yet even this readiness is a gift; it was granted to her (Revelation 19:8). By his grace and purpose, God clothes his church with fine linen, bright and pure. And that fine linen is defined here as the righteous deeds of the saints.

We do not clothe ourselves. It is not our righteousness that justifies us. God himself grants the fine linen. He creates in us a clean heart, puts his Spirit within us, and works in us to do his will once we come to him in faith (Revelation 19:8).

Then the angel says to John, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb … These are the true words of God” (Revelation 19:9).

Overwhelmed by the vision, John falls at the angel’s feet to worship him. But the angel immediately corrects him: “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God” (Revelation 19:10). Praise belongs to God alone.

Living in Anticipation

This scene in Revelation 19 has not yet come to pass. Babylon, with all her temptations and sufferings, has not yet fallen. The marriage of the Lamb has not yet come (Revelation 19:7).

That reality carries important implications. First, we are not yet celebrating Babylon’s fall. Instead, we are called to be ambassadors for Christ to those still deceived by her (2 Corinthians 5:20). We are to call them out and plead with them on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.

Second, we must be ready. Jesus makes this point in the parable of the ten virgins. Five were unprepared when the bridegroom came. They were not watching or anticipating his arrival, and they were shut out. They cried, “Lord, lord, open to us,” but he answered, “I do not know you” (Matthew 25:11–12). Jesus concludes, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13).

Paul echoes this longing: “There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness … which the Lord … will award … to all who have loved his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).

We may be Christians, but every part of us should be shaped by a sincere longing not merely to be betrothed to Christ, but to be finally united with him. Our affections for him should run deep. We should desire, above all else, to be with him.

That day has not yet come, but it will. May we live in eager anticipation of it.

If you are not joined to Christ by faith, do not wait. Come to him as Noah entered the ark. Seek him. Pray to him. Cry out, “Lord, save me, for I am a sinner.” He may return at any moment. Those outside of Christ will share Babylon’s fate, but those who are in Christ will be freed from the groanings of this fallen world forever.

Last time, we began to consider the parts or elements of worship. Acts 2:42 names four essential parts—preaching, giving, the Lord’s Supper, and prayers. I’ll now spend a little more time on some of these and add a few more to the list.

Before I do, however, it is helpful to address an obvious question. Proponents of the normative principle often accuse those who hold the regulative principle of inconsistency. Where, after all, does Scripture explicitly command us to follow the regulative principle of worship? Nowhere do Christ or the apostles say, “In worship, you must do only what God commands.” Does that mean we should abandon the regulative principle altogether?

At times, we have not helped ourselves in how we frame it. For example, the regulative principle is sometimes defined as, “What is commanded is right, and what is not commanded is wrong.” In the right context, that can be true, but stated on its own, it raises a fair question: where is the command for the regulative principle itself?

Explicit and Implicit Commands in Worship

To answer that, we need to recognize two types of commands in Scripture. First, there are explicit commands where the Lord says, “Do this” or “Do not do that.” Second, there are implicit commands. As Sam Waldron writes:

Those who believe in the regulative principle must also assume it was practiced in scriptural examples of proper worship. For us, then, a scriptural example or precedent of something being practiced as a part of New Testament worship would be sufficient to establish it as a required part of worship. This would constitute for us an implicit command, even though there was no explicit command or imperative in the passage where the example is found. Apostolic precedent for a part of worship is sufficient to establish something as a part of worship commanded by God. Such an example or precedent would then provide an implied command.

In other words, if we see the apostles approving of something in the church’s worship, even without a direct command, we may infer that it is right and good. This aligns with paragraph six of chapter one of the Baptist Confession:

The whole counsel of God concerning everything essential for His own glory and man’s salvation, faith, and life is either explicitly stated or by necessary inference contained in the Holy Scriptures. Nothing is ever to be added to the Scriptures, either by new revelation of the Spirit or by traditions of men.

With that in mind, consider a familiar example. The Old Testament explicitly commands the setting apart of one day in seven: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). The command identifies the seventh day as the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10). Yet we gather for worship on the first day of the week. Why?

If we search for an explicit command to worship on Sunday, we will not find one. What we do find is apostolic example and approval. In Acts 20, the church gathers on the first day of the week. In 1 Corinthians 16, Paul instructs the church to take up offerings on that same day. In Revelation 1, John refers to it as the Lord’s Day. The command, then, is implied. As the Confession states, it is contained in Scripture “by necessary inference.” As Waldron summarizes, apostolic precedent is sufficient; no explicit command is required.

At this point, proponents of the normative principle may raise a further question. If apostolic example opens the door beyond explicit commands, why stop there? Why not include other elements not forbidden by Scripture? For instance, why not incorporate a dramatic skit into corporate worship?

Here, the difference between the two principles becomes clearer. We have neither an explicit command nor an implicit command for such practices. There are no examples of the early church engaging in them, even though such forms of expression were available in their culture. The regulative principle, therefore, says, “No, we have no warrant for it.” The normative principle, however, says, “Yes, it is not forbidden.”

The contrast is ultimately one of posture. The regulative principle asks, “What does God want me to do? I need his approval before I proceed.” The normative principle says, “I will continue unless God stops me.”

We have a simple rule in our house: the furniture is to be used only as intended. The couch is for sitting or lying down. When I catch one of the kids jumping on it, I remind them of the rule. Inevitably, I will return to find them walking across it instead. “We’re not jumping,” they say. At that point, I can almost hear my granddaddy’s voice: “Keep it up, and you won’t be sitting for a while either.”

Setting aside the debate for a moment, Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, gives us every reason to approach the worship of our holy and almighty God with great care. Our first question should not be, What will God allow? but What does God want? For that, we look to Scripture for both explicit and implicit commands. What Scripture forbids provides necessary guardrails, but our aim is not to drive as close to the line as possible. Our aim is to stay in the center of the lane. In worship, the concern is not what we can get away with, but what God wants us to do.

Preaching as Central to Worship

With that, let’s return to the various parts of worship, beginning again with preaching.

Acts 2 tells us that the early church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42). We might also consider 1 Timothy 2, where Paul writes:

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. (1 Timothy 2:8-12)

At first glance, this may seem like an unusual passage to cite when discussing preaching. Yet Paul is describing what he expects of believers whenever they gather for formal worship. He says, “in every place,” that is, in every church (1 Timothy 2:8). And what does he emphasize? Setting aside his comments on apparel, he highlights two essential activities: praying and teaching.

Evidently, Paul regards both as indispensable. That stands in contrast to how many churches approach worship today. For some, worship is primarily music and singing. Prayer may be included, but often as a brief transition. Preaching, meanwhile, is sometimes treated as an afterthought. I once watched a service in which the pastor, after the music, said the singing had been so powerful that he did not feel it necessary to preach at all, as though preaching might detract from what had already taken place.

Last week, several people mentioned churches that begin with a sermon and follow it with singing. The reasoning is that singing becomes a response to the Word that has just been preached. I have done this myself. Initially, my motives were not entirely pure. I hoped it might discourage habitual lateness from many of our members. But what I found was that the singing often felt richer and more meaningful after the sermon. We have likely experienced that in our own churches as well when we sing a final hymn following the message.

Why does that happen? Because when the truth of Scripture is clearly proclaimed, when God speaks to us through his Word, we are given something substantial to respond to. We are reminded of God’s holiness, his grace, his promises, and his work in Christ. And hearing those things naturally stirs us to praise. God speaks through his Word, and we respond in song.

It should not surprise us, then, that preaching holds a central place in worship. Through preaching, we hear from God. Martin Luther once said, “The highest form of worship is the preaching of God’s Word.”

In Feed My Sheep, Albert Mohler writes, “What do we think preaching is but the central act of Christian worship? … that is when the God of whom we have been speaking and singing speaks to us from His eternal and perfect Word.”

This is why Paul exhorts Timothy so strongly:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

Preaching, then, is not optional. It is essential to the church’s worship of God. And to be clear, preaching is not a dramatic performance. It is not an exercise in entertainment or stagecraft. It is a man, devoted to the study of Scripture, carefully and faithfully explaining and proclaiming God’s Word to the church.

Before moving on, it is worth considering the role of the congregation. At the beginning of Isaiah 66, the Lord says:

Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck; he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers pig’s blood; he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol.” (Isaiah 66:1-3)

The context is worship. And whom does God regard? “The one to whom I will look … he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” More than outward acts of sacrifice, God desires a people who receive his Word with humility and reverence.

Accordingly, the congregation’s role in preaching is not passive. It is to listen attentively, to take what is preached seriously, and to submit to it, so far as it is truly the Word of God.

Giving as an Element of Worship

Next, let’s consider our offerings in worship, or what Acts 2:42 refers to as “the fellowship.”

As noted previously, this term can refer broadly to fellowship or partnership, but it is often used in the New Testament to describe contributing or sharing. Even in Acts 2, the context supports this meaning: “All who believed were together and had all things in common … and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need” (Acts 2:44–45). The word common comes from the same root as fellowship.

This raises an important question: Is financial giving truly an element of corporate worship? Few would deny that giving is good and necessary, but is it properly considered an act of worship?

Acts 2 suggests that it is. Alongside the apostles’ teaching, the breaking of bread, and the prayers, the early church devoted themselves to these practices when they gathered. Paul reinforces this in 1 Corinthians 16: “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper” (1 Corinthians 16:2). When the church assembled for worship on the Lord’s Day, they were to take up a collection so that no additional gathering would be required later.

Acts 4 provides further insight:

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. (Acts 4:32-35)

Several observations follow. First, their giving flowed from their unity. Being “of one heart and soul,” they shared their resources freely. Second, their giving occurred alongside the apostles’ preaching. As the apostles bore witness to the resurrection, the people brought their offerings. This appears to have been part of their corporate worship. Third, the giving was public. They laid the proceeds at the apostles’ feet, indicating a visible, communal act. Though deacons would later be appointed to oversee distribution, giving itself remained a feature of the church’s gathered life.

This should not surprise us when we consider the Old Testament. Offerings have long been associated with worship. Cain and Abel brought offerings to the Lord. After the flood, Noah offered sacrifices. The Lord commanded Israel, “None shall appear before me empty-handed” (Exodus 23:15), and again, “Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 16:17). The psalmist likewise exhorts, “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts!” (Psalm 96:8).

While the nature of offerings changed under the new covenant, the New Testament is no less insistent on giving. If anything, it deepens the motivation. Paul appeals to the gospel itself:

I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:14-15)

When we gather to worship the Savior who was rich yet became poor for us, it is fitting that we give generously to meet the needs of others.

This leads to a practical question. If giving is an element of worship, why do some churches not take up a collection during the service? Like many churches, your church may place collection boxes outside the sanctuary rather than passing a plate. Should we reconsider that?

A reasonable case can be made that we should. In How Then Should We Worship?, Sam Waldron argues that if giving is an appointed part of corporate worship, it should not be hidden away. He writes,

If giving is an appointed part of corporate worship, then it is not sufficient to relegate it to an inconspicuous basket… What if we treated prayer, singing, or preaching in the same way?

At the same time, Waldron acknowledges his own past hesitation, concerned that such practices might improperly elevate money. While the early church appears to have given publicly, there may be wisdom in being sensitive to those who feel uneasy about it.

Jesus teaches in Matthew 6:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them … when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. (Matthew 6:1, 3-4)

Jesus does not forbid public giving altogether, just as he does not forbid public prayer. Rather, he warns against hypocrisy—performing acts of righteousness for the sake of being seen. Even so, concerns about pressure are not unfounded. Paul reminds us, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion” (2 Corinthians 9:7).

Because Scripture does not prescribe a specific method for collecting offerings, we have liberty in how we handle the circumstances. What must remain clear, however, is that giving itself is not peripheral. It is a meaningful and fitting expression of our worship before God.

Prayer in Corporate Worship

Next, let’s consider prayer.

Again, 1 Timothy 2:8 says, “I desire then that in every place [or every church] the men should pray, lifting holy hands.” Earlier in the chapter, Paul writes:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

Within the context of formal gatherings, specifically worship, Paul calls for prayer. He assigns this responsibility, in the gathered assembly, to qualified men. This does not mean women cannot pray in other settings or even in the presence of men, but in corporate worship, God has given men the role of leadership, which includes both teaching and leading in prayer.

Paul also mentions posture, referring to men “lifting holy hands.” This should not be taken as a universal requirement. Scripture presents a variety of postures in prayer. Abraham and the tax collector stand; Daniel kneels; Paul kneels with others; David falls to the ground; Jesus falls on his face in Gethsemane. Elsewhere, hands are lifted, heads are bowed, eyes are lifted, or one sits before the Lord.

There is no single prescribed physical posture for prayer. This falls within the realm of Christian liberty. Some kneel, others stand; some lift their hands, others fold them; some close their eyes, others keep them open. Scripture does not bind the body to one form. What it clearly addresses is the posture of the heart.

Paul says that men should pray with “holy hands without anger or quarreling” (1 Timothy 2:8). Here, “holy” refers to purity. The one who leads in prayer should not come harboring sin. As Psalm 66 says, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer” (Psalm 66:18-19).

This does not mean we must be sinless before we pray. The psalmist speaks of cherishing sin. Paul’s concern is that those who pray be repentant and sincere before God. At the same time, they must be at peace with others. Prayer in corporate worship is offered on behalf of a unified body, so the one who leads must not be marked by anger or division.

Notably, Paul does not restrict these prayers to pastors alone. They are to be led by men, but not exclusively by ordained ministers.

In A Better Way, Michael Horton observes, “One of the most disappointing features of contemporary worship is the absence of prayer.” Kent Hughes makes a similar point, writing, “Today, it is not uncommon for there to be no pastoral/congregational prayer … It seems that prayer is regarded as something that interferes with the movement of worship.”

Scripture presents a very different picture. Prayer is essential to corporate worship. In Acts 4, it is after the church prays together that “the place in which they were gathered … was shaken” and they are filled with boldness (Acts 4:31).

Likewise, in Ephesians 6, Paul connects prayer directly to spiritual warfare:

Take … the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. (Ephesians 6:17-20)

What, then, should characterize our corporate prayers? We might summarize them this way:

• Invocation—seeking God’s help as we begin.

• Confession of sin.

• Thanksgiving for his provision.

• Petition for our needs.

• Intercession for others.

• Illumination for the reading and preaching of Scripture.

• Benediction—a word of blessing.

Not every prayer must include all of these elements, but together they reflect the breadth of biblical prayer in corporate worship.

Even so, prayer is not a matter of following a checklist. What matters most is that we come with prepared hearts, praying sincerely and with faith. As Samuel Miller writes,

When the heart is engaged and in proportion, that is, deeply and warmly engaged; when the value of spiritual things is cordially felt, and the attainment of them earnestly desired; when the soul has a heartache sense of its own unworthiness and a humble, tender confidence in the Savior’s love and grace —in a word, when the whole soul is prepared to flow out in accordance with the language uttered in faith, love, gratitude, and heavenly desire—then and only then will every petition, word, and tone be, in some good degree, in happy keeping with the nature and scope of the exercise.

Next time, we will complete our consideration of the parts of worship and begin to look at the circumstances of worship.

Money, wealth, and material prosperity are neither inherently good nor inherently bad. If gained and used wisely, wealth is a very good thing. If gained and used foolishly, wealth can be devastating.

On the one hand, the Bible teaches that wealth can be a tremendous blessing from God. Proverbs often speaks of riches as gifts that accompany wisdom and diligence. Yet wealth can also deceive us. It can quietly take hold of our hearts and lead us away from the path of life into destruction. The process is usually so gradual that we hardly notice. Prosperity begins to give us the illusion of security and independence, and if we are not careful, we start trusting in our wealth more than we trust in the Lord. This temptation only grows stronger as our prosperity increases.

I remember visiting a small country church years ago. When you walked into the building, the foyer smelled strongly of rotten eggs, almost enough to make you gag. One sip from the drinking fountain did make me gag. Evidently, their water had a high level of sulfur.

What surprised me, however, was watching other people drink from the fountain without any trouble. They didn’t gag or wince. They took a sip and kept going, as if nothing were wrong. I didn’t hear anyone say a word about the taste or the smell.

After the service, I mentioned it to one of their deacons. I said, “You must have a sulfur problem.” He looked at me as if he had no idea what I was talking about. So I explained that I noticed the smell in the foyer and could taste it in the water. He replied, “Oh, that. It’s been like that for a long time. I don’t even notice anymore.”

That is precisely what had happened in the church of Laodicea. We might call it spiritual apathy. They had grown so comfortable in their material prosperity that they no longer realized how far they had drifted spiritually. On the outside, they appeared stable and successful. They thought everything was fine. But when Christ examined the church, he saw something very different.

Let’s consider what he says to them.

The Words of the Amen

Christ captures our attention from the start by declaring his identity: “These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation” (Revelation 3:14).

First, what does Jesus mean when he refers to himself as “the Amen”? There is far more to that word than meets the eye. It is not merely the traditional way to end a prayer. It is a word rich with meaning. In the book of Isaiah, Yahweh is called “the God of truth” (Isaiah 65:16). Literally, the phrase is “the God of Amen.”

God is the source of truth. He is the embodiment of truth. He is truth. When Governor Pilate rhetorically asked, “What is truth?” the answer is God. People spend their entire lives searching for meaning and truth. They debate philosophies, write books, and make movies about this search, yet the question remains: “What is truth?”

The answer is God. If we are to understand truth, the search begins and ends with the Alpha and the Omega, the Almighty God, the beginning and the end of all things, and certainly truth.

The Jews of the first century understood this about God, which made some of Jesus’ claims about himself shocking. For instance, he once declared that he is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He claimed to be the truth in the same way the Jews understood God to be the truth. So it is no small thing for Jesus to refer to himself as “the Amen.”

What is he saying by this? Consider how often Jesus began his statements with the words “Truly, truly.” He would say, “Truly, truly, I say to you” (John 3:3; 5:24). In other words, “What I am about to say is absolute truth.” He was not offering an opinion or speaking as a man prone to error. He was declaring the truth of God.

That is essentially what we mean when we say “Amen.” We are affirming the truth. We are saying, “That is God’s truth. That is the absolute truth.” When we “amen” a preacher, we are saying, “Yes, brother, that is truth. You have spoken rightly.”

Jesus is the affirmation of all that is true. He confirms it. He validates it. He is the final word, and that word is truth. Jesus is the validation of everything God has ever said and done. Therefore, he is also “the faithful and true witness” (Revelation 3:14). For a time, he was God’s witness on earth; now he is God’s witness in heaven.

Lastly, Christ identifies himself as “the beginning of God’s creation” (Revelation 3:14). This statement should not confuse us. Jesus is not suggesting that he was created by God. We know this because he inspired John, the same apostle who wrote the book of Revelation, to write these words in the opening of his Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:1–3)

Jesus, the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us, is co-eternal with God the Father. The doctrine of the Trinity may not receive as much attention today as it once did, but it remains vital. It is a foundational truth of the Christian faith. As John reminds us, “All things were made through him” (John 1:3).

In other words, all of God’s creation began with Christ. It was through him that all things were made.

We could take this concept further and consider Christ’s role in salvation. Paul writes, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). If you are in Christ, you are a new creation.

We could extend it even further and speak of Christ’s role in the consummation of all things. When we think about the end times, we look forward to a new heaven and a new earth, a new creation. We anticipate something beyond what we currently experience. And who makes that new creation possible? Jesus.

Before leaving this earth, he told his disciples, “I go and prepare a place for you” (John 14:3). In every sense, Jesus stands at the beginning of God’s creation. All things were created through him, and all things will be renewed through him.

That is someone worth listening to.

Neither Hot nor Cold

Now that he has their attention, Jesus says, “I know your works” (Revelation 3:15). In other words, “I know what you’ve done. I know what you haven’t done. I even know the motivations behind what you’ve done or haven’t done.” When we think of works, we typically think only of what we do, or perhaps what we fail to do. But Jesus implies more than that. “The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). He sees far deeper than we can see.

A lifetime of good works means nothing if the heart is far from God. Paul said of Israel, “They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Romans 10:2). Jesus himself said, “In vain do they worship me” (Matthew 15:9). Yes, they worship him, but in vain.

So when Jesus refers to the works of the Laodiceans, he has in mind the totality of their faith and service—all of their works, all of their motivations, everything, not merely what they do or fail to do. He sees it all, and he knows that, in the case of the Laodiceans, “they are neither cold nor hot” (Revelation 3:15).

Every book of the Bible has historical context, and that is an important reminder here. All Scripture is breathed out by God, but he did not inspire the books of the Bible in a vacuum. He breathed out these sixty-six books through the personalities, experiences, and circumstances of the human authors, and he also addressed the circumstances of the original recipients.

In short, someone wrote each book to someone else for some reason. There is always historical context, and understanding that context helps us understand the message. That is especially true when we read Christ’s words to the church in Laodicea.

When we hear the phrase “hot or cold,” we often think of passion versus indifference, or perhaps good versus evil. But that cannot be what Jesus means. Notice what he says next: “Would that you were either cold or hot” (Revelation 3:15). In other words, “I want you to be cold or hot, but not lukewarm.”

If “hot” means passionate, then we would have to conclude that Jesus would rather we lack passion altogether than be only partially passionate. If “hot and cold” represent good and evil, then we would have to conclude that he would prefer us to be evil rather than somewhat good. That cannot be the meaning of the text.

The historical setting helps us understand his point. The city of Laodicea was not blessed with a good natural water supply. So the people built underground aqueducts to bring water from neighboring cities. Hot water was piped in from one location and used for medicinal purposes, while cold water was brought from another location and used for drinking.

The problem was that the water had to travel miles, sometimes six or ten miles, depending on the source. By the time the hot water arrived from the springs at Hierapolis or the cold water from the springs at Colossae, it had become lukewarm. Worse still, the pipes accumulated calcium deposits that could clog the system or contaminate the water. In many cases, the water became so unpleasant that it would actually induce vomiting.

In this context, both hot and cold water were good things. Each served a purpose. Hot water could be used for healing. Cold water provided refreshment. But the Laodiceans knew well that contaminated, lukewarm water was good for nothing. It was disgusting and could make a person sick.

In that sense, the church should be both hot and cold. We should be a source of refreshment, like a cold drink of water on a hot day. We should also be a source of healing. The issue here is not temperature, but distance from the source.

Jesus says, “Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16). Lukewarmness leads to rejection. If you take a drink of that calcified, lukewarm water, you cannot help but spit it out or even vomit. You cannot stomach it. Neither can Jesus.

Put simply, hot is good, cold is good, but lukewarm is bad. Jesus is not presenting two opposite extremes from which we must choose. Both hot and cold are good for different purposes. On a hot day, we want a cold drink of water. When making coffee, tea, or taking a shower, we want hot water. Both are good, but each serves a different purpose.

When Jesus compares the spiritual condition of the Laodiceans to lukewarm water, he is not saying they are somewhere between good and bad. Rather, the problem is their distance from the source, which determines their usefulness.

As we continue, that point will become even clearer.

The Danger of Self-Reliance

There is something else we should know about the church in Laodicea: the city itself was extremely wealthy. It was a prosperous place. In AD 60, for example, a devastating earthquake struck the region. The Roman Empire offered financial assistance to help the affected cities rebuild. Laodicea declined the offer. They essentially said, “No, we don’t need your money.” They truly didn’t need it. They had the financial means to rebuild the city themselves.

With that background in mind, notice what Jesus says: “For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing’” (Revelation 3:17). That is the problem.

We do not know all the ways this lukewarmness manifested itself in the Laodicean church. Jesus says, “I know your works,” but he does not describe them. He does not provide details about what they were doing or failing to do. For all we know, they may have appeared to be doing everything right on the surface. But something was wrong beneath the surface. Perhaps their motivations were off. Perhaps something essential was missing that could not easily be seen.

What we do know is that the root of the problem was self-reliance. Is self-reliance really a problem? In this context, the answer is absolutely yes. Jesus says to them, “For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing,’ not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17).

The trouble with self-reliance is that it is often accompanied by self-deception. We think we are self-sufficient when, in reality, we are in desperate need of help. The Laodiceans were rich and prosperous, so prosperous that they had come to believe they did not need anything from anyone, including God.

There is an irony here. They boldly say, “I don’t need anything. We’re fine. No outside help for us.” Yet the city itself lacked the most fundamental resource for survival: a reliable water supply. They had to pipe water in from other places. Still, they proudly claimed, “We need nothing.”

Imagine a similar scenario. You are out on a lake in a rusty old rowboat. It is not much to look at, but it floats. As you row along, you see a man treading water in the middle of the lake, miles from shore. He has no boat and no life preserver. So you call out, “Sir! Climb aboard!”

Instead of accepting the offer, he laughs and says, “I don’t need your help. Do you know I own a yacht worth half a million dollars? Why would I need your lousy rowboat?”

So you ask, “Where is your yacht?”

He replies, “It’s at the bottom of the lake. It sank just before you got here.”

It may sound like a silly illustration, but it is not far from the truth of where the Laodiceans stood. Self-reliance and self-deception often go hand in hand. They believed they were rich enough that they did not need anything. They were self-reliant to the point that they felt no need for outside help, even though they lacked one of the most essential necessities of life.

So Jesus’ response is entirely appropriate: “You are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. And you don’t even realize it” (Revelation 3:17).

To be clear, this message to the Laodiceans is not really about water. The real issue is that these people had become more reliant on themselves than on Christ. They should have been a source of healing and refreshment, but they were not. Why? Because they had become too far removed from the true source of healing and refreshment—Jesus Christ.

Just as they were distant from the source of their water, they had become distant from the source of everything good and necessary.

By now, it should be clear that the problem here is not merely a lack of passion or zeal, as we often think of lukewarmness. The problem runs much deeper. In many respects, they shared the spirit of the Pharisees, who rejected God’s Messiah because they did not believe they needed a Savior.

The Pharisees believed they were righteous enough to merit God’s favor. But the situation in Laodicea is even more troubling. These people had evidently accepted Christ. They belonged to a Christian church. Yet they had become so self-reliant that they lost their dependence on Christ.

The Subtle Danger of Earthly Security

Jesus says,

I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. (Revelation 3:18)

I’ve already mentioned the Laodiceans’ wealth, but there were a couple of other things the city was well known for at the time. Laodicea had a thriving textile industry. They produced high-quality wool fabric that was exported widely, and they were especially famous for their black wool. The city was also known for training physicians who specialized in eye care.

The Laodiceans were rich, yet Jesus says, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich.” In other words, he denies their claim to wealth. They produced beautiful black wool, yet Jesus says, “You need white garments from me so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen.” The Laodiceans had a reputation for eye care, yet Jesus says, “You need my salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.”

Christ is chipping away at every last thing that gave this church a false sense of security. He addresses every source of confidence that caused them to drift away from the only true source of security—himself.

I don’t know exactly how this problem manifested itself in the Laodicean church. I don’t know what it looked like on the outside. My suspicion is that it was very subtle. Notice that Jesus does not condemn them for blatant sins, unlike his rebukes of other churches. He does not accuse them of tolerating heretics or false doctrines.

At the same time, he does not commend them for anything. He has no positive word to say about this church. That likely means the problem is not only subtle but deadly serious. There is no time for niceties. Jesus goes straight to the issue, not the symptoms, but the root problem.

“You have great material wealth, but you’re poor. You have some of the finest garments, but you’re naked. You have salve that can heal the eyes, but you’re blind” (Revelation 3:17–18). Everything in which they placed their trust was, in reality, worthless.

Have you considered that these things could be gone tomorrow? All of them could be taken away in an instant. Where would your faith be then?

Do you remember the parable of the sower? Jesus says, “As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).

Material wealth is hardly fertile ground for the Word of God. The Bible repeats this warning again and again.

To be clear, Scripture never outright denounces wealth. But contrary to what prosperity preachers claim—that if only we are faithful enough, we will all be healthy and wealthy—the Bible repeatedly warns us about the dangers that come with wealth. The more comfortable we become, the more complacent we become. The more we have, the more we trust in what we have. The more we rely on what we possess.

Once we have lived comfortably long enough, we begin to lose sight of the fact that all these material things, our wealth and possessions, are fleeting. They are temporary. They are corruptible. They can all be lost. Worse yet, our dependency on God and his grace can slowly fade along the way.

“The deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).

Just as you cannot become a Christian without surrendering any notion of self-reliance and throwing yourself entirely on the mercy of God, you cannot continue to walk with God if you lose your dependency on him and begin to trust in yourself and in your material comforts instead.

Do you see how relevant this letter is to first-world Christians?

Is it a blessing or a curse to be rich? Is it a blessing or a curse to have nice clothing? Is it a blessing or a curse to have access to the greatest medical care the world has ever known?

The answer is not black and white.

Personally, I believe these things are blessings, but they can quickly become a curse if we are not careful.

Paul offers helpful perspective in 1 Corinthians 7:

From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. (1 Corinthians 7:29–31)

Paul is addressing more than material goods in that passage, but the principle is helpful. He is not suggesting we deny reality. If you are married, you are married. If you are mourning, you are mourning. He is not telling us to ignore those realities. Rather, he calls us to hold whatever we have in this world loosely, because it will not last forever. We cannot keep it forever.

The problem is not that we are rich. The problem arises when we care too much about our riches, invest too much in them, or let them stand in the way of our dependence on Christ.

Also, remember this problem is subtle. The thorns do not choke out the word overnight. But the danger is real. This warning is for us. It is a very real and extremely dangerous issue.

Loving Reproof and Discipline

Jesus says, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent” (Revelation 3:19).

What if Christ were to stand in our own church on Sunday and say to us what he said to the Laodiceans? Would we think his words were too harsh?

We shouldn’t, because he speaks out of love. “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline.” That is the language of sonship. Like a father speaking to his children, Jesus corrects the Laodicean church as his children.

Hebrews 12 reminds us, “God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons” (Hebrews 12:7–8). Christ speaks harshly to the Laodiceans because he loves them. He disciplines those he loves.

A couple of years ago, a woman asked me to preach at her grandmother’s funeral. She said, “I have a lot of unbelievers in my family, so I would like you to preach hellfire and brimstone if you think it’s necessary.” I was taken aback because most people tell me to avoid that kind of thing, especially at a funeral.

So I asked her, “Why hellfire and brimstone?” I appreciated her answer.

She said, “Because I love my family that much. If you have to step on their toes before they’ll turn to Christ, you step as hard as you think is necessary.”

It hurts to hear that we are wretched, poor, pitiable, blind, and naked. Those words sting, and it is often difficult to say them to someone else. Yet sometimes that is the most loving thing to say. Love demands truth always, even when the truth is difficult.

Christ Outside the Door

Next, Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).

“Behold” is a word in Scripture that calls us to brace ourselves. It often introduces something surprising, and this revelation is particularly jarring. Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”

Perhaps we have heard this verse so many times that it no longer seems shocking, but consider the context. Jesus is speaking to a Christian church that meets every week in his name. He is speaking to a church that regularly gathers around a table to share the Lord’s Supper.

