maranatha

The Significance of New Testament Hymns to Christ

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New Testament hymns to Christ celebrate what he did before Creation, his mission of incarnation and reconciliation, and his present exalted position as Lord of the universe. In so doing, they counter heretical ideas that were influencing some segments of the early church.

The Reason for Christological Hymns

The teasing question asks what purpose was served by these Christological hymns. The examples we may point to in Paul’s writing suggest that they were well known in the various churches, or why would Paul have taken them over, sometimes with slight—if important—adaptation? They were clearly fresh creations and not simply a reworking of ancient Jewish or messianic texts, though their imagery and idiom have identifiable echoes drawn from the biblical literature. They were also more extensive in length and scope than either the messianic psalms or the fragments of creedal statement that can be spotted very obviously in Paul’s pastoral discussions in such places as Romans 10:9–10, 1 Corinthians 12:3, and Colossians 2:6; these are all variations on the creedal “Jesus is Lord” motif.

Hymns As a Response to Gnostic Ideas

What was the “catalyst” for the creation of the more elaborate “hymns to Christ”? The delicate issue is to ascertain why this hymnic praise to Christ took the shape it evidently did, namely in celebration of what Christ was and did before Creation and in his mission of incarnation and reconciliation that led to a universal acknowledgment that he is now installed as Lord of all worlds and ruler of every agency, heavenly, human, and demonic.

The reason may be traced to a serious threat to the Pauline kērugma associated with a religious attitude known generically as gnōsis. As early as the situation in 1 Corinthians, a rival understanding of the Christian message arose, partly drawn from the prevailing Greco-Roman religious scene and partly as an attempt to turn the church into a Hellenistic conventicle. The fullest example is seen in the crisis that prompted the writing of Colossians and perhaps the Pastorals and Ephesians. Gnostic teachers offered a teaching that quickly challenged the apostolic message as Paul had delivered it and imposed their presence on the churches of the Pauline mission. The tenets of this “alternative gospel” are seen in features such as these: (1) a denial of the lordship of Christ as the sole intermediary between God and the world; (2) the insidious relaxing of the moral fiber, which led Christians to be indifferent to bodily lusts and sins; and (3) the uncertainty that underlay the meaning of life, since the star gods still held sway and needed to be placated. At this point, we uncover an important fact: the main specimens of New Testament hymns address the various situations in which the presence of Gnostic ideas has been suspected and form the polemical counterthrust to deviant teaching in the areas of doctrine and morals.

These threats form a network of ideas and practices that are built on a single notion, namely a dualism that separated God from the world. In Gnostic thought, God is pure spirit who, by definition, is both untouched by matter and has no direct dealings with the material order. The Creation of the universe was relegated to the work of an inferior deity, sometimes linked with the God of the Old Testament. The interstellar space between the high God and the world was thought to be populated with a system of emanations or aeons in a connected series and stretching from God to the point at which contact with matter, which was regarded as evil, was just possible. In the Colossian teaching that threatened the church in the Lycus valley, Christ was evidently given a role as one aeon in a hierarchy and treated as himself part of the network spun off from the emanating power of the high God.

The “fullness” (plēroma) of aeons that filled the region between heaven and earth was somehow thought to contain “elemental spirits,” which in turn the Colossians needed to venerate (Col. 2:8, 18). Nor was there any assurance that a person’s destiny was secure since the regimen of “decrees” (dogmata, Col. 2:20–21) imposed an ascetic way of life, which, being essentially negative, gave no certainty of salvation and inspired no confidence that these astral deities had been successfully overcome. Life’s mystery remained to haunt the devotee, and he or she was virtually imprisoned in a mesh of superstition, fear, and uncertainty with no way to break the iron grip of astrological control and cultic taboos. What was needed—as we learn from contemporary tributes of praise offered to deities in the mystery religions—was fellowship with a mighty god or goddess who would lift his or her adherents out of this imprisoning circle and give assurance of salvation and new life. Not surprisingly, the delivering deity was hailed as “lord” (kurios) and “savior” (sōter).

