Truth and Scripture

"And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it" (Exd. 20:25). This one scripture shows us what the true worship of God is all about, and also how that worship has indeed been totally polluted under this new covenant. It's simple really, if we can actually see simplicity. Jesus gave us a very clear statement of absolute truth as to what the worship of God under this new covenant is: "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (Jn. 4:23,24). There it is my friend, the altar of unhewn stone not polluted by the tool of man's hand. Simplistic and pure; "in spirit and in truth." These are words of great renown, and yet words that have rarely been understood. Let's just look at these two elements that make up the new testament worship of God. "In spirit" simply means that we can ONLY worship God by means of our spirits, and that we can no longer worship God by means of carnal ordinances like those under the old covenant. This is exactly what the apostle Paul was saying in the following statement: "For we are the circumcision, which worship God IN THE SPIRIT, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Philip. 3:3). "Having no confidence in the flesh" simply means that we are to have no regard for the carnal ordinances of the old covenant that only pertained to the outer man, and could not touch the inner man. When Jesus suffered the cost of death for our sins, the scripture says that he nailed those old covenant ordinances to the cross, putting them away along with sin (Eph. 2:15; Col. 2:14). And if we are "in Christ" by means of the Spirit baptism, we are free from sin as long as we maintain true power OVER sin through the power of the holy Ghost (I Cor. 12:13; Rom. 6:3,4,6,7,12,18). You see, there was no true deliverance from the actual nature of sin under the old covenant, and therefore the people were not free to worship God in spirit alone (Gal. 3:21; Heb. 10:4). That is why they had to worship God through carnal, symbolic, ceremonial ordinances ( Heb. 9:9,10;). But we DO have true deliverance from sin through the power of God's Spirit, and therefore we ARE free to worship God in spirit, and have no need of things that only stood to symbolize that freedom which was to come (Col. 2:16,17; Heb. 10:1). Not only so, but the apostle Paul made it abundantly clear that we MUST NOT mix the spiritual worship of God with the natural ordinances of the old covenant (Gal. 3:2,3; Gal. 5:1-4). And in so saying, he was only reaffirming what Jesus said, that being that we MUST worship God in spirit. Peter described the true spiritual worship of God with the following statements of truth: "Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ... Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (I Pet. 2:5; I Pet. 1:8). Friend, being truly made free from the very nature of sin and sinning, and having "joy unspeakable;" and being "full of glory" is as good as it gets. And the truth is, that is only possible by means of the baptism of the holy Ghost, and the power it imparts to us for overcoming and putting sin to death (Acts 1:4,5,8). That is the altar of stone not polluted by the tool of man, but left pure even as God has made it. Natural ordinances such as water baptism and so called "communion" [partial passover] have nothing to do with that process. Those are carnal, symbolic ceremonies of the old covenant that merely helped to point the way to Jesus, and to the spiritual worship that he would provide for us. The inclusion of these natural ordinances in the new covenant worship of God is total confusion, and it is absolutely contrary to the leading of God's Spirit, even as the apostle Paul pointed out (Gal. 3:3; Gal. 5:18). These things only constitute man putting his hand and his tool to the altar of perfection that God has provided for us through the death and resurrection of his only begotten Son.

Now back to what Jesus said about the new testament worship. The "in truth" part simply means that when we DO worship God, it must be in holiness, meaning without sin in our hearts and lives. To understand the whole equation of "in spirit and in truth," one need only look at the flip side of the statement. As I've shown above from the Bible, "in spirit" means NOT in carnal things, as Paul said again: "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink [carnal things]; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in THESE things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men" (Rom. 14:17,18). And "in truth" means NOT in pretense, as Jesus reproved the Pharisees for being guilty of: "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But IN VAIN they do WORSHIP me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Isa. 15:7-9). And therein is the problem in the body of Christ today. God's people are laboring under the doctrines and traditions of Christianity, which are altogether of men, and therefore quench the Spirit of God among his people. It starts with the false "new birth" teachings of Christianity that are contrary to what the Bible plainly sets forth as being the real new birth. Those teachings vary in terminology but they are all headed up in the saying of "getting saved." Then the Spirit baptism that Jesus died and rose to provide is relegated to a "secondary Christian experience." Problem there is that there is NO record of anyone in the Bible teaching or experiencing this "getting saved" thing. Check it, it isn't there. What IS there however is that the forerunner of the Lord, the Lord himself, and his apostles were crystal clear that Jesus came to this world solely to make the way for HIMSELF to be able to baptize the hearts and souls of men with the soul cleansing power of his Spirit and life (Mk. 1:7,8; Jn. 7:38,39; Jn. 10:10; Acts 1:4,5,8; Acts 2:33; Acts 5:32; Rom. 8:2,9; I Cor. 6:11; I Cor. 12:13; I Pet. 3:21). Oh yeah, and you can forget this nonsense of RECEIVING the Spirit upon "getting saved," and then "coming into the fullness of it" upon being baptized with the Spirit along with the accompanying sign of speaking in tongues. That isn't in the Bible either. The scriptures are clear that Jesus' disciples could not RECEIVE the Spirit until AFTER he did go back to heaven (Jn. 7:38,39; Jn. 16:7). And after he DID GO back to heaven they were BAPTIZED with the Spirit even as he told them they would be (Acts 2:4). Being baptized in the Spirit and speaking in tongues IS receiving the Spirit, and the scriptures declare nothing other than that. The false teachings about the new birth have served only to disesteem and quench the very "Spirit of life," which alone "makes [us] free from sin" (Rom. 8:2). So it is no wonder that doctrines of sin, such as "sinners saved by grace," hold the household of God captive. And the only result of that is sin in the worship, whereby the worship of God among his people has been largely reduced to be "in vain," not "in truth." The apostle Paul told the Corinthians that their worship was no good because there was sin present in their congregation that was not being dealt with (I Cor. 5:6-8). God has not changed my friend, and he has not changed his requirements for the worship that his Son died and rose to provide. That altar of stone that we read about in our text scripture is in fact that "chief cornerstone," which is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And there is no Jesus here with us other than his Spirit that was sent back in his name (Jn. 14:26): "Now the Lord IS that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (II Cor. 3:17). That liberty is indeed liberty from sin, and the resulting reality of being literally joined to the Lord, wherein we can ONLY worship in spirit with holiness (I Cor. 6:17). To add anything at all to that spiritual reality is to pollute the pure and simplistic altar that God has provided us with. Amen.