Have you ever had the feeling that you have forgotten something? It often happens when you leave the house and get in the car. You cannot quite identify it, but something is missing. Imagine sitting down with your church to share the Lord’s Supper. The hymnbooks are there, the Bibles are open, the pastor is present, the bread and wine are on the table. Then you hear a knock at the door. Everyone looks around and says, “Who could that be? Isn’t everyone here? Don’t we have everything we need?” And that is when you realize someone is missing.

Christ. Christ is not there.

That is what makes this revelation so shocking. “Behold,” Jesus says, “I’m not in the church.” Without realizing it, they had slowly pushed him out the door. He is standing outside. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”

It brings to mind the Jewish practice of “unsynagoguing” someone—banishing them from the synagogue. Jesus himself was “unsynagogued” in places like Nazareth during his ministry. Without realizing it, the Laodiceans had effectively “unchurched” Jesus. They were meeting together in his name to worship him, yet according to Christ, he was not there. He was standing outside, waiting for someone to open the door.

It raises a sobering question. How many churches in this nation of prosperity, wealth, and material comfort are still meeting week after week in the name of Christ, claiming to worship Christ, while he stands outside the door? They are too comfortable to notice. He is knocking, but they do not hear. They are too self-satisfied to realize that he is missing.

Do you see the subtlety? More importantly, do you see the danger?

Paul writes, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you fail to meet the test” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

Jesus then says, “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Revelation 3:21).

That is a remarkable promise. Those who persevere in faith—those who turn from self-reliance and cling to Christ—will share in his victory and his kingdom. Just as Christ overcame and now reigns with the Father, so those who belong to him will one day share in his reign.

Some may hear this passage and recognize something of themselves in it. Life may appear stable and comfortable on the outside. You may even attend church regularly. But comfort plus religion can easily create the illusion that everything is fine between God and us when, in reality, Christ is not truly the Lord of your life.

That was the tragedy of the Laodiceans. They believed they needed nothing, yet Jesus said they were “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17). They possessed everything the world values while lacking the one thing they truly needed.

Only Christ can give us what we lack. He alone provides the riches, righteousness, and spiritual sight we cannot obtain for ourselves. If you recognize that you have been relying on yourself rather than on Christ, hear his invitation. Turn from that self-reliance and come to him in repentance and faith. He gives freely what we cannot provide for ourselves—namely, salvation from our sins.

I will leave you with his words: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Revelation 3:22).

Having attempted to lay a foundation and provide evidence for the regulative principle of worship, we now need to move on to its more practical aspects. To do that well, however, we must first clearly define what we mean by worship. Not everything in the life of the church, or in the life of individual Christians, is regulated by the regulative principle.

You may remember what Mark Driscoll once said when arguing against the regulative principle. He suggested it made little sense to follow the regulative principle for one hour a week while following the normative principle for the rest of life. He said,

Why is it that we live by the normative green-light principle until we get to church, and then we have to live by the regulative red-light principle just for an hour a week as if there’s not a blur in between the lines? We also have other church gatherings, meetings, Wednesday night classes, community groups. Do they count red light, green light? The whole thing gets very confusing.

We have already established that the church must worship according to the regulative principle, despite Driscoll’s confusion on the matter. But he does raise an important question. What about other church gatherings? What if the church meets for a Bible study? What if the women gather for a craft night or the men for a game night? What about Sunday school?

I grew up in a church that was very strict about the regulative principle. If there was no positive command for something in Scripture, they refused to do it. On that basis, they were adamantly opposed to Sunday schools. For a long time, they also opposed corporate Bible studies. Their rationale was that they did not see these things commanded in Scripture.

Are they applying the regulative principle correctly? More importantly, what about us? Are we following the regulative principle when we meet together for Bible studies or Sunday school?

The key is to distinguish carefully between formal worship and other kinds of gatherings.

For example, a church picnic is not the same thing as our corporate worship on Sunday morning. Yet no one would suggest it is wrong for the church to gather for a picnic. Sunday school is not the same thing as corporate worship, either. Is there something wrong with an elder teaching the Bible outside of his Sunday morning sermons? Of course not. Is there something wrong with older, mature members of the church teaching children within the church?

While the primary responsibility of teaching children lies with their parents, Scripture does show a broader pattern of instruction within the body. Titus 2 instructs older members to teach younger members. Colossians 3 shows that believers should teach and admonish one another. Even the Great Commission reveals that the entire church is to be involved in teaching people to observe all that Christ has commanded. Jesus himself was not a parent, yet he welcomed and taught children.

What about craft nights or game nights? There is nothing inherently wrong with them. But we must maintain a clear distinction between those gatherings and the church’s formal worship.

When we read through the book of Ecclesiastes, the first imperative does not appear until chapter five, where we are told, “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God” (Ecclesiastes 5:1). Notice that a distinction is made between entering into worship and the rest of life.

Of course, there is a sense in which we should guard our steps at all times. We want to conduct ourselves according to God’s will in every area of life. Yet Scripture places special emphasis on guarding our steps when we approach God in worship. It is then that we must be especially careful about how we conduct ourselves.

Formal, corporate worship is not the same as the rest of life, and not all gatherings of the church are the same as corporate worship. Formal worship is distinct.

This is why the worship services in my church have a clear beginning and end. We often begin with a statement such as, “Now let us go to God in worship,” or with a prayer that serves the same purpose. Sometimes we are encouraged to take a moment of silent prayer to prepare our hearts. You will also notice that this moment always comes after announcements have been made. Announcements are not part of worship, so we create a clear break between those announcements and the worship that follows.

Likewise, we conclude our worship with a benediction or closing prayer. This helps show that our worship has a definite beginning and end. The worship itself is distinct from the rest of life and from the church’s other activities.

There are times that are uniquely holy. Certainly, there is a sense in which we can worship God at any time and anywhere. I have a set of books at home called Every Moment Holy, which includes prayers and liturgies for all of life. I once taught a Sunday school series on “everyday theology.” I even made the point that you can worship God while doing dishes or washing windows.

But that kind of worship is not the same as the worship we offer corporately as the church. Our corporate worship on the Lord’s Day is uniquely holy.

Think of Moses approaching the burning bush in Exodus 3. As Moses drew near, God said, “Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5). When the church gathers for formal worship, we are standing on holy ground, if you will.

“Guard your steps,” Solomon says. “Take your sandals off your feet,” God says. In other words, the gathered church’s formal worship is special. It is not like everything else. It is not even like other church gatherings. In our formal worship, marked by a clear beginning and end, we come into the special presence of Christ, and the special presence of Christ is with us.

For this reason, Hebrews 12 says, “Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28).

The Parts of Worship

The question now becomes: what is acceptable worship? To answer that, we must make another important distinction—this time between the parts and the circumstances of worship. We will begin with the parts, or elements, of worship.

Consider the very beginning of the church in Acts 2. In one sense, the church existed prior to this, but we might say it was the church in utero. In Acts 2, we see the church fully formed, fully born. And what do we find the church doing?

On the day of Pentecost, Peter preaches to thousands. There is an outpouring of the Spirit, and many respond positively to what they have heard and seen. Then, we read,

So those who received [Peter’s] word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:41–47)

This passage provides an insightful description of the early church. While we do not have direct commands here, we do have teaching through example. Moreover, the practices mentioned in this passage are reinforced elsewhere in the New Testament.

For apostolic teaching, we might look to passages such as 1 Timothy 2 or 1 Corinthians 14. For fellowship and sharing, we could consider 1 Corinthians 16. For the breaking of bread, 1 Corinthians 11. For prayers, again 1 Timothy 2. As we continue through the New Testament, it becomes clear that this example in Acts reflects the practices the church is meant to continue.

At the same time, we must recognize the time and setting of this passage. This is the very beginning of the church under the new covenant—a transitional period between the old and the new covenants. Not everything here applies directly to us in the same way. For example, we read that “many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles” (Acts 2:43). We no longer have apostles performing signs and wonders in the church because those were tied to a unique period in redemptive history. Likewise, the believers were still attending worship in the temple, which we no longer do since the church itself is now the temple of God.

So not everything here is directly applicable. Yet the rest of the New Testament clarifies which elements remain binding for the church.

Notice that Acts 2:42 identifies four specific acts of worship:

1. The apostles’ teaching

2. The fellowship

3. The breaking of bread

4. The prayers

Pay careful attention to the wording. The text does not say teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayers. Rather, it says the teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, the prayers. Luke is referring to specific corporate acts of the church in worship, not general activities, but identifiable elements of gathered worship.

There is another detail here that is easy to miss. In most English translations, these four elements are arranged in two pairs. Teaching and fellowship are grouped together, and the breaking of bread and prayers form a second pair. There is no conjunction between fellowship and the breaking of bread.

Sam Waldron illustrates this structure helpfully:

Suppose a young person had lunch at someone’s house. Later, his mom asked what he had to eat, and he said, “We had sandwiches: peanut butter and jelly; bacon, lettuce, and tomato.” You would not mean—and your mother would know that you did not mean—that you had one awful sandwich composed of peanut butter, jelly, bacon, lettuce, and tomato. No, she would assume from the construction of your sentence that you had two kinds of sandwiches.

That appears to be the structure in Acts 2:42 as well. The early church’s worship seems to fall into two divisions.

Nick Needham, in the first volume of 2,000 Years of Christ’s Power, describes a similar distinction in early Christian worship. He refers to what he calls the “service of the Word” and the “service of the upper room.” He writes,

An important point … is that the service of worship was divided into two distinct parts. The first part, known as “the service of the Word” (singing, reading, sermon), was opened to baptized believers, those who were receiving instruction in the Christian faith, and probably those who were curious about Christianity. The second part, the prayers and … (the Lord’s Supper), was only for those who had been baptized; the rest had to leave.

Needham is not specifically commenting on Acts 2:42. He is describing the pattern of worship in the early church based on historical evidence. Yet his description closely resembles what we see in this passage, especially when we notice the grammatical pairing.

In other words, some elements of worship were accessible to a broader audience. Others were reserved for the gathered body of believers. Worship, after all, is not the same thing as evangelism. Worship is primarily for those who are reconciled to God, members of the body of Christ. While evangelism may occur during worship, it is not the central purpose of worship.

Many churches today follow a seeker-friendly model in which worship services are intentionally designed to appeal to unbelievers. But historically, this was not the norm. In many times and places, believers could not even meet publicly due to persecution. They gathered privately, sometimes secretly, and there was nothing wrong with that. Worship is one thing; evangelism is another. Worship takes place within the body of Christ, while evangelism primarily occurs as the church goes out into the world. We gather for worship, and we scatter to disciple the nations.

There may also be another explanation for the pairing in Acts 2:42. The first pair, teaching and fellowship, points to the church’s formation. The apostles’ teaching shapes the church doctrinally, while fellowship expresses the shared life created by that truth. Teaching forms belief, and fellowship expresses the unity that belief produces.

The second pair, the breaking of bread and the prayers, consists of acts directed toward God by the unified body that has been formed and instructed by the Word.

The Apostles’ Teaching

Let us now consider the four components of worship in Acts 2:42, beginning with the apostles’ teaching.

This is the teaching of God’s Word.

Prior to the Reformation, the medieval church largely neglected the apostles’ teaching in worship because it had largely neglected the authority of Scripture. But when the Reformation took place, the teaching of God’s Word was restored to a central place in worship. In fact, many of the Reformers moved the table for the Lord’s Supper to the side of the sanctuary and replaced it with the pulpit at the center of the church. John Calvin even placed a large copy of the Bible at the center of his church in Geneva.

The Catholics objected strongly to this. Because they believed Christ was physically present in the elements of the Lord’s Supper, the bread and the wine, they saw the Reformers as demoting Christ and replacing him with a book.

Why did the Reformers make this change? For one thing, they did not believe Christ was physically present in the bread and cup. The elements symbolized Christ, but he was not physically present in them. More importantly, however, they believed in the authority of Scripture.

Why should the Bible be the focal point of the church rather than the Lord’s Supper? Because before the church can even share in the Lord’s Supper, we need the Word of God to direct us. First, Scripture must tell us toobserve the Lord’s Supper. Second, it must tell us how to observe it. Everything the church does begins with the authority of Scripture.

Sadly, the apostles’ teaching has taken a back seat in many churches today. Visit many evangelical churches, and you will find an intentional distinction being made between worship and preaching. Worship, in their minds, consists of singing and praying, while the sermon is treated as something separate.

For that reason, I sometimes hesitate even to use the label “worship leader” for the person leading the singing and prayers. That language can suggest that preaching is not part of worship. But there should be no such distinction. Preaching is not separate from worship.

We see this in the early church. We see it throughout church history. We see it again in the Protestant Reformation. Preaching is not merely a part of worship, and it certainly is not something distinct from worship. It is central to the church’s worship.

Sam Waldron writes,

Pride of place in this listing of the elements or parts of the church’s worship is given to the public ministry of the Word. Of course, it is clear that the apostles’ teaching was not the only thing, but it is equally clear that it was the first thing. The first thing in worship and the first priority in church life is the church’s doctrine and teaching. Nothing else can make up for deficiencies in this area.

He continues,

Music and singing are important. Let no one misunderstand. Congregational singing of the Word is an appointed part of worship. The circumstances of our singing must be handled in such a way as to best serve the people of the church. It is important how and what we sing, but in this passage, isn’t it amazing (given the priorities of today’s church) that music and singing are not even mentioned? This says something very penetrating about the misplaced priorities of today’s church.

To his point, I once went through the book of Acts and counted how many times we see believers preaching, praying, and singing. Not all of those instances occur in the context of corporate worship, but the comparison is still revealing. Preaching appears roughly twenty-one times. Prayer appears about twenty times. Singing appears only once when Paul and Silas were in prison in Acts 16.

Yet many churches today prioritize singing over preaching, sometimes even to the neglect of preaching. The pattern of Scripture, however, makes it clear that the preaching of the Word should stand at the center of the church’s worship.

The Fellowship

Next, we have the fellowship.

Interestingly, the Greek word translated as “fellowship” here refers to sharing or having something in common. Often, it carries the idea of contributing something to someone else. To see this more clearly, it helps to notice how the word is used elsewhere in the New Testament.

In Romans 15:26, Paul writes, “For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem.” The same word appears here, translated as “contribution.”

In 2 Corinthians 9:13, Paul says, “By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others.”

Hebrews 13:16 adds, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” In this case, the word is translated as “share.”

Share, contribution— These are the most common ways this word is rendered. We see similar usage in Romans 12:13, Galatians 6:6, Philippians 4:15, and 1 Timothy 6:18.

From the same root word, we also get the word common. “And all who believed were together and had all things in common” (Acts 2:44).

For that reason, verse 42 is probably not referring merely to fellowship in the general sense of enjoying one another’s company. It appears to describe something more tangible—a specific act within the church’s worship.

According to John Calvin, this refers to “alms, and … other duties of brotherly fellowship,” such as financial giving.

Sam Waldron likewise observes:

The sharing or giving of the early Christians is described as laying their gifts at the apostles’ feet in a public setting. [See Acts chapter 4.] This laying of their gifts at the apostles’ feet appears to picture a formal or at least a public setting in which these gifts were brought, and it is difficult to exclude from such a picture the public worship of the church.

Paul also gives explicit instructions about this practice in 1 Corinthians 16:

Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week [that is, the day of their corporate worship], each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. (1 Corinthians 16:1–2)

Here, Paul gives a positive command for the church to bring financial offerings on the day of worship. This suggests that the early church understood this sharing (or fellowship) as an act of worship.

At the same time, the concept likely extends beyond financial giving alone. Giving money is certainly included, but the word may also point more broadly to the giving of ourselves to one another. As members of one body, we should be willing to give ourselves for the good of the whole. Nothing should be allowed to disrupt the unity or fellowship of the church.

Jesus addresses this principle in Matthew 5, saying,

If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. (Matthew 5:23–24)

In other words, worship involves giving, both the giving of our material resources and the giving of ourselves for the unity and good of the body. Yet the specific act of worship named in Acts 2:42 most likely refers to the church’s financial giving.

The Breaking of Bread

Next, we have the breaking of bread.

Again, this refers to a very specific act of the church in worship. The text does not say breaking of bread in a general sense; it says the breaking of bread. I believe the New Testament consistently uses this phrase to describe the Lord’s Supper.

On the night that Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper with his disciples, we are told, “Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body’” (Matthew 26:26).

Later, in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul refers to the Lord’s Supper as “the bread that we break” (1 Corinthians 10:16). He says essentially the same thing again in chapter 11. For that reason, the breaking of bread is not merely an ordinary meal. The early church may have shared a meal before or alongside the Lord’s Supper, but the phrase itself refers specifically to the Lord’s Supper.

Nowhere in Scripture are we told exactly how often the church must observe the Lord’s Supper. Some argue that it should be practiced less frequently so that it does not become routine or stale in our minds. Yet the language of Acts 2:42 suggests that it may have been practiced quite regularly. It appears alongside the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, and prayers as something to which the church “devoted themselves.” In other words, these were practices they pursued earnestly and consistently.

It is possible that the early church observed the Lord’s Supper every week. We cannot say with certainty. But if anything, the passage’s emphasis would caution us against minimizing it. There is no biblical rule about how often we must observe it, but there is every reason to treat it as a regular and cherished practice.

Jonathan Edwards beautifully described the purpose of the Lord’s Supper when he wrote,

We ought carefully and with the utmost seriousness and consideration attend the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper: this was appointed for this end, to draw forth longings of our souls toward Jesus Christ. Here are the glorious objects of spiritual desire by visible signs represented to our view. We have Christ evidently set forth crucified…. Here we have that spiritual meat and drink represented and offered to excite our hunger and thirst; here we have all that spiritual feast represented which God has provided for poor souls; and here we may hope in some measure to have our longing souls satisfied in this world by the gracious communications of the Spirit of God.

The Prayers

Finally, we have the prayers.

In some translations, you will not find the definite article the before the word prayers. However, the definite article is present in the original Greek. Once again, this suggests that the text is not referring to prayer in general but to the prayers offered in the church’s formal worship.

We see this emphasis elsewhere in the New Testament. In 1 Timothy 2:8, Paul writes, “I desire then that in every place [that is, in every church] the men should pray, lifting holy hands.” In that context, Paul is referring specifically to the prayers offered in the church’s corporate worship.

It is worth noting that the primary emphasis in that verse is not merely that men should pray, though that is clearly stated, but that prayer itself must be present in the church’s gathered worship. In other words, the prayers are an essential and integral part of corporate worship.

Worship in Spirit and Truth

These four elements—the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers—provide a baseline for the parts of corporate worship. Of course, there are additional elements we have not yet discussed, such as singing and the public reading of Scripture. Nor have we addressed how these elements should be carried out—the so-called circumstances of worship.

For now, however, I want to briefly address an essential aspect of worship that is less tangible than the others.

Even when we follow the regulative principle of worship—doing only what God explicitly commands—our worship could still be missing something vital. Recall what Jesus said in John 4:

The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:23–24)

He also told the Jewish leaders in Matthew 15, quoting Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me” (Matthew 15:8–9).

In their case, the traditions of men had corrupted their worship. They were not even keeping God’s commandments. But even if we are careful to worship according to the truth of God’s Word, even if we follow the right forms, our worship may still fall short.

Following rules is not the same thing as offering true worship.

My five-year-old son has developed a habit of groaning whenever we ask him to do something he does not want to do. He will obey, but while he is doing it, he lets out this long, reluctant “Uhh.” You can probably see the problem.

According to Christ, our worship, even when it is done in truth, according to the Word of God, is only as good as our hearts. We must worship in truth and in spirit. Our hearts must not be far from God.

These two things must remain in balance. Both are absolutely necessary, and we must not emphasize one to the neglect of the other.

Some churches, for example, focus heavily on producing emotional experiences. They use lighting, smoke machines, and every available technique to create an atmosphere where people will feel something. Not long ago, I read an article by a Christian pastor who attended a Taylor Swift concert with his daughter. I was frankly astonished by what he wrote. He described the experience in almost spiritual terms. Halfway through the article, you might have thought he had ascended a mountain to meet with God like Moses. And why was he writing about it? He was suggesting that the church could learn something about worship from a Taylor Swift concert.

Given that kind of thinking, it is not surprising that the worship in some churches now resembles a concert more than the worship we read about in the early church.

Why do churches pursue this approach? They may offer various justifications, but often the goal is to manufacture an emotional experience. They want people to feel something. And perhaps we should feel something. But is that what Jesus means when he says we must worship in spirit?

I would argue that it is not.

Jesus is describing the posture of the heart. True worship engages the heart. The heart is sincere, reverent, humble before God. It is willing, cheerful, and serious about offering spiritual sacrifices to him, and it delights to do so.

Many passages reflect this principle. Psalm 51:16–17 says,

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Hebrews 13:16 adds, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

Second Corinthians 9:7 says, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Psalm 141:2 says,

Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!

And Psalm 27:6 says,

I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the LORD.

The examples are many. Feelings may be involved in worship, but emotional experience itself is not the priority.

As Sam Waldron puts it, “Don’t let anyone tell you that if you have the (divinely appointed) parts, you don’t need the heart! On the other hand, don’t let anyone tell you that if you have the heart, you don’t need the parts!”

Last time, we looked at two biblical principles that serve as a foundation for the regulative principle of worship. The regulative principle says we ought to do only what God commands when we worship. By contrast, the normative principle says we are permitted to do whatever we want in worship so long as Scripture does not forbid it.

The two biblical principles that support the regulative principle are:

1. A holy church

2. The authority and sufficiency of Scripture

By a holy church, I mean the church is a people set apart by God for God. We are to be distinct from the rest of the world in many ways, but nowhere more so than when we gather for corporate worship. Our worship of God is the most important and distinctive thing we do as the church. And as we saw in both the Old and New Testaments, God shows great concern for how his people worship him. Indeed, he regulates how his people are to worship.

When we combine the principle of a holy church with our belief in the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, it follows that we should be careful to worship God only as he directs. When God’s set-apart people do the most important thing they are called to do, it only makes sense that they would submit to the authority of Scripture. More than that, we trust that God’s Word provides everything we need to worship him “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23).

If those two principles are not enough to persuade us of the regulative principle of worship, Ligon Duncan offers several more in his book Does God Care How We Worship? In fact, he names eleven. I would like to consider each of them, at least briefly.

The Nature of God

Duncan begins with the nature of God. As he writes, “God’s own nature—who God is—determines how we should worship him.”

Previously, I cited Deuteronomy 4, but let me return to a portion of that passage. It helps us understand why God gave the second commandment: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image” (Exodus 20:4). The Lord says,

Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. (Deuteronomy 4:15–19)

Why does God forbid the creation of physical images of him? Throughout church history, especially during debates over icons and images, many have argued that such images help worship by providing something tangible to look at. So why does God prohibit them?

The answer appears in the passage itself: “Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves” (Deuteronomy 4:15–16). The Israelites were not to make an image of God because they had not seen God. And why had they not seen him?

Jesus provides the answer in John 4 when he tells the Samaritan woman, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). Whatever it means to worship in spirit and truth, Jesus grounds the requirement in the nature of God himself. God is spirit. Therefore, his worship must be spiritual.

The same reasoning appears in Deuteronomy 4. Because of who God is, the Israelites did not see him. And because they did not see him, they were forbidden from creating a carved image of him. In John 4, we worship in spirit and truth because of who God is. God is Spirit; therefore, we must worship him in spirit.

We can take this a step further. The way we worship God inevitably shapes our understanding of him. Our worship reflects his character. When we worship according to what he has revealed, we reflect that character rightly. But when we worship according to our own ideas and preferences, we obscure it. This is why the second commandment exists. If you create an image of God and incorporate it into worship, it will inevitably change the way you see him, and not for the better.

You might say that the medium becomes the message.

Neil Postman makes a similar observation in his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death. His argument is that television changes the message it carries, whether news, religion, or entertainment, by turning everything into a form of amusement. But how does the shift from printed words to televised images alter the message? In a real sense, the medium itself shapes what is being communicated.

Postman writes,

In studying the Bible as a young man, I found intimations of the idea that forms of media favor particular kinds of content and therefore are capable of taking command of a culture. I refer specifically to the Decalogue, the second commandment of which prohibits the Israelites from making concrete images of anything [as a representation of God]. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water beneath the earth.” I wondered then, as so many others have, as to why the God of these people would have included instructions on how they were to symbolize, or not symbolize, their experience [of him]. It is a strange injunction to include as part of an ethical system unless its author assumed a connection between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture. We may hazard a guess that people who are being asked to embrace an abstract, universal deity would be rendered unfit to do so by the habit of drawing pictures, or making statues, or depicting their ideas [of him] in any concrete, iconographic forms. The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking. [Icons] thus became blasphemy so that a new kind of God could enter a culture. People like ourselves who are in the process of converting their culture from word-centered to image-centered might profit by reflecting on this Mosaic injunction.

As far as I know, Postman was not a Christian, but his insight is perceptive. He recognizes that a God who is “unchangeable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty,” to borrow the language of the 1689 Confession, cannot be reduced to a picture or a statue. Attempting to do so inevitably reshapes how we think about him.

For the Israelites in Moses’ day, this was a radical approach to worship. The false gods of Canaan and Egypt were represented by idols—visible, tangible objects. But the true and living God declared, in effect, “I have not revealed my appearance to you, so you are not permitted to create anything in my supposed likeness.” As Postman puts it, “The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word,” a concept requiring the highest order of abstract thinking, which makes sense, given that our God is incomprehensible.

Ligon Duncan summarizes the implication well:

The how of worship is vital to our growth in grace and in the knowledge of the one true God, because it contributes to our grasp of the one true God. Often we hear, and agree with, the dictum that “we become like what we worship,” but the Reformed understanding of worship teaches us that it is also true that “we become like how we worship.”

The medium may not be the whole message, but it certainly shapes it. God, therefore, reveals how he is to be worshiped so that our worship reflects his nature. If we worship in other ways, according to our own inventions, we inevitably obscure who he is.

The Creator–Creature Distinction

Duncan’s second reason for the regulative principle is the Creator–creature distinction.

Psalm 100:3 says, “Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” Likewise, Numbers 23:19 declares plainly, “God is not a man … or a son of man.”

Scripture repeatedly emphasizes the vast difference between God and those he has made. Consider Isaiah’s vision in Isaiah 6:

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:1–5)

The distinction between the Creator and his creatures could hardly be more vivid. The whole earth is filled with God’s glory, while Isaiah, a mere man, trembles in his presence.

We see this distinction throughout Scripture. The 1689 Confession expresses it this way: “The distance between God and these creatures is so great that they could never have attained the reward of life except by God’s voluntary condescension.”

Now consider what this means for worship. In Isaiah, the Lord says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9).

There is an immeasurable gulf between the Creator and his creatures. Given that reality, how reasonable is it to suppose that we, the creatures, can determine for ourselves how we should worship the Creator?

Yet this is precisely what happens under the normative principle. When the church adopts the normative principle, the creatures assume the right to go beyond what the Creator has revealed about how he is to be worshiped. But that is a remarkable presumption. How can we acknowledge the Creator–creature distinction while at the same time suggesting that God’s Word is not sufficient to direct our worship of him?

Revelation

Third on Duncan’s list is the nature of revelation and knowledge. He writes:

As revelation is the divine foundation of human knowledge of salvation, so also is revelation the divine foundation of our worship of God, which is itself, when properly understood, a response to revelation. And if worship is to be a right response to revelation, then it must be revelationally directed.

What he means is that there are certain things we can know about God through general revelation. For example, we can know that God exists simply by looking at creation. As Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). But general revelation is not sufficient to tell us how we may be saved. For that, we need special revelation.

According to Romans 1, general revelation is only enough to leave us without excuse. Paul writes:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:19–20)

General revelation, then, goes only so far. When we look at the stars or the trees, creation tells us that God exists and that he is powerful, but it does not tell us how we may be saved. God must reveal that explicitly, which he has done through his Word.

Think of Abraham. Abraham may have known that there was a God, but he would not have known to leave his homeland for the land of Canaan unless God had spoken to him directly. The Baptist Confession makes this same point:

The light of nature and the works of creation and providence so clearly demonstrate the goodness, wisdom, and power of God that people are left without excuse; however, these demonstrations are not sufficient to give the knowledge of God and his will that is necessary for salvation.

Duncan’s argument is that the same principle applies to worship. General revelation may tell us that there is a God who ought to be worshiped, but it does not tell us how he is to be worshiped. For that, we need special revelation.

This is evident in the case of the Gentiles Paul describes in Romans 1:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:21–23)

They instinctively knew there was a God to be worshiped. But apart from special revelation, they did not know how to worship him rightly. So they invented their own forms of worship, which ultimately led to idolatry.

We must rely on God’s special revelation to know how he is to be worshiped. Unless he reveals it, we have no assurance that what we offer to him is appropriate worship.

It is also important to remember that worship involves a kind of dialogue between God and his people. God speaks, and we respond. God reveals how he is to be worshiped, and we answer accordingly. He declares, in effect, “Here is the sacrifice I require,” and we offer that very sacrifice—nothing more and nothing less.

The Second Commandment

Fourth, Duncan points us back to the second commandment. We have already discussed this, but the second commandment establishes the regulative principle of worship within the enduring moral law.

Why is it part of the moral law rather than the ceremonial law? Because it reflects God’s unchanging character. God does not permit us to worship him in ways other than those he has revealed, precisely because what he reveals about worship flows from who he is.

And because this commandment belongs to the abiding moral law, its principle continues into the New Testament. Paul commends the Thessalonians by saying, “Your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report … how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:8–9).

It is easy to reduce the second commandment to a prohibition about what or whom we worship, but the commandment also addresses how we worship. This becomes clear when we read Deuteronomy 4 or when we consider the Israelites forming the golden calf in the wilderness to worship the God who delivered them from Egypt.

Not only must we avoid worshiping false gods, but we must also avoid worshiping the true God in false ways.

The Nature of Faith

Next, Duncan urges us to consider the nature of faith. This is what John Owen called “the argument from faith.” Duncan writes, “Since faith is essential to true worship, the conditions of worship must accord with the exercise of true faith.”

Scripture is clear that nothing we do is pleasing to God apart from faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God].” And Paul writes in Romans 14:23, “Whatever is not from faith is sin.”

But what is faith? At its core, faith is trusting what God has revealed. If that is true, then worship that goes beyond God’s revelation cannot be an act of faith. To worship apart from what God has revealed would, by definition, be unfaithful.

The Baptist Confession speaks clearly about the nature of faith in chapter fourteen:

By this faith, Christians believe to be true everything revealed in the Word, recognizing it as the authority of God himself. They also perceive that the Word is more excellent than every other writing and everything else in the world, because it displays the glory of God in his attributes, the excellence of Christ in his nature and offices, and the power and fullness of the Holy Spirit in his activities and operations.