Paul’s use of the traditional hymns directed to Christ exactly met the need of his congregations. The ruling idea in such Christological tributes as survive is a portrayal of the odyssey of Christ. His course is surveyed from his life in the Father’s presence, where he functions as God’s alter ego or “image,” to include his descent and humiliation in obedience and on to his exaltation in heaven, where he receives the accolade of a title and a new dignity as ruler of all (cosmokratōr). The imagery is one of descent/ascent, which replaces the Judaic model of rejection/vindication current in earlier Christianity.

But the real point of distinction has more to do with an exploration of the cosmological role attributed to the person of Christ. There is a double way in which that adjective came to be applied. First, his preexistence and pretemporal activity in creation were made the frontispiece of the hymns. The existence of Christ is taken back to speak of a relationship with God he enjoyed “in the beginning.” Whether the raw materials of this idea derived from wisdom speculation or from the idea of a heavenly man or from an idealized picture of Adam cannot be ascertained; what matters is that as a direct response to the threatening charge that Christ was part of an angelic hierarchy and so linked more with the creation than the Creator, the early church in its outreach to Gentiles came quickly to trace back his being to the very life of God himself. This was done not in a developed way nor, at this stage, as a piece of theologizing, but by attributing to the cosmic Christ an active share in the glory of God (Phil. 2:6) and a role in the creating of the world (Col. 1:15; cf. John 1:1–3). His protological significance was seen as a necessary part of his true being since only if he existed with God and was God at the beginning (John 1:1) was he able to be linked with creation not as part of it but as its maker and ground plan. And only on the assumption of his preexistent relationship with God could these confessional texts meaningfully speak of Christ’s “being sent” (Rom. 8:3, 32; Gal. 4:4) or alternatively of his “choosing” to accept the humility of incarnation and obedience (2 Cor. 8:9; Phil. 2:6–8).

Second, at the conclusion of his earthly life, he took his place in God’s presence by receiving universal homage and the acclamation of cosmic spirit powers that confessed his lordship and so were forced to abandon their title to control over human destiny. This eschatological dimension, heralding the dawn of a new age already glimpsed as a present reality—since “Jesus Christ is Lord”—would be important to assure believers that their lives were safe under the protection of the reigning Christ. The church that sang the text of Philippians 2:6–11 knew itself to be living in that new world where, all external appearances to the contrary, the astral powers were defeated and Christ, the sole ruler of all the worlds, was truly Lord. His lordship offered the living assurance they needed to face their contemporary world with its many “gods” and “lords” (1 Cor. 8:5–6) and to rebut the false ideas, both theological and practical, that their lives were the playthings of fate or chance or in the grip of an iron determinism. The enthronement of Jesus Christ “to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:11) gave confidence that God had brought victory out of defeat, installed his son as world ruler, and now wore the face of Jesus Christ, whose characteristic name for God was “Father” (note that the hymn of Philippians 2 ends with this word, as though to betoken a restoration of men and women in God’s family).

Conclusion

We have seen clear signs of Christian hymns that are in transition. The idioms and concepts the hymns use vary with a changing cultural scene so that Judaic messianic canticles no longer served the needs of Pauline churches in Hellenistic society; new forms needed to be created, while there was still a reluctance to cut ties with the past. The Aramaic maranatha persisted even in a Greek-speaking environment like Corinth. So, we may say, modern hymns should express a cultural sensitivity to modern needs, without rejecting the best of our heritage.

The use of hymns as weapons of warfare is seen already in the New Testament period. Paul exploits traditional hymns (if we are correct in seeing pre-Pauline examples in Phil. 2:6–11 and Col. 1:15–20), yet he suitably adapts the hymnic material to bring out emphases he felt were in danger of being neglected or denied. He can add phrases like “death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8) and “the church” (Col. 1:18) to underscore the atonement wrought at the Cross (against any idea of automatic cosmic reconciliation). Repeatedly in church history, the hymnbook has kept the people of God on course and faithful to their apostolic deposit of faith.

