Spiritual Worship v. Ceremonial Law

In the Finding Jesus through Spiritual Worship study, we been doing a series on the ceremonial law. The devotional reading concludes the contrast of the two.

Nuggets

  • Spiritual worship provides more rewards than ceremonial law did.
  • Spiritual worship is all about having a heart that is right with God.

In the last devotion, we started looking at how ceremonial law was replaced by spiritual worship. There are a couple of more points to consider.

Let's Put It into Context

To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.

Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.

Devotions in the Finding Jesus through Spiritual Worship study

Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.

The foundation of this series is Menander and Charnock’s Spiritual Worship.

Resource

In this devotion, we’re going to shake up the order of the verses from what they had them.

New Expectations

“Shouldn’t we expect far greater glory under the new way, now that the Holy Spirit is giving life?” (II Cor. 3: 8 NLT)

Spiritual worship provides more rewards than ceremonial law did.

The main point of the last devotion was that the ceremonial law could not provide salvation. God didn’t want the Jew’s outward obedience alone. He wanted their inward transformation to holiness.

Dickson agreed with that. He called the law the ministration of condemnation.  On the other hand, he called the gospel the ministration of righteousness.

Parker gave a good example to explain that. I took his example and made it a little more descriptive.

Resource

Think about it this way. There is a family that lives in a house down the street. When you were a kid, they were always letting you cut through their yard to get somewhere.

But they moved. A man moved in who didn’t want boy or dog to even step one foot off the sidewalk. If you did, you were accused of trespassing — and he wanted to punish you!

The new homeowner made a “law.” Okay, in the movies, he may have gotten the shotgun out to defend his property — intimating that the punishment is death.

The law of staying off his property puts it in the ministration of condemnation category. Laws limit our freedom.

Jesus sets us free. “So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free” (Jn. 8: 36 NLT).

No, not to do whatever we want. To do what God wants.

We are to walk righteously.

Look at it this way. How many times are things touted as new and improved? I know. We questioned that at times.

This time, it is really the case!

Our problem is that we hold onto the past. A lot of times, we think it is better. Sometimes, we hold on because it is just more comfortable.

There are eternal consequences if we hold onto the ceremonial law.

Dickson talked about some may have thought that spiritual worship is less rigorous than the ceremonial law. Remember, the Torah had all these laws, and then the Pharisees made up more. The first-century Jews were lawed to death!

I wonder how many Pharisees thought that made spiritual worship an inferior worship. Isn’t it better when we do more?

No, it isn’t. That mindset takes the focus off God and puts it on us.

It isn’t about us doing the do’s and not doing the don’ts. God isn’t interested in a checklist, much less our success rate in completing it.

God is interested in our devotion to Him.

No, that does not negate our duty to God. He still expects things from us. We should want to serve Him because He is Creator.

It reinforces that we cannot earn salvation. “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it” (Eph. 2: 8-9 NLT).

Dickson made a great comment about the ceremonial law not leading to salvation. He wrote, “All precepts, and threatenings, and promises, were insufficient for this purpose [justification of transgressors], without the quickening and renewing influence of the Holy Ghost.”

Resource

Ooo, baby. Don’t the Pharisees come off as a threatening bunch?

Let’s go back and talk about the glory. “Shouldn’t we expect far greater glory under the new way…” (II Cor. 3: 8 NLT). Glory is worshipful praise, honor, and thanksgiving.

It is more than just taking credit for salvation. It is being revered for it.

It think, in this verse, it is focusing on the honor part of the definition. It is focusing, in my opinion, more on rewards than worship.

One of the biggest rewards we get is that we get to be ministers of the gospel. We get to tell others the good news. We get privileges that non-believers do not get.

Parker’s point was the whole purpose of the law was to point out we could it wrong. I would have said we were doing it wrong and that we couldn’t fix it ourselves.

We could do nothing to gain salvation until we accepted the gift that God gave us – Jesus as our Savior.

New Hearts

“No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by the Spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people” (Rom. 2: 29 NLT)

Spiritual worship is all about having a heart that is right with God.

How many times are we proud of being children of God like the Jews were proud of being God’s chosen people?

Glossary

But how many times have both groups seen that as entitlement? How much do we expect because we have brought ourselves to the point where we accept what God has to offer?

No, no, no. It isn’t about us. It is about Sovereign God and what He has done for us.

We shouldn’t boast of the privilege we think comes along with being children of God any more than we should boast of ourselves. We are only made righteous through Jesus’ sacrifice.

I have always thought of circumcision as a ceremonial law, although I haven’t found anyone else to say that. Covenant circumcision was the physical sign the Israelites agreed with the covenant. The cutting off of the flesh of the foreskin was to be a visual representation of cutting off and casting away the sins of the flesh.

Glossary

Horton made a great observation when he wrote, “… circumcision was never meant to be a substitute for personal holiness, and can never be accepted as such, while uncircumcision will not place at a disadvantage any virtuous and well-meaning Gentile.”

Resource

God is more interested in circumcision of the heart. Circumcision of the heart is where God changes our hearts.