What God reveals to us displays his glory. By faith, we recognize his revelation as true and authoritative. And if that is so, then whatever he reveals about how we should worship him will also display his glory. By faith, we trust what he has revealed and receive it as our authority for worship.

The Doctrine of Carefulness

Sixth, Duncan points to what he calls the doctrine of carefulness. He writes,

The Bible makes it exceedingly clear that we ought to be careful in worship. Our God is a consuming fire and not to be trifled with. The severity of the punishments inflicted upon those who, from time to time, offer to God, apparently in good faith, unprescribed worship catches our attention: the stories of Nadab and Abihu and their “strange fire” and of Uzzah and David and the ark.

Of course, some will argue that these examples come from a time when the ceremonial law was still in force. And that is true. But we should remember what Paul says about the Old Testament. Writing to the Romans, he says, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction” (Romans 15:4).

So while the specific regulations of the ceremonial law are no longer binding, the warnings they contain still instruct us. These accounts remind us that we must think carefully about how we approach God in worship.

We remain a people created to worship God, and that responsibility alone should make us cautious about how we do it. Jesus himself said, speaking of new covenant worship, “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him” (John 4:23).

Good intentions, by themselves, are not enough. True worship requires more than sincerity. It requires submission to the authority of God’s Word and a willingness to neglect no part of it.

The Church’s Derivative Authority

Seventh, Duncan points to the church’s derivative authority. In other words, whatever authority the church possesses is derived from Christ. The church is not in a position to establish its own laws and norms.

In Matthew 28, Jesus says,

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:18–20)

The church’s task is therefore clear. We declare the word of Christ and uphold the word of Christ, but we do not have the authority to add to it, subtract from it, or alter it in any way.

The Scottish theologian James Bannerman said, “The Church is given no authority to require obedience to its own commands, and it is given no authority to require participation in ordinances of its own making.”

When it comes to worship, then, the church is not free to invent something new. That level of authority does not belong to us. Our authority is subordinate to Christ’s authority. He gives the commands, and we obey them and teach others to do the same.

The Doctrine of Christian Freedom

Eighth, Duncan urges us to consider the doctrine of Christian freedom. At first, it may seem unusual to appeal to liberty of conscience in defense of the regulative principle of worship. But consider how the Baptist Confession describes Christian liberty:

God alone is Lord of the conscience, and he has left it free from human doctrines and commandments that are in any way contrary to his word or not contained in it. So, believing such doctrines, or obeying such commands out of conscience, is a betrayal of true liberty of conscience. Requiring implicit faith or absolute and blind obedience destroys liberty of conscience and reason as well.

When the Bible speaks of Christian liberty, it does not mean freedom from the Word of God. Rather, it means freedom from human doctrines and commandments. As the Confession explains, the conscience is bound to God’s Word alone.

Paul addresses this in Romans 14:

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:1–4)

Paul makes similar arguments in Galatians 4 and Colossians 2. The point is that Christians must not bind one another’s consciences with requirements that God himself has not imposed.

For that reason, the doctrine of Christian freedom actually supports the regulative principle rather than the normative principle. Under the normative principle, churches may introduce practices that go beyond Scripture and then expect others to participate in them. But doing so risks imposing extra-biblical obligations on the conscience.

The regulative principle guards against that danger. By limiting worship to what God himself has prescribed, it protects the liberty of the Christian conscience.

The Nature of True Piety

Ninth, Duncan appeals to the nature of true piety. He writes, “God repeatedly expresses his pleasure with, and delight in, those who do exactly what he says.”

Consider what the Lord says in Isaiah 66:

Thus says the LORD:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the LORD.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:1–2)

This passage gives us something like a definition of true religion. It is marked by humility, contrition, and a willingness to tremble at the Word of God rather than choosing our own way.

The same principle appears in Deuteronomy 12, where God warns Israel, “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it” (Deuteronomy 12:32). And Jesus echoes this concern in the New Testament when he says, “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23).

True piety, then, is not expressed by creativity in worship but by submission. It appears wherever God’s people humbly receive his Word and refuse to add to it or subtract from it.

Our Tendency Toward Idolatry

Tenth, we should consider our natural tendency toward idolatry.

This is evident throughout Israel’s history. One of the clearest examples appears almost immediately after God delivered the people from slavery in Egypt, when they fashioned the golden calf in the wilderness. The human heart is remarkably prone to idolatry in its many forms. John Calvin famously described our minds as “perpetual idol factories.” Martin Luther similarly observed, “We are inclined to [idolatry] by nature; and coming to us by inheritance, it seems pleasant.”

Paul describes this very tendency among the Gentiles in Romans 1: “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25).

God created us to be worshipers. If we do not worship him, we will inevitably worship something else—ourselves, a sports team, a career, money, or any number of other things. As Bob Dylan once put it, “It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

If we are so prone to wander into idolatry, how do we guard against it in our worship? Certainly not by adopting the normative principle, which easily becomes a slippery slope. As Calvin warned,

When we are left at liberty, all we are able to do is go astray. And then, when once we have turned aside from the right path, there is no end to our wanderings, until we get buried under a multitude of superstitions.

Church history provides many examples of this progression. By the Middle Ages, churches across Europe were collecting relics—physical objects believed to be associated with saints, such as bones, fragments of clothing, or items supposedly linked to biblical figures. These relics gradually became objects of veneration.

Early Christians sometimes honored martyrs and remembered them on the anniversaries of their deaths. In itself, that practice may have been harmless. But over time, it expanded significantly. Eventually, people began praying to the saints as intercessors before God. Feast days and religious processions were organized in their honor.

Devotion to Mary also expanded dramatically in the medieval church. She was called the “Queen of Heaven.” Prayers were directed to her, shrines were built in her honor, and some even began to speak of her as a co-redeemer with Christ.

Images of Christ, Mary, and the saints likewise became common in churches. People would kneel before these images in acts of devotion.

Advocates of the normative principle might respond by appealing to passages such as Deuteronomy 4 or the second commandment, insisting that these developments violate explicit biblical prohibitions. And that is precisely the problem with a slippery slope. The first step may not be expressly forbidden in Scripture. The second step may not be expressly forbidden either. But by the third or fourth step, people have grown accustomed to their justifications, and continuing along the same path seems reasonable, even when Scripture’s warnings stand plainly in the way.

Eventually, people may even reinterpret those warnings to justify what they have already begun to practice.

So how do we guard against these endless wanderings in worship? The regulative principle provides the safeguard. By restraining ourselves to what God has prescribed, we protect the church from drifting into the kinds of innovations that so often lead to idolatry.

The Testimony of Church History

Eleventh, Duncan points to the testimony of church history.

I considered leaving this one out because history is often messy. Throughout the centuries, churches have worshiped in many different ways. Some have followed the regulative principle, while others have followed the normative principle. So why should we consider the church’s historical testimony at all?

As Duncan explains, “Church history does not supply a normative authority for church worship, but it does supply a didactic authority that we would be foolish to ignore.” In other words, history does not determine how we should worship—that authority belongs to Scripture alone—but it can certainly inform our understanding.

When we examine church history, one pattern becomes clear: the healthiest periods of the church have generally been marked by simple, Bible-centered worship. In other words, they reflected the regulative principle.

Conversely, a decline in biblical worship often accompanies a broader decline in religion. In many ways, we can observe this trend throughout the Western world today. As churches abandon biblical worship and often biblical doctrine as well, people begin to wonder why they should attend at all. When Christian worship is reduced to a form of secular entertainment and the church becomes little more than a social gathering, people naturally look elsewhere. There is no shortage of entertainment or social clubs outside the church, so many eventually drift away. Churches throughout the West, especially those that have embraced unorthodox doctrine, are steadily shrinking.

Previously, I suggested that most churches today probably follow the normative principle of worship, often by default. If someone has never heard of the regulative principle or considered the subject carefully, the normative principle may seem like the obvious assumption. In my experience, most churches are not doing anything radical in their worship. At the same time, they are not intentionally following the regulative principle either. Instead, they are experiencing a slow slide down a slippery slope. Nothing they do is explicitly forbidden in Scripture, but over time, a culture of shallowness develops.

Consider the Bible’s instruction about singing in worship: “Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Ephesians 5:18–19).

The command is for the whole congregation to sing. To assist the congregation, churches often appoint song leaders and musicians who use microphones and amplifiers. Gradually, the volume on those microphones increases. The song leaders and musicians are placed on a stage at the front of the room, becoming the visual focal point. Then the lights in the sanctuary are dimmed, and spotlights illuminate the stage.

At that point, the focus has shifted entirely to the platform. The amplified music becomes so loud that the congregation can barely hear itself sing. Eventually, many people stop singing altogether and simply watch and listen. The church is no longer addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. The congregation has become an audience.

Nothing in this process may directly violate an explicit biblical prohibition. Yet over time, the environment changes in such a way that the church is no longer doing what Scripture commands. That is the danger of the normative principle. Small, seemingly harmless steps can eventually reshape the character of worship.

Many people in such churches sense that something is missing, even if they cannot articulate why. They often describe worship as feeling empty or shallow. What is lacking is the solid foundation that comes from structuring worship according to the clear directives of Scripture.

We are continuing our study of worship, specifically corporate worship in the church. Does God care how we worship? Does he regulate how we worship? And how do we determine how we should worship?

So far, we’ve established that God does, in fact, care how we worship and that he does regulate the worship offered to him. We saw this in the story of Cain and Abel, which took place before tabernacle worship and before the ceremonial law was in force. We also see it clearly throughout the era of tabernacle worship. God gave many strict instructions regarding how his people were to worship him. In the notable case of Nadab and Abihu, we saw what happens when people choose to worship him in their own way.

We also saw that God continues to care about how he is worshiped under the new covenant. Christ accused the Pharisees of worshiping in vain because they had added to the commandments of God, and Paul warned against what he called “self-made religion.” Instead, he says we should submit to the Head of the church, Jesus Christ.

There are two competing principles regarding worship, and most Christians tend to fall into one of these two categories. Few would claim that God does not regulate worship at all. The real question is where we draw the line of what is permissible in the church.

First, there is the regulative principle, which says the church is permitted to do only what God commands. The normative principle, on the other hand, says the church is permitted to do anything except what God forbids.

If I had to guess, I would say that more churches today operate according to the normative principle rather than the regulative principle. Part of the reason may be the way the regulative principle is sometimes portrayed. The name alone can conjure up images of strict legalists insisting that you shouldn’t even have hymnals in church because there is no command in the Bible that says, “Thou shalt use hymnals.”

People sometimes make arguments like that, yet those same arguments are often made while sitting in a church building, as if there were a command in Scripture that says, “Thou shalt have dedicated buildings for worship.” There isn’t.

Questions like that may already be coming to your mind, and I will address them. For now, however, we’ve seen in both the Old and New Testaments that God permits only what he reveals. Nothing should be added to it, and nothing should be taken away from it.

That is, by definition, the regulative principle of worship. The normative principle says you may add practices as long as the Bible does not forbid them. The regulative principle holds that the church does only what God has revealed it should do—nothing more and nothing less.

Having seen the biblical teaching and examples of this, I want to focus now on two underlying truths that form the foundation of the regulative principle of worship:

1. A holy church

2. The authority and sufficiency of Scripture

In other words, we believe and practice the regulative principle because we believe in a holy church and in the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.

The Church as a Holy People

Let’s begin with the idea of a holy church.

Going all the way back to the early fourth century, the Nicene Creed described the church as “one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” By one, they meant there is only one body under Christ. By catholic, they were referring to the universal church, or the church across both geography and time. But for our purposes, notice how the creed describes the church as holy.

What did they mean by that?

Clearly, this is a very old understanding of the church. It did not arise during the Protestant Reformation. It goes back to the early centuries of the church itself. But what does it mean for the church to be holy?

In the simplest terms, to be holy means to be set apart by God for God.

Throughout the Old Testament, we see this idea repeatedly. Scripture speaks of holy ground, a holy city, a holy mountain, a holy temple, holy offerings, and holy people. For example, consider the fourth commandment:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work. (Exodus 20:8–10)

Here, the Sabbath day is designated as holy or set apart from the rest of the week. There were six days for work, but this one day was distinguished by the command not to work. It was unique. It was different. It was set apart from the others for a distinct purpose given by God.

We see the same principle in the worship of the tabernacle. Exodus 30 says:

With [the anointing oil] you shall anoint the tent of meeting and the ark of the testimony, and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and the basin and its stand. You shall consecrate them, that they may be most holy. (Exodus 30:26–29)

To consecrate something meant to appoint or dedicate it for a sacred purpose.

When most people hear the word holy, they immediately think of moral purity or sinlessness. Sometimes the word does carry that meaning, but that is not what is meant when the Sabbath day is called holy or when the utensils of the tabernacle were designated as holy.

Saturday is not a morally pure day. The items in the tabernacle are not more righteous than the items in your home. What made them holy was that God had set them apart for his own purpose. The Sabbath day was meant to be different from the other six days of the week. The lampstand in the tabernacle was not meant to be taken home and used as a reading light. The altar was not meant to be used to cook family dinners.

God had a distinct purpose for these things in Israel’s worship of him, so they were set apart from what we might call common things.

We see this distinction in Acts 10 when Peter is given a vision of “all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air” (Acts 10:12). The Lord says to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat” (Acts 10:13).

Under the dietary laws of the old covenant, Peter knew he was not allowed to eat certain animals. So he responds, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean” (Acts 10:14).

By common, Peter does not mean inherently evil. If that were the case, we would be committing sin every time we eat pork. While God had prohibited eating pork under the old covenant, Peter simply means that it had not been designated for them to eat. It was outside the bounds of what God had given his sanctified people.

So when God declares something or someone to be holy, it means that person or thing is set apart by him for his distinct purpose. It is different from what Scripture calls common.

This is how the church is described throughout the New Testament. Several different words are used, but they all point to the same idea. The church is holy. The church is sanctified. The church is made up of saints, which comes from the same root word as holy.

Peter writes that the church is “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). The church belongs uniquely to God and is set apart from everyone else.

This language echoes the way Israel was described in the Old Testament. In Exodus 19:5, God says, “You shall be my treasured possession among all peoples.” Israel was set apart from every other nation in a very distinct way. God used them uniquely and required them to live differently from the surrounding nations, even down to their foreskins. Their identity and practices marked them as a people set apart according to God’s purpose.

The New Testament says the same about the church.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:2, “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And in Ephesians 5, Paul describes the church this way:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25–27)

Descriptions like these appear throughout the New Testament. The church is sanctified. The church is holy. The church is made up of saints. In other words, the church is set apart by God for God.

When we talk about sanctification, however, there are different aspects to it. Hebrews 10 gives us a helpful example.

In verse 10, we read, “We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). This refers to a once-for-all setting apart of God’s people through the atoning work of Christ.

Then verse 14 says, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). Here sanctification is described as an ongoing process in the lives of those who have already been set apart through Christ.

Finally, there will come a day when God’s people are fully and perfectly sanctified as they enter eternal life, while everyone else faces eternal judgment. At that point, the separation between God’s people and the world will be complete.

The Centrality of Corporate Worship

Everything about the church’s identity is meant to be distinct from the rest of the world. What does this have to do with how we worship?

First, we need to understand that worship is the most important thing we do as the church. Worshipping and praising God is the very heartbeat of the church.

Going back to 1 Peter 2, Peter writes, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

In Ephesians 1, as Paul describes how God has chosen and redeemed us, he repeatedly says it is for the praise of God: “to the praise of his glorious grace … to the praise of his glory … to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14).

Hebrews 13:15 says, “Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.”

In John 4, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him” (John 4:23).

The book of Revelation shows us what the people of God are doing in heaven and will be doing for all eternity. They are singing God’s praises: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power” (Revelation 4:11).

Paul tells us that the culmination of human history will come when “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11).

The Westminster Catechism asks, What is the chief end of man? The answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

This is also the clear pattern of the church in the New Testament. From the very beginning, we are told:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. … And all who believed were together and had all things in common. … And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42–47)

Notice that last line. What happened when people were saved? They joined themselves to the church. They separated themselves from the world and became members of this sanctified body.

What was this sanctified body doing? Corporate worship. They devoted themselves to the various elements of worship. They attended the temple together. They praised God together. And they did this consistently, even daily. We are told that day by day, they attended the temple together, and when they were not in the temple, they gathered in their homes.

God sets a people apart for the distinct purpose of glorifying him. Just as in the Old Testament, our corporate worship under the new covenant is a primary means by which we glorify him.

This point is important because we live in a time when many professing Christians believe they do not need to be part of the corporate church. You often hear people say, “I can worship God alone at home. I can worship on my fishing boat. I can worship anywhere. I don’t need to go and be part of the church on Sunday morning.”

While it is true that we can worship God apart from the gathered church, the consistent teaching and example of Scripture is that corporate worship is of supreme importance and should never be neglected. Hebrews 10 warns us not to neglect meeting together, “as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:25).

Another telling fact is that much of the New Testament was written to local churches—that is, bodies of believers meeting regularly for corporate worship.

In Matthew 18, we find a verse that is often taken out of context. Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matthew 18:20).

The context of that statement is not corporate worship but church discipline. Yet the principle remains relevant. Jesus says that when his sanctified people are gathered in his name—that is, for his purpose—he is with that body of believers in a special way.

This does not mean that he is absent when we are alone. Rather, it emphasizes that Christ is present with his people when they gather together as the church, even in the most difficult circumstances.

The Church as the Pillar and Buttress of the Truth

Let’s consider one more passage that serves as a bridge between these two underlying principles—a holy church and the authority of Scripture. That passage is 1 Timothy 3:15.

Paul is writing to the young minister Timothy, who was serving the church in Ephesus. Ephesus was an extremely pagan and idolatrous city, and it must have been a challenging environment for the church. Along with the pressures from the surrounding culture, there were also internal temptations. The apostle John later had to remind them, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). It is easy to imagine the temptation to bring into the church beliefs and practices carried over from their former pagan lives.

Paul writes:

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. (1 Timothy 3:14–15)

Notice how Paul describes the church, and he is referring here to the gathered church.

First, the church is the household of God. That language might sound informal at first, but Paul is using terminology that echoes the tabernacle and the temple in the Old Testament. Rather than thinking of a household as a place where you relax and do whatever you want, Paul is describing a place of formal, regulated worship. It is certainly a place of joy, but it is also a place to be taken seriously.

Second, the church is the church of the living God. Why emphasize that God is living? For pagans, their gods were not living gods. They could create a god, however they wished, and worship that god, however they wished. They could invent the rules for themselves.

But that is not the case with a living God. Our God is real, and our God determines how he should be worshiped.

Finally, the church is described as a pillar and buttress of the truth—that is, the truth of God. According to Romans 1:18, the rest of the world suppresses the truth of God. Only the church, God’s set-apart people, has been entrusted with proclaiming and defending that truth.

As I mentioned previously, when our behavior in the church, especially in our worship, follows what God has revealed, we reflect the character of God himself. When it does not, we obscure the character of God and obscure the truth.

But as Paul says, the church is meant to be the pillar and buttress of the truth of our living God in this world.

The Authority and Sufficiency of Scripture

The church is a holy people set apart by God. We have a unique identity, and because we are set apart for God, we also have a unique purpose. This brings us to the second underlying principle: the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.

We see this principle in 1 Timothy 3:15 as well. Paul writes, “If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God.”

That statement is very explicit. As God’s set-apart people gather for God’s set-apart purpose, God gives a specific standard for how we are to conduct ourselves. I especially appreciate that word ought. It carries the idea of necessity. It is necessary that we behave in the way God directs.

This makes perfect sense. If we are set apart by God for God, it stands to reason that he would show us how to fulfill our purpose. He always has. We see it clearly throughout the Old Testament. We see aspects of it even in the Ten Commandments. And as we saw previously, we also see it in the New Testament.

The church under the new covenant does have regulations regarding corporate worship. There is a right way and a wrong way to behave in the household of God. Notice that Paul’s emphasis is not on how individuals live privately, but on how the gathered church behaves.

This verse brings the two principles together. Because the church is holy, it must behave as God directs. And because the church behaves as God directs, it reflects that holiness. It becomes, as Paul describes, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

So the second underlying principle is the authority of Scripture. Scripture is how we know what God requires of us.

The first paragraph of the 1689 Confession says:

The Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain, and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. … To preserve and propagate the truth better and to establish and comfort the church with greater certainty against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and the world, the Lord put this revelation completely in writing. Therefore, the Holy Scriptures are absolutely necessary, because God’s former ways of revealing his will to his people have now ceased.

The Confession later adds:

The supreme judge for deciding all religious controversies and for evaluating all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, human teachings, and individual interpretations, and in whose judgment we are to rest, is nothing but the Holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit. In this Scripture, our faith finds its final word.

If we believe the Bible is God’s Word, then we must treat it as authoritative. And if it is authoritative, we should rely on it to govern our worship rather than our own opinions and ideas.

Furthermore, if we believe the Bible is sufficient, then we do not need to add anything. God has revealed everything necessary. As Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). The Bible is from God, so it is authoritative and sufficient, equipping us for every good work.

This was also the central issue of the Protestant Reformation. At the heart of the Reformation was a debate over the authority of Scripture in worshiping God. The church in Rome had long elevated church tradition to the same level of authority as the Word of God. In their view, tradition and the Bible were equally authoritative.

The Reformers rejected that idea. They insisted that tradition must always be subject to Scripture. The Bible alone is the church’s final authority.

For that reason, the debate during the Reformation closely overlapped with the debate between the regulative and normative principles of worship. The regulative principle says the church should include in its worship only what God commands in Scripture. The normative principle says the church may include anything that Scripture does not forbid.

The Roman church defended the normative approach with its traditions and innovations. The Reformers defended the regulative principle. They argued that the church, as a holy people set apart by God for a holy purpose, must worship in the ways God has revealed, because his Word is both authoritative and sufficient.

John Calvin expressed this point clearly:

The rule which distinguishes between pure and [valid] worship is of universal application, in order that we may not adopt any device which seems fit to ourselves, but look to the injunctions of Him who alone is entitled to prescribe. Therefore, if we would have Him to approve our worship, this rule, which He everywhere enforces with the utmost strictness, must be carefully observed. For there is a twofold reason why the Lord, in condemning and prohibiting all fictitious worship, requires us to give obedience only to His own voice. First, it tends greatly to establish His authority that we do not follow our own pleasure, but depend entirely on His sovereignty; and secondly, such is our folly, that when we are left at liberty, all we are able to do is go astray. And then when once we have turned aside from the right path, there is no end to our wanderings, until we get buried under a multitude of superstitions. Justly, therefore, does the Lord, in order to assert full right of dominion, strictly enjoin what He wishes us to do, and at once reject all human devices which are at variance with His command. Justly, too, does He, in express terms, define our limits, that we may not, by fabricating perverse modes of worship, provoke His anger against us. I know how difficult it is to persuade the world that God disapproves of all modes of worship not expressly sanctioned by His Word. The opposite persuasion which cleaves to them, being seated, as it were, in their very bones and marrow, is that whatever they do has in itself a sufficient sanction, provided it exhibits some kind of zeal for the honor of God. Since God not only regards as fruitless but also plainly abominates whatever we undertake from zeal to His worship if at variance with His command, what do we gain by a contrary course? The words of God are clear and distinct. “Obedience is better than sacrifice.” “In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Every addition to His word, especially in this matter, is a lie. Mere “will worship” is vanity. This is the decision, and when once the judge has decided, it is no longer time to debate.

To summarize Calvin’s argument, God approves only the worship he commands in Scripture. Human inventions in worship, even when motivated by zeal, undermine God’s authority. True worship, therefore, requires obedience to God’s revealed will rather than human creativity.

Calvin also makes a helpful observation when he says that when we are left at liberty, we tend to go astray. Once we depart from the right path, there is no end to our wandering.

In other words, the normative principle of worship does not merely create the possibility of a slippery slope; it is the slippery slope. In subtle ways, it undermines both the holiness of the church and the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.

First, it treats the worship of God’s sanctified people as something common, allowing the church to incorporate whatever it chooses. Second, it assumes that God has not provided everything necessary for what is the most important function of his sanctified church.

A Necessary Distinction

At this point, some people push back and say, “Wait a minute. There are many things we do that God does not explicitly prescribe.”

That is true. If we had to live by the regulative principle in every aspect of life, we would essentially be crippled. There is no command in Scripture telling me to set my alarm in the morning. There is no command telling me to take a shower, check the weather forecast, or get in my car and drive to work. There are countless things we do every day that the Bible does not specifically tell us to do.

Some people use that fact to argue that the regulative principle cannot possibly be correct.

Pastor Mark Driscoll once made this argument:

What I don’t understand is why we would treat 1 hour a week by a certain set of rules, and the other 167 hours of the week by a different set of rules. … You don’t wake up in the morning acting like a regulativist. You don’t wake up in the morning and say, Okay, I need to brush my teeth. Where is that in the Bible? It’s not in there. Golly, I was hoping I could brush my teeth, but I can’t. Well, I guess I’ll have breakfast. Well, the Bible doesn’t say breakfast. It says to eat, but it doesn’t say when. Is it okay to eat in the morning? I’d better pray about this. Okay. I gotta put on pants. Uh-oh, pants aren’t in the Bible. Oh no. This is gonna be a bad day … Why is it that we live by the normative green-light principle until we get to church, and then we have to live by the regulative red-light principle just for an hour a week as if there’s not a blur in between the lines? We also have other church gatherings, meetings, Wednesday night classes, community groups. Do they count red light, green light? The whole thing gets very confusing. I think we live our whole life by the same principles, whether we’re scattered or gathered for worship, it’s green light. We’re free until we see something that is sinful and forbidden, then it’s red light and we stop.

Do you see the mistake Driscoll makes?

For many people, this argument is compelling. It seems reasonable. There are many things we do and must do that do not require a direct command from God. So why, when the church gathers for corporate worship, do we insist on the regulative principle?

The answer returns us to the two principles I have already expounded upon:

1. A holy church

2. The authority and sufficiency of Scripture

There is a vital distinction between the sanctified people of God gathering for corporate worship—our highest calling—and the rest of life. God regulates worship in a way that he does not regulate every detail of daily life.

Think again about the tabernacle in the Old Testament. God did not regulate how someone used a lampstand in their own home. But he did regulate how the lampstand was used in the tabernacle.

Why? Because God himself made a distinction between worship and ordinary life. Some things were common, and some things were sanctified.

In short, worship is governed by the regulative principle because it is special, distinct, and sanctified. The rest of life, however, operates according to the normative principle.

In Acts 19, the apostle Paul went to the city of Ephesus. He spent three months reasoning with the Jews in the synagogue. Then he withdrew and taught daily in the Hall of Tyrannus for another two years. His efforts were remarkably effective. We’re told, “All the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10). Later, Luke adds, “The word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily” (Acts 19:20).

Ephesus was no small town. It was one of the most important cities in the region and was famous for its religion. You’re likely familiar with the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. This was a thoroughly pagan city. When Paul came preaching the gospel and making disciples, he was not affecting only a few individuals; he was shaking the life of the city itself. That’s why a local silversmith named Demetrius, who made idols for a living, was able to incite a riot. Christianity threatened their religion, their culture, their identity, and, in the case of idolmakers, their livelihood.

Ephesus was hostile territory, and becoming a Christian could be costly. You didn’t simply change your religion without consequence. You had to shift your loyalties in ways that could damage relationships with family and friends and ruin your public reputation.

Even so, “the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily” (Acts 19:20). God had a people in that place, and a church was formed. Years later, Paul could write this letter to an established congregation.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians can be divided into two parts. In the first half, Paul explains what Christ has done. In effect, he says, “You are Christians because of this. Your lives are completely different because Christ has done this for you.” In the second half, he explains how they ought to live in light of that reality.

What’s especially significant is Paul’s emphasis not only on how Christ reconciles sinners to God, but also on how he reconciles sinners to one another—specifically, Jews and Gentiles. God’s plan of salvation is not merely about rescuing individuals. It is also about creating a community of redeemed believers from every background, culture, and way of life. Though they were once divided, they are now united for mutual help and the glory of God.

One Sentence of Praise and a Subtle Shift

In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul begins with one long expression of praise to God. In fact, verses 3–14 form a single sentence in the original Greek. As we read this, notice two things.

First, notice the change in pronouns. It’s subtle, but Paul moves from speaking about “us” and “we” to speaking about “you.” It’s not obvious at first, but Paul has two groups in mind.

Second, notice how Paul gives credit for our salvation to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. This lays a foundation for the practical lessons that follow. Later, Paul will urge his readers to pursue unity among themselves. Here, he reminds them that sinners are saved and brought into the church only by the cooperative, unified work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Just as the unified Godhead acted together in Genesis 1 to create the first man and woman in covenant union, the unified Godhead acts together to redeem a people who are united with one another in the church.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:3–14)

Again, this is one sentence in the original Greek.

From the very beginning of the letter, Paul establishes themes of unity and reconciliation. He writes that God’s ultimate plan is “to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10). The unified Godhead is working to bring everything together under Christ’s authority. The goal is unity, accomplished through the salvation of sinners in a deeply broken and divided world.

But notice the pronoun shift again. God “blessed us … he chose us … that we should be holy and blameless.” Then Paul adds, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13).

“We have been saved,” he says, “but you also have been saved.” Evidently, he has two groups in mind.

He clarifies this when he speaks of “we who were the first to hope in Christ” (Ephesians 1:12). Who were the first to hope in Christ? Jesus’ earliest disciples were Jews. In fact, Jesus initially instructed them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:5–6). It was not until Cornelius’s conversion in Acts 10 that the church began to expand more fully among the Gentiles.

This becomes even clearer as the letter continues. When Paul refers to “we” and “you,” he is referring to Jews and Gentiles. As he later explains, he is speaking of those who were “near” to God and those who were “far off,” both spiritually and physically, since the Gentiles were far removed from the center of worship in Jerusalem (Ephesians 2:17).

Christ Breaks Down the Dividing Wall

Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:11–22)

Consider how radical this was in the early church. The apostle Peter needed a special vision from God before he was willing to enter a Gentile’s home and speak about the gospel. When he arrived, he said, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean” (Acts 10:28). Even after that, Peter later drew back from fellowship with Gentiles when other Jews were present, which led to Paul confronting him publicly.

The reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles was extremely difficult. As Paul says, there was a “dividing wall of hostility” between them (Ephesians 2:14). In the temple itself, a literal wall separated Jews from Gentiles.

This division had deep roots in Israel’s history. For nearly 1,500 years, the Law of Moses had set Israel apart from every other nation. Circumcision marked them physically (Genesis 17:10–14). Dietary laws governed what they could eat (Leviticus 11). Purity laws regulated daily life (Leviticus 15). Even their clothing and calendar distinguished them (Numbers 15:38–39; Exodus 31:16–17). God had said, “I am the LORD your God, who has separated you from the peoples … You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine” (Leviticus 20:24, 26).