The genius of the Christian hymn on its New Testament side is the carmen Christi, the worship in song offered to the exalted Lord (Rev. 5:9–12). Admittedly there remains a tension the New Testament writers are apparently content to live with. They are too unflinching in their monotheism to accord any veneration to God’s creation, even where the angels are proposed as mediators (Col. 2:18). The finale of Philippians 2:6–11 ensures that the confession “Jesus Christ is Lord” is made “to the glory of God the Father.” The throne of Revelation 5:13 is occupied by both God and “the Lamb.” Yet as Christ’s saving achievement in bringing the world back to God implies that he has done what God alone can do, it was a natural step for a functional Christology to take on a Trinitarian formulation. And that implies, too, that the first Christians made in worship the decisive step of setting the exalted Christ on a par with God as the recipient of their praise. Hymnody and Christology thus merged in the worship of the one Lord. And, from the controversy to the modern Christology debate, the litmus test remains:

That the Maker should become man and should even go to death for the love of man—that astonishing thing evoked rapturous praise from believers.

Christological Psalms

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Early Christian hymnody was influenced by the tradition of psalm singing in the temple. The hymns of the New Testament church served both a doxological and an apologetic function.

Introduction

In a useful series of essays titled “Modern Issues in Biblical Studies,” published in Expository Times a generation ago, one notable contribution was “The Evidence in the New Testament for Early Creeds, Catechisms, and Liturgy” (Expository Times 71 [1960]: pp. 359–363). Professor G. W. H. Lampe’s far-ranging essay was prescient in several ways. For instance, it accurately pinpointed the direction in which liturgical and ecumenical studies were moving as, in the following decades, they have sought to build on a firm biblical base in such controversial practices as baptism, the Eucharist, and the role of Mary, the Lord’s mother. Lampe’s survey also paid tribute to the gains accruing to New Testament study from an application of the principles of form criticism. More recent interest in the traditional history and the redaction criticism of the New Testament liturgical passages has produced a spate of articles and books on the setting of the New Testament churches at worship. A valiant attempt has been made—with some measure of success—to press back behind the canonical New Testament documents to the pulsating life of the worship congregations in which these pieces of literature first took shape.

The aim of this study is to take up one aspect of recent research that stands at the meeting point of New Testament academic study and the liturgical interest that is shared not only by professional liturgiologists but equally by ministers and by all who have a concern for a more adequate expression of the church’s praise of God. The center of our interest is the age-old practice of singing hymns.

What kind of precedent is there for that part of our worship in which all the participants are directly involved? Geoffrey Wainwright’s comment (in Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine, and Life, [New York: Oxford University Press, 1980], p. 200) expresses a judgment that can hardly be disputed:

Singing is the most genuinely popular element in Christian worship. Familiar words and music, whether it be repeated response to biddings in a litany or the well-known phrases of a hymn, unite the whole assembly.

The concern posed by the following discussion asks two questions: (1) Granted the church meetings in New Testament times included the use of religious song, can we trace a line of development from one “type” of hymn to other specimens? and (2) What was the “catalyst” that led to the creation of new forms of hymns in the New Testament period, specifically the hymn directed to the praise of Jesus Christ as exalted Lord and ruler of creation?

The Earliest Christian Hymnody

We may begin with the earliest report we have of Christian hymns (1 Cor. 14:26): “everyone has a hymn.” Paul’s word (psalmos) has an unusual connotation, since it could be misunderstood by Greek-speaking people as a special form of musical composition, and yet it would be familiar to readers of the Septuagint who would recognize it as the heading given to many psalms. The suggestion, recently made by Martin Hengel (“Hymn and Christology,” Studia Biblica, 3 [1978], pp. 173–197), is that psalmos would be understood in its non-Greek, therefore Jewish, background. If Paul’s term is deliberately chosen, it would indicate a contribution to Corinthian worship in religious song, which was based on the Hebrew Psalter.

The origin of the church on its Jewish side made it inevitable that the first followers of the risen Jesus, themselves Jews by birth and tradition, would wish to express their devotion in a way to which they were accustomed. But did the synagogue pattern of worship include the use of religious song? The evidence is difficult to interpret, and it is safest to conclude that psalm-singing was confined to the temple and its choirs, while the Palestinian synagogues adopted a severely didactic form of worship based on a sequence of prayers, Scripture lections, homily, and confession of Israel’s faith.

