“JUST SO YOU WORSHIP”

Hugo McCord

It is easy to say, “What you do in worship is unimportant, just so you worship.” But the divine Being teaches that what one does in worship is also important, and that if what one does is of human origin the worship is worthless: “they worship me in vain,” says the Lord, “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9; John 4:24).

Since Abel offered animal sacrifices “by faith”, and since faith comes by hearing God’s word, the necessary inference is that God’s word had specified animal sacrifices (Genesis 4:4; Romans 10:17; Hebrews 11:4). It cannot be that God had told Abel that animal sacrifices were required and had not told Cain. If God is love, and if he is no respecter of persons, both of the brothers had received the same instructions from God (1 John 4:8; Acts 10:34). God did not say, “What you sacrifice is unimportant, just so you worship.”

It is doubtful that the brothers knew why God had specified animal sacrifices. By hindsight you and I know that God already had the sacrifice of Jesus in mind, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). But Abel did what God said simply because God had said to do it.

Cain killed Abel, and lied to the Lord (“‘Where is your brother Abel?’ He replied, ‘I do not know’”, Genesis 4:9). Those two sins were committed, says the apostle John, “because his works were evil, and his brother’s righteous” (1 John 3:12). The only works we know of causing those two sins were about his offering in worship what the Lord had not commanded, namely, vegetables instead of animals. Thus it is “evil” to do something in worship which the Lord has not commanded.

But after Cain’s rejected worship service, still there was hope. God loved Cain, and Cain could have repented, and “do what is right” and “be accepted”, said the Lord (Genesis 4:7, NIV). What “is right”? “All your commands are righteous” (Psalm 119:172).

But, said the Lord, “if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door”, and “it desires to have you” (Genesis 4:7, NIV). The Lord’s picturing sin as a voracious animal bent down ready to pounce on a victim was done to lead Cain to repentance. For vividness he personified sin, and so the word should be capitalized.

The Lord knew, if Cain would make up his mind, he could master Sin, and the Lord challenged and urged him to do it, using the word “you” twice: “You, you master him!” (Genesis 4:7, FHV). What a scene! One soul, though in sin, is so valuable the busy administrator of the universe takes time for a one on one attempt at restoration! Cain, like all of us, could have mastered Sin, could “have conquered the Evil One”, but he refused to do so (1 John 2:14, FHV).

Are Christians today to pay any attention to this old history? The New Testament pronounces a woe to those who walk in the “way of Cain” (Jude 11). What is the “way of Cain”? It is to say “what you do in worship is unimportant, just so you worship.”

In the time of Nadab and Abihu, the Lord ordered that “the fire on the altar shall be kept burning”; it “shall not go out,” being daily replenished with “wood” (Leviticus 6:12). The only place specified for a priest to get “coals of fire” for his incense burner (mahtah, censer, fire-holder) was “from the altar before Yahweh” (Leviticus 16:12). For an unknown reason, Nadab and Abihu obtained coals of fire for their censers from another source (Leviticus 10:1).

Their fire, not coming from the sacred altar, Moses said was zarah, translated as “strange” (KJV, ASV, NASV), “unauthorized” (NIV), “illegitimate” (NWT), and “unholy” (NRS). Their action so angered the Lord that he immediately burned them alive. God made it clear that the doctrine is false that says, “what you do in worship is unimportant, just so you worship.”

Specifically, Moses declared that the two priests had done what the Lord “had not commanded” (Leviticus 10:1, ASV, NASV), “had not prescribed” (NWT), and that what was done was “contrary to his [God’s] command” (NIV). Anyone doing that which the Lord has “not commanded” is thus setting the Lord aside, and placing himself in charge.

Some have attempted to remove the actual cause of the cremation of the two priests by asserting that the place where they obtained the fire was not really important, but that Nadab and Abihu were both drunk from wine and strong drink, and so some are asserting that the Lord condemned them for their drunkenness. This they allege is true, for the Lord’s prohibition of wine and strong drink for priests on duty is placed in the text close to the cremation account (Leviticus 10:8-11). But the proximity of verses 8-11 to verses 1-3 in no wise puts liquor in the mouths of Nadab and Abihu. Such far-fetched speculation appears to be an attempt to nullify the reason that Moses gave for the cremation: the priests did something which the Lord “had not commanded them.”

As Cain did that which the Lord had not commanded, and as Nadab and Abihu did that which the Lord had not commanded, so King Saul did that which the Lord had not commanded (1 Samuel 15:9). His putting himself in charge, saving the best of the sheep and cattle, displeased the Lord. The prophet Samuel did not say to the king, “what you do in worship is unimportant, just so you worship.” Instead, his words were, “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22).

Uzzah, the son of Abinadab, likewise did that which the Lord had not commanded, taking hold of the untouchable sacred box called “the ark of the covenant”, and the Lord killed him (Numbers 4:15; 2 Samuel 6:6-7).

Are these Old Testament examples to mean anything to New Testament people? Truly it can be said that one of the reasons for the preservation of all of the Old Testament books is that “they were written” as “warnings” for “our instruction” (1 Corinthians 10:6, 11, FHV).

Also, the New Testament has preserved another example of people doing that which the Lord had not commanded. Among the first century Jews, hand washing before a meal was done not only for cleanliness, but as an act of worship. Jesus did not say “what you do in worship is not important, just so you worship.” Instead, he told them their worship was “vain” because it had been humanly devised, being “the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9).

Whether a sacrifice be animal or vegetable, whether fire for a censer comes from the altar or from a kitchen, whether the best sheep should be spared for a worship service, whether a sacred box is untouchable, whether hands are washed as an act of worship, all of these matters may seem trivial. But it is clear that the Lord considers anything not commanded as major.

People who set the Lord aside and put themselves in charge think that having a machine to accompany singing in worship is a trivial matter, unworthy of discussion. To be consistent they would also have to say that rosaries and censers and prayer candles and holy water and images and dancing in New Testament worship are all trivial matters, unworthy of discussion. They would also say that “more important matters should concern us,” and “just so you worship” none of these things matter.

But voices from the dead (Cain, Nadab and Abihu, King Saul, Uzza, and the first century Jews) speak loudly, telling us that where the Bible speaks, we should speak, and where it is silent, we should be silent. Both the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Proverbs 30:6) and the New Testament (1 Corinthians 4:6, ASV; 2 John 9-11; Revelation 22:18-19) leave no uncertain sound that any human being bold to add or to subtract from the Lord’s teachings is a sinner. The Lord’s silence is always prohibitive, never permissive. Is a human being humble or presumptuous who dares to speak when God is quiet?