This separation became part of their identity, and it produced real hostility. Jews came to regard Gentiles as unclean, and Gentiles, in turn, often despised the Jews. There was suspicion and resentment on both sides.

But Christ came and reconciled them. He tore down the dividing wall of hostility by reconciling both groups to God. As Paul says, Christ created “in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile … both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Ephesians 2:15–16).

This had always been God’s plan. When God called Abraham, he said:

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 12:2–3)

All the families of the earth, not just Israel, but Jews and Gentiles.

As God redeems his people and makes them “alive together with Christ,” he is not merely saving individuals (Ephesians 2:5). He is bringing them together. He is forming one new people. Paul writes:

You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19–22)

Notice the language Paul uses: fellow citizens, members of the household of God, a holy temple in the Lord, a dwelling place for God. These are not descriptions of individuals. They are corporate. God is redeeming people and binding them together into a single community.

Though they come from different backgrounds, cultures, and ways of life, they are united in Christ. They share the same citizenship. They belong to the same household. They are being built together into the same temple.

This is what Christ accomplished. He did not merely reconcile sinners to God in isolation. He reconciled them to one another. He formed a new people, a unified body, a dwelling place for God himself.

Walking Worthy of Our Calling Together

With that, in chapter 4, Paul moves from explaining what Christ has done to showing how we are to live in response. He writes:

I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1–3)

When I read this practical conclusion, two things stand out.

First, our calling as Christians is not limited to our relationship with God. That is often where new believers focus. I’ve been reconciled to God. I have responsibilities to God. And that is true. But Paul makes clear that our calling also includes our relationship and responsibilities to the body of Christ—the church.

Second, this calling is not always easy. When Paul tells us to be humble, gentle, and patient, to bear with one another in love, and to strive for unity, he assumes that relationships within the church will require effort. We do not need to be reminded to be humble unless we are tempted toward pride. We do not need to bear with one another unless there are burdens to bear.

It may feel distant and abstract to think about the original context—how difficult it was for Jews and Gentiles to live in unity—but even today, there are significant differences among us. How many of you, like me, sell funerals for a living? How many of you are in your mid-forties, but all of your children are still under the age of eight? How many of you would call Bob Dylan one of your favorite musicians? Are there any Atlanta Braves fans reading this?

So what holds the body of Christ together? Not shared hobbies, careers, politics, backgrounds, sports teams, or musical tastes. Paul answers that question directly:

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:4–6)

Years ago, soon after I moved to North Carolina, I realized that many of my closest friends were much older, retired men. I was in my late twenties and early thirties, married but without children. Most of the men I spent time with were retired grandfathers. We were not in the same stage of life. My wife said it was because I’m an old soul. Whatever the reason, I genuinely cherished those friendships, despite having little in common on the surface.

What made those friendships work?

One hope. One Lord. One faith. One God.

That was more than enough.

Brother, if you want to listen to bluegrass rather than Bob Dylan, that’s fine. You’re not a Braves fan. You don’t even like baseball. So what? When you invite me to dinner, you may set more forks in front of me than I know how to use. When I invite you over, we may serve a meal that doesn’t require a fork at all. But none of that matters. We have Christ. In him, we are bound together for eternity.

There is no greater foundation for friendship than that. No matter our differences, by God’s help, we can be united. We are brothers. If Jews and Gentiles could be made one in Christ, there is nothing that can ultimately divide us.

Why God Calls Us to Grow Together

Having said all of that, we might ask why. Why does God bring us together and call us to walk the pilgrim’s pathway together? Why can’t we go it alone? We are 21st-century American men. We prize individualism and independence. Why does the Lord exhort us to bear with one another’s differences when it would be easier to surround ourselves only with people who share our interests?

Paul answers that question:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11–16)

God has given shepherds, teachers, and other leaders to equip the saints. But it is the saints themselves who carry out the work of ministry and build up the body of Christ. Together, they move toward unity, maturity, and conformity to Christ.

At the same time, we protect one another from being “tossed to and fro” by false teaching. This only happens when each member is actively engaged in the life of the body—serving, encouraging, and helping one another grow. The body grows as each part does its work.

Christian men, we should keep these truths in mind:

1. Christ saved us into a unified brotherhood.

2. Our unity is rooted in our shared identity in Christ.

3. Spiritual growth requires humility, patience, and intentional investment in one another.

4. God uses other men to help us mature and remain grounded in truth.

5. God designed us to grow spiritually through relationships with other men.

Last week, I began addressing the subject of worship. Does God care how we worship? If so, how should we worship under the new covenant? What does the Bible teach about worship in the church today?

I attempted to show that God, in fact, cares how we worship. This is evident in the Old Testament, where God gave Israel detailed and precise instructions concerning worship, with serious consequences for disobedience.

Leviticus 10 recounts the story of Nadab and Abihu, priests serving in the tabernacle:

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” (Leviticus 10:1–3)

When these men chose to worship God in a way he had not commanded, they were immediately judged. God declares, “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified.” God will be treated as holy.

This principle appears elsewhere. In Deuteronomy 4, God commands, “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it” (Deuteronomy 4:2).

In 1 Samuel 15, the Lord instructed King Saul to destroy the Amalekites completely. Saul spared the best of their livestock, claiming he intended to sacrifice them to God. Though this sounded noble, Samuel responded, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD?” (1 Samuel 15:22). Worship divorced from obedience is unacceptable. If worship exceeds or ignores what God has commanded, he does not receive it.

These examples come from the period of tabernacle worship, when the ceremonial law was in force. Many of its specific elements were fulfilled by Christ in types and shadows. Yet an enduring principle remains: God cares how he is worshiped, and only he can prescribe what is acceptable.

We saw this even before the ceremonial law, in the account of Cain and Abel. God accepted Abel’s offering and rejected Cain’s. The Ten Commandments, part of God’s moral law rather than the ceremonial system, also affirm that only he determines how he is to be worshiped.

Some object that these examples come from the Old Testament, which many treat as largely irrelevant. But Scripture is one unified revelation. The Old Testament is not merely background material. Paul writes, “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction” (Romans 15:4). Jesus says, “You search the Scriptures … and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39). We do not have the full instruction of God or the full revelation of Christ without the Old Testament.

Even so, we must ask whether this principle continues under the new covenant. Consider Matthew 15. Some assume that Jesus liberated worship from divine prescription. Let’s consider what he says.

Jesus Condemns Human Traditions in Worship

By the time we come to Matthew 15, the Jewish leaders had developed a complex system of laws and traditions in addition to God’s law. In their minds, these traditions served as a fence around God’s commandments, preventing anyone from violating them.

For example, the fourth commandment forbade work on the Sabbath. To avoid breaking it, they created 39 categories of work and developed detailed rules for each. Writing and erasing were both considered work. According to the Mishnah, no one should write more than two letters on the Sabbath, and erasing those letters to write two more would count as writing four letters, thus violating the Sabbath.

They also ruled that a person could not travel more than 2,000 cubits (roughly three-quarters of a mile) from home on the Sabbath. Yet they created loopholes. If a fence stood within that distance, a person could walk to the fence and then travel another 2,000 cubits from there.

This was the religious environment in which Jesus’ public ministry took place. These were the kinds of traditions behind the Pharisees’ frequent accusations that he violated the Sabbath.

When we read a passage like Matthew 15, we might assume the Pharisees were wrong because they were too strict, and that Jesus came to liberate people from strict worship. But Jesus was not opposing God’s law. He said plainly, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). His correction was not that they were too scrupulous, but that they were too lax.

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

“‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (Matthew 15:1–9)

The first thing to notice is that Jesus treats this entire controversy as a matter of worship. He makes that clear by quoting Isaiah. Whatever others may have assumed, Jesus identifies this issue as one concerning worship.

Second, the Pharisees do not appeal to God’s law. They ask, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?” (Matthew 15:2). The tradition in question was ceremonial handwashing, not for hygiene, but as a religious ritual meant to prevent ceremonial defilement.

Jesus does not accuse them of being too strict. He accuses them of breaking God’s law. “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3).

He illustrates this with the tradition known as Corban. Suppose a man’s parents needed financial help. The fifth commandment says, “Honor your father and your mother,” which certainly includes caring for them (Exodus 20:12). But the man could declare his money Corban, meaning dedicated to God. This did not require him to give the money immediately. He could continue using it for himself, while claiming it was reserved for the temple upon his death.

In reality, he was not giving the money to God. He was using a religious vow as an excuse to avoid helping his parents.

Jesus exposes this as subtraction by addition. By adding their tradition, they nullified God’s command. “For the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God” (Matthew 15:6). Their tradition did not reflect sincere devotion but hypocrisy.

Jesus was not criticizing them for being too strict. He was condemning them for violating God’s law. By quoting Isaiah, he shows that their worship was empty—mere lip service. It was a human invention that exceeded God’s prescription.

Their failure was both internal and external. Their hearts were far from God, and their worship did not conform to his command. Both their motivation and their standard were wrong.

As Jesus fulfills the law, certain aspects of worship will change in form. But there will always be a standard, and God alone determines it. Jesus shows that violating this standard can occur not only by removing what God has commanded, but also by adding to it. If God commands something and we neglect it, we disobey him. And if God commands something and we add to it, we also disobey him, implying that what he has revealed is insufficient.

Worship in Spirit and Truth

Previously, I referenced Jesus’ statement to the Samaritan woman several times, so let’s consider its context.

As Jesus and his disciples passed through Samaria, a region between Galilee and Judea, he met an unnamed Samaritan woman at a well. He asked her for a drink, and she eventually suspects he was a prophet. So she asked him to settle a long-standing dispute between the Samaritans and the Jews.

The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” (John 4:19–26)

The dispute concerns the proper place of worship. In the Old Testament, God chose Jerusalem as the place where his temple would be built and where his people would worship him. But the Samaritans, who emerged after the Assyrian conquest of Israel and the intermingling of peoples, developed a corrupted form of religion. They believed Mount Gerizim was the proper place of worship rather than Jerusalem.

In his response, Jesus first points to an upcoming shift in the place of worship. He says, “The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father” (John 4:21). In other words, worship would no longer be tied to a specific geographic location. God would be worshiped wherever his people are found.

This helps explain why many of the Reformers kept their church buildings locked during the week. They wanted to emphasize that while the church building was where believers gathered for corporate worship, it was not a sacred location required for meeting with God. As the 1689 Baptist Confession states:

Under the gospel, neither prayer nor any other part of religious worship is now restricted to or made more acceptable by the place where it is done or toward which it is directed. Instead, God is to be worshipped everywhere in spirit and in truth—daily in each family and privately by each individual. Also, more formal worship is to be performed in public assemblies, and these must not be carelessly or deliberately neglected or forsaken when God, by his word or providence, calls us to them.

Second, Jesus shows that worship must be governed by revelation. Even though the place of worship would change, he answers the woman’s question about old covenant worship, saying, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22).

The Samaritans were wrong to worship on Mount Gerizim. God had revealed that worship was to occur in Jerusalem. It was not right for the Samaritans, or anyone else, to choose their own way.

Notice how Jesus connects their faulty worship with ignorance of God himself. “You worship what you do not know” (John 4:22). They were not only confused about how to worship but about whom they worshiped. What God reveals flows from who he is. When we add to, subtract from, or alter what he has revealed, we obscure his character.

For example, if a church never corporately confesses sin or calls its people to repentance, it obscures God’s righteousness and holiness. If the Lord’s Supper is neglected, the centrality of Christ’s atoning work is diminished. If worship is structured around performance and production, with the focus on the audience’s emotional experience, it becomes a manufactured feeling rather than a response to God’s inherent worthiness.

When worship is shaped by revelation, it reflects God’s character. When it is not, it reflects ours. False worship says more about us than about God.

We could extend this further and say that how you worship will shape what you become. If the church minimizes sin, it not only obscures God’s holiness but also produces people who do not take sin seriously. Ultimately, it produces people who do not take God seriously.

My wife and I once visited a satellite campus of a large megachurch in Atlanta. When we walked in, the bass from the music was so loud you could feel it in your chest. Throughout the service, people mostly sat and watched a few individuals perform on stage. During the sermon, the lights were so dim I could barely see the Bible on my lap. As for the preacher, he was not physically present. We watched him on a large screen as he preached at another campus.

As I observed the service, I made mental notes of what seemed wrong. If I looked for negative commands in Scripture—“Thou shalt not play music loudly” or “Thou shalt not videocast your preacher”—I would not find them. It reminded me of Justice Potter Stewart’s remark about pornography: “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”

I’ve spoken with many people who feel something is off in their church but cannot identify why. They search for negative commands in Scripture and, finding none, assume everything must be acceptable. But what if they searched for positive commands instead? What if they examined what Scripture actually prescribes?

Jesus did not need to say, “Do not worship on Mount Gerizim,” because he had already revealed where worship was to occur.

Finally, Jesus shows that worship remains essential under the new covenant. Though its form would change, its importance would not. He says, “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him” (John 4:23).

God desires worshipers. He seeks people who will worship him.

Christ Alone Governs New Covenant Worship

Next, let’s consider what the apostle Paul says about worship under the new covenant, beginning with Colossians 2.

In this passage, Paul addresses the false teaching that had begun to trouble the church. When we read it, our attention is naturally drawn to the errors he confronts. But in correcting those errors, Paul also teaches something positive about worship.

Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. (Colossians 2:16–19)

At first glance, this may seem entirely negative—focused only on what should not be done. But Paul begins by reminding the church that they are no longer under the ceremonial law. The form of worship had changed under the new covenant. The ceremonial aspects of the law, including the seventh-day Sabbath and religious festivals, were shadows fulfilled in Christ.

Paul then confronts other false practices—asceticism, angel worship, and claims of special visions. These practices gave an appearance of humility but were rooted in human pride. Instead of “holding fast to the Head,” who is Christ, they were embracing ideas and practices that departed from him.

This reveals something essential about worship. True worship is not merely subjective or internal. It is governed by an objective standard outside of ourselves. There is a right way to worship and a wrong way, and false worship represents a departure from Christ himself. He is not only the object of our worship but also the one who governs it.

When Paul says, in effect, “Do not worship this way,” he implies that there is a true way to worship, and that true way does not originate with us. It comes from the Lord.

This brings us to the two principles of worship I mentioned previously: the normative principle and the regulative principle. The normative principle says that whatever is not forbidden in Scripture is permissible in worship. The regulative principle says that only what God has commanded is permissible.

At first glance, Paul’s prohibitions might seem to support the normative principle. But look more closely. Paul rejects humanly imposed regulations precisely because they do not come from God (Colossians 2:16-17). Then, he describes these practices as “self-made religion” (Colossians 2:23). Their fundamental problem is their origin. They are man-made.

Paul also identifies Christ as the Head of the church (Colossians 2:19). This means Christ alone has authority over the church and its worship.

The normative principle says that whatever is not forbidden is acceptable, but Paul assumes the opposite. If a practice does not come from Christ, the Head of the church, it has no place in worship. We cannot invent elements of worship simply because Scripture does not explicitly forbid them. Worship must be governed by what Christ himself has revealed. There is no place in the church for self-made religion.

Five Principles for Orderly and Biblical Worship

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul addresses the proper use of spiritual gifts, particularly tongues and prophecy. This instruction is given within the context of corporate worship. This is important because some claim the New Testament does not teach formal corporate worship, treating it instead as an Old Testament concept. They argue that while the church gathers, it does not gather for structured worship. But this chapter clearly shows the church assembling for corporate worship, and Paul insists that this gathering be structured and orderly.

First, Paul writes, “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up” (1 Corinthians 14:26). This shows that God regulates worship under the new covenant. Corporate worship is not a free-for-all. Paul does not permit anything simply because it is not forbidden. Instead, he establishes a clear standard: whatever is done must build up the church.

Second, Paul places limits on participation. He writes, “If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret” (1 Corinthians 14:27). He applies similar limits to prophecy—two or three at most, and always one at a time. If there is no interpreter, those with the gift of tongues must remain silent (1 Corinthians 14:28). Even legitimate spiritual gifts are subject to regulation.

Third, Paul shows that worship reflects God’s character. He writes, “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). Worship must be orderly because God himself is orderly. Worship is regulated not only by explicit commands but also by what God’s nature reveals.

Fourth, Paul emphasizes that worship is governed by divine command. He writes, “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:37). Some claim that structure and regulation quench the Spirit. But Paul makes clear that even Spirit-given gifts must operate under the Lord’s authority. The Spirit does not contradict the Lord’s commands.

Fifth, Paul concludes, “All things should be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40). Worship must always remain in submission to Christ, the Head of the church, who alone has authority to determine what is proper.

Ligon Duncan writes:

The Bible does more than show us that there is such a thing as corporate worship and that God cares about how it is done. The Bible testifies, in both New Testament and Old, in its teachings about God and his enduring moral norms, by precept and example, that corporate worship is to be conducted in careful response to divine revelation.

Similarly, Sam Waldron writes:

The church is holy, and thus its formal assemblies are holy, and for this reason governed by God in a special and distinctive way. Scripture alone, in its special application to the church, governs the church’s worship in a way and with a specificity that it does not govern the rest of human life. When this special function of Scripture as the regulative principle of the church is properly appreciated, then it guides us to a biblical pattern of worship to which nothing substantial should be added and from which nothing should be subtracted because the pattern is divinely established!

Scripture consistently shows that God cares how he is worshiped. We see this in the Old Testament with Nadab and Abihu and with King Saul, who were judged for adding to or departing from God’s commands. We see it in Cain and Abel, demonstrating that this principle predates the ceremonial law. And we see it in Christ and the apostles, confirming that it continues under the new covenant.

Jesus rejects man-made traditions that go beyond divine revelation. Paul likewise condemns self-made religion and affirms that the Lord alone regulates corporate worship. Even those exercising spiritual gifts must submit to his authority.

Therefore, we must be careful in how we worship. New ideas and practices should be examined in light of Scripture. Every element of worship must be governed by what God has revealed.

Recently, I mentioned to a brother in the church that we would begin a new study on worship. I said I would attempt to answer the question, How should the church worship? He quickly replied, “In spirit and truth” (John 4:24). That answer is biblically correct, but it raises another question: What does it mean to worship in spirit and truth?

I should say at the outset that two resources have been especially helpful to me. The first is Does God Care How We Worship? by Ligon Duncan. The second is How Then Should We Worship? by Sam Waldron. I have consulted more than these two, but if you want to study the subject further, both are worth your time.

Who Determines How God Is Worshiped?

Let me begin by citing the first paragraph of the chapter on “Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day” from the 1689 Baptist Confession:

The light of nature demonstrates that there is a God who has lordship and sovereignty over all. He is just and good and does good to everyone. Therefore, he should be feared, loved, praised, called on, trusted in, and served—with all the heart and all the soul and all the strength. But the acceptable way to worship the true God is instituted by him, and it is delimited by his own revealed will. Thus, he may not be worshipped according to human imagination or inventions or the suggestions of Satan, nor through any visible representations, nor in any other way that is not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures.

The Confession makes a simple argument that only God has the right to determine how he is to be worshiped. That likely makes sense to most of us. We may never have considered that man could decide for himself how God should be worshiped. Yet that has often been the case and remains so today. Throughout church history, many have taken it upon themselves to worship God as they see fit, whether or not Scripture provides warrant for it.

This concern explains why the chapter begins as it does. In the 17th century, the proper worship of God was the primary point of debate between the Anglicans and the Puritans. The Church of England stated in the Thirty-Nine Articles, “The Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies and authority in controversies of faith. And yet it is not lawful for the church to ordain anything contrary to God’s Word written.”

That final sentence may sound reassuring. It may seem that they were unwilling to go beyond Scripture. But the weight falls on the first sentence, which says the church claimed the authority to decree rites and ceremonies.

The Puritans responded by insisting that true worship consists only of what God commands in Scripture. The Anglicans, however, argued that worship must include what God commands and may also include anything not expressly forbidden. In other words, they believed the church could add to what God commands, provided Scripture did not explicitly prohibit it.

Put differently, the Puritans said false worship is anything not commanded by God. The Anglicans said false worship is only what God has condemned. The difference is significant.

The 17th-century Particular Baptists sided with the Puritans, which is why the Confession states,

The acceptable way to worship the true God is instituted by him, and it is delimited by his own revealed will. Thus, he may not be worshipped according to human imagination or inventions or the suggestions of Satan, nor through any visible representations, nor in any other way that is not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures.

Were they right?

A History of Disputes Over Worship

Several years ago, I followed a website that posted video clips of some of the wildest church antics from around the country. One video showed a preacher becoming so animated during his sermon that he kicked over the lectern. Another showed a pastor flying onto the stage in an aerial harness. I’ve seen churches host movie-themed worship services. Star Wars has been a popular choice.

Even if we set aside the most outrageous examples, the church has long wrestled with the question: What is the proper way to worship God?

In the 8th century, churches debated the use of images and icons. Some believed that images, such as crucifixes or paintings of Christ, helped people worship and deepen their devotion. Others argued that images violated the Second Commandment: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath” (Exodus 20:4). They considered it idolatry, even if the images depicted Christ.

By the late Middle Ages, many elements had been added to worship, some borrowed from old covenant practices, such as burning incense. Worship became increasingly elaborate, especially in the Lord’s Supper. It became the function of the clergy primarily, while the congregation largely observed. The Protestant Reformers accused the Catholic Church of obscuring true worship through these human innovations.

In the 16th century, even the Reformers differed. Martin Luther held to what is called the normative principle: the church may include in worship whatever Scripture does not forbid. Ulrich Zwingli, later John Calvin, and others argued for the regulative principle: the church may include only what Scripture commands. This debate touched on images, vestments, music, and the structure of the service.

In the 17th century, the Puritans objected to the Book of Common Prayer in the Church of England. They opposed set liturgies imposed by governing authorities and specific practices such as the sign of the cross in baptism and kneeling at communion. The Presbyterians later expressed their convictions in the Westminster Confession, which contains a paragraph nearly identical to the one in the Baptist Confession.

Among Baptists in the late 17th century, hymn-singing became controversial. All agreed that the church should sing, but the question was what to sing. The safest option was the inspired Psalms. Benjamin Keach, however, argued that Scripture instructs the church to sing more than the Psalter. Paul writes, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly … singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16). Keach maintained that, in light of Christ’s finished work, the church should compose new songs as well.

The 18th-century Great Awakening sparked debates over the role of emotion in worship and the style of preaching. Should preaching be measured and studious, or should it stir the emotions of the congregation?

In the 19th century, Charles Finney and others adopted a more pragmatic approach, emphasizing results. In the 20th century, some Protestant churches returned to more formal liturgies, while many others moved toward increasingly contemporary, even secular styles.

Virtually every element of worship has been debated, and churches have often divided over these issues. At one point, I searched online for summaries of historic church debates over various aspects of worship—singing, instruments, preaching, prayer, clothing, buildings. The results seemed endless.

For a time, a movement gained traction claiming that the Bible does not teach the concept of a formal “worship service.” According to its advocates, structured services centered on preaching, distinctions between pastors and members, formal liturgies, dressing up, or even designated church buildings were departures from true Christianity.

Disputes over worship have always existed, and they will continue. New controversies and new proposals will arise. At times, it has seemed that anyone who could argue the church had been worshiping incorrectly for 2,000 years could produce a best-selling book.

So how do we discern what is appropriate? What does it mean to worship “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24)? When the next controversy arises, how will we know what to do?

Does God Care How We Worship?

That is the purpose of this study. Before laying out specific principles for worship, however, I want to establish from Scripture that God does, in fact, care how we worship him.

Ligon Duncan writes,

The single greatest obstacle to the reform of worship in the evangelical church today is evangelicalism’s general belief that New Testament Christians have few or no particular directions about how we are to worship God corporately: what elements belong in worship, what elements must always be present in well-ordered worship, what things do not belong in worship.

He later adds,

Evangelicals do think that worship matters, but they also often view worship as a means to some other end than that of the glorification and enjoyment of God: some view worship as evangelism (thus misunderstanding its goal); some think that a person’s heart, intentions, motives, and sincerity are the only things important in how we worship (thus downplaying the Bible’s standards, principles, and rules for worship), and some view the emotional product of the worship experience as the prime factor in “good” worship (thus overstressing the subjective and often unwittingly imposing particular cultural opinions about emotional expression on all worshipers). Evangelicals believe these things about worship, but they do not think that there are many biblical principles about how to worship or what we are to do and not to do in worship.

Describing prevailing assumptions within contemporary evangelicalism, he concludes,

Not surprisingly, these assumptions help an evangelicalism enveloped in a culture of individualism, relativism, and situationalism remain, in its approach to the gathered worship of God’s people, strong on the individual, weak on the corporate; strong on the subjective, weak on the objective; strong on the heart, weak on the principles.

In summary, many churches affirm that worship is important but show little concern for what God himself says about it. Worship is often detached from God’s Word, as if Scripture offers no instruction. Those familiar with the Old Testament know that God gave detailed commands regarding worship. Yet today, some assume that Christian liberty under the new covenant means God no longer regulates how we worship so long as our motives are sincere and our emotions are engaged.

But what did Jesus say to the Samaritan woman? “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). To worship in truth implies an objective standard. There is a right way and a wrong way to worship him.

Freedom for Worship, Not Autonomy

God does care how we worship him. This is obvious in the Old Testament. In Exodus 25, God has just delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt, and he always attached a purpose to their freedom. It was never, “Let my people go because freedom is good,” or “Let my people go so they can do whatever they like.” It was, “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness” (Exodus 5:1). In other words, let my people go, that they may worship me.

The same is true when God saves a person. He does not say, “I saved you; now you are free to do whatever you like.” He says, “I saved you; now you are free to worship me.” In Romans 6, Paul writes,

Thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6:17–18)

Once Israel is freed, God begins establishing how they will worship him, beginning with the tabernacle:

The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, that they take for me a contribution. From every man whose heart moves him, you shall receive the contribution for me. … And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. Exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so you shall make it.” (Exodus 25:1–2, 8–9)

God did not free his people to worship however they pleased. He gave detailed instructions, laid out over the next fifteen chapters. Even in this brief passage, we see three aspects of worship: motivation, goal, and standard.

First, the motivation. Worship must be willing. “From every man whose heart moves him you shall receive the contribution” (Exodus 25:2). God has never desired empty ritual. He wants the heart. Even as we consider standards and commands, we must remember that worship is not merely duty but delight in worshiping him as he directs.

Second, the goal. “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst” (Exodus 25:8). The aim of worship is communion with God. Unlike lifeless idols, the living God dwells with his people.

Third, the standard. “Exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle … so you shall make it” (Exodus 25:9). God would use the people’s resources and craftsmanship, but the design was his. They were not free to improvise. He prescribed both the structure and its use.

Some argue that God was strict about worship under the Mosaic covenant, but that things are different under the new covenant. For some, this stems from unfamiliarity with Scripture. For others, the claim is more nuanced. They argue that tabernacle worship was tied to types and shadows fulfilled in Christ. Hebrews shows that Christ fulfills the tabernacle’s structure and purpose. Therefore, while the tabernacle offers principles, they argue we are no longer bound by positive commands regarding how to worship.

Is that true? Even if Christ fulfilled the types and shadows of old covenant worship, was the tabernacle the only time God gave his people a standard for worship?

Cain, Abel, and God’s Standard Before the Law

In Genesis 4, we read about Cain and Abel, the second generation after creation, long before God gave ceremonial laws through Moses.

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had > no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. (Genesis 4:1–5)

Both brothers bring offerings to the Lord as an act of worship. Yet “the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard” (Genesis 4:4–5).

Some suggest God rejected Cain because of what he offered. Perhaps he did not bring his firstfruits. But the greater issue appears to be his heart. He quickly becomes angry and eventually murders his brother, revealing deep corruption within. Hebrews tells us, “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain,” implying that Cain’s offering was not made in faith (Hebrews 11:4). John writes that Cain’s deeds were evil, and Jude speaks of those who walk “in the way of Cain” (1 John 3:12; Jude 11). His motivation clearly fell short, and possibly the manner of his worship did as well.

Whatever the precise nature of the failure, this account shows that, from the earliest pages of Scripture, long before the Mosaic law, God either accepts or rejects worship. He has a standard.

We might ask, “How were Cain and Abel to know that standard without detailed instructions like those later given through Moses?” Scripture does not tell us. Perhaps God gave them explicit direction, not recorded for us. At minimum, they knew the seriousness of sin, that sacrifice was necessary to cover shame—since God clothed Adam and Eve with garments of skin—and that a Redeemer had been promised (Genesis 3:15). In any case, God held them accountable.

This shows that God’s concern for proper worship did not begin with Moses. Worship can be compared to marriage.

In Genesis 2, God establishes marriage, saying, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). This is one man and one woman, united in covenant for life. Yet humanity quickly distorts that standard—polygamy, abandonment, concubinage, homosexuality. When God later gives his law through Moses, he addresses these practices and places restraints on them.

During Christ’s ministry, the Pharisees asked, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” (Matthew 19:3). They were thinking of Deuteronomy 24, where Moses regulated divorce to limit injustice. Jesus responded,

Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. (Matthew 19:4–6)

He added, “Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8).

God’s standard for marriage existed from the beginning. He did not invent it in response to human failure. The same is true of the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20 was not the moment God decided that idolatry, Sabbath-breaking, or murder were wrong. These were always wrong. They reflect his character and are woven into creation itself.

That is true for marriage. It is true for the Sabbath. It is true for the moral law. And it is true for worship.

God held Cain accountable for unacceptable worship long before Moses because he already had a standard. We cannot argue that God cared about proper worship only during the era of the ceremonial law. The story of Cain and Abel shows that he cared and had a standard before the law of Moses.

The First Two Commandments and the Boundaries of Worship

Turn to Exodus 20 and consider what God says about worship in the Ten Commandments, particularly the first two:

And God spoke all these words, saying,

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:1–6)

These commands accomplish two things. First, they reveal who God is. Second, they instruct us how to think about him and how to worship him.

The first commandment teaches that there is only one God, and we must not divert our allegiance to another. “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). This one God has the authority to prescribe true worship. As his creatures, we do not have the authority to redefine it.

The second commandment sharpens this point, stating, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image” (Exodus 20:4). This includes not only images of false gods but images of the true God. Deuteronomy 4 explains why:

Watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves. (Deuteronomy 4:15–16)

They saw no form. God did not reveal his appearance, and he forbade them from inventing one. However sincere their motives, they were not to go beyond what he had revealed.

God gives creativity and certain liberties, but he also sets boundaries. The boundary is his revelation. If he has not revealed something—his form, his will, his commands—we are not free to supply it ourselves.