This distinction may well have held for Palestinian Judaism or at least for Judaism in its orthodox center at Jerusalem. But clearly the practices of sectarian groups at Qumran, and among the Therapeutae according to Philo, did include a celebration in song shared by all the community members. In the world of the Jewish Dispersion, the Hellenistic synagogues were more open to this type of worship. It may be, as Hengel suggests, that the excluding of hymns from the orthodox synagogues was a response to the use of hymns among groups the Pharisees judged to be heretical.

The evidence of the Lucan canticles (Luke 1:46–55, the Magnificat; Luke 1:68–79, the Benedictus; Luke 2:14, the Gloria in Excelsis; Luke 2:29–32, the Nunc Dimittis), certain hymnic fragments in the book of Revelation (Rev. 15:3–4), and the early scenes recorded of the Jerusalem church support the conclusion that messianic psalms were being sung in the Jewish-Christian circles that treasured these compositions. The purport of these compositions was partly celebratory but chiefly apologetic and formed part of the theodicy by which the early Christians sought to justify their conviction that God was sovereign in their affairs despite the suffering and opposition they were called on to endure (Acts 4:24–31). The theme of the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in their day linked these messianic pietists with the Qumran covenanters, with the obvious difference that the Jewish Messianists held firmly to the belief that the promised Messiah had come and that his name was Jesus of Nazareth. His sufferings had issued in a triumphant vindication by God (Acts 2:32), attested by Davidic oracles and by their own experience as witnesses. And now Jesus of Nazareth was exalted as head of a messianic community in which alone salvation was offered as a present reality (Acts 2:37–42; 4:10–12).

The Theme of Christ’s Victory

From the early speeches in Acts we may conclude that the leading theme of both their proclamation and worship relating to the understanding of Jesus’ mission was his rejection and vindication, and to illustrate this nexus the proof text appealed to was Psalm 118:

The stone the builders cast aside
Is now the building’s strength and pride. (Ps. 118:22)

The continuance of the theme of victory in Psalm 118:26 apparently found its way into early liturgies as an acclamation heralding the triumphant return of the Messiah, based on his entry into the Holy City (Mark 11:9 and parallels), but soon the text came to be associated with his Parousia in glory. The evidence for the latter idea is the Aramaic prayer call marana tha, “our Lord, come!” found in 1 Corinthians 16:22 and Didachē 10:6. The division of the letters in the original term maranatha so as to yield the translation just given is all but conclusively proved by some recent discoveries from Qumran’s Cave 4 (dated in the Middle Aramaic period). A fresh look at 1 Corinthians 16:22 by J. A. Fitzmeyer in light of Qumran material recently published not only establishes that the Aramaic watchword means “our Lord, come!” but “gives evidence of a veneration of Jesus by early Jewish Christians as the ‘Lord,’ as a figure associated with Yahweh of the Old Testament, even as one on the same level with him, without saying explicitly that he is divine” (J. A. Fitzmeyer, To Advance the Gospel: New Testament Studies [New York: Crossroad, 1981], p. 229). Thus the contention that the earliest believers invoked the risen Jesus as Lord and awaited his return in glorious power rests on a firm linguistic basis.

Yet it was not appropriate to relate his glory to his pretemporal existence (his “preexistence”) or his future lordship at the end of the age. The earliest Christology had a vision of the Easter triumph of the crucified Jesus and its immediate afterglow in his being exalted to the Father’s presence, whence the blessedness of the new age of messianic salvation flowed down to those men and women who in turn were caught up to share his present reign.

Thus one specimen of “religious song” was patterned on the Old Testament Psalter and expressed conscious tribute to the messianic types already available for the fulfillment of Israel’s hope for a coming savior. He was hailed as Jesus of Nazareth, who, after the humiliation of rejection and death, was now raised to his Father’s presence where he enjoyed the divine glory (Acts 7:56). He will come again from his seat at the right hand of God to consummate God’s purposes (for Israel), and in the meanwhile—and it may be as a prelude to his advent—he was invoked to “come” and visit his people who “broke bread” as a sign of their joyful participation in the new age of the messianic banquets soon to be spread and shared (based on Isa. 25). Such examples of psalms applied to Christ may well be accurately called “messianic” tributes, or “Christ psalms.”