The Jews had a hard time understanding that it was about inward transformation, not outward appearance.  We think this is because it is only a New Testament concept. We would be wrong.

  • “Look, the highest heavens and the earth and everything in it all belong to the LORD your God. Yet the LORD chose your ancestors as the objects of his love. And he chose you, their descendants, above all other nations, as is evident today.  Therefore, change your hearts and stop being stubborn” (Deut. 10: 14-16 NLT emphasis added).
  • The LORD your God will change your heart and the hearts of all your descendants, so that you will love him with all your heart and soul and so you may live!” (Deut. 30: 6 NLT emphasis added).
  • “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations” (Ezek. 36: 25-27 NLT emphasis added).
  • “O people of Judah and Jerusalem, surrender your pride and power. Change your hearts before the LORD, or my anger will burn like an unquenchable fire because of all your sins” (Jer. 4: 4 NLT emphasis added).

But then, sometimes, we have trouble understanding it, too. We want the checklist so we can show which laws we’ve kept and which ones we haven’t.

God doesn’t want that. Our actions are not necessarily representative of our character. Our words may not mirror our hearts and thoughts.

Instead, God wants our character to change to be like His. We are to have “… pure and reverent lives” (I Pet. 3: 2 NLT).

We can’t just go on our own thoughts and feelings. We can’t even rely solely on our belief system.

Those are transitory at best and delusional at worst.

We have to get our submission to God down to the heart level. Our focus must be on God. We have to say as Jesus said, “… Yet I want your will to be done, not mine” (Mt. 26: 39 NLT).

We can’t think that being a good person is going to be good enough. It won’t be. Remember, we said our actions will not cover our sins. We’ve said before that our motives count.

Our actions will not cover our sins.

Hambleton sort of took this a different way. While he agreed that an outward religion wasn’t what God was after, he noted that an inward religion meant everyone was the same.

God agrees with that. “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3: 28 NLT).


God considers us the same. We have all sinned.

The problem with the Jews and the ceremonial law was they only saw things one way – their way. Hambleton nailed it when he described them. He wrote, “The apostle is proving that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin. He has shown this respecting the Gentiles. He next comes to the Jew, and there is a harder task, for the Jew was so blinded, prejudiced, and self-righteous. There was nothing which the Jew more gloried in than in that of circumcision. … They accounted this one rite equal to the keeping of all the commandments of God.”

Resource

In other words, they didn’t listen to Moses – and Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Moses didn’t mince words. “Therefore, change your hearts and stop being stubborn” (Deut. 10: 16 NLT).

We’ve talked before about sheep and the goats. I always assumed that was believers and non-believers.

Boston had a different slant. He believe the sheep are believers and the goats those who think they are believer but aren’t.

Resource

To Boston, the goats are the Matthew 7: 21 people. “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter” (Mt. 7: 21 NLT).

I don’t know. I think I am going to have to think on that.

Think it is just the Jews that can place too high a value on outward religion practices. Sharp says think again.

  • Circumcision can be replaced by baptism as an outward duty we can elevate to too high a standing. Baptism cannot bring us salvation any more than circumcision could.
  • Being born of Jewish parents can be replaced by being born of Christian parents. We must individually choose to believe in Jesus.
  • The Jews thought knowing the law rather than doing the law was fine. Believers sometimes think the same. “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves” (Jas. 1: 22 NLT).
  • The Pharisees thought they could add laws on things in which God is indifferent. Don’t some believers think others have to believe the way they do?
  • The Jews put too much emphasis on rituals and not enough on their moral duties of the law. Don’t we sometimes just follow God on Sundays and not the rest of the week?

Resource

Bottom line is we want our hearts to be focusing on becoming holy as God is. We want circumcision of the heart.

spiritual-worship-v-ceremonial-lawFB

Making the Connections

We may be questioning whether this change from ceremonial law to spiritual worship does prove God does change (making Him a liar).

No, God didn’t change. It was always God’s intent to make a new covenant.

“‘The day is coming,’ says the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,’ says the LORD. ‘But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,’ says the LORD. ‘I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, “You should know the LORD.” For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,’ says the LORD. ‘And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins’” (Jer. 31: 31-34 NLT).

Plus, we also know that God had designed the Plan of Salvation before the foundation of the world. He knew before He created us that the covenant with Abraham would be replaced.

Glossary

How we worship God may change. The requirement that we do will not. The requirement that we accept His gift of salvation to cover our sins will not.

How Do We Apply This?

  • Work out our salvation through the Sanctification Road.
  • Mortify sinful prejudices.
  • Focus on the inward transformation, not outward actions.
  • Obey all God’s laws and commandments.
  • Seek God’s approval, not man’s.
  • Be humble.

Resource

Father God. We want to worship You with a circumcised heart. We want to work out our salvation so that we may be more like You. Help us to worship You in the manner You want. Amen.

What do you think?

Leave me a comment below (about this or anything else) or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.

If you don’t understand something and would like further clarification, please contact me.

If you have not signed up for the email providing the link to the devotions and the newsletter, do so below.

If God has used this devotion to speak with you, consider sharing it on social media.

Leave a Reply