These commands belong to the moral law, not merely the ceremonial system tied to the tabernacle. They flow from God’s character. Because he is eternal and unchanging, the standard they establish predates the ceremonial law and remains binding after Christ fulfills it. This is why John ends his first epistle with the warning, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).

God is the only true and living God, and he is jealous for his worship. Idolatry was wrong before the tabernacle and remains wrong after it. Even making an image of God to worship him is condemned. Why? Because it treats what is holy as common. If God did not reveal his form, and we attempt to depict it anyway, we imply that his revelation is insufficient.

In effect, the idolmaker says, “God did not show us what he looks like, but we need to see him, so I will represent him in wood or stone.” And God replies, “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:24). He warns of judgment for those who provoke him in this way.

Since idols exist for worship, these prohibitions relate directly to how God is to be worshiped. They show that worship is not a trivial matter.

Someone might object, “A Star Wars-themed worship service is not the same as idolatry.” Perhaps not in the same sense, but both must be evaluated by what God has revealed about himself and about how he is to be worshiped, and in light of the fact that he cares deeply about how he is worshiped.

Every night before we put the kids to bed, we have each of them pray. We encourage them to think first about what they’re grateful for and should thank God for, and second about petitions they want to make—that is, things to ask God for.

This won’t come as any surprise, especially from a five-year-old and a seven-year-old, but they never pray for anything we might call spiritual. All of their prayers are for material things.

For example:

• “God, thank you that I got to go to school today.”

• “God, please help me get over this cold and stop coughing.”

• “God, thank you for this new toy I got.”

• “God, help Papa get to Florida safely this week.”

If we’re honest, we tend to default to the same pattern, even as adults. When we pray, the most natural requests are for material needs rather than spiritual ones.

There’s nothing wrong with practical prayer requests. But when we study the prayers of the Bible, we find that many of them focus more on spiritual needs than on practical concerns.

The Emphasis of the Lord’s Prayer

Consider the model prayer in Matthew 6. Jesus teaches his disciples to pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9–13)

If we break the Lord’s Prayer into its various petitions, we find seven distinct requests, though some are parallel:

1. Hallowed be your name.

2. Your kingdom come.

3. Your will be done.

4. Give us this day our daily bread.

5. Forgive us our debts.

6. Lead us not into temptation.

7. Deliver us from evil.

Of those seven petitions, how many concern material or practical matters?

Only one: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

When I read that sole material request, my mind goes to what Jesus said to the devil during his temptation in the wilderness. Quoting Deuteronomy 8, he said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Even as Jesus teaches us to pray for our material needs, he gives us reason to look beyond our physical needs to our greater spiritual needs.

In the Lord’s model for prayer, roughly six of the seven petitions concern spiritual matters. I’m not suggesting we calculate ratios every time we pray, nor that we must strictly follow this pattern in every prayer. Still, the proportion is instructive. Our spiritual needs will always be greater than our material needs, and the rest of Scripture confirms it.

Treasures That Last

Just after teaching his disciples how to pray, Jesus said,

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19–21)

Soon after, in the same sermon, he said,

Do not be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:31–33)

Jesus was not suggesting that we have no concern for material needs. He was teaching that our spiritual needs must take priority. In John 6, he went even further, saying, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you” (John 6:27).

In other words, do not be wholly consumed with food that perishes. Why? Because it perishes. It is temporal. From our food to our clothing to our homes and cars, even our health, none of it will last forever. So Jesus says, let your greatest treasure be in heaven. Seek first the kingdom of God because, in the end, it is all that will matter when material things are gone.

In Mark 8, Jesus says:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:34–36)

Even if we could gain everything we ever wanted—all the money in the world and the best it could buy—what would it matter? Moses wrote, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10).

At best, we might enjoy wealth and health for a few decades. But then what? What would it profit us to forfeit our souls for material prosperity we can only enjoy for a short time?

I believe it was Alistair Begg who said, “Hold material goods and wealth on a flat palm and not in a clenched fist.” That is essentially what the apostle Paul says near the end of 1 Corinthians 7:

The appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. (1 Corinthians 7:29–31)

Though that sounds contradictory, Paul’s point is that we should hold the present form of this world loosely. Do not grip it too tightly, because it will slip from our hands. The present form of this world is passing away. Its appointed time has grown very short.

The physical and material do matter, but not more than the spiritual and eternal. We see this reflected in the prayers of Scripture.

Prayers That Reveal the Heart

Let’s begin in 1 Kings 3. Solomon has become king in place of his father, David, and he feels overwhelmed by the responsibility. The Lord appears to him and says, “Ask what I shall give you” (1 Kings 3:5).

This seems like the perfect opportunity for practical requests. Lord, give the nation political stability. Grant us peace and prosperity. Help us fortify our walls; we have enemies all around us. Show me how to reform the tax system. If I put myself in Solomon’s place, I can imagine praying along those lines.

But that’s not what Solomon prays:

You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son > to sit on his throne this day. And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people? (1 Kings 3:6–9)

In essence, he says, “Lord, give me wisdom. You have entrusted me with this responsibility, but I need your help. I cannot do it on my own. I need your wisdom for your people’s sake.”

We’re then told:

It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. And God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days.” (1 Kings 3:10–13)

What did Jesus say? “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). When our first concern is spiritual, God already knows our material needs. Solomon did not need to ask for prosperity or protection. The Lord knew what he needed and was pleased that Solomon’s heart was focused on his greater spiritual need.

Now consider Psalm 51, David’s prayer after his sin with Bathsheba. We might expect him to plead for a lighter sentence, for fewer consequences, or for the preservation of his public reputation. Instead, he prays,

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit. (Psalm 51:10–12)

He does not even pray for the preservation of his throne. He confesses his sin and asks for a pure heart.

Or think of Moses in Exodus 33 as Israel anticipates entering the Promised Land. We might expect him to ask the Lord to defeat future enemies, secure the land, and make it fruitful. Instead, he prays, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here” (Exodus 33:15).

It would be better to remain in the wilderness than to enter the Promised Land without the Lord’s presence. His primary concern is spiritual, not material. Without the Lord, prosperity would be worthless.

In the New Testament, Peter and John were arrested, threatened, and warned to stop preaching the gospel. After their release, they return to the church and pray. With their freedom, and possibly their lives, at stake, they do not ask God to subdue their enemies or change the political climate. They do not even ask for protection. They pray,

Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,

“Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed”—

for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. (Acts 4:24–30)

After acknowledging God’s sovereignty over everything, including their suffering, they ask for boldness to keep preaching. That is their petition. Not safety. Not relief from persecution. Boldness.

Would it have been wrong to pray for protection? No. The Psalms include such prayers. But the focus of their prayer reveals the focus of their hearts. They are seeking first the kingdom of God. They are laying up treasures in heaven. They have “set [their] minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2).

Their physical safety is secondary to their faithfulness in preaching the gospel. Of course, they desire protection. No one wants imprisonment or worse. But as Jesus said, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good … for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). When the apostles opened their mouths to pray, their petition revealed that they treasured the spiritual more than the physical.

Praying With Eternity in View

We could go on. Scripture contains many examples of prayers like these. As you read the Bible, take notice of them. Let them shape the way you think about your own prayers.

Let’s meditate more on our spiritual needs as we pray.

• When we pray for physical healing, let’s also pray that we would trust the Lord in our afflictions and that he would use them for his glory.

• When we pray for provision, let’s also pray for contentment.

• When we pray for protection from persecution, let’s also pray for wisdom and boldness.

• When we pray for success at work, let’s also pray for humility.

May we seek first the kingdom of God, remembering that eternity is far longer than the seventy or eighty years we live on this earth, and that our spiritual needs will always outweigh our physical ones.

We’ve looked at English Baptist history through the 17th century and American Baptist history through the 18th century. In both cases, we reached the point in the timeline when Baptists finally had freedom. In England, their freedom came through the Act of Toleration in 1689. In America, their freedom gradually extended to the various states following the Revolutionary War.

This leaves us with another 200 years of Baptist history, which may sound simple enough. But what happens in the Baptist story after complete religious liberty is granted?

If we count only the Baptist denominations worldwide that still exist, the total comes to possibly 80 distinct groups. If we include smaller national or regional bodies and the many short-lived splinter groups over the last two centuries, the number may rise to 500 Baptist denominations.

In other words, the Baptist story over the last 200 years is complicated. I’ve mentioned before that once people—that is, fallible, sinful descendants of Adam—are given complete freedom, proponents of state-enforced religion are given the opportunity to say, “I told you so.” Without external guardrails, people are no longer prohibited from believing anything and everything. Freedom has a cost. Yet, as we’ve seen, without freedom, the cost can be true worship of God. Without freedom, Baptists could not maintain the biblical model of a regenerate church membership consisting only of genuine believers.

Attempting to cover the totality of Baptist history across these two centuries is nearly impossible. Instead, we will follow a particular stream of Baptist life: the Particular Baptists, better known in America as the Regular Baptists. These were Baptists who held to a Reformed, Calvinistic understanding of salvation, a high view of God’s sovereignty, and a confessional identity—namely, adherence to the 1689 Second London Confession.

There are two reasons for focusing on this stream. First, in both England and America, they were what we might call mainline Baptists. They became foundational to the Baptist movement in the 17th century, were among the first to restore baptism by immersion, and produced the most enduring Baptist confession, the 1689 Confession. Especially in early America, they essentially were the Baptists. It took more than 200 years for General or Arminian Baptists to establish a significant presence.

Second, if you happen to be a Reformed Baptist like myself, their story is our story. We hold the same core convictions and the same confession. We are the theological and ecclesiological descendants of the Particular Baptists, and it is fitting to understand our own family history.

The Rise of Hyper-Calvinism

The Baptists now had freedom, and you might expect that this would lead to prosperity and growth. Instead, by the middle of the 18th century, in England, the Particular Baptist churches were in severe decline. By 1750, it’s been estimated that approximately one-third of their churches had disappeared. Baptist leaders described this period as a “melancholy day.” Andrew Fuller later remarked that if the trend had continued, the Baptists would have become “a very dunghill in society.”

What happened? They had grown during decades of persecution, so why did they stagnate once they had freedom? The short answer is Hyper-Calvinism.

The Particular Baptists held a high view of God’s sovereignty. In the Second London Confession, they wrote that “God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things whatsoever comes to pass,” yet without becoming the author of sin. Regarding salvation, they also confessed that, “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men … are predestinated, or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace.”

They believed in man’s utter depravity, God’s unconditional election of his people, and that no one can be saved unless God does a gracious work in the heart. As Ephesians 2 says, we are born “dead in … trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Without God granting faith and making us alive together with Christ, we will not turn to him on our own. Romans 3 likewise says, “No one seeks for God” (Romans 3:11).

All of that is true and biblical. However, it is possible to carry the doctrines of grace too far, as in Hyper-Calvinism.

Hyper-Calvinism can be difficult to define because it has degrees. Some carried it further than others, and opponents of the doctrines of grace have often used the term to describe Calvinism in general. For our purposes, the focus is on the primary argument used by many Hyper-Calvinists in 18th-century England.

Many Particular Baptists began to reason that if an unregenerate sinner cannot believe on his own, then he does not have a duty to believe. Their logic was that duty implies ability; therefore, if there is no ability, there can be no obligation. The practical result was a near absence of evangelism. Some pastors would not even exhort the unconverted to repent or turn to Christ during Sunday preaching. Instead, a sinner was expected to examine himself for evidence that God had already saved him before any call to repentance or faith would be offered.

Several influences contributed to this environment. Even the influential Baptist theologian John Gill inadvertently reinforced aspects of the problem through his teaching on eternal justification. He held that God declared his elect righteous when he chose them before the foundation of the world. Though individuals would still need to come to faith in time, this emphasis shifted attention away from the necessity of believing the gospel for justification.

Using the image of a scale, Scripture requires that God’s sovereignty and human responsibility remain in balance. The Hyper-Calvinists tipped the scale heavily toward sovereignty while nearly removing human responsibility.

This was the theological climate among the Particular Baptists in England until Andrew Fuller emerged in the latter half of the century.

Andrew Fuller and the Recovery of Evangelistic Duty

Fuller had grown up in this Hyper-Calvinist context, and as a young man, he was troubled by it. He was often convicted of his sin and wanted to be saved, yet he was afraid to pray to that end. He had been taught that a sinner is utterly helpless until God chooses to save him, so he hesitated to ask the Lord for salvation, fearing that doing so would undermine God’s sovereignty.

He eventually came to faith, but this theological environment followed him into his ministry. For years, he was reluctant to address the unconverted from the pulpit. He would not exhort them to repent or believe because he thought that would compromise God’s sovereignty. Yet this increasingly troubled him. It did not match what he saw in Scripture, where Christ and the apostles preached the gospel indiscriminately and called all people everywhere to repent and believe. As Fuller read Jonathan Edwards, John Bunyan, and John Owen, he began to suspect that the Particular Baptists in England had drifted off course.

Hyper-Calvinists argued that it made no sense to command a person to do something he was incapable of doing. Fuller responded that the issue was not that sinners cannot, but that they will not.

He illustrated the difference by comparing moral inability with physical inability. It would be unreasonable to command a person to flap his arms and fly because he lacks the natural ability to do so. But the duty to believe in Christ is more like commanding a man to love his neighbor even though he despises him. He has the physical capacity to speak kindly and act justly. If brought before a judge, he could not excuse himself by saying he lacked the ability simply because he did not want to obey. The problem is not the faculty’s inability but the unwillingness of the heart.

In other words, a sinner’s inability to repent and believe is not an excuse; it is the very offense for which God holds him accountable. Therefore, all people have a duty to repent and believe, and ministers should exhort the unconverted accordingly. As Scripture says, “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). The gospel is to be proclaimed to all, even though only God grants saving faith.

Fuller brought God’s sovereignty and human responsibility back into proper balance, especially through his 1785 work The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. This shift reshaped Particular Baptist thinking about evangelism. They moved from minimal outreach to a robust theology of evangelism, recognizing that God’s sovereignty does not hinder the Great Commission but ensures its success. Christ himself grounded the command to make disciples in his authority: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations … and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19–20).

This renewed conviction led to the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) in 1792. If sinners have a duty to believe the gospel, then the church has a duty to proclaim it. Because Baptist churches were independent, they lacked a unified structure for organizing support. BMS enabled representatives to gather funds from churches, much like Paul’s collections, and ensure that missionaries received the resources they needed.

Not everyone agreed with this direction. Pockets of Hyper-Calvinism remained, and at one meeting a preacher reportedly rebuked Fuller, telling him to sit down and insisting that if God intended to save the heathen, he would do so without human aid.

Nevertheless, the broader movement had shifted. Most Particular Baptists now embraced a renewed emphasis on evangelism.

William Carey and the Missionary Partnership

This is where William Carey enters the story. Andrew Fuller remained in England, handling administrative work and raising financial support, while Carey became the society’s first missionary. Carey told Fuller, “I’ll go to India and make disciples, if you’ll stay here and hold the ropes.” In other words, he would go down into the mine, but he needed Fuller’s support to hold the rope.

In 1800, Krishna Pal became the first Hindu convert under Carey’s efforts.

Fuller and the Baptist Missionary Society went on to help translate the Bible into more than forty languages. They also played an instrumental role in opposing and helping end practices such as child exploitation in parts of Asia, in addition to the many people converted through their missionary work. This widespread impact was made possible through the cooperative efforts of many independent churches.

From Congregationalist Missionaries to Baptist Support

The Baptists were not the only ones committed to missionary work at this time. In America, the Congregationalists formed their own missionary organization, and in 1812, they sent missionaries to India, including Adoniram Judson, his wife Ann, and Luther Rice.

A trip from America to India was about a four-month voyage. Both the Judsons and Rice, on separate ships, already knew about William Carey, the Baptist missionary in India. Anticipating possible debate over baptism, they spent the voyage studying their Greek New Testaments so they could defend infant baptism against believer’s baptism.

Instead, as they prepared to argue against the Baptists, they became convinced that the Baptists were correct.

This created immediate complications. Ann Judson was as devoted a Congregationalist as her husband had been. In fact, when Adoniram sought her father’s blessing to marry her, he had written that they intended to go into the world and make Congregationalists of all nations. They had been married only two weeks before departing for India. Now he had to tell his new wife that he had become a Baptist. She did not initially receive the news well, though she eventually came to the same convictions.

A second problem quickly followed. If they were now Baptists, their Congregationalist supporters in New England would no longer provide financial support, leaving them effectively stranded.

When they arrived, they found Luther Rice, who had independently reached the same conclusion during the voyage. Together they made a plan. First, they sought out Carey and his associates in order to be baptized. Then the Judsons would continue on to Burma while Rice returned to America to seek support from Baptist churches.

This created yet another challenge. At the time, there was no national Baptist denomination in America and no centralized missionary organization. Baptist churches were independent and scattered. How could Rice raise support efficiently?

Rice’s account of God’s providence proved compelling. Churches quickly rallied together to form what became known as the Triennial Convention, named for its three-year meeting cycle. Delegates from northern, southern, and middle states participated, and the Judsons received the financial backing they needed.

Judson’s work in Burma was extraordinarily difficult. The environment was hostile to Christianity. He was imprisoned and, at times, tortured. He spent long hours discussing the gospel with Buddhist scholars who acknowledged the reasonableness of his arguments, yet still refused to believe.

He also endured deep personal loss. He buried his children, and eventually, his wife Ann died. For the first six or seven years, he saw no converts. Many would have returned home under such conditions. What sustained him was his conviction regarding God’s sovereignty.

Calvinist theology has often been accused of undermining evangelism, and Hyper-Calvinism sometimes did. For Judson, however, confidence in God’s sovereign purpose strengthened his perseverance. He had a low view of his own abilities and did not consider himself a particularly gifted missionary, yet he believed God must have a people in that place.

Like Paul in Corinth, who was told, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you … for I have many in this city who are my people,” Judson continued preaching Christ despite visible resistance (Acts 18:9–10). He trusted that God would give the increase in his own time if he remained faithful in planting the seed.

While others might have concluded that Burma was a place where nothing could be accomplished, Judson remained convinced that the Lord would work, and in time he began to see that work unfold.

Opposition Movements and Renewed Definition

The Baptists in America had organized for missions at home and abroad, but during the first half of the 19th century, several opposition movements arose, complicating the situation.

First, the revivalist preacher Charles Finney adamantly opposed Calvinism. At this point, the vast majority of American Baptists were still Calvinists, so in many ways, he was challenging Baptist identity. He especially rejected the doctrine of total depravity, believing that everyone is equally capable of coming to Christ by an act of free will. Unlike Judson in Burma, Finney concluded that if an evangelist was unsuccessful, the solution was to change methods. He introduced the “anxious bench,” placed at the front of the church, where those under conviction would come, and he would press them to make a profession of faith.

A second group growing in influence was the Free Will Baptists. Though distinct from Finney’s movement, they shared certain similarities. Finney argued that everyone can choose to come to Christ; the Free Will Baptists emphasized that God wants everyone to come. Both groups were seeing rapid numerical growth, which made the Regular Baptists appear passive and even negligent in evangelism, creating pressure within their ranks.

In response, the Regular Baptists drafted and published the New Hampshire Confession in 1833. Often described as “mildly Calvinistic,” it retained the doctrines of grace and a strong affirmation of God’s sovereignty while placing clearer emphasis on human responsibility. It stressed the church’s duty to preach the gospel to all people. The intent was to maintain the theological foundation of the Particular Baptists while demonstrating renewed commitment to evangelism in the face of criticism.

At the same time, a third group was gaining traction among the Regular Baptists. This group opposed the Triennial Convention and most forms of organized missionary work and would eventually be known as the Primitive Baptists.

Their stated objection was that missionary societies lacked explicit warrant in Scripture and represented a human innovation. Yet there are biblical passages—such as Acts 13, where the church in Antioch formally set apart Paul and Barnabas for missions, and 2 Corinthians 8, where Paul coordinated support among multiple churches—that demonstrate principles of cooperative gospel work, even if the exact organizational forms differed in the 19th century.

Beneath their formal objections were additional motivations. One was a more extreme form of Hyper-Calvinism. Daniel Parker, a prominent critic of missionary societies, argued that humanity consisted of two fixed groups, children of God and children of the devil, unchanged since the fall. In that framework, evangelism was unnecessary. When God sovereignly brought one of his people to life, that person would find the church without missionary effort. Most Primitive Baptists did not go that far, but they generally held views that minimized the perceived need for organized missions.

A second underlying concern was the perceived greed of missionaries. In poorer rural congregations, visits by representatives seeking financial support often elicited suspicion and resentment.

As a result, while the Regular Baptists were feeling pressure from the Free Will Baptists’ emphasis on evangelism, their churches and associations were simultaneously fracturing as Primitive Baptists argued that organized missionary efforts were unbiblical.

Another movement soon added further disruption: the Campbellites. Alexander Campbell opposed existing missionary structures but did not merely separate. He sought to reconstruct the church from the ground up. He rejected the Second London Confession and any terminology not found explicitly in Scripture, including terms such as “Trinity” or “effectual calling,” which he dismissed as the “language of Ashdod,” referencing Nehemiah’s description of the Jews mixing their language with that of the Philistines.

In discarding centuries of theological formulation, he altered key doctrines. He reduced faith to mental assent to the historical facts about Jesus and taught that baptism itself was the moment of regeneration and salvation. His slogan, “no creed but the Bible,” proved compelling to many, and additional Baptist churches fractured as a result. Over time, these groups were disfellowshipped and became known as the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ.

Despite the turmoil, these controversies produced constructive effects among the remaining Regular Baptists. Finney and the Free Will Baptists renewed urgency regarding evangelism. The challenge from the Primitive Baptists forced a clearer recommitment to the work of missions. The rise of the Campbellites reinforced the importance of a robust, clearly defined confessional theology. These themes—evangelistic zeal, cooperative missions, and doctrinal clarity—would continue to shape Baptist life in the years that followed.

I’ll provide only a few examples.

Holding the Line and a Reformed Baptist Resurgence

First, we have John Dagg, a blind and physically frail man who could barely speak above a whisper. In 1857, he wrote Manual of Theology, rigorously defending the doctrines of grace and historic orthodoxy. His work had a significant influence on the newly established Southern Baptist denomination and helped keep it grounded in sound theology, at least for a time.

Second, we have Charles Spurgeon in London. When he opened the Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1861—essentially a megachurch that stood in contrast to the prevailing Hyper-Calvinism and anti-evangelism of the day—his first sermon series focused on the doctrines of grace. Later, as English Baptists began drifting from orthodox Christianity and questioning the authority of Scripture, Spurgeon held his ground. His church was eventually forced to leave the Baptist Union. As Spurgeon insisted, peace could not be made with error.

Throughout the 20th century, both English and American Baptists continued to experience a drift toward Modernism. By this, I mean the growing tendency to accept the world’s criticism of Scripture. When the world claimed that God could not have created the universe in six days, liberal Christianity often responded by reinterpreting the creation account as symbolic. When the resurrection was questioned, some redefined it as merely spiritual. In effect, the authority of Scripture was set aside, and Christianity was increasingly reduced to a movement focused primarily on temporal social concerns.

From individual churches to entire denominations and seminaries, confessional commitments were often abandoned, and evangelism was reframed around social reform more than the salvation of sinners. Even so, within Baptist life, there remained a remnant of Dagg- and Spurgeon-like figures who continued to call churches back to their Particular Baptist roots.

By the mid-20th century, what could be described as a Reformed Baptist resurgence began to take shape. Both independent Baptist churches and congregations within established bodies such as the Southern Baptist Convention resisted Modernism and deliberately reclaimed their historical confessional identity. Many bypassed the New Hampshire Confession and other later summaries in favor of formally adopting the 1689 Second London Confession.

In doing so, they returned to the period when Baptist theology had been most carefully defined, while also learning from the errors of Hyper-Calvinism and the anti-missionary movement. They retained a clear commitment to evangelism and missions alongside their renewed confessional convictions.

With this resurgence came a renewed emphasis on the historic Baptist distinctives that had marked the Particular Baptists from the beginning: orthodoxy, regenerate church membership, believer’s baptism, the sovereignty of God in salvation, confessional identity, the authority of Scripture, and a sustained commitment to evangelism.

Our Challenge in the 21st Century

Here is the challenge of Reformed Baptists in the 21st century. We now enjoy the hard-fought religious freedom secured by our Baptist forefathers, but will we succumb to the pressures of this world to abandon “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints,” or will we hold the line? (Jude 3). Will we remain dedicated to the robust biblical theology of the 17th-century Particular Baptists? Will we remain committed to carrying out the Great Commission as fully as Andrew Fuller and William Carey? Better yet, will we allow our understanding of God’s sovereignty to fuel our evangelistic efforts as it did for Adoniram Judson?

It is unlikely that it will ever be fashionable to be a Reformed Baptist, but as we have seen, faithfulness has never depended on popularity, only conviction. As Charles Spurgeon said, “To be faithful to God in a world that is departing from Him is to be willing to stand alone, if need be.”

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14–16)

The author of Hebrews begins this passage by pointing to Christ’s ascension into heaven as a source of encouragement, which may seem strange at first. When Jesus ascended, the book of Acts suggests that his disciples were discouraged. They stood there “gazing into heaven as he went” (Acts 1:10). That gaze suggests longing, as if they were saying, Please don’t leave us, Lord.

Immediately, two men in white robes stood beside them and said, “Why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). In other words, do not be afraid. His ascension does not mean abandonment. He will come again.

But here in Hebrews, the author does not reassure us by pointing to Christ’s second coming. Instead, he points to Christ’s ascension itself—his departure from this earth—as a source of encouragement. And it is encouraging because of what Christ is doing right now as we wait for his return.

Throughout this epistle, the author speaks of Christ as our great High Priest. He is convinced that a right understanding of Christ’s high-priestly ministry will steady us when storms arise. When doubts surface, when confusion sets in, when fear creeps in, knowing what Christ is doing right now at the right hand of God is a tremendous help to us.

Christ’s Greater Priesthood and Our Confession

Under the old covenant, the high priest would, once each year on the Day of Atonement, pass out of Israel’s sight. Carrying the blood of atonement, he would leave the people behind and enter the Holy of Holies. It was a moment filled with gravity and fear because everything about it emphasized limitation—limited access, limited time, limited effect.

But Jesus, as Hebrews shows us, has done something infinitely greater. He passed from the disciples’ sight, as recorded in Acts, into the ultimate Holy of Holies. He did not offer the blood of another. He shed his own. Unlike the Levitical priest, he never has to repeat this work. On the cross, Jesus cried out, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The work of atonement is complete once and for all.

According to Romans 8:34, “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

Once the sacrifice was made and Jesus was raised from the dead, he “passed through the heavens” to the right hand of God. And then he did something none of the Levitical priests ever did after entering the Holy of Holies. He sat down. He stayed. More to the point that Hebrews is making, he has been interceding for his people ever since.

This is the heart of the author’s argument. Pressure and persecution have a way of distorting memory. Think of the Israelites who complained that they were better off in slavery in Egypt than in the wilderness. Suffering makes us look backward with rose-colored glasses. The original audience of Hebrews, Jewish believers, were tempted to think that the old covenant system was safer, more familiar, and more tangible than trusting in an unseen Christ.

The writer of Hebrews insists there is no comparison. What Christ provides is infinitely superior to the Levitical system. Going back would not be a step toward safety. Far from it. It would be a step away from reality itself.

So he exhorts them, “Let us hold fast our confession” (Hebrews 4:14). What is our confession? Hebrews 3:1 answers: “Jesus [is] the apostle and high priest of our confession.” Who Jesus is—that is our confession. We confess that he is God’s apostle, the One whom God sent to save us, and our High Priest, the One who now represents us in heaven.

One commentator notes that the author “everywhere insists on the duty of the public confession of the faith. The crisis claimed not simply private conviction but a clear declaration of belief openly in the face of men.” In other words, we are called not only to believe who Jesus is, but to openly and boldly declare who he is. That kind of confession strengthens faith, especially in difficult moments or unfriendly settings, because it reinforces what we hold inside.

So when life presses in on us, we should resist the impulse to retreat into silence. Instead, we openly confess Christ as our great High Priest. We embrace his ministry and hold it tightly.

A Sympathetic High Priest

Why should we hold fast to our confession? “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

This was a shocking claim in the ancient world. For many people—think of the Stoics—God could not possibly be sympathetic. Sympathy implied the ability to feel, and if God could feel, then he might be affected by emotions, even manipulated or controlled by them. The Epicureans believed the gods were detached, removed from the emotions and affairs of human life. Even within Judaism, for all its strengths, many struggled to grasp the nearness and intimacy God would reveal in Christ.

Jesus changed everything. He addressed God as “Father” and taught his disciples to do the same. More than that, God became a man in Jesus. Hebrews says he was “made like his brothers in every respect” (Hebrews 2:17). He had a real human body, a real human mind, and real human emotions. He learned. He grew. He knew hunger, fatigue, and sorrow. He lived within the limits of human weakness. That is why he is able to “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15).

Yet he did so without ever sinning. “In every respect [he was] tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). That does not mean he faced every possible temptation. He did not encounter temptations unique to marriage or old age, and he never faced temptations arising from personal guilt or past sin. But he experienced the full weight of temptation in a way we never do. Only those who resist temptation know its true force; those who give in experience only part of it.

Jesus resisted to the end. He bore pressures and pains we will never fully know because he remained sinless. No one has ever been tempted as deeply as Christ.

That is why he can truly sympathize with us. He entered into our weakness and felt it firsthand. So there is no one better to trust or turn to, especially in times of hardship or confusion, than Christ.

Drawing Near to the Throne of Grace

The author of Hebrews concludes, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

“Confidence” is not a word ancient pagans would have associated with prayer. The term implies open, direct speech—that is, speaking plainly and freely. Yet Scripture applies it here, even urges it, in our approach to God. We are to speak frankly to him. We come with reverence, but we also come with confidence.

There is no veil separating us from God any longer. Christ entered the Holy of Holies, made atonement once for all, and tore the curtain in two. Now, in Christ, who is interceding for us, we may approach God’s throne with confidence. We may come freely, turning to him moment by moment, day after day, to “receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

How do we do this? First, we believe and confess who Jesus is—our great High Priest. And second, we pray. We speak confidently to our heavenly Father, who hears us because he hears his Son.

We’ve traced the Baptist story in England throughout the 17th century. Now, we turn our attention across the Atlantic to what was happening among Baptists in America during the same period. My aim is to carry us through both the 17th and 18th centuries of American Baptist history.

From English Roots to American Soil

When we think about the early religious history of America, many of us picture the Pilgrims. We learned about them in school. They were English Separatists who migrated in the 1620s in search of religious freedom. We may even imagine the familiar scene of a shared meal with Native Americans already living here. It’s an appealing picture of liberty and peace. In reality, however, religion in early America was far more complicated, and for Baptists, far harsher.