Elements of New Testament Worship

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Though the New Testament does not give any detailed information on the structure of the first Christian services, it leaves little room for doubt concerning the basic elements of primitive worship: prayer, praise, confession of sin, confession of faith, Scripture reading and preaching, the Lord’s Supper, and the collection. Early descriptions of Christian worship, such as that in Justin’s Apology, reveal a close similarity to the practice of the synagogue. Even without the synagogue model, however, the fundamental elements would surely have found a place, and distinctive Christian features would have their own origin.

Prayer

Prayer, in the more specific sense of petition, is a constituent element of worship. The first duty of the church between the Ascension and the outpouring of the Spirit was to wait in prayerful expectancy. Persecution quickly forced the Jerusalem church to its knees in common prayer. The needs of Christians, the needs of apostles, and the needs of the world all provided constant material for intercession. Common concern produced common petition. One cannot say exactly how the church prayed. Perhaps a leader prayed for the whole, perhaps individuals prayed in course, perhaps there was the recitation of a form or forms of prayer. Rather surprisingly, there is no immediate reference to a congregational use of the Lord’s Prayer; its use in the Didachē, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (an early Christian manual) is an individual usage (see Chapter 8). The Amen, having acquired a new and even deeper meaning from its use by Jesus (cf. 2 Cor. 1:20), occurs frequently in the New Testament and probably served as a congregational response, as in synagogue worship (cf. Justin, Apology I, 65–67). Stock phrases like maranatha might have been used also (1 Cor. 16:22; cf. Rev. 22:20; Didachē 10, 7); otherwise, it is difficult to see why they should be preserved in Aramaic. Blessings, whether from the Old Testament or in the new Christian form of 2 Corinthians 13:14 or Revelation 22:21, probably came into rapid use. The Epistles especially testify to the emergence of the distinctive vocabulary of Christian worship in the New Testament period. Whatever the forms, however, the essential element of prayer belongs to worship from the very outset, and a genuine Christian service without it is almost unthinkable.

Praise

Closely related to prayer is praise, the confession of God’s nature and works. Indeed, prayer in the form of thanksgiving is itself praise. Almost all the prayers recorded in the New Testament contain an element of doxology. They recall God’s acts and thus sound a note of assurance and triumph. Quite apart from prayer, however, the praise of God has its own place in New Testament worship. The infancy stories show how the life of Christ began with angelic and human canticles that ultimately served as new songs in the congregation. The cry of jubilation uttered by the Lord took quasi-hymnic form. Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn—probably the customary Hallel—at the Last Supper. Paul refers to a psalm at worship in Corinth and to hymns and spiritual songs in Ephesians 5:19. Scholars have discerned possible fragments of early Christian hymns in such passages as Philippians 2:5–11 and 1 Timothy 3:16. The hymns of Revelation show that songs are sung in heavenly as well as earthly worship, though some expositors think Revelation 4–5 might be based on the worship of the congregation. In the earliest period, the Psalter was probably the hymnbook of the church, but if the reference in Pliny’s letter to Trajan (Letters X, 96) is to Christological hymns, it seems that quite early new and more specifically Christian hymns found a place in the confession of praise.

Confession of Sin

The confession of sin is at the heart of worship, for as the worthiness of God is exalted, the unworthiness of man demands acknowledgment. The prayers and psalms of the Old Testament are full of the recognition of guilt, which obviously goes hand in hand with a plea for forgiveness and restitution, and with praise and thanks for the divine mercy and pardon. In the New Testament, the gospel is by its very nature a divine word to sinners. The baptism of John is a summons to repentance and conversion. Jesus takes up the same call, followed by his apostles, in the first preaching of Acts. Peter, confronted by Jesus, confesses that he is a sinful man (Luke 5:8). The prayer God hears in the temple is the penitent prayer of the publican rather than the self-congratulatory prayer of the Pharisee (Luke 18:9–14). In the church’s worship, the great occasion for the confession of sin is at baptism, when the old life of sin is renounced and the new life of faith and obedience is begun. In post-apostolic days the public confession of specific faults was required when the excommunicated sought readmittance. It may be seen from 1 John 1:8–10, however, that confession of sins to God, whether individually or in concert, played a continuing role in the life of believers. Paul, in his letters, refers again and again to the utter dependence of himself and all believers on the divine mercy. Thus, although there is no great evidence of specific prayers of confession in New Testament worship, this element must be presupposed as the basis of all prayer and praise. Prayer itself has to be in the name of Jesus since there is nothing in oneself or in one’s own name that could constitute a valid ground of either access or answer (cf. the role of Jesus as high priest and intercessor in Heb. 7).

