Israelite worship

Purpose of the Temple of Solomon

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The temple as the focal point of Israelite worship served as a protection against idolatry. It stood for the covenant between the Lord and Israel and was the place where God might be approached in celebration and propitiation.

The outstanding feature of the Solomonic temple is that there was no idol in it, only the mercy seat over the ark and the cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat, declaring to the world that idols are unnecessary to define the presence of God or his sanctity. Because the lightless room could only be reached through a specific ritual, at a specified annual time, for the purpose of making reconciliation for the people, the “house of Yahweh” in Jerusalem was not considered a cosmic house of God but emphasized the way of salvation to the penitent and assured to them the grace of God for their joy and blessing (1 Kings 8:27–30). God was not localized or in any sense conveyed by an image, either Egyptian, Babylonian, or Canaanite, nor bound to any other form such as the ark. The temple, therefore, was not necessary because of God’s nature; he had no need of it (Acts 7:48–49). It was an accommodation to the limitations and needs of his people (1 Kings 8:27–30).

That contemporary peoples had temples is not sufficient grounds to justify the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. Though David saw this lack as a problem (2 Sam. 7:2), it was not the reason for which David sought to build God’s house. A sufficient cause, among others, is that found in Deuteronomy 12, where the temple was to be a protective memorial for believing Israel, designed to turn their hearts away from the idols of their Palestinian contemporaries and provide them with an incentive (thus protective) not to practice the iniquities of the Canaanites, and with a memorial to the person of their God, who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the land of Canaan.

In addition to the practical good of centralized worship, a central cultic house was important to the covenant structure of Yahweh with Israel. The loyalty of Israel to Yahweh her God was expressed in the sacrifices and offerings that were presented at the temple. The high places of the various tribes divided the people and were disruptive of their loyalty to God; they diverted from him his rightful due as their Creator and Lord, and for this reason, the high places were roundly condemned. The temple thus became an affirmation by Israel of the covenant. The temple was needed to express clearly Israel’s attachment to the covenant. That David was not allowed to build the temple does not mean that Yahweh would not dwell in one, but rather that the time was not propitious (cf. 2 Sam. 7:5–7, 11; Deut. 12:11).

For Israel, the temple was to be the place where, particularly in three annual festivals, they were to rejoice before their God and remember his great blessings to them (Deut. 12:12). David was the recipient of centuries of this outlook and came to realize the need for this central sanctuary for unity among the people. Thus Israel’s temple in Jerusalem was from the first to differ from those of their contemporaries. Only the place God would choose was to be the center of their worship, where his judgments were to be sought, and where they were to remember particularly their deliverances (Deut. 26:1–3).

The selection of the place of dwelling for the name of Yahweh occurred during the peculiar happenings of David’s numbering the people (2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Chron. 21). On the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, David was commanded to set up an altar of propitiation to God to stay the plague. This was declared to be the house, that is, the temple, of God and the place of the (sole) altar of the people Israel (1 Chron. 22:1). It became the place of obedience and propitiation for Israel.

This sanctuary symbolized the hearing ear of God (1 Kings 8:27–29), the resort of the stranger (1 Kings 8:41–43), and the house of prayer for all people (Isa. 56:7), to the end that all nations of the earth should fear God (1 Kings 8:43). In the New Testament, it symbolized the body of Christ (John 2:18–21) as the obedient servant of God for propitiating God’s wrath on the sinner. Further, the temple as God’s dwelling place symbolizes the Christian as the dwelling place of God (1 Cor. 3:16).

In the early days of the church, Stephen, slain for his faith, was evidently going to declare that the people were putting the temple above God, forgetting that he did not really need a temple building in the sense of rooms of stone and wood (Acts 7:44–50; cf. Acts 17:24–25) but that he desired the believing heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:26–27) on which he could impress his law, that is, his nature, which would result in obedience and holiness of life. Thus the temple is mediatorial in all ages, justifying Stephen’s position.

Israelite Worship’s Relevance for Christian Worship

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Because the God of Israel and the God of the Christian church are the same God, it is not surprising that their patterns of worship have strong similarities. Christian worship has much to gain from the study and appreciation of the worship of ancient Israel.

Visual Impact

In worship, evangelicals in particular have tended to overemphasize the audible aspects of worship to the exclusion of the visible aspects. Primarily in the Lord’s Supper the vitality of tangible and visible presentation has been retained. The Israelite cult is “sacred art.” Only recently has the church begun to grasp the power of acted-out faith and worship in drama. Contemporary worship patterns need a new awareness of the impact of the visible, which is often more effective than the audible. Dramatic presentation of our faith offers a new and creative channel through which the re-presentation of history may be accomplished and the dynamism of the Christian faith may be preserved, so that we may bridge the time and space gap of two thousand years.