Any hope of broad religious freedom quickly faded as the Pilgrims were followed by as many as 20,000 Puritans over the next two decades, most of whom settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

These Puritans were not Separatists. They held Reformed, Calvinistic convictions, but they did not believe in leaving the Church of England altogether. Instead, they sought further reform within it and remained loyal to it. At the same time, they practiced a congregational form of church government, which set them apart ecclesiologically from Anglicanism.

This creates one of the first ironies in the American Baptist story. In England, Congregationalists were Separatists. Men like John Owen left the Church of England. In America, however, Puritan Congregationalists remained loyal to the Church of England, even as that same church persecuted Congregationalists back home.

The irony deepens. These Puritans came to the New World, at least in part, to practice congregationalism and enjoy a measure of religious liberty. Yet they remained aligned with the Church of England and soon became the primary persecutors of Separatists and Nonconformists in America, including Baptists.

To understand this, we have to remember that they were attempting to build an entirely new society. When early Baptists in England argued for complete religious freedom, those ideas were largely theoretical. No one had yet attempted to implement them on a societal scale. The prevailing assumption was that unrestricted religious liberty would lead to social collapse and chaos. As a result, the American Congregationalists believed the society they were constructing had to be uniform. Nonconformity, in their view, threatened the very foundations of social order.

That does not excuse their persecution, but it does help explain it.

The irony becomes even sharper when we consider how much the Congregationalists and Baptists shared. Both were orthodox and evangelical. Both practiced congregational polity. Early American Baptists also shared Calvinist convictions. While that would change over time, most American Baptists in the 17th and 18th centuries were Calvinists.

Still, two differences loomed large—differences the Congregationalists believed were dangerous enough to undermine society itself—that is, believer’s baptism and the separation of church and state.

Roger Williams and the Birth of American Baptist Life

With that context in mind, the Baptist story in America begins with the arrival of Roger Williams in 1631.

Williams was a gifted and well-educated figure, a Cambridge-trained Puritan minister in his early thirties. He possessed an intimate knowledge of English politics, having previously developed a shorthand system that allowed him to record parliamentary debates word for word in real time. He was invited to document parliamentary sessions, which gave him unique insight into the relationship between church and state. That background may help explain why he became such a strong advocate for their separation.

When Williams arrived in Boston in 1631, he was invited almost immediately to become a teacher at the church. It was a prestigious offer. Boston was the center of power in Puritan-controlled Massachusetts, yet Williams declined. His reason was simple and provocative: the church in Boston was not sufficiently separated from the Church of England. He called them an “unseparated people,” arguing that they still retained too many Roman Catholic superstitions and maintained ties to the English church that were too strong.

From there, Williams moved from Boston to Salem, then to Plymouth, and back again to Salem. Everywhere he went, he pressed ideas that made people uncomfortable. For his time and place, Williams was a radical. By 1635, the Massachusetts General Court had had enough and brought formal charges against him.

The controversy centered first on Williams’s attack on the colony’s legitimacy. The Massachusetts Bay Colony existed under a royal charter that granted the English the right to take land from Native Americans. That charter assumed the superiority of Christian nations over non-Christian peoples and claimed divine authority for England to seize indigenous land. Williams rejected this outright. He argued that the charter was both illegal and immoral. For the 1630s, this was extraordinarily radical thinking.

Several charges were brought against him, but the most serious concerned his rejection of forced religion. Williams denied that civil magistrates had authority over what he called “soul” matters. Like the English Baptists, such as John Murton writing from prison, Williams believed the government should enforce the second table of the Ten Commandments, but not the first. His reasoning was straightforward. The “sword of steel,” the coercive power of the state, cannot change the human heart, and true Christianity requires a changed heart. Scripture, he argued, gives no authority for the church to wield the sword of steel at all. The church’s weapon is the sword of the Spirit. He laid out this case in The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, arguing from history and, above all, from Scripture that the government has no right to compel religious belief.

In 1635, the verdict came down. Williams was convicted of spreading “diverse new and dangerous opinions,” and plans were made to send him back to England for imprisonment. Before that could happen, Williams fled. He kissed his wife and two young children goodbye and escaped into the wilderness.

It was January 1636. A New England winter had set in with deep snow, bitter cold, and weeks of subfreezing temperatures. For fourteen weeks, Williams wandered in the wilderness. He later wrote that he “knew not what bread or bed did mean” during that time. He likely would not have survived had it not been for the relationships he had cultivated with local Native Americans. He had defended their claim to the land and learned their language. In one of the sharpest ironies, they showed him greater charity than his fellow Christians in Boston, taking him in and sustaining him through the winter.

When spring arrived, Williams purchased land from these Native Americans to establish a settlement. He insisted on paying for it and named the settlement Providence, believing God had preserved him through his suffering.

The rules of this new settlement in Rhode Island were simple. Regardless of religious belief—Puritan, Quaker, Jew, Catholic, atheist—everyone enjoyed full religious liberty, provided they obeyed civil laws. Matters of the soul were left to the individual. This marked the first place in modern history where citizenship was not tied to adherence to a particular church or religion.

Providence soon attracted a wide range of Nonconformists, and it was here that the first Baptist church in America emerged. Around 1638, Williams became convinced that only believers should be baptized. True Christianity, he argued, requires faith and a changed heart—something an infant cannot possess. Infant baptism, therefore, was not an expression of faith but an act imposed by force. Baptism, Williams concluded, must be voluntary and reserved for believers. He baptized Ezekiel Holliman, who then baptized Williams, and together they baptized roughly twelve others. With that, the first Baptist church in America was formed.

Yet, much like John Smyth, Williams did not remain with the church for long. Within three or four months, he became convinced that his baptism was likely invalid. He went further than Smyth, though, concluding that the church itself had been illegitimate since at least the fourth century. He traced the problem to the reign of Constantine, when church and state were joined together. Williams viewed that union as apostasy and the corruption of the true church.

This raised a serious question. If true church authority depends on legitimate succession, and the church had been corrupt for centuries, how could a true church be restored? Williams’s answer was that only God could do it. New apostles would have to be sent with apostolic authority. At this point, Williams became what was known as a Seeker. He left the Baptist church and, though he retained Baptist convictions, chose to worship privately while waiting for God to send new apostles and restore the true church.

John Clarke and the Rhode Island Charter

At the same time, another figure emerges in Rhode Island, often overshadowed by Roger Williams, who proves even more significant for the Baptist cause: Dr. John Clarke. Clarke was both a physician and a theologian, and he founded the second Baptist church in America in Newport, Rhode Island. Some argue this should be considered the first Baptist church because it was the first to practice baptism by immersion. The Providence church would soon follow, and immersion would become the universal practice among Baptist churches thereafter.

By the 1640s, Clarke had become something of a statesman. He was deeply committed to liberty of conscience and spent roughly twelve years traveling between Rhode Island and England. During the turmoil of the English Civil War, he worked tirelessly to secure a legal charter for Rhode Island before Massachusetts could absorb the colony and impose its state religion.

In 1663, Clarke succeeded. The achievement was remarkable for at least two reasons. First, the charter explicitly guaranteed religious liberty for all. It declared that no person could be “molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question” for matters of religious belief. Clarke sought what he called “permissive freedom in respect of the worship of God,” in contrast to forced worship, which he argued was not worship at all.

Second, the charter was granted by King Charles II, the same monarch who was actively persecuting Baptists in England. Yet here he was, at the request of a Baptist minister, extending legal protection to all religions in Rhode Island.

Why Charles II agreed to this remains a matter of speculation. Some have suggested he was a Catholic sympathizer and viewed Rhode Island as a potential refuge for Catholics. Whatever his motives, God was once again drawing a straight line with crooked sticks.

To appreciate the significance of this charter, we need to step back a few years and consider the severity of Baptist persecution in New England. The charter was not merely symbolic. It was hard-won and momentous, not only for Baptists, but for the future of religious liberty in America.

Obadiah Holmes and the Cost of Religious Liberty

Baptists did not grow as quickly in America as they did in England, but individuals with Baptist convictions were scattered throughout New England, including Massachusetts Bay. In 1651, a blind, elderly Baptist living in Massachusetts was unable to travel to Clarke’s church in Newport. Clarke, along with John Crandall and Obadiah Holmes, walked nearly eighty miles to visit him, share the Lord’s Supper, and worship privately in his home. While they were meeting, authorities burst in and arrested them.

Rather than taking them directly to jail, the magistrates forced the three men to sit through a Congregationalist worship service. That might have been the end of the matter, but in protest against forced religion, they refused to remove their hats during the service. Afterward, they were subjected to what amounted to a mock trial. The judge accused Clarke, saying, “You go up and down and secretly drop your seed like a serpent.”

There was little pretense of justice. The magistrates viewed Clarke and his companions as no different from the radical Anabaptists of Europe. They were sentenced immediately and imprisoned until they paid heavy fines. Clarke was fined £30, roughly a year’s wages for a skilled tradesman. Crandall and Holmes were each fined £5. All three initially refused to pay, believing that payment would be an admission of guilt.

Clarke’s friends eventually paid his fine without his consent, securing his release. Crandall later chose to pay his own fine and was released. Obadiah Holmes, however, refused outright. He declared that whatever punishment the magistrates inflicted on him would stand as a testimony against the injustice of a state-controlled church.

On September 5, 1651, Holmes was taken to the public square in Boston. He was stripped to the waist, tied to a post, and whipped thirty times with a three-corded whip—ninety lashes across his back. It would be weeks before he could lie down to sleep, forcing him to rest on his knees and elbows. When they finally untied him, Holmes turned to the magistrates and said, “You have struck me as with roses.”

Later, he wrote to John Spilsbury, pastor of the first Particular Baptist church in England, describing how he experienced the “spiritual manifestation of God’s presence” to such a degree that the “outward pain was so removed.”

One might expect such brutality to crush the Baptist movement in America. Instead, it brought the debate over church and state out of the realm of theory and into the stark reality of human suffering. The Puritans appeared as persecutors, and the Baptists as martyrs. One witness later remarked that this whipping became the seed of the Baptist church. Coercion did not produce conformity; it exposed injustice.

Rather than extinguishing the movement, the whipping of Obadiah Holmes fueled its growth. Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard College, was so affected by this event that he reconsidered infant baptism, a change that ultimately cost him his position. He was not alone. By 1665, despite determined opposition, a Baptist church had been established in Boston.

The Middle Colonies and an Unlikely Convert

From there, the Baptist story shifts south to the Middle Colonies, especially Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Pennsylvania, founded in the 1680s, was established on principles of religious freedom similar to those of Rhode Island. The first Baptist church there was planted by Thomas Dungan, a member of John Clarke’s church. Dungan lived only four years after planting the congregation, and the church itself did not survive much longer. Before his death, however, he baptized a man who would go on to evangelize widely and plant churches throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. His name was Elias Keach, and his story is one of the most striking in Baptist history.

Elias Keach was the son of Benjamin Keach, the well-known and highly influential Particular Baptist pastor in England. Yet at the age of nineteen, Elias was not a Christian. He regarded believers as naïve and easily deceived. Taking a cue from the prodigal son in Luke 15, he left home for the far country of Pennsylvania.

Before leaving, Elias stole some of his father’s sermon manuscripts and ministerial clothing. His plan was to expose what he believed was Christians’ gullibility by dressing like a minister, gathering crowds, and preaching his father’s sermons. In his mind, the joke was that they would listen to anyone, even an unbeliever.

He eventually gathered a crowd in Pennepack, outside Philadelphia, and began preaching one of his father’s sermons. The people listened intently. He was, by all accounts, a gifted preacher. Then, without warning, he stopped mid-sentence. Witnesses later said he looked “astonished,” as though he had been “seized with a sudden disorder.” Tears streamed down his face. At last, he confessed to the crowd, “I look like a minister, but I am a lost soul. I know nothing of the grace of God. I am an imposter.” He tore off his father’s ministerial garb and rushed to find the nearest Baptist minister, who turned out to be Thomas Dungan.

Dungan became convinced that Elias had been genuinely converted and baptized him. The church reasoned that since he clearly could preach, and now truly believed, he should continue. Elias did just that, going on to plant Baptist churches throughout the Middle Colonies.

His story calls to mind the apostle Paul’s words about those who preached Christ with impure motives: “[They] proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely … What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice” (Philippians 1:17–18). Paul may not have envisioned a man being converted through his own insincere preaching, but that is precisely what happened in the case of Elias Keach.

The Philadelphia Baptist Association and Confessional Identity

Among the churches planted by Elias Keach, five came together in 1707 to form the first Baptist association in America, known as the Philadelphia Baptist Association. Its formation was significant for several reasons.

First, it marked the first time Baptists in America were able to organize formally. Until then, most Baptist churches had existed in survival mode. Simply remaining intact and keeping their doors open was an accomplishment. The association provided a means for mutual help and support. Each church remained fully autonomous, but the association strengthened their collective witness by enabling them to assist one another more effectively.

Second, the association revealed a deep unity among Baptist churches, particularly in doctrine. The Philadelphia Baptists formally adopted the 1689 Second London Confession as their confession of faith. Though they initially represented only a small number of churches, this confession would soon shape Baptist theology throughout the colonies. It brought clarity and stability to Baptist belief, and even the relatively few Arminian or General Baptist congregations at the time would soon embrace the Calvinism articulated in the 1689 Confession.

Third, the formation of the Philadelphia Association gave Baptists a clear confessional identity. It declared to themselves and to the surrounding world that they knew what they believed. They were not an unorganized movement drifting from one idea to another. They possessed a defined theological foundation, expressed in their confession. That identity would prove crucial as Baptists entered a new phase of life and growth in America.

Revival, Division, and the Rise of the Separate Baptists

In the 1740s, America experienced the First Great Awakening. Revival swept through the colonies, with George Whitefield serving as its primary catalyst. A British evangelist, Whitefield could preach outdoors to thousands of people, without amplification, and hold them spellbound. His message was simple and direct: you must be born again. True Christianity, he argued, was not a matter of church attendance or civic membership. It required a personal, experiential encounter with God.

This revival split the Congregationalists sharply. The so-called Old Lights rejected the movement, viewing it as overly emotional and disorderly. The New Lights embraced it but soon faced a serious problem. If a person must be born again, what does that mean for those who entered the church as infants? In most towns, church membership effectively included everyone born there. The revival forced them to confront the reality that many church members may not have experienced a new birth. That logic led many toward Baptist convictions—namely, regenerate church membership and, inevitably, believer’s baptism.

Here, the story takes another ironic turn. These New Light Congregationalists, who had once opposed and persecuted Baptists, gave rise to a new Baptist movement known as the Separate Baptists. This movement was led by Shubal Stearns. It has been said that if Roger Williams was the intellectual and John Clarke the statesman, Stearns was the flamethrower. Contemporaries described him as having “piercing eyes” and a “musical voice.” He was a deeply charismatic preacher.

In 1755, Stearns and others felt compelled to leave New England and move south, settling in Sandy Creek, North Carolina.

The Separate Baptists differed markedly from the Particular Baptists, who would soon be known as Regular Baptists. Separate Baptist preaching was intense and urgent. Stearns himself was known for his passion and magnetism. One listener said that when Stearns fixed his eyes on him, he felt like a bird staring at a rattlesnake, unable to look away. The preaching lacked the systematic polish of the Regulars. It has been described as a “holy whining,” marked by a musical cadence. Congregations were often visibly moved. People cried out, collapsed, and responded loudly. The atmosphere was noisy and chaotic.

Yet it was highly effective. The Sandy Creek church grew from sixteen members to forty-two churches with 125 ministers. The Separate Baptist style spread rapidly, but it also brought conflict with the Regular Baptists. The Regulars were orderly, educated, and confessional. The Separates were emotional, expressive, and deeply suspicious of what they saw as the Regulars’ subdued, lifeless worship. The Regulars viewed the Separates as disorderly and potentially heretical. The Separates regarded the Regulars as cold, spiritually dead, and uncomfortably similar to the Congregationalism they had left behind.

Much of the tension centered on confessionalism. The Separates feared that a written confession would replace Scripture, responding with the claim, “We have no creed but the Bible.”

This division, however, did not last. By the end of the 18th century, the two groups began to understand one another and move toward unity. The Regulars came to recognize that the Separates, though lacking formal confessions, were thoroughly orthodox and even Calvinist, and remarkably effective in evangelism. The Separates, in turn, realized that emotion alone could not sustain the church. Stability and structure were necessary, and the Regulars provided both. By the 1780s, Baptist associations increasingly brought the two together, and nearly half of the Separate Baptists had become Regulars.

The result was a formidable movement. The fire of the Separates combined with the doctrinal clarity and stability of the Regulars produced a Baptist identity marked by both theological conservatism and evangelistic zeal. Baptists multiplied, their influence expanded, and that growth would soon intersect with the unfolding events of the American Revolution.

Baptists, the Revolution, and the Fight for Religious Liberty

When the colonies began defying the king of England, Baptists, especially in New England, found themselves in a complicated position. They had no love for the monarchy, but they were also wary of replacing one form of tyranny with another. Since the Act of Toleration in 1689, Baptists were generally free to worship in places like Massachusetts, yet they were still required to pay taxes to support the Congregationalist Church. Failure to pay could result in property seizure or imprisonment. As a result, Baptists found themselves both inside and outside the conflict with England.

A Baptist preacher and historian named Isaac Backus emerged as a leading voice in this moment. He turned the colonies’ chief complaint against England back on his fellow Americans. They protested “taxation without representation,” and Backus responded, “That’s exactly what you’re doing to the Baptists. Why is it unjust when it comes to tea, but not when it comes to religion?”

In keeping with the spirit of the age, Backus urged Baptists to practice civil disobedience. He encouraged them to stop paying taxes to support the state church. The consequences were swift. Baptist property was seized, and many were imprisoned. This took place throughout New England and in Virginia, where the Anglican Church held power. From jail cells, Baptist preachers continued their protest by preaching through the windows. Authorities responded by burning brimstone outside the cells and hiring drummers to drown them out. Instead of silencing the Baptists, these tactics drew greater attention to their cause and stirred widespread sympathy.

Two influential figures took notice: James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Neither man was an orthodox Christian. Both were Enlightenment thinkers, committed to liberty and skilled in politics, with little personal interest in religion. Yet they recognized that the Revolution would fall short of its aims if Baptists lacked freedom. They also recognized that Baptists had become a significant voting bloc. Protecting Baptist liberty was both principled and politically wise.

One Baptist preacher, in particular, played a decisive role: John Leland. In Madison’s case, Leland effectively threatened to withdraw Baptist support during his congressional campaign unless Madison committed to pursuing a constitutional amendment guaranteeing religious liberty. Madison would later draft the First Amendment.

As for Jefferson, Leland’s influence was less direct. Still, Leland rallied Baptist support behind him. Their relationship was an unlikely one. They worked toward the same goal of religious freedom, while driven by very different motivations. Jefferson’s reasons were secular, but Leland supported him nonetheless. After Jefferson became president, he even invited Leland to preach before Congress.

And with that, after nearly two centuries of struggle, the Baptists finally secured religious freedom.

Final Reflections on the Baptist Struggle for Liberty

To conclude, I want to make two points.

First, it is important to recognize that the Baptists’ ultimate goal was never political. Political action became necessary to carry out the church’s mission, but the mission itself did not aim to create an ideal political system or government. These early Baptists simply wanted to worship God as he commands and to make disciples as he commands, “baptizing [believers] in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).

From the beginning, they understood that in a parish system, where everyone was baptized as an infant, the practice of believer’s baptism and a regenerate church membership would require liberty of conscience. They took Peter’s words seriously: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Obedience to God meant breaking unjust laws and enduring persecution. If it had not been illegal to obey God in this way, it is doubtful the Baptists would have ever felt compelled to become as involved in political matters as they did.

Second, I’ll offer an observation. While reading Baptist history, I began a book titled The History of Religious Liberty, which has underscored just how remarkable God’s providence has been throughout history. It has also made me deeply thankful. You and I, if you happen to be an American Baptist, are beneficiaries of immense suffering and turmoil. Blood has been shed, and tears have been poured out to secure the freedoms we now enjoy. My prayer is that we would never take those freedoms for granted.

I officiated a funeral recently, and when I asked whether the deceased belonged to a church, I heard a familiar response: “She was a Christian, but it’s not like she went to church or anything.”

It is tragic, to say the very least, that anyone would separate the Christian faith from actively belonging to a local body of believers. This idea is completely foreign to the Word of God. There is no category in Scripture for isolated Christians living apart from, and with disregard for, the Lord’s church. Throughout the New Testament, we see that God saves us not only to himself, but also into a community of fellow believers. That is why the apostle Paul refers to Christians as “members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).

Let me show you God’s good design for our growth and joy within the covenant community of the local church. I will divide this into three parts: our calling, our responsibilities, and our blessings.

Our Calling as Christians

First, what is our calling as Christians? From the earliest days following the death and resurrection of Christ, what do we see his disciples doing? In Acts 1, they are together in Jerusalem. In Acts 2, when three thousand more are converted, we are told, “Those who received [Peter’s] word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:41).

Added to what? Added to the defined, recognized number of believers who already belonged, the 120 disciples mentioned in Acts 1. In other words, those who were outside the fellowship were brought into it. They were added to the group, and the text makes clear that they remained there. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. … And all who believed were together and had all things in common” (Acts 2:42, 44).

Our Lord is doing something more than saving individual people who then scatter back into isolated lives. He is building a temple, one brick (or one person) at a time. He is designing and orchestrating a community of disciples bound together in Christ himself. That is why Scripture uses the metaphors it does. We are members of a body. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Corinthians 12:12). By God’s design, we cannot thrive unless we are joined to the rest of the body.

I remember speaking with a gentleman about this very issue. Though he professed to be a Christian, he did not believe it was necessary to belong to a local church. I asked him, “Do you hope to be in heaven one day?” He said, “Of course.” So I asked, “Why would you want to spend an eternity in heaven with the very people you are avoiding here on earth?”

Built into the call to repent and believe for salvation is a call to join oneself to the Lord’s body—his people, his church. When the Shepherd calls, the entire flock follows him together.

Our Christian Responsibilities

Second, let’s consider our Christian responsibilities. We cannot fulfill the responsibilities taught in Scripture unless we are joined to the church. This is why the Bible warns us “not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as is the habit of some” (Hebrews 10:25).

I’ll briefly name just a few of those responsibilities.

Consider mutual accountability and holiness. We are told to watch over one another and to encourage one another (Hebrews 3:12–13; 1 Thessalonians 5:11). The reason Hebrews calls us to assemble together is so that we can “spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24). We are instructed to lift one another up and to restore one another when someone falls into sin (Romans 15:1–2; Galatians 6:1). This kind of care and responsibility is only possible when there is a clear, shared commitment to one another as members of the same body (1 Corinthians 12:25–27).

Consider worship and service. To be clear, we do not merely attend church; we are the church (1 Corinthians 12:27). We are to share in the Lord’s Supper together. “Do this,” Jesus told his disciples (1 Corinthians 11:24). We are to gather regularly to sing, to pray, and to hear the Word of God preached (Colossians 3:16; Acts 2:42). We are to use our God-given spiritual gifts to serve one another. As Peter writes, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10).

A formal commitment to the church, such as membership, helps us say, “I am here, and I will build up this church family with whatever gifts God has given me” (Ephesians 4:15–16).

Consider submission to godly leadership. Certain men are called and charged to serve as the Lord’s undershepherds, watching over and leading “the flock of God … exercising oversight … being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:2–3). In turn, the rest are called, according to Hebrews, to “submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account” to God (Hebrews 13:17). This is a relationship of trust and cooperation between Christians and pastors for the spiritual good of all (1 Thessalonians 5:12–13).

But this, too, cannot happen unless we are joined to a local body (Acts 20:28). Elders must know for whom they will give an account. They must know the people under their care. Christians, like sheep, need to be within the fold under a shepherd’s oversight for their own good (John 10:11–16).

And what about the most pervasive command given to Christians to love one another?

Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). How can the disciples of Christ love one another if they are not together, if they do not personally and even intimately know one another? (Romans 12:10).

The New Testament is filled with “one another” commands, many of which fall under this call to love. “Bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). “Forgive one another” (Colossians 3:13). “Encourage one another” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). “Show hospitality to one another” (1 Peter 4:9). And the list goes on (Romans 12:16; Hebrews 10:25).

To be a Christian is to be a member of a body of believers committed to caring for one another, helping one another, and loving one another (1 Corinthians 12:24–26). By joining the church, we promise to be present for one another in joy and suffering, in abundance and in need (Romans 12:15). It is a covenant to live out the family love that Christ commands of his disciples (John 15:12).

We are called to join the church, and many of the responsibilities given to Christians can be fulfilled only when we are joined to, and committed to, a local body.

The Blessings of Church Membership

Finally, let’s consider the blessings of church membership. Whatever sacrifices are required to be part of a local church, they are far outweighed by the blessings God provides.

One of the greatest blessings is spiritual growth. God has designed the church to be the primary context in which Christians mature. We grow as we sit under the regular preaching and teaching of God’s Word. We grow as we sing truth together, pray together, and confess our faith together. We grow as we are sharpened by one another, as iron sharpens iron. Left to ourselves, we tend to drift, grow dull, and become spiritually apathetic. Within the church, however, God uses faithful preaching, loving correction, corporate worship, shared prayer, and other ordinary means to steadily conform us to the image of Christ.

Closely related is the blessing of protection. Sheep do not do well on their own. They are vulnerable, easily led astray, and defenseless against danger. In the church, God provides spiritual protection through watchful pastors and through the care of fellow believers. When we are discouraged, others notice. When we wander, others pursue us. When we are confused or tempted, others speak truth to us. Church membership places us within a structure of care that God himself has ordained for our good.

Another blessing is encouragement, especially in suffering. Life in a fallen world is hard. We experience grief, illness, disappointment, loneliness, and loss just like everyone else. But we are not meant to face these things alone. In the church, we find people who pray for us, weep with us, and walk with us through dark seasons of life. Meals are brought, prayers are offered, tears are shared, and burdens are carried together. This is one of the most tangible expressions of Christ’s love in the world, and it is a gift God gives through the local church.

There is also the blessing of purpose. In the church, we are not spectators but participants. God has given each of us gifts for the good of the body, and church membership gives those gifts a home. It provides a place where our service contributes to others’ spiritual health. Even the smallest acts are used by God to strengthen his people.

Church membership also brings clarity and assurance. It helps answer the question, Who is responsible for me spiritually, and for whom am I responsible? In a culture that values autonomy and avoids commitment, the church offers a countercultural clarity about where we belong. We know who our pastors are. We know who our brothers and sisters are. That clarity brings stability.

Finally, church membership is a foretaste of heaven. What we experience imperfectly now, worshiping together, loving one another, serving side by side, we will experience perfectly one day. The church, for all her flaws, is the bride for whom Christ died. To belong to her is a privilege. It is preparation for eternity, when we will gather with the redeemed from every tribe and tongue, not as isolated believers, but as one people, praising our Savior together.

We’ve traced the beginnings of Baptist history from the turn of the seventeenth century to roughly 1640. Along the way, we’ve seen the emergence of the first General, or Arminian, Baptist church in England under Thomas Helwys, and the first Particular, or Calvinist, Baptist church under the leadership of John Spilsbury. Shortly after Spilsbury’s church separated from the so-called JLJ Church, the Baptists recovered the practice of baptism by immersion.

For the first forty years, Baptists practiced believer’s baptism rather than infant baptism. But it was not until 1640 that they became convinced the New Testament teaches a specific mode of baptism—immersion. The word itself carries that meaning.

A few people asked about the Anabaptists. Why aren’t they considered the beginning of Baptist history? Weren’t they already practicing believer’s baptism? These are fair questions, and they deserve a brief response.

Why the Anabaptists Are Not the Beginning of Baptist History

The earliest English Baptists were careful to distinguish themselves from the Anabaptists for several important reasons. First, there was no continuity between them. The Baptists did not emerge from the Anabaptists. Despite surface-level similarities, they were entirely separate movements.

They did cross paths on occasion. We saw this with John Smyth and his group in Amsterdam, and again when Richard Blunt traveled to Holland to observe Mennonites, an Anabaptist group, baptizing by immersion. But beyond these limited points of contact, the movements developed independently.

In fact, there is no clear historical evidence that the Particular Baptists initially had any connection to the General Baptists either. It appears that both groups arose and developed independently of each other and the Anabaptists.

The shared practice of believer’s baptism does not mean one movement sprang from the other. They were distinct in origin, despite claims by J. M. Carroll and others who have tried to place the Anabaptists within the Baptist lineage.

More than that, English Baptists, especially the Particular Baptists, wanted to make it unmistakably clear that they were not Anabaptists because of the Anabaptists’ reputation. Since the 1530s, Anabaptists had been widely associated with fanaticism, violence, and political revolution, largely because of events in the German city of Münster. There, an Anabaptist group seized control of the city and established a radical theocracy marked by coercion, polygamy, and violence. When a Catholic army retook the city about a year later, the leaders were executed, and their bodies were displayed in cages hung from the cathedral, which remain there to this day.

That episode made a lasting impression. Even though most Anabaptists by the seventeenth century were pacifists rather than insurrectionists, the name itself carried heavy baggage. To many ears, “Baptist” sounded like “Anabaptist,” a rebaptizer, and rebaptizers were assumed to be revolutionaries.

In some respects, the Baptists were revolutionary, though not in a violent or political sense. Their views challenged the entire civil framework of early modern Europe. Most of Europe operated under a parish system in which citizenship was tied directly to church membership. To be baptized as an infant was to be enrolled in the local parish and, by extension, recognized as a citizen.

The Baptists rejected that model, not because they were trying to reshape society or government, but because they were concerned with the church. They insisted that infant baptism lacked biblical warrant and that only professing believers should be baptized. Yet once infant baptism was rejected, the parish system unraveled. If baptism no longer marked civic belonging, then questions of identity and citizenship were inevitably affected.

That way of life feels foreign to us, but it was the reality of seventeenth-century England. It helps explain why so many viewed the Baptists as dangerous radicals.

Still, they were not radicals in the Anabaptist sense. They had no desire to seize political power or establish a state church of their own. They simply wanted to worship according to Scripture. This concern explains the tone and purpose of the First London Confession of Faith. In its preface, the Particular Baptists wrote, in modern English:

Our only purpose in publishing this confession of faith is to make known to the world what we believe. We are not trying to persuade or satisfy those who disagree with us. However, because many people misunderstand our views and are inclined to think of us either as a new and novel movement, or as holding the same beliefs as those commonly—though unjustly—called Anabaptists, we considered it necessary to give a public account of our faith. We do this in order to clear ourselves of the accusations that are so often and unfairly made against us, both from the pulpit and in print.