Confession of Faith (Baptism)

In the Old Testament the Shƒma‘, though primarily a commandment, served also as a confession of faith: “The Lord our God is one Lord.” As such it had found its way into the worship of the synagogue. Though the Lord gave it added attention, it was not adopted by the early church. The main reason was not that this basic confession was abandoned but rather that there had now been added the distinctive Christian confession “Jesus is Lord.” The faith of the primitive church is faith in Jesus as Savior and God. Peter makes this primary affirmation in Matthew 16:16. It is seen again in Thomas’s confession (John 20:28). John’s gospel was written with a view to the lordship of Jesus (John 20:31). The work of the Spirit is to induce in Christians the affirmation that Jesus is Lord (1 Cor. 12:3). All tongues will finally confess this (Phil. 2:11). On this belief rests the full confession of the triune God (Matt. 28:19). This confession is specifically made in the church at baptism, which is done in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38). The eunuch professes belief in the Lord (Acts 8:37). Cornelius is baptized in Jesus’ name (Acts 10:48). The Philippian jailer is baptized when he believes in the Lord and is saved (Acts 16:30–34). The evidence of the later church (Justin, Apology I, 61) is similar. The baptismal confession was often made in interrogatory form, and it was followed by baptism in the triune name (or triune immersion, as described in Didachē 7).

Whether there was also a specific confession of faith in ordinary worship is open to question; the New Testament offers no instance. Baptism itself, however, was also a normal part of the worship of the church. Taken over from John and continued and commanded by Jesus, it was required for admission to the church, and it included at its heart a confession of faith as well as repentance. Administered in various circumstances and with wide variations of wording, it retained its essential features through every change. The first service for the convert was of common concern to the whole congregation. Like the Lord’s Supper, it had a primary declarative aspect, for the ultimate baptismal confession is confession of the saving act of God in the death and resurrection of Christ. Nevertheless, it also provided an opportunity for the affirmation of faith, which was quickly seen to be a reaffirmation by existing believers. The later weekly confession is a fairly natural and not unbiblical development, which finds a regular place for this essential aspect of worship.

Reading of Scripture

Rather strangely, the New Testament does not refer to the reading of the Old Testament in the common worship of the church. Paul’s epistles are publicly read (1 Thess. 5:27), and this might have formed the beginning of the later New Testament readings (cf. Justin’s “Memoirs of the Apostles,” Apology I, 66). The traditional texts relating to the Lord’s Supper also seem to have been rehearsed (1 Cor. 11). In light of synagogue practice, the extensive use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, the later knowledge of the Old Testament displayed in the post-apostolic period, and the early patristic references to Old Testament reading, it is virtually impossible to suppose that the New Testament church did not include Old Testament readings in common worship. The fact that there were sermons (for example, Paul at Troas) supports this. A sermon in the synagogue was primarily exposition. Early Christian preaching was especially concerned with showing the fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ. Furthermore, the mention of an interpretation seems to presuppose a reference to the Old Testament. The high estimation of Scripture (cf. 2 Tim. 3:15–17) is a further consideration. Great freedom was no doubt exercised—even the synagogue had, as yet, no prophetic lectionary. But the reading of God’s written Word, first in the Old Testament and then increasingly in the New Testament, was surely a constituent part of worship from the very first, as it patently was in both temple and synagogue, and then again in the church of the second century.