Symbolism

Closely related to the visual aspect of worship is the area of symbolism. The temple in Jerusalem was filled with symbolism, not merely as decorative art, but as a means of re-creating history. The ark of the covenant, the central cult object, stood in its semidarkness as the throne of the invisible King Yahweh. The altar of incense, standing before the Holy of Holies, continually emitted sweet-smelling smoke to re-create the theophany of Sinai where Yahweh appeared “in a thick cloud.” The great freestanding pillars outside the temple, at least according to one interpretation, served as mammoth incense burners so that the whole temple came to represent Sinai. The trumpets sounded in the liturgy were more than musical instruments; their sound re-created the thunder of the Sinaitic theophany. It is not necessary to install incense burners in sanctuaries, but an increased realization that cultic symbolism re-creates, re-presents, actualizes, and activates history is necessary. With the renewed emphasis on liturgy and worship, the church can learn much about the place and purpose of creative symbolism from the Israelite cult.

Participation

The Israelite cult was, as the Norwegian exegete Sigmund Mowinckel states, a place where something happened, a fact that is beginning to prompt renovations in church architecture. Renewed emphasis on worship as action and participation by the whole congregation has encouraged the construction of circular buildings with the Communion table at the center. Startlingly, a Northfield, Minnesota, architect has proposed that except for its size, the best analogy for church architecture is the Japanese tea room. The architect Edward Anders Sovik says, “Like a church, the tea room is not a place for private mediation, but for dialogue and certain actions in which human relationships are established.” (cf. E. A. Souvik, Architecture for Worship [Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1973], pp. 76–77). This statement is similar to the ideas of Mowinckel, who spoke of the cult as the “visible and audible expression of the relationship between congregation and deity” (Sigmund Mowinckel, Religion and Kultus [Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1953], p. 13). Thus, the recovery of the dynamism of Israel’s cult may influence our traditional conceptions of sacred architecture with renewed emphasis on the worship as visible and audible, as expressions of relationships, as an event in which “something happens.”

Flexibility

Insight into the Israelite cult grants Christian worship increased flexibility. Old Testament students know that many of Israel’s worship patterns were adapted along the lines of Near Eastern culture, and even the Jerusalem cultus is a compromise between Yahwistic and Jebusite cultic patterns. Israel could and did adopt forms from her contemporary culture, introduce them into her ancient patterns of worship, and baptize them into her distinctive Yahwism. This freedom to employ non-Christian elements in Christian worship must be recovered. While some have viewed attempts to introduce jazz and modern dance into worship as anathema, these experiments are harmonious with the Israelite point of view. The increased use and adaptation of twentieth-century art and music forms offer new and exciting challenges for creative revitalization of Christian worship.

Conclusion

If the God of Israel is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the church claims he is, then to contend that he chooses to be worshiped in similar patterns is not difficult to affirm. The central purpose of both Israelite and Christian worship is to re-present creative history by means of audible and visible expression, a re-presentation that culminates in active response. Perhaps one reason the Christian church has lost much of its vitality in the twentieth century is that it has lost the art of worship because it has divorced itself from the sense of the history that affected its salvation. Recovering that historical status is part and parcel with the revitalizing of the drama of worship.

Israelite Worship As Re-Presentation

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The Israelite cultus, or worship pattern, is responsible primarily for the origin, preservation, and transmission of a large portion of the Old Testament.

Although Old Testament scholars continue to stress Israel’s contributions in such areas as monotheism and ethical prophecy, not enough emphasis has been placed on Israel’s achievement in worship. The purpose of this study is to explore the major lines of Israel’s worship and to suggest the areas in which it can continue to enrich Christian worship.

The purpose of Israelite worship is to create life, that is, to maintain the ordered course of the world of nature and the world of humankind as it was created by God and as it is sustained by God. Encounter with God through worship sustains the world order, reaffirms the human relationship with God’s creation, and maintains relationships among neighbors. Worship sustains, creates, and re-creates a relationship not magically, but sacramentally—a relationship initiated, sustained, and continually renewed by God himself.

In Israelite worship, the overriding purpose was the “re-presentation of history,” the contemporizing of those creative, historical acts of salvation that had formed, nourished, and sustained Israelite existence. None will deny that the faith of Israel was historically oriented, based on the fact that God credeemed a people from Egyptian bondage, welded them into a covenant people through the Torah, and confirmed that salvation by the gift of the land. Whatever tribes or clans actually experienced the Egyptian Exodus event, all Israel affirmed that God had acted in her behalf, that Yahweh had served Israel, and that this salvation was a continuing process in her existence. To be sure, the Exodus event occurred only once, at a particular point in human history, a unique and unrepeatable act. But Israel, uniquely conscious of history, could not allow this formative event to recede into timeless myth as her Near Eastern neighbors would have done. In no sense could the Exodus event be subject to annual repetition in the same way Marduk in Babylon annually defeated the chaotic Tiamat—the uniqueness of the Exodus event precluded annual cyclic recurrence. Nevertheless, Israel’s worship sustained the faith that because God had acted once, he would continue to act for her salvation. Thus, Israel, freed from the reduction of her past to myth and assured of the continuation of redemptive history, “re-presented” in worship those historical acts that were determinative for her life.

These functions are primary to Israelite worship: to actualize, to re-present unrepeatable historical events, to bring the worshiper into an existential identification with these events, to bridge the time and space gap, and to participate in the original history. In Israelite worship, each generation vicariously entered into that original and nonrepeatable history through two patterns: (1) historical recital and (2) dramatic re-presentation.