The desire to distance themselves is unmistakable. It was not only because some Anabaptists had been politically radical. The Anabaptists also held theological views that the Baptists considered deeply unorthodox. Many denied original sin, and some denied that Christ possessed a true human body. The Baptists had strong theological reasons for refusing the association, quite apart from the lack of historical connection.

That is why Baptist history does not begin with the Anabaptists. Some historians argue that Baptist history does not truly begin until the recovery of baptism by immersion. From that perspective, John Smyth is not the real starting point. Instead, figures such as Richard Blunt, John Spilsbury, and the Particular Baptists of the early 1640s mark the true beginning. That case can be made, and I would much rather claim John Spilsbury than John Smyth, though Smyth still has a place in the story.

In the end, precisely identifying the beginning of Baptist history is something of a moot point. As the Baptists themselves stated in the preface to the First London Confession, they did not see themselves as a “new and novel movement.” This is why I often use the word recover when describing believer’s baptism or baptism by immersion. These were practices of the apostolic church. The early Baptists did not need to learn them from the Anabaptists or from anyone else.

We saw this with Smyth, Blunt, Spilsbury, and others. Where did these ideas come from? Scripture. As they studied the Bible, they recognized that their inherited church practices did not align with Scripture. And because Scripture, not human tradition, was their authority, those traditions had to change.

In that sense, the Baptists were not beginning something new. They were recovering and restoring biblical practices that had been lost over time. They were picking up where the Reformation left off. The Church of England broke from Rome. The Puritans pressed reform further. The Separatists went further still. And the Baptists pushed further yet, all in an effort to bring the church back into submission to the Word of God.

Suffering, Refinement, and Baptist Maturity after 1640

As we pick up the Baptist story in 1640, we move beyond the earliest beginnings into a period of maturation and refinement. Over the next fifty years, the Baptists would grow not only in number but, more importantly, in depth and clarity. Largely through the crucible of persecution, they were forced to define who they were, clarify what they believed, and learn to articulate those convictions in the face of widespread misunderstanding.

As we continue, it is worth keeping several biblical passages in mind. Again and again in church history, God brings good out of the trials of his people. This runs counter to our instincts, but the church has rarely grown strongest during seasons of ease. More often, it matures through suffering. The Baptists were about to enter a prolonged season of hardship, and Scripture helps us understand what God is doing in such times.

Peter writes:

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6–7).

James makes the same point when he teaches that trials test faith, produce steadfastness, and lead to spiritual maturity (James 1:2–4). Paul echoes this in Romans 5, where suffering leads to endurance, endurance to character, and character to hope (Romans 5:2–4).

These passages remind us that suffering can have a genuinely positive effect on believers. That may feel counterintuitive, but history repeatedly confirms it. When the Baptists were persecuted throughout the seventeenth century, they produced some of the strongest defenses of the doctrines of grace, liberty of conscience, and believer’s baptism. They also produced, in my view, the finest confession of faith in church history. Men like John Bunyan wrote enduring works such as Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners and The Pilgrim’s Progress from prison cells. Yet once persecution largely ceased in 1689, something telling happened. The General Baptists began drifting toward anti-Trinitarian views, and the Particular Baptists found themselves embroiled in disputes over hymn singing.

This is not to suggest that persecution is desirable, but it is a recurring pattern in church history. Under pressure, the church tends to grow stronger, clearer, and more refined. In times of peace and prosperity, believers often lose focus on what matters most. No one debates the propriety of hymnody while fellow Christians are being imprisoned. Such debates may have their place, but persecution has a way of clarifying priorities. In the Baptist story, suffering functioned exactly as Scripture says it does: it produced growth and maturity.

One small example illustrates this process. When the Baptists began baptizing by immersion, they faced sharp and often unfair criticism. Richard Baxter accused the practice of social indecency and spiritual recklessness. Daniel Featley published a work titled The Dippers Dipt, claiming that Baptists stripped “stark naked, men and women together,” and denounced the practice as unseemly and unfit to be named among Christians.

In response, the Baptists addressed the issue directly. In a footnote to the First London Confession, they explained that baptism by immersion was to be conducted with appropriate clothing for both the one administering baptism and the one being baptized, and always with proper modesty. Because of the accusations leveled against them, they were forced to articulate their practice carefully. That clarification then served future generations of Baptists. Criticism led to refinement, and refinement strengthened the church.

This pattern repeated itself again and again. Opposition forced the Baptists to study Scripture closely and to learn how to explain and defend their convictions clearly.

One story about Benjamin Keach illustrates the point. Keach was a significant figure in Baptist history. On one occasion, he was traveling by boat to a formal debate with a minister who opposed believer’s baptism. While on the boat, he struck up a conversation with a man who did not realize Keach was the Baptist he was scheduled to debate. The man spoke freely about his plans to debate whom he called an “ignorant Baptist.” Keach asked what arguments he intended to use, and the man explained them. Keach then asked what he expected his opponent to say, and the man outlined those arguments as well. Keach responded, “If I were that man, here is what I would say,” and proceeded to lay out a biblical defense of believer’s baptism.

When they disembarked, Keach went on to the debate hall. The other man went in a different direction and never appeared.

That story proves nothing about who was right, but it does illustrate how sharp the Baptists were compelled to become. Surrounded by critics and opponents, they were forced to refine their thinking and strengthen their arguments. If iron sharpens iron, the Baptists had no shortage of iron (Proverbs 27:17).

The Civil War, a Window of Freedom, and the First London Confession

In the early 1640s, there were only a handful of General Baptist and Particular Baptist churches. Yet the political climate in England briefly allowed for a measure of freedom. Throughout that decade, England was consumed by civil war, which was a conflict between King Charles I, who supported the state-sponsored Anglican Church, and Parliament, whose members were largely Puritans seeking further reform of the church.

In theory, England’s government functioned through a balance between the monarch and Parliament. Laws were meant to require the consent of both. In practice, however, kings often claimed near-absolute authority. There was no constitution or formal system of checks and balances like those in the United States, and the king could dissolve Parliament at will.

As King Charles and Parliament fought one another, small dissenting groups like the Baptists drew relatively little attention. Their congregations were still illegal, but the nation was distracted. This created a limited but real window of opportunity. Men such as Hanserd Knollys traveled widely, establishing new churches, and the first seven Particular Baptist congregations in London gathered to draft the First London Baptist Confession of Faith.

You will often see two dates associated with that confession. The initial version was completed in 1644, then revised and republished in 1646. Its purpose was multi-layered. The Baptists wanted to clarify and solidify their identity. They wanted the broader public to know who they were and what they believed. They also wanted to demonstrate their unity with other orthodox, evangelical churches and to distance themselves from radical groups such as the Anabaptists. In fact, they were eager to show that they stood firmly within Reformed orthodoxy, including a thoroughly Calvinistic understanding of salvation. While they had real distinctives, they believed they shared far more with their Puritan and Separatist contemporaries than they differed from them.

That clarity did not mean they softened or minimized their disagreements. The Baptists were often strikingly bold, sometimes uncomfortably so. John Spilsbury, pastor of the first Particular Baptist church, could be especially forceful. When arguing against infant baptism, he wrote that Protestants who retained it “keep themselves in the company of antichrist,” urging them either to “return to Rome or go forward to the true constitution of the church.” When addressing Arminianism, he labeled it a “doctrine from beneath and not from above” and described its teachers as being “from Satan and not from God.”

Similar language can be found among early General Baptists as well. In fact, if you read widely from this period, you will find that writers from nearly every group spoke this way. That does not mean such rhetoric was always right or appropriate.

As Christians, we are called to hold two biblical principles together. Scripture warns against destructive speech and calls us to speak the truth in love, with words that are gracious and seasoned with salt (Ephesians 4:16; Colossians 4:6). To the extent that seventeenth-century Baptists erred, it was often in speaking too sharply and without enough restraint.

At the same time, we must avoid swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction. Scripture also commands clarity and firmness in matters of truth. Paul pronounces a curse on anyone who distorts the gospel (Galatians 1), and Jude urges believers to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). The challenge, then and now, is to maintain the proper balance by speaking with both conviction and charity.

Growth under the Commonwealth and the Return of Persecution

As the Baptists, especially the Particular Baptists, were establishing themselves during the 1640s, the English Civil War ended in 1649. Parliament emerged victorious, King Charles I was executed, and the Commonwealth of England was declared. This marked the beginning of an unprecedented season of growth for the Baptists.

For a time, there was no monarch. Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan, became the central figure of authority and sought to move England toward a republican form of government. He was not a Separatist or a Baptist, but he did support a measure of religious freedom. Some of his close associates, including Roger Williams, were Baptists.

The results were dramatic. In 1644, there were only seven Particular Baptist churches and a small number of General Baptist congregations. By 1660, the numbers had grown to roughly 130 Particular Baptist churches and about 115 General Baptist churches. Baptist congregations multiplied rapidly. Alongside this numerical growth, churches began forming associations for mutual support and cooperation in ministry, which further strengthened unity and expansion.

At the same time, religious freedom brought complications. Various fringe groups emerged, and the atmosphere of toleration emboldened them. Cromwell even appointed some Baptists to positions in his administration, which encouraged a sense of opportunity across the spectrum. Among the General Baptists, groups such as the Fifth Monarchists appeared. They believed they were responsible for preparing the way for Christ’s earthly reign and sought to seize control of the government in order to establish a theocracy. Other groups, like the Seekers, concluded that no true church could exist without unbroken apostolic succession. They were waiting for God to restore apostolic gifts before the church could be reestablished. Roger Williams himself left the Baptist church he founded in America after only a few months for this very reason.

This pattern recurs throughout church history. Persecution brings obvious hardships, but unchecked freedom carries its own challenges. Cromwell’s vision faced a serious problem: if the long-established parish system and state church were dismantled, what would hold society together? His critics argued that it could not work without the stability of a unified church and religion.

By 1660, the experiment collapsed. Cromwell died, and his son proved unable to maintain control. Competing religious and political factions, including some radical Baptist groups, contributed to the instability.

That year, Charles II, the son of the executed king, returned from exile and restored the monarchy. With the support of loyal members of Parliament, he quickly reestablished the Church of England as the exclusive state church. Nonconformists of every kind, including Baptists, were once again treated as public enemies. A series of laws followed, designed to force conformity and punish dissent. The 1660s became known as the Great Persecution.

Groups like the Fifth Monarchists only intensified the backlash. Despite the Particular Baptists’ efforts to distance themselves from radical movements, their opponents now had fresh ammunition. Charges of disloyalty and political subversion were leveled broadly. It made little difference that the Fifth Monarchists were a small minority. Matters worsened further when they attempted an armed uprising in January 1661. After that, all Baptists were viewed as enemies of the state.

The Clarendon Code and Life under the Great Persecution

Within months of the Restoration, Parliament enacted a series of laws known as the Clarendon Code. Nonconformists were first barred from holding public office. Next, roughly two thousand Puritan ministers were ejected from the Church of England. Then it became illegal for five or more people to gather for worship outside the Church of England. Finally, nonconformist pastors were prohibited from coming within five miles of any town or parish where they had previously preached. The strategy was to remove the shepherds, scatter the sheep, and bring an end to unsanctioned churches.

The Baptists were forced into an agonizing choice. They could stop meeting and stop preaching, or they could continue and risk imprisonment. Most chose the latter. This is the period when John Bunyan was imprisoned for twelve years. Others, including William Kiffin and Hanserd Knollys, managed to avoid prison, largely because they had financial resources and influential connections. Even so, they often met in secret and, at times, suspended gatherings altogether to avoid detection. Churches frequently posted lookouts to warn those inside if authorities were approaching.

In 1664, Benjamin Keach was just twenty-four years old when he was arrested for publishing a children’s book that taught Baptist doctrine. He was fined heavily, imprisoned for two weeks, and sentenced to stand on the public pillory for two full days. The pillory was a raised platform in the town square, designed for maximum visibility, with the offender’s head and hands locked in place.

Keach used the punishment as an opportunity for ministry. As crowds gathered to stare at the young preacher, he preached to them. When the sheriff ordered him to stop, he continued. When an Anglican minister attempted to ridicule him, the crowd turned on the heckler, shouting him down and telling him to examine himself before mocking Keach.

Stories like this appear repeatedly from this period. Time and again, God strengthened his people through trial and suffering.

In 1672, King Charles II made a surprising move. He issued a Declaration of Indulgence that suspended the laws against Baptists and other Nonconformists. The reasons remain unclear. Some suggest it was an act of defiance against an increasingly hostile Parliament. Others think it reflected sympathy toward Roman Catholicism. Whatever the motive, Baptists were suddenly granted a measure of freedom.

That freedom came with conditions. Pastors were required to obtain licenses to preach, and congregations had to register officially. The danger soon became apparent. When the Declaration of Indulgence was withdrawn a year later, and nonconformity was once again illegal, the government now possessed a list of ministers and churches to target.

John Bunyan was among them. Not everyone had registered, but Bunyan had registered to secure his release after 12 years in prison. Once the declaration was revoked, he was arrested again and returned to confinement.

From Persecution to the Second London Confession

Through the remainder of Charles II’s reign, until his death in 1685, the Baptists experienced repeated cycles of persecution and partial relief. Remarkably, they also showed foresight. They recognized that lasting freedom might arrive at any moment, and they prepared accordingly. During this period, the Particular Baptists, including William Collins, Nehemiah Coxe, William Kiffin, and Hanserd Knollys, came together to draft what would become the Second London Baptist Confession.

This work was completed in 1677, which often surprises people, since it is commonly referred to as the 1689 Confession. Persecution was still ongoing in 1677, so the confession was not publicly issued. It would wait until conditions allowed for its formal adoption in 1689.

William Kiffin’s role here is especially noteworthy. He was the only man to sign both the First and Second London Confessions. His ministry spans the entire formative period of Particular Baptist history, from its earliest days through the publication of the Second London Confession. He pastored the same church from 1642 until his death in 1701, a remarkable continuity that reflects both his endurance and his influence.

In composing the Second London Confession, the Particular Baptists made deliberate use of existing confessional documents. They drew heavily from the Presbyterian Westminster Confession of 1646 and the Congregational Savoy Declaration of 1658, which itself was based on Westminster. They altered these documents only where necessary to reflect Baptist convictions. This approach served several purposes. It expressed clear unity with other Reformed orthodox groups, and it acknowledged the theological clarity and precision of those confessions. Rather than reinventing the wheel, the Baptists built upon what had already been carefully articulated.

A strong case can be made that the Second London Confession would not exist apart from the intense persecution the Baptists endured. One of their central motivations was to demonstrate their theological solidarity with other Nonconformists, particularly Presbyterians and Congregationalists. Persecution pressed them to clarify their beliefs, refine their theology, and defend their place within the broader Reformed tradition.

A few years later, after political upheaval involving James II, William of Orange, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Parliament passed the Act of Toleration in 1689. This act did not establish full religious liberty, but it did grant Trinitarian Protestants the legal right to worship freely. That moment opened the door the Baptists had been anticipating.

Soon afterward, the Particular Baptists convened a General Assembly in London, with delegates from more than 100 churches. There, they formally adopted the Second London Confession of Faith. They were ready. Years of preparation enabled them to act decisively as soon as the opportunity arose.

The influence of this confession is difficult to overstate. Fifty-three years later, the first Baptist association in America formally adopted it. More than three centuries later, it remains the confession of my church. God used an imperfect people, sustained through decades of hardship, to give the church a doctrinal statement of enduring clarity and strength.

John Smyth had been a Separatist in England who fled to Holland to escape persecution. While there, he became convinced that Scripture teaches believer’s baptism. At the time, both Catholics and Protestants practiced infant baptism according to a parish model, but Smyth could not find that pattern in the Bible. When he examined the New Testament, he saw the church baptizing only professing believers. With no one he believed could administer a legitimate, biblical baptism, he baptized himself and then baptized the congregation of roughly fifty people who were with him.

This act drew immediate criticism. While infant baptism cannot be found in Scripture, Smyth’s critics pointed out that self-baptism is not found there either. But the objections ran deeper than that. This issue becomes significant throughout early Baptist history, and Helwys would have to confront it after returning to England. The Particular Baptists would also have to deal with it. To understand why this was such a serious concern for so many people, we need to situate ourselves in their historical context.

Church Succession and the Keys of the Kingdom

This discussion really begins with the Roman Catholic Church. For centuries, the Catholic Church believed and taught the necessity of unbroken church succession. Think about Jesus’s words to his apostles in Matthew 16. Peter makes his confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and Jesus responds, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:16, 18). He then adds, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19).

The Catholic Church eventually understood this to mean that Peter himself was given the keys to the kingdom and that those keys would be passed down through subsequent generations. They were transmitted through the church, specifically through its leadership, from one generation to the next. As long as the church held the keys, it alone could authorize the existence of a true church. A group might gather and claim to be a church, but if the Catholic Church had not granted its approval, it was considered a false church.

As paradoxical as it seems, this same mindset carried over into the Protestant Anglican Church of England. Despite having broken from Rome during the Reformation, the Church of England would not tolerate the Separatist movement, precisely because Separatists formed churches apart from its authority. These congregations were considered illegal.

John Smyth’s argument, and one that Helwys and others would adopt, was that Scripture does not require unbroken church succession for a church to be legitimate. The keys to the kingdom, they argued, are not passed along through an institutional chain of authority. Rather, the keys are given to all true believers. Anyone who genuinely shares Peter’s confession about Christ possesses the keys of the kingdom. In other words, the right to be a true church does not come from another church. It comes from the authority of Christ himself, revealed through Scripture. This was the principle the Reformers stood on, and it is the principle the Baptists would also affirm.

Even so, Baptists have at times developed the strange habit of returning to the Catholic understanding of church succession. I mentioned the Landmark Baptists last time, for whom this was a defining belief. The Primitive Baptists eventually adopted a similar view. In the twentieth century, the idea gained traction among American Baptists, especially through J. M. Carroll’s book The Trail of Blood. Carroll argued that Baptists were the true church and that, while Catholics and Protestants were in conflict with one another, Baptists had always existed separately, maintaining an unbroken succession from the apostles onward.

The problem with that view is that it is a theory without historical evidence. Biblically, the entire concept of church succession is unnecessary. It may be comforting to think, I know my church is the true church because I can trace an unbroken lineage back to the apostles, but no one can actually do that. In fact, the historical evidence points in the opposite direction.

One of the most helpful lessons I have learned about history is that it is not black-and-white. We are dealing with the history of sinners. Rarely do we find clearly defined heroes and villains, or situations that are obviously right or wrong. Scripture itself makes this plain. Consider Abraham. God chose him to be the father of a great nation, yet instead of waiting for the Lord to fulfill his promise, Abraham took matters into his own hands and fathered a child through his wife’s servant.

The same could be said of Moses, David, or Israel as a whole. None was perfect, yet God used them to accomplish his purposes. That is what makes God’s providence so remarkable. He brings about his will in and through a messy, broken world, working faithfully through flawed people to accomplish what he intends.

Helwys’s Break with Smyth

Returning to Smyth, he eventually fell into the same temptation of doubting the legitimacy of his baptism, not only because he had baptized himself, but because it had not been administered by what he now considered a true church. In his thinking, he had never received the keys of the kingdom from a legitimate church.

At first, Smyth argued that he had no other option. There was no church to which he could go for baptism. That changed when he became connected with the Waterlander Mennonites. After moving to Amsterdam, he had grown increasingly aligned with them in his soteriology, and they practiced believer’s baptism. On that basis, he concluded that the best course of action for himself and his congregation was to join the Mennonites and be rebaptized.

One man in the group, however, strongly disagreed: Thomas Helwys. The Mennonites held several unorthodox views concerning Christ and leaned in an anti-Augustinian direction in their theology. There is evidence that they denied the transmission of Adam’s sinful nature, suggesting that people are born morally neutral. There were other concerns as well, but what Helwys called “succession in holy things” appears to have been the central issue.

In Helwys’s view, Smyth was conceding the idea that a church’s authority must be received through an unbroken line of succession from earlier churches. He denounced this as a human tradition with no biblical foundation. He famously referred to it as “the antichrist’s chief hold,” meaning that it was a Jewish and later Roman Catholic concept used to keep God’s people in bondage. To Helwys, it was no different from Jews insisting that Gentiles must become Jewish in order to be Christians, or Catholics insisting that one must become Catholic to be a true Christian or part of a true church.

Instead, Helwys argued that Scripture itself grants believers the authority to “church themselves” through a confession of Christ and obedience to the Word. A true church, he maintained, is founded directly by the Word and the Spirit, not by any human institution.

Helwys even went so far as to write a letter to the Mennonites, warning them not to accept Smyth and his group into their fellowship because they had been excluded from the church in England. Whether this was motivated by spite or by a desire to draw Smyth back to his position is difficult to say. In any case, it was unsuccessful. The Mennonites received Smyth’s congregation, though Smyth himself died before he could be rebaptized.

The Return to England and the Rise of Baptist Streams

That left Thomas Helwys with about twelve people. Rather than remaining in Amsterdam, they decided to return to England. Helwys was deeply missionary-minded and held a strong conviction that the gospel should never be hidden. Christians, he believed, must not place their candle under a basket. As he put it, it was their “absolute duty to bear witness to [their] own countrymen.” Sometime in 1611, possibly 1612, they made the journey back to England.

At this point, King James I was still on the throne and continued to persecute Separatists and others who broke away from the Church of England. If you want a striking example of God’s providence, consider King James himself. While persecuting Separatists, including Baptists, he also authorized the English translation of the Bible that would shape the English-speaking world for the next four hundred years, influencing Baptists more than any other translation, or any other book for that matter. God is fully capable of drawing straight lines with crooked sticks.

By 1612, Helwys and his group formally established the first Baptist church on English soil. They met in Spitalfields, just outside London. It was a house church, since they had no public building, if for no other reason than the fact that their congregation was illegal.

This church was not only the first Baptist church in England; it was also the first General Baptist church. That distinction becomes important as Baptist history develops. As Baptists multiply, they do not initially form denominations in the modern sense, but distinct streams or categories.

In England, two primary streams eventually emerged: the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists. When Baptists arrive in America, the picture becomes more complex, with General Baptists, Regular Baptists, and Separate Baptists, not to be confused with the English Separatists.

Although these categories are not fully formed at this point, it is helpful to understand where things are headed. In England, the General Baptists are Arminian in their soteriology. They affirm a “general” or universal atonement, meaning Christ’s death is available to all. The Particular Baptists, by contrast, hold a Calvinistic understanding of salvation. They believe in a “particular” or definite atonement, teaching that Christ died specifically for those who will be saved.

By the eighteenth century in America, three groups were visible. The General Baptists descend from the English General Baptists and retain an Arminian theology. The Regular Baptists trace their lineage to the English Particular Baptists and are Calvinistic. Like their English counterparts, they are also confessional, a distinction that will prove important. The Separate Baptists emerged out of the First Great Awakening. They, too, are Calvinists, though generally less confessional. Before long, especially in the South, the Regular and Separate Baptists began to merge.

None of these distinct streams has fully developed yet, but understanding them can be helpful for anyone who chooses to explore Baptist history further.

Helwys, Religious Liberty, and the Cost of Conviction

Returning to the church in Spitalfields, they did not consider themselves a General Baptist church. As far as they were concerned, they were simply a group of believers seeking to follow New Testament ecclesiology as closely as possible. They practiced believer’s baptism, though it was administered by affusion, or pouring. Baptism by immersion would not be recovered among Baptists until the 1640s. Their worship was intentionally simple, consisting of little more than singing, prayer, preaching, and the Lord’s Supper.

Tragically, within a year, Thomas Helwys was arrested and imprisoned in the notorious Newgate Prison in London. It was the same prison in which John Bunyan was held for twelve years while writing The Pilgrim’s Progress. Unlike Bunyan, Helwys would never be released. He died in prison about four years later, at the age of forty, becoming the first Baptist martyr.

Helwys’s arrest was hardly surprising, since he made no effort to keep his unlawful church hidden.

Soon after returning to England, he published a small book titled A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity. In it, Helwys explicitly argued for universal religious freedom, not merely freedom for Baptists, but for everyone. He wrote, “Men’s religion to God is betwixt God and themselves,” and went on to say, “Let them be heretics, Turks [or Muslims], Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.”

This was Europe in 1612, not twenty-first-century America. These were radical and deeply controversial claims. No one was seriously arguing for this kind of freedom. The debate was not whether there should be religious liberty, but which church or religious system the state should enforce.

At the same time, Helwys was not indifferent to truth or content to see false religion spread. He argued that forcing people to worship against their conscience “stinks in the nostrils of God.” Citing Jesus’s words, he wrote that “true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23). The Lord also warned against outward worship without inward devotion, saying, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me” (Mark 7:6–7).

For Helwys, true worship must be voluntary. You cannot compel someone to be a genuine Christian, so why should the state require people to belong to a church? He argued that the state is accountable to God to enforce the second table of the Ten Commandments, but not the first. To do so would exceed its God-given authority and contradict Christ’s teachings.

From the opposite angle, Helwys accused the state of uprooting good wheat in its attempt to pull up the tares. Drawing on Jesus’s parable, he argued that persecution was doing precisely that. In seeking to eliminate what the state labeled heresy, it was destroying faithful Christians along with it.

Helwys did not soften his language. Using imagery from Revelation, he identified the Roman Catholic Church as the first beast and the Church of England as the second. He rebuked Puritans and Separatists as well, accusing them of working for the antichrist because they practiced infant baptism, which he considered the mark of the beast. He even criticized the Pilgrim pastor John Robinson, calling him a “malicious adversary of God’s truth.”

Nor did Helwys stop there. He directly addressed King James I, who by law was regarded as the “Supreme Head of the Church of England,” and placed governing authorities firmly in their proper place. Yes, they bear responsibility before God, but that responsibility does not include ruling the church or persecuting Christians.

In fact, Helwys personally inscribed a copy of his book and sent it to the king. In it, he wrote, “The King is a mortal man and not God, therefore hath no power over the immortal souls of his subjects to make laws and ordinances for them and to set spiritual Lords over them.”

The response was predictable. Helwys was imprisoned, where he died four years later. He also found little sympathy within the broader Protestant world.

Even so, it is important to note that despite his sharp rhetoric, Helwys was not advocating anarchy or sedition. He was not calling for rebellion against governing authorities. He argued, rather, that the government should neither force religion upon people nor interfere with the free exercise of their faith.

This conviction would become a clear Baptist distinctive. It would be taken up by the Particular Baptists, and later carried to America by Roger Williams, who was influenced by Helwys and his associate John Murton. Williams would found the Rhode Island colony on the principle of religious liberty and would also establish the first Baptist church in America.

John Murton and the Growth of the General Baptists

After Helwys was imprisoned, leadership of the Spitalfields church passed to a man named John Murton. He had traveled with Helwys and Smyth to Amsterdam and later returned to England with Helwys. His time as pastor, however, was brief. About a year after Helwys’s arrest, Murton was also imprisoned.

Like John Bunyan after him, Murton did not waste his time in prison. He devoted himself to writing, focusing primarily on religious liberty. His books expanded on Helwys’s arguments and made a compelling case for freedom of conscience. These writings were smuggled out of prison and became highly influential.

The way his work escaped the prison is remarkable. Friends would bring him small pieces of paper hidden in the cork of a milk bottle. Murton would then use a stick dipped in milk to write on the paper. Because the milk served as invisible ink, he could not see what he was writing. The paper would be placed back in the cork and carried out of the prison. Once outside, his friends would hold the paper over a flame, causing the milk to darken just enough for the writing to appear. They then transcribed his words and compiled his short notes into complete works.

Given that process, his writings are surprisingly coherent and well-crafted.

Despite ongoing persecution, the General Baptists continued to grow. By 1626, what had begun as a small congregation of twelve had expanded to approximately 150 members spread across five churches. This growth may have been aided, at least in part, by the accession of King Charles I in 1625. Preoccupied with other matters, he paid little attention to this small but steadily growing Baptist movement.

The Emergence of the Particular Baptists

We will pause the General Baptist story here, because another Baptist movement was beginning to take shape—one that would soon surpass the General Baptists in both size and influence. This was the rise of the Particular Baptists.

Returning to London in 1616, while Helwys was still imprisoned in Newgate, a former Anglican minister named Henry Jacob had aligned himself with the Separatist movement. He might best be described as a semi-Separatist, since, unlike Smyth or Helwys, he still believed the Church of England, though deeply corrupted, remained a true church. He never went so far as to label it the second beast.

That year, Jacob gathered several dozen people to form a Separatist church in London. What distinguished this congregation was his refusal to require members to sever all ties with the Church of England, at least initially, provided they abstained from practices they believed were unbiblical. This position drew criticism from both sides. Other Separatists derided the church as “half-separated” and accused Jacob of idolatry and lingering Anglicanism, while Anglicans regarded him as too Separatist.

Despite the criticism, Jacob remained committed to the autonomy of the local church under Christ’s headship, and the congregation continued meeting, often changing locations to avoid detection.

This church eventually became known as the Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey church, or the JLJ church, named after its first three pastors. Orthodox, evangelical, and firmly Calvinistic, it would become something of a mother church for the Particular Baptists in England. By 1644, at least four, possibly five, of the first seven Particular Baptist churches in London could trace their origins directly to the JLJ church.

Henry Jacob served as pastor until 1622, when he left England to settle in Virginia. He maintained regular correspondence with John Robinson of the Pilgrims and concluded that he could be more effective in the American colonies.

After Jacob’s departure, John Lathrop became pastor. Like Jacob, he had once served as an Anglican minister. During his tenure, one of the church’s meetings was raided, and Lathrop, along with forty-two others, was arrested and imprisoned for about eighteen months. When he was released, it was on the condition that he leave England. In 1634, he and several others relocated to Massachusetts, where he would go on to plant at least two churches. In this way, the Calvinistic Separatists were already contributing to the shaping of early America.

As a historical aside, Lathrop was an ancestor of two American presidents: George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Lathrop’s departure left the JLJ church without a pastor for roughly three years. In 1637, Henry Jessey was called to lead the congregation. Jessey was well credentialed as a Cambridge-educated, ormer Puritan minister, fluent in both Hebrew and Greek, and widely regarded as both intellectually gifted and personally gentle.

Throughout the 1630s, the JLJ church remained only semi-Separatist. Although it had broken from the Church of England, it was not yet a Baptist church and continued to practice infant baptism. Beginning around 1630, however, the issue of baptism became increasingly contentious. At first, the question was not whether infants should be baptized, but whether baptisms performed in the Church of England were valid at all. Given their conviction that the Church of England was corrupt, the church was forced to ask whether such baptisms should be recognized.

In 1630, a member named Mr. Dupper urged the congregation to reject baptisms performed by the Church of England. At this stage, he was not advocating believer’s baptism, but re-baptism for those baptized within Anglicanism. He would later embrace believer’s baptism, but not initially. Even so, he eventually left to form a new congregation.