Preaching

In contrast to reading, preaching is solidly attested. Paul preached at Troas. The prophesyings at Corinth also seem to be forms of Christian exhortation. The needs of evangelism and education as well as edification made it essential that the ministry of the Word be included in the early services. The synagogue provided a partial parallel; the teaching of Jesus was an example. The apostles were specifically called to the ministry of the Word (Acts 6). At a later time bishops were to be apt teachers (1 Tim. 3:2). Preaching combined several aspects of “worship”: declaration of God’s work, confession of faith, underlying prayer, and the climax of praise. Early preaching was particularly related to the Old Testament on the one side and to the life and work of Christ (later the New Testament) on the other. While not restricted to formal exposition, it had a strong expository content, judging from the sermons in Acts. Among Gentile Christians in particular, a good deal of information would have to be passed on in preaching, for the same level of biblical knowledge could not always be assumed as among Jewish Christians or the early “god fearers.” Apollos, a man mighty in the Scriptures, exercised an important ministry in this field (Acts 18:24–28). Justin gives evidence of the secure position of preaching in the typical Christian service in the post-apostolic period.

The Lord’s Supper

If baptism was an addition to synagogue worship (though not without some parallel in proselyte baptism), this is even more true of the Lord’s Supper. Both biblical and patristic evidence supports the view that this was from the very first a constitutive part of weekly worship. Certainly, in Justin’s time, there is no disjunction between the ministry of word and ministry of the sacrament, and the examples of Troas and Corinth suggest that, with variations of time and structure, the same applies in the New Testament period as well. The one gathering embraces not only prayer, praise, reading, and preaching, but also the holy meal, which was probably accompanied by blessings (cf. Didachē 9–10) after the manner of the Passover. The Lord’s Supper took the place, not only of the Passover but also of the temple offerings. This is why sacrificial language soon came to be used in respect to the Lord’s Supper (cf. Mal. 1:11). Yet it was not strictly a replacement: the Lord’s Supper shows forth the one sacrifice for sins forever. Christ as high priest has made a mediatorial and sacrificial ministry at the human level redundant. Hence the ministers of the Lord’s Supper, whether apostles, bishops, presbyters, or deacons, are truly ministers, not priests. The focal point is a declaration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for mankind. This is the ground of the fellowship here enjoyed with God and with fellow believers. Ultimately, then, the Lord’s Supper, like all else, is Christological rather than, in the narrower Old Testament sense, liturgical. To describe it as quintessentially liturgical is misleading. It is also to hold in disregard its real place and significance within the church’s worship as a perpetual reminder that worship is possible only on the basis of the atonement that God himself has made by his self-offering in the Son.

The Collection

The reference to a weekly allocation in 1 Corinthians 16, the liturgical significance ascribed to alms in Philippians 4:18, and mention of an offering in patristic writings have lead to the view that a collection formed a basic element in Christian worship. Difficulties to this conclusion include the following: Paul does not speak of a church collection; like the Philippian gift, the Jerusalem collection was probably a special project (though rapidly succeeded by extensive relief for the poor); and Tertullian refers only to a chest for spontaneous gifts (Apology I, 39, 1–6). Furthermore, some scholars argue that Justin’s offertory (Apology I, 65) is that of bread and wine for communion, though this was not an obvious part of the original institution. On the other side, one should consider that almsgiving had a long Old Testament history and that the importance of liberality as part of serving God is beyond dispute. Thus, if it is too much to say that the collection is a constitutive part of the service, there are grounds for its later inclusion. The kiss of peace falls into a similar category.

Occasional Services

It has often been noted that there are no marriage or funeral services in the New Testament. It should be remembered, however, that such services are only an application of the basic elements of worship—prayer, praise, reading, exposition, and the Lord’s Supper, where appropriate to specific situations. In fact, the New Testament mentions certain occasions—for example, confirming by the apostles, ordaining, and perhaps the anointing of the sick—when biblical signs (laying on of hands, anointing) was used along with other liturgical elements. This does not mean that there were developed special services for confirmation and other biblical signs. It shows that the basic elements can be rapidly adapted to particular needs, sometimes with a particular sign. The consecration of Paul and Barnabas to missionary service at Antioch offers an instructive example (Acts 13:2–3). Whether any given service can find a precedent in the New Testament, it offers the materials from which a genuinely biblical service may be constructed, and the injunction that all things are to be done in the Lord means that the introduction of elements of worship is never a misplaced or unwarranted intrusion.