Russians tell the story of how the pagan ruler of Kiev, King Vladimir, desired to learn which of all the world’s religions was the one revealed from heaven.
His emissaries traveled to the far corners of the known world to learn how different people believed and worshiped God. They observed Jews pray in their synagogues and Moslem Bulgars along the Volga prostrate themselves in their mosques, but they had to report to Vladimir that these religions were unsatisfactory in their worship. Traveling then to the Byzantine capitol of Constantinople, the emissaries attended the Divine Liturgy in the church of the Holy Wisdom and were awestruck by what they found.
“We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth,” they reported, “for surely there is no such splendor or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe it to you. Only this we know, that God dwells there among men and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. We cannot forget that beauty.” With the conversion of King Vladimir in 987, the Christian faith would henceforth reign supreme among the Russian people despite oppression from Mongols and Communists.
The story may be apocryphal, but it serves to highlight an essential truth: The worship of God is not something arbitrary, something we can concoct any way we please. It is something based upon the heavenly model. As Germanus, patriarch of Constantinople (715-730), wrote in his commentary on the liturgy, “The church is an earthly heaven in which the celestial God dwells and moves.”1
The Second Vatican Council saw this concept as the very essence of Christian worship. It stated in The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy that in the Mass we participate in the heavenly priesthood of Christ (see Heb. 8, 1 Pet. 2:5) and that “we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, Minister of the holies and of the true tabernacle (see Rev. 21:2, Co!. 3:1, Heb. 8:2)” (no. 8).
For Catholics the Mass is worship par excellence, for in it we cooperate with the angelic host in the eternal, heavenly glorification of God. Christ descended into the world that we might ascend into the Kingdom whenever we come together to worship the Father in spirit and in truth in the liturgy (John 4:23). However humble and lowly in outward appearance, in reality every Mass is a sweeping embrace of both heaven and earth. Every Mass is in both word and action the presentation of the mysteries which have been delivered to us by the “Holy Spirit sent from heaven — things into which the angels long to look” (1 Pet. 1:12)
“Dead Rituals” Which Live
That our earthly worship ought to be modeled upon the worship ordained in heaven should seem common sense to any Bible-believing Christian. Yet anti-Catholics protest vehemently against what they perceive as the “dead rituals” of Catholic worship. The late anti-Catholic Loraine Boettner claims in his Roman Catholicism, “We maintain that the New Testament assigns no liturgy at all [emphasis added] for the church.”2 Boettner was wise to limit his statement to the scanty New Testament record because the historical record, not to mention the Old Testament, utterly confounds his position.
Ancient Documentary Proof
We are blessed with several documents which allow us to peek into the worship services of the early Church. The Didache, a church manual dated variously between 60 and 140, describes the Sunday liturgical worship of a Middle Eastern church, including rubrics and prayers for both baptism and the Mass, which it describes as a sacrifice (ch. 14). Justin Martyr, writing to the Roman Emperor around 155, also describes the Christian liturgies of baptism and the Eucharist, which included the “kiss of peace” (Apologia 1:61-66).
We can point to Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition (composed in 210), which includes a liturgical text which looks suspiciously like the Mass. Indeed, our current second Eucharistic prayer was modeled upon the prayer found in this document. While celebrants were free to extemporize to a certain degree, we see a clear concern in the second century for fixed formulas. Boettner charges that liturgical worship is inconsistent with the biblical record, but we can show that the early Christians thought it was.3
Nearly everyone, including Fundamentalists, readily admits that the worship prescribed by God for the Jews in the Old Testament was liturgical. In fact, many of Catholicism’s liturgical elements can be found in the Old Testament. In Exodus, for example, we find vestments for priests (Ex. 28), lampstands (37:17-24), and incense (30:1-10, 34-38; 37:25-29), and many of the Passover regulations in Exodus 12 are echoed in the Mass.
While the liturgical prescriptions of the Pentateuch formed the skeleton of Jewish worship, the psalms composed its heart. Nearly every act of worship was accompanied by a psalm. During Passover celebrations and other important feasts, the Hallel (praise) psalms were sung. Psalms 135-136 comprise the Great Hallel, and Psalms 113-118 are the so-called Egyptian Hallel. There is also a third Hallel, composed of psalms 146-150, which was part of the morning prayers and became part of lauds, the second hour of the Divine Office in the Latin Rite, and of the Ainoi of the Byzantine Office.