A second group became dissatisfied in 1633, including Samuel Eaton and William Kiffin, both significant figures in Baptist history. In September of that year, they requested permission to form a separate congregation, which the church granted with its blessing. The division was peaceful, and the two groups continued to meet together on occasion.

As with Dupper’s group, the central issue for them was not infant versus believer’s baptism, but the validity of Anglican baptisms. They believed those baptized in the Church of England should be rebaptized.

A third group soon departed the JLJ church, including Thomas Wilson and John Spilsbury. Unlike the previous groups, they were convinced of believer’s baptism. According to the church records often referred to as the Kiffin Manuscript, they left “being convinced that baptism was not to be administered to infants, but to such only as professed faith in Christ.”

In summary, from this single Separatist congregation, three groups emerged. The first two were not initially Baptist, though they would become Baptist churches. The third group, led by John Spilsbury, was distinctly Baptist from the outset. It became the first Particular (Calvinist) Baptist church.

Others soon followed. At least one additional Particular Baptist church would emerge from the JLJ church later that same year, and even the JLJ church itself would begin moving steadily toward Baptist convictions.

The Recovery of Baptism by Immersion

None of these groups practiced baptism by immersion at this point. They were still baptizing by affusion, or pouring. That began to change in 1640, when a member of the JLJ church named Richard Blunt became convinced that not only was infant baptism unbiblical, but that affusion itself was not the biblical mode of baptism.

Three considerations led him to this conclusion. First, the New Testament presents baptism as a symbol of Christ’s death and resurrection, a symbolism far more clearly conveyed through immersion than pouring. Second, the word baptism literally means to immerse. Third, whenever baptism appears in Scripture, the individuals go to a body of water, go down into it, and come up out of it. These details strongly suggest immersion.

With this conviction, Blunt wanted to investigate further, but there was a problem. No one in England practiced baptism by immersion. Few practiced believer’s baptism at all, let alone immersion. Blunt had, however, heard of a Mennonite group in Holland known as the Rinsberers, who were baptizing by immersion. Like the Waterlander Mennonites, they were not orthodox, and Blunt had no interest in joining them. He simply wanted to observe how they practiced baptism. So he traveled to Holland.

Some historians suspect that Blunt was baptized by this group while he was there. Much of that suspicion arises from the vague way later church records describe his baptism. In the so-called Kiffin Manuscript, we are told that Blunt returned to England and baptized a man named Samuel Blacklock. It then states, “Mr. Blacklock that was a Teacher amongst them, & Mr. Blunt being Baptized, he & Mr. Blacklock Baptized the rest of their friends that were so minded.”

That leaves two possibilities. Either Blunt and Blacklock baptized one another, or Blunt had been baptized in Holland by this unorthodox Mennonite group, and no one wanted to say so explicitly.

Regardless of where Blunt himself was baptized, he does appear to have been concerned with continuity. The idea of unbroken succession had been deeply ingrained, and even though the Dutch group was unorthodox and did not exclusively practice immersion, Blunt returned to England with a letter from one of their leaders, seemingly to lend credibility to immersion as a legitimate practice.

In the end, the letter carried little weight. If Blunt had been baptized by the Mennonites, the records deliberately avoid highlighting it. As Separatists and Baptists, they did not believe any form of succession was necessary. Their authority rested in Scripture alone.

Upon his return, Blunt and Blacklock baptized forty-one people by immersion. It is not entirely clear who all these individuals were. Many were likely members of the JLJ church, and some may have come from the Particular Baptist congregations that had already separated from it. The lines were blurred, since these groups maintained close fellowship and consulted with one another both before and after Blunt’s trip to Holland. In short order, all of them would embrace baptism by immersion.

This group of forty-three, including Blunt and Blacklock, formed two new Particular Baptist churches. Blunt became the pastor of one, and Thomas Kilcop pastored the other.

Within three years, these Particular Baptist churches would unite to produce the First London Baptist Confession of Faith.

Studying Baptist history can be challenging, and we are immediately confronted with two critical questions. First, where do we begin? For the fullest understanding of Baptists, we should go back to the New Testament, if not the Old Testament, and work forward to the present day. Long before there was a formal Baptist church, Baptist doctrines and practices appeared both in Scripture and throughout church history. Since that approach isn’t feasible, we must choose a point in time. So what do we select as our starting point?

The second question is, what exactly is a Baptist? Before any of us say, “I know what a Baptist is,” it’s worth remembering that Baptists have never been a monolithic people. Over the last 400 years, there has been significant diversity among Baptists: Calvinistic and Arminian Baptists, strict-communion and open-communion Baptists, missionary and anti-missionary Baptists, revivalistic and confessional Baptists.

Most of us would answer the question, “What is a Baptist?” by pointing to baptism. But even that requires clarification. Are we talking about the proper subjects of baptism—believers versus infants—or the proper mode of baptism? Surprisingly, the first Baptists in England did not baptize by immersion but by affusion, or pouring. Then there is the question of who is authorized to baptize. This became an early controversy because the first Baptists could not simply locate a Baptist church and be baptized there. Who baptizes when no Baptist church exists, and when other pastors are unwilling to negate one’s infant baptism in favor of believer’s baptism?

Even a fundamental question like “What is a Baptist?” is more complex than it first appears. Still, I want to provide what I believe is a historically accurate definition of Baptist identity.

Years ago, I belonged to a Baptist denomination born out of the anti-missions movement of the early 19th century. They also held views often associated with Landmark Baptists, though they were technically distinct. They believed they were the true church of Jesus Christ, maintaining an unbroken succession back to the apostolic church. In their view, they did not come out of the Catholic Church, nor did they emerge from the Protestant Reformation. Their group, they believed, had always existed, faithfully believing and practicing what the New Testament teaches.

When I began questioning some of their doctrines, I was forced to study church history to test their succession claims. That proved less difficult than expected, since their own historians traced their lineage back to the Particular Baptists of England and the Reformation. But that journey compelled me to wrestle seriously with the question of Baptist identity. Who are we? What makes a Baptist a Baptist?

The challenge today is that I’m not sure we could form a coherent definition of Baptists simply by looking at the 21st century. We could not even point confidently to Scripture alone as a universal Baptist conviction. As early as the 19th century, in the days of Charles Spurgeon, Baptist churches were already drifting toward theological liberalism and away from Scripture alone. So where do we look for a clear understanding of Baptist identity?

Our most precise understanding comes from the 17th century. The Baptist movement began in the 17th century, matured throughout that century, and was refined through persecution. Apart from certain debates in soteriology, Baptists were almost entirely unified in orthodox doctrine and in Baptist distinctives such as believer’s baptism.

In the 17th century, we see the beginnings, maturation, refinement, and remarkable unity of Baptists. Beyond that century, defining Baptist identity becomes increasingly complicated as unorthodox teachings arise and various factions develop. Even believer’s baptism, the most defining Baptist distinctive, becomes surrounded by new practices in the 18th century, such as baby dedications—almost an attempt to come as close to infant baptism as possible without actually baptizing infants.

In short, once we move beyond the 17th century, defining Baptist identity becomes much harder. It may even be impossible if we start in the 21st century.

Orthodox and Evangelical Identity

So, what is a Baptist?

Orthodox

First, Baptists are thoroughly orthodox. While this may not be true of every group using the Baptist name today, in the 17th century, and for most of Baptist history, Baptists have been doctrinally orthodox. They have agreed with historic church creeds and confessions such as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. They have affirmed the authority of Scripture, the doctrine of the Trinity, human sinfulness and the need for regeneration, salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and two ordinances—baptism and the Lord’s Supper—as opposed to the seven sacraments of the Catholic and Anglican churches. Yes, there have always been both Arminian and Calvinist Baptists, but historically, Baptists have shared a solid biblical orthodoxy with other Protestant denominations.

This is important for a couple of reasons. When we consider the beginning of the Baptist story, particularly with John Smyth, we must not think Smyth invented a new religion or that the Baptist church appeared without connection to the larger church. This is nothing like Joseph Smith claiming a new revelation, contradicting Scripture, and beginning a movement with unorthodox doctrine. The Mormon church rejects the eternal nature of God, the Trinity, and the full deity and humanity of Christ. That is entirely different from the Baptist story. John Smyth and the early Baptists were thoroughly orthodox. The Baptist movement was not the start of a new religion but a further refinement and natural continuation of the Reformation.

It is also essential to recognize this orthodoxy because, as we will see throughout the 17th century, Baptists consistently emphasized their unity with other orthodox Christians—Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Puritans, and sometimes even Anglicans. They were not a radical sect or strange cult trying to separate themselves from the broader Protestant world. They had distinctives, certainly, but they remained orthodox.

Evangelical

A Baptist is first orthodox and, second, evangelical.

By evangelical, I mean a Christian who centers everything on the gospel of Christ, trusts the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, insists on personal conversion and new birth, and is active in spreading and living out that faith.

I’m not sure many Baptist histories explicitly stress the evangelical character of the Baptist movement—perhaps it is assumed—but I believe it should be emphasized because it firmly places Baptists in the mainstream of orthodox, gospel-centered Protestant Christianity rather than on the fringe with a few unusual practices. Baptist identity is centered on the gospel, not merely on baptism. Even the Baptist view of baptism is grounded in the need for genuine repentance and conversion, not the act of baptism itself. This ties Baptists even more closely to the broader Protestant and Reformed world, despite specific differences.

Reformed Baptists?

From time to time, I’ve heard people say, “You can’t be Reformed if you’re a Baptist. There is no such thing as a Reformed Baptist,” often with baptism as the main argument. They point out that historically Reformed churches practiced infant baptism and did so because of their understanding of the covenant of grace. We may return to that discussion later, but for now it is enough to say that most 17th-century Baptists fully embraced Reformed soteriology and shared much of Reformed confessional theology, except for baptism.

It would be like looking at my daughter, who has blond hair, while my wife and I have brown hair, and concluding she cannot be ours. She may resemble us in almost every other way. We may have a birth certificate stating she belongs to us. We may insist she is our daughter. But someone fixates on the one difference and declares she cannot belong in our family.

Baptists do have distinctions from other Reformed groups, but as we will see, the differences are often more minor than many assume.

What Distinguishes Baptists from Other Protestants?

To further define Baptist identity, we need to understand what makes Baptists distinct from other 17th-century Protestants.

Believer’s Baptism

Many would expect that definition to begin with baptism, and in one sense it does. But before baptism itself, we must understand why Baptists held their view. When they examined the New Testament, they saw the church consistently described as a body made up of regenerated, repentant, professing believers. Since only such believers were baptized into the church, infants were necessarily excluded.

That may seem obvious to many of us today, but historically it was not. For centuries, the Catholic Church functioned under a “parish” model in which church and state were closely connected. If you lived in a region, you belonged to its parish. If you were born in that region, you were baptized into that parish as an infant. This continued even after the Reformation. In England, once the church became Anglican, people were still baptized into the local parish soon after birth. Later, when Puritans and Separatists moved away from the Anglican Church, they kept infant baptism but framed it in covenantal rather than civic terms.

When Baptists emerged from the same Puritan-Separatist world, they objected. According to the New Testament, a person is not baptized into the church involuntarily or as a matter of regional identity. Baptism follows personal faith in Christ. Scripture does not present a category of unbelieving, unregenerate church members or a pattern of infants being baptized. So while every other major church was baptizing infants, Baptists dissented, insisting that the church should consist only of regenerate believers.

Calvinists?

I would love to add, “Baptists are Calvinists,” and a strong case could be made from the overall momentum of the 17th century, but I cannot quite go that far. The Baptist movement did not begin with Calvinists but with Arminians.

However, the list is not finished.

Congregational Polity

Baptists also believe in local church autonomy and a congregational polity. In simple terms, Christ alone is the head of the church, and each local church should govern itself according to Scripture without outside interference. This means no denominational hierarchy, church courts, or ruling boards dictating a church’s actions. From the beginning, Baptists practiced elder-led congregational rule with a strong preference for a plurality of elders when possible, which clearly distinguished them from Presbyterians and others.

Local autonomy would later become complicated in American Baptist history. While Baptists always affirmed autonomy, they also formed associations for fellowship and cooperative ministry. At times, those associations blurred the line between cooperation and denominational control, creating occasional controversy.

Liberty of Conscience

Most of us recognize baptism as a Baptist distinctive, and many would identify congregational polity as well. But there is another Baptist distinctive that may not immediately come to mind. Yet, it lies at the heart of the entire Baptist movement in England and early America: liberty of conscience.

In what became the most enduring Baptist confession, the 1689 Second London Confession, Baptists wrote, “God alone is Lord of the conscience and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men that are contrary to, or not contained in, His Word.” God alone rules the conscience. Therefore, the magistrate has no rightful authority to coerce religious belief or worship because the conscience belongs to God.

Later, the Confession states, “Civil rulers must not assume the administration of the Word and sacraments or interfere in matters of faith. They are to protect the church so believers may worship God freely.” Civil government is ordained to preserve justice, peace, and social order, but it has no authority to shape church doctrine or practice. Church and state have distinct jurisdictions under God.

Here, Baptists parted ways with other Reformed churches. The Westminster Confession allowed magistrates a supervisory role in church affairs, but Baptists explicitly rejected that position. They understood, both biblically and experientially, the dangers of church-state entanglement.

If this final point feels surprising, it will soon become clear why religious freedom became a defining mark of early Baptists. In fact, we have early American Baptists to thank for the religious freedom we enjoy today. We will come to that in time.

Setting the Stage For the Baptist Story

For now, let’s consider the beginning of the Baptist story.

In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Luther and the Reformers challenged the authority of the pope, rejected the sacramental system of salvation, and insisted that Scripture alone is our final authority and that sinners are justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. As these doctrines spread, entire nations were affected, including England.

England’s reform, however, developed uniquely. In 1534, King Henry VIII, primarily motivated by politics, passed the Act of Supremacy, declaring himself “Supreme Head of the Church of England.” The Church of England was still essentially Catholic at that point. Henry was not seeking religious reform; he wanted the church under his control rather than Rome’s. But over time, the theology of the Church of England gradually reformed until it was no longer Catholic but distinctly Anglican.

This was not a smooth process. Each time a new monarch came to power, the nation either moved further toward Protestantism or attempted to pull back. By 1559, Queen Elizabeth I declared that reform had gone far enough. The Church of England was now Protestant, and in her view, it did not need further change.

Many disagreed. Though Protestant in doctrine, the Church of England still looked and sounded very much like Rome. From these concerns emerged the Puritan movement, which sought to further purify and reform the Church of England from within.

Eventually, some Puritans concluded that the church was beyond reform and chose to separate. These became the Separatists.

From the Puritan movement would grow Presbyterians and Congregationalists. From the Separatist movement would come other Congregationalists, the Pilgrims who traveled to America, and, eventually, the Baptists. That trajectory sets the stage for where the Baptist story truly begins.

John Smyth and the Road to Separation

Jumping ahead a few years, we meet John Smyth, a well-educated, Cambridge-trained minister in the Church of England. He was a serious man, not a religious radical, but he came under Puritan convictions that the church had not gone far enough in reform. As he studied Scripture and observed the state of the church, he became convinced that the Church of England would never reform comprehensively. He eventually left, became a Separatist, and joined a Separatist congregation in Gainsborough.

But late 16th- and early 17th-century England was a dangerous place to be a Separatist. In 1593, Queen Elizabeth passed the Act Against Seditious Sectaries, specifically targeting them. When King James I took the throne in 1603, he continued to enforce it. Separatist meetings were raided, pastors and members were heavily fined, often to financial ruin, and many were imprisoned for long periods under harsh conditions. Smyth himself spent a year in prison for preaching without a license.

Around 1608, Smyth and his congregation fled to Amsterdam, where there was significantly more religious freedom. One of Smyth’s former professors, Francis Johnson, was already there, pastoring a Separatist church, and Smyth intended for his congregation to join them. It did not work out that way.

Smyth and Johnson soon clashed over several issues. They disagreed on church leadership. Johnson believed in three distinct leadership offices, while Smyth saw only one in Scripture—pastor or elder—though he did believe in a plurality of elders.

They also disagreed over the use of man-made aids in worship, such as the Book of Common Prayer. Smyth rejected the use of any human-written liturgical material. He went so far as to oppose Bible translations, arguing that since God inspired Scripture in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and since he believed people were capable of learning those languages, translations were unnecessary.

Finally, they disagreed about government financial support. Amsterdam paid English settlers for contributing to the economy, and Johnson’s church received that aid. Smyth argued that churches and ministers should be supported solely by the voluntary giving of their members, not by the state, and that accepting such funds corrupted the church.

The First English-Speaking Baptist Church

Smyth and his congregation left Johnson’s church, but they did not return to England. Around 1609, Smyth became convinced that the New Testament taught only believer’s baptism. He laid out his argument in a treatise titled The Character of the Beast. In it, he argued, first, that baptism symbolizes the baptism of the Spirit, which applies only to believers. Second, Scripture never commands or teaches the baptism of anyone other than believers. Third, the Bible provides no example of anyone but a believer being baptized.

He went further. Smyth called infant baptism a “mark of the beast,” believing it symbolized false religion by granting to unbelievers what belonged only to believers. In his view, it created churches filled with unregenerate people.

This created a serious dilemma. If every church practicing infant baptism were a false or apostate church, where could they go? Catholics baptized infants. Protestants baptized infants. Puritans and Separatists baptized infants. Surrounded by churches he believed were invalid, Smyth concluded he had no choice but to baptize himself.

Critics objected, saying self-baptism was not biblical either. Smyth appealed to the same reasoning Separatists used in forming new congregations: a true church does not need to be planted by another true church. Otherwise, the Protestant Reformation itself would never have progressed. The Separatists argued that as long as believers faithfully followed Scripture, they could separate from a false church and constitute a true one.

This also counters the later Landmark Baptist idea that Baptists must trace an unbroken visible succession back to the apostles without passing through “false” churches. Just as Separatists planted churches without Anglican approval, Smyth argued he did not need an existing minister to baptize him when no such minister existed.

So Smyth baptized himself by affusion, pouring water over himself, and then baptized the rest of the congregation the same way. With this small group of about fifty people, the first English-speaking Baptist church was formed—the first among the Separatists to commit to a regenerate church membership, where identification with the church was reserved for those who had personally embraced the gospel and professed faith.

In this group, we see four of the five Baptist marks already present. Smyth was orthodox, evangelical, and Calvinistic—his writings from 1603 and 1605 strongly defended what we call the doctrines of grace—and the church affirmed regenerate membership expressed through believer’s baptism. The only element not yet clearly articulated was religious liberty, though even that was implied in their decision to leave England in pursuit of freedom to worship according to conscience.

Smyth’s Departure and the Rise of Thomas Helwys

Most church historians identify John Smyth as the starting point for Baptist history. That does not mean there were no earlier believers practicing something like believer’s baptism, biblical church government, or a biblical understanding of church and state. But when we speak of the Baptist Church as we know it today, Smyth is generally the best point of origin.

However, Smyth would not be the man to carry the Baptist movement forward. If the movement depended on him alone, it would have died with him, because he ultimately left it.

In the years following his self-baptism, Smyth first became persuaded of Arminianism. Arminian theology was strong in Amsterdam, and after listening to many debates, he changed his views. He embraced a general atonement—that Christ died for everyone rather than only for the elect—and resistible grace, meaning sinners can reject God’s saving call.

Second, through his growing connection with local Mennonites, Smyth came to regret baptizing himself. He concluded that his decision had been hasty. Since his theology now aligned more closely with the Mennonites than with his Puritan-Separatist background, he reasoned that he should not lead a new church when the Mennonites already existed as what he considered a true church that also practiced believer’s baptism. So he proposed that his congregation join the Mennonite church and receive baptism there. For the most part, they agreed.

The one notable exception was Thomas Helwys. Helwys was a wealthy lay member of the church, possibly the one who funded their move to Amsterdam, and a thoughtful, independent student of Scripture. He followed Smyth to Amsterdam and even followed him into Arminianism, but he refused to follow him into the Mennonite church. Among his reasons, the most significant was the Mennonite denial that Christ received his true humanity from Mary. They taught that Jesus possessed “celestial flesh,” not genuine human flesh.

In time, Smyth drifted further into serious doctrinal error and eventually abandoned orthodoxy. Helwys avoided that trajectory.

Helwys, along with perhaps a dozen others, chose to separate from Smyth and eventually return to England. Despite the danger of persecution, Helwys was convinced that if the Baptist movement was to take root, it needed to be planted in England.

We will pick up that part of the story next time.

In his book The Returning King, Vern Poythress offers a helpful approach to understanding Revelation. He writes:

God is at the center of Revelation. We must start with him and with the contrasts between him and his satanic opponents. If instead we try right away to puzzle out details, it is as if we tried to use a knife by grasping it by the blade instead of the handle. We are starting at the wrong end. Revelation is a picture book, not a puzzle book. Don’t try to puzzle it out. Don’t become preoccupied with isolated details. Rather, become engrossed in the overall story. Praise the Lord. Cheer for the saints. Detest the Beast. Long for the final victory.

I believe he’s right. When we read Revelation, the first step is not to interrogate every detail but to stand back and watch the scenes unfold. As Poythress says, “Revelation is a picture book, not a puzzle book.” Think of it like watching a film on a large screen. The first time you watch, you won’t notice every small detail, and you don’t need to. You take in the whole story as it moves before you. Just immerse yourself in the scene and watch it unfold.

The Scroll in God’s Hand

In Revelation 5, the apostle John has been taken into God’s throne room in heaven. In the previous chapter, we read,

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. (Revelation 4:1–2)

From there, John sees the majesty of God and everyone in heaven worshiping him.

As we move into chapter 5, God is still seated on his throne, but now he is holding a scroll. This was likely a long papyrus scroll. In the first century, writing material was rare and valuable, so every inch was used front and back. That appears to be the case here, “a scroll written within and on the back” (Revelation 5:1).

These scrolls were rolled up for storage and often sealed with wax. Sometimes they were sealed multiple times. This scroll is “sealed with seven seals” (Revelation 5:1). There may have been one seal on the outside and additional seals as it was unrolled. To read the entire document, all seven seals had to be broken.

We’re not told directly what is inside, but the seals themselves tell us it is significant. In the ancient world, a king might seal official or private communication so that only someone with proper authority could open it.

So who is authorized to open this scroll? John writes,

And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. (Revelation 5:2–3)

Then he adds, “I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it” (Revelation 5:4).

A mighty angel is there. The four living creatures from chapter 4 are there. The twenty-four elders are there. Thousands upon thousands of angels fill the scene. Yet no one in the entire universe can break the seals. That reality devastates John. It reduces him to tears.

Naturally, we are left asking, “What is in that scroll?”

Why the Scroll Must Be Opened

John isn’t explicitly told what is in the scroll, but he clearly understands its importance. He knows it must be opened, and when he hears that no one can do so, he begins to sob. He is devastated. So what is in that scroll?

In short, the scroll represents God’s plan and purpose for all of human history. We learn this because, in the following chapters, the scroll is opened. As it unfolds, it reveals God’s comprehensive plan to judge evil, vindicate his people, and bring history to its appointed end.

We can understand John’s despair by considering what would not happen if the scroll remained sealed:

• Revelation 6: the martyrs of the faith would never be avenged.

• Revelation 8: the prayers of the saints would not be answered—namely, “your will be done; your kingdom come.”

• Revelation 9: God’s eternal plan would not be accomplished.

• Revelation 11: the kingdom of the world would not become the kingdom of our Lord.

• Revelation 16-18: the wicked would not be judged.

• Revelation 20-21: God would not reign in glory in the new heavens and the new earth.

In other words, all of God’s promises would fail, and we would be left without hope.

That is why John is devastated. He knows this scroll contains the unfolding of God’s promises throughout history and into eternity. He knows the promises of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the rest. If this scroll remains sealed, none of those promises can be fulfilled.

John is not overreacting. The angel asks, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” (Revelation 5:2). John waits, looking for someone to step forward, but no one does. He realizes “no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it” (Revelation 5:3). The moment feels utterly hopeless, so he begins to “weep loudly” (Revelation 5:4).

I see glimpses of this kind of despair at the funeral home from time to time. While many people assume there is a heaven, I sometimes meet families who do not believe in God, do not believe in heaven, and have no sense that their loved one is in a so-called better place. For them, death is final. There is nothing more for the one they love, and no hope for themselves. Their grief becomes a cry of hopeless despair, directed toward no one. It is heartbreaking to hear.

In a sense, that is where John is. He weeps because his hope has been crushed. If that scroll is not opened, human history ends in darkness.

The Worthy One Appears

Then we come to verse 5: “One of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals’” (Revelation 5:5).

There is someone who can break the seals and open the scroll. There is someone worthy after all. Who is he?

In describing this Worthy One, the elder reaches back to the Old Testament, which is fitting because John’s despair hinges on whether those Old Testament promises will be fulfilled. The elder reminds him that those promises were all centered on a Person.

Consider Genesis 49. Jacob gathers his twelve sons and says, “I [will] tell you what shall happen to you in days to come” (Genesis 49:1). Concerning Judah, he says,

“Judah, your brothers shall praise you;
your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
your father’s sons shall bow down before you.
Judah is a lion’s cub;
from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He stooped down; he crouched as a lion
and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?
The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” (Genesis 49:8–10)

From Judah’s line would come one as fierce as a lion over his prey. No one would stand against him. The scepter of a king would never leave his hand. He would rule forever. One day, “every knee should bow … and every tongue confess that [this Man] is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11). Truly, “to him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Genesis 49:10).

So when John hears the title “the Lion of the tribe of Judah,” his mind surely returns to that promise (Revelation 5:5).

Then he hears another title: “the Root of David” (Revelation 5:5). This comes directly from Isaiah 11: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse [David’s father], and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” (Isaiah 11:1).

Isaiah describes how “the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him” (Isaiah 11:2), much like when the Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism. Jesus was a descendant of both Judah and David. Isaiah then portrays both Jesus’ righteous judgment in his first coming and the fullness of his reign in the age to come.

He goes on to paint a picture of the new heaven and new earth brought about by the root of David:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb…
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea…
In that day the root of Jesse… shall stand as a signal for the peoples… and his resting place shall be glorious. (Isaiah 11:6–10)

This root of Jesse, the Son of David, is Jesus Christ. That is the one the elder is pointing to. Only someone who is all that the Old Testament promised and who can do all that the Old Testament promised is worthy to open the scroll.

John fears that these promises may never be fulfilled because no one can open the scroll, but the elder says, in essence, “Look again at those promises.” Judgment of the wicked, salvation of the righteous, obedience of the nations, an eternal kingdom of peace— All of it was always going to be fulfilled by someone, that is, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah [and] the Root of David” (Revelation 5:5).

And the elder declares, “He has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals” (Revelation 5:5).

The Lion Who Is a Lamb

At this moment, it is as though the four living creatures and the elders near God’s throne shift so John can finally see this Man, this Lion. Only he is not a lion at all: “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” (Revelation 5:6).

This is far more humble than we might expect. We were prepared for a giant of a man, a powerful figure like a roaring lion. Instead, John sees a meek lamb—and not simply a lamb, but one that has been slain. There is hardly a more humble image.

Yet this is precisely how the Lion conquered. He conquered by becoming a slain Lamb. Advancing the paradox, the slain Lamb is standing. He bears the marks of death, yet he lives. He has risen, and therefore he is victorious.

John should not be surprised. From the beginning, God has shown that victory over sin would come through bloodshed and humble sacrifice.

When Adam and Eve sinned, God covered their shame with garments of skin, requiring the death of an animal (Genesis 3:21). When Abraham was tested on Mount Moriah, God provided a ram as a substitute for Isaac (Genesis 22:13). At Passover, Israel was spared because a lamb’s blood marked their doors (Exodus 12:13).

Later, Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah as a humble servant “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7), pierced and crushed not for his sins but for the sins of his people: “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he cried, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

The Lamb is worthy to open the scroll because he was slain. Verse 9 declares, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God” (Revelation 5:9).

His worthiness is grounded in his sacrifice. His authority to unfold history flows from his obedience unto death. He earned this right not through brute power but through humility.

Paul writes,

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus … he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him … that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow … and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord… (Philippians 2:5–11)

Humiliation leads to exaltation. The cross was not a defeat or a delay on the way to victory. The cross was the victory.

Victory Secured at the Cross

At the cross, Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame (Colossians 2:15). At the cross, the serpent’s head was crushed even as Jesus’ heel was bruised (Genesis 3:15). At the cross, sin was condemned in the flesh (Romans 8:3). At the cross, the debt that stood against us was canceled (Colossians 2:14).

At the cross, the curse of the law was borne and exhausted, for “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). At the cross, the righteous wrath of God against sin was poured out and satisfied, so that he might be “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). At the cross, reconciliation was accomplished as enemies were made friends, for “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10).

At the cross, the dividing wall of hostility was torn down, and peace was proclaimed, as he “has made us both one” and “reconciled us both to God in one body through the cross” (Ephesians 2:14-16). At the cross, forgiveness was secured once for all because “in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” (Ephesians 1:7). At the cross, the conscience was cleansed so that those who draw near may do so “with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience” (Hebrews 10:22).

At the cross, death itself was defanged, for Jesus destroyed “the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). At the cross, the fear of death that enslaved humanity was broken (Hebrews 2:15). At the cross, the new covenant was inaugurated in his blood, securing eternal redemption, not merely temporary relief (Luke 22:20; Hebrews 9:12).

At the cross, the way into the Holy Place was opened as the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). At the cross, sinners were justified and counted righteous apart from works, because “one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (Romans 5:18). At the cross, the love of God was displayed beyond dispute: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

So it was at the cross that the victory of the Lion was secured through the sacrifice of the Lamb. This is how he conquered. This is why he is worthy to open the scroll.

The martyrs will be avenged because the Lamb has already borne the greater judgment in their place. The prayers of the saints will be answered because the Lamb stands as their intercessor, holding bowls filled with incense before the throne (Revelation 5:8; Romans 8:34). The kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord because the Lamb purchased people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” by his blood (Revelation 5:9). The wicked will be judged because the Lamb who was slain is also the one to whom all judgment has been given (John 5:22). And the new heavens and the new earth will come because the Lamb makes all things new (Revelation 21:5).

Everything hinges on the slain Lamb. Without him and his sacrifice, the scroll remains sealed. History has no meaning, death has the final word, evil goes unanswered, and hope collapses. But because the Lamb was slain, and because he stands, the scroll is opened, history moves forward, the promises are secured, and the end is sure.

Many of the Bible’s promises are not yet fully seen. We live between the first and second comings of Christ, so we continually look back to the cross to remember what the Lamb accomplished and look forward to what he will complete when he comes. As we remember and wait, we join the song of heaven: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” (Revelation 5:13).

Amen.