Three Psalms and the Temple
There are three psalms especially noted for their connection with the liturgical worship of the Temple. As one approached the Temple area, one would be greeted by the gatekeepers, who would probably be singing either Psalm 15 or 24 in order to encourage serious reflection on ones’s spiritual condition. In the Temple area itself, the priest would chant Psalm 134 over the people, the “servants of the Lord,” as a general blessing.
The description of the Temple built by Solomon leaves little doubt that it was designed with the idea of mirroring the heavenly Temple of God. The walls and doors were covered with carvings of angels (1 Kgs. 6:23-35), and the Holy of Holies itself featured statues of angels who overshadowed the Ark of the Covenant with their wings (1 Kgs. 8:67). On the Ark itself were two statues of angels which guarded the Mercy Seat of Yahweh, one on each side of the seat, covering it with their wings (Ex. 25:18-20).
The Temple was the center of religion in Israel even while synagogue worship was developing during the Babylonian Captivity. The synagogue service, although not itself reminiscent of the Temple service, began with prayers and the recitation of the Shema and the Shemoneh Esreh; these were said facing Jerusalem and its Temple. The platform (or pulpit) from which the reader would comment on the holy text also faced the Temple.
The Temple in Heaven
The prophet Isaiah was privileged to see the heavenly Temple upon which the earthly one was based. “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of his robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.’ And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke” (Is. 6:1-4).
The prophet Ezekiel was also granted a vision of the divine glory. Especially worth reading is Ezekiel 1:26-28, where the prophet describes the vision of God seated in splendor on his throne. Also to have great influence in Jewish thought was Ezekiel’s vision of the ideal Temple (ch. 40-48), which the Lord showed him after the Babylonian destruction of the Solomonic Temple.
The idea that Jewish worship was based upon a heavenly model is explicitly stated in the New Testament. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, “Now if he [Jesus] were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the Law, who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things [emphasis added], just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for ‘See,’ he says, ‘that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain’ [Ex. 25:40]” (Heb. 8:4-5; see also 9:23-24). Stephen in his speech before the Sanhedrin says the same concerning the Tabernacle (Acts 7:44).
New Testament Condones Liturgy
Of course the argument isn’t whether or not the Old Testament Church had liturgical worship (we know it did), but whether or not the New Testament condones a liturgy for the Church. One of Boettner’s charges is that “Romanism is in this respect a recrudescence of Judaism and in its ceremonialism stands much closer to Judaism than to New Testament Christianity” (p. 274). He informs us that “the Law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the reality themselves” (Heb. 10:1).
Boettner reveals a deficient understanding of Judaism. There is more to Judaic worship than “ceremonialism,” and one isn’t likely to find a knowledgeable Jew who, after visiting a Mass one Sunday, would describe it as “a recrudescence of Judaism.” If there’s a resemblance between Catholic worship and ancient Jewish worship, which was “only a shadow” of what was to come, it’s because the shadow by its nature resembles that which casts the shadow. The truth is not that Catholicism resembles Judaism, but that Judaism resembles Catholicism.
Fulfilling, not Destroying
On the other hand, Christian worship certainly has its roots in Judaism. Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17). Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism, not the destruction of it. Our Lord transformed the Old Covenant ceremonies into the ceremonies of the New Covenant. Jesus converted the Passover observance into the Eucharist.
The first Christians, most of whom were Jews, did not in any way feel they had abandoned their Jewish heritage. This is the reason we see that they continued to meet each day in the Temple courts and afterwards would gather at a private home to celebrate the Eucharist (Acts 2:46, 3:1). This celebration is described somewhat vaguely as continuing in “the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers”4 (Acts 2:42). They understood Jesus to have fulfilled the Law and the prophets, but there is no indication that they understood Jesus to have imposed a general ban on liturgical worship.
Revelation gives us our clearest look at the heavenly worship in the New Testament. The book itself has a liturgical structure, beginning with a blessing for the lector who would read it in church (1:3). The book’s activity occurs on “the Lord’s Day,” which is Sunday (1:10), and begins with an address to seven churches in seven cities located along a circular road in the highly Christianized area of Asia Minor (1:11-14). “Seven” is a symbolic number in the Bible and means “universal” or “complete” (as well as “covenant”). The idea is probably that the message of the book is addressed to the universal (catholic) Church.
Heaven Is like the Mass
The liturgical greeting of “grace” is found both at the beginning (1:4) and at the end (22:1) of the book.5 The liturgical response “Amen” is continually invoked by the worshiping community (1:7, 5:14, 7:12, 19:4, 22:20). There are hymns as well.6
We find a strong emphasis on the communion of saints at prayer (6:911), with even the angels assisting by bringing the prayers to the altar in a golden censer that the prayers may rise to God on clouds of incense (8:34; see Ps. 141:2). In fact, there are prayers from beginning (1:5b-6) to end (22:20-21) of Revelation.
Since there are seven blessings,7 we are entitled to think of heaven as a place of perfect blessedness and perfect praise (notice the seven adjectives in 5:11-12), a place of singing (19:6-8), of color (21:19), of pre-scribed liturgical movement (4:9-10), and of musical instruments and of incense (5:8). In short, worship in heaven has “smells and bells.”
In Revelation 4 John has a vision of heaven which parallels the heavenly liturgical worship seen in the passage from Isaiah cited above. In both there are winged creatures who “do not rest day or night, saying: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’ ” (Rev. 4:8, Is. 6:3). In Revelation 4:2-6 there is a description of the throne of God which mirrors the first two chapters of Ezekiel, especially Ezekiel 1:5-6, 10, 26-28. There is a plain continuity between the two Testaments.
Lots of Alleluias
In Revelation 4:9-11 we have another example of the “dead ritual” and “vain repetitions” which Fundamentalists so love to hate: “Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders [presbyteroi, equivalent to “priests”] fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, ‘You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.’ ”
Another passage worth looking at is 19:1-9: “After this I [the apostle John] heard what sounded like the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying: ‘Alleluia! Salvation, glory, and might belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her harlotry.8 He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.’ They said a second time: ‘Alleluia! Smoke will rise from her forever and ever.’ The twenty-four elders [presbyteroi] and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who sat on the throne, saying, ‘Amen. Alleluia.’ A voice coming from the throne said: ‘Praise our God, all you his servants, [and] you who revere him, small and great.’
“Then I heard something like the sound of a great multitude or the sound of rushing water or mighty peals of thunder, as they said: ‘Alleluia! The Lord has established his reign, [our] God, the almighty. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory. For the wedding day of the Lamb has come, his bride [the Church] has made herself ready. She was allowed to wear a bright, clean linen garment.’ [The linen represents righteous deeds performed by the holy ones.] Then the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These words are true; they come from God.’ “
The Only Occurrences
This passage opens with the heavenly choir shouting “Alleluia!” This word occurs only in this section of the New Testament. It’s here a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew word, which is itself a contraction of the two Hebrew words hallel (praise) and Yah (Yahweh), meaning “Praise God.” The word recalls the Hallel psalms used in the Passover liturgy; in Revelation 19:5 we have an allusion to these psalms 115:13 and 134:1. This allusion precedes the beatitude in Revelation 19:9, “Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb.”
There was a belief among the Jews that when the Messiah came the People of God would be treated to a Messianic banquet. This banquet seen in Isaiah 25:1-9, where Yahweh prepares a feast which “will swallow up death forever” and bring salvation. The thought is also found in Proverbs 9:1-5 as well as in extra-biblical Jewish literature.9 The eschatological sacred feast is found in the canonical Gospels (Matt. 8:11, Luke12:37, 14:15-24), and there are hints of the idea in Revelation 2:17 (compare John 6:58) and Revelation 3:20.
Evangelical Support
As Catholics we know the Messiah came and established such a feast in the Eucharist. Revelation 19:1-9, with its strong Paschal overtones, is suggestive of the heavenly counterpart of this Eucharistic celebration. A comment on this passage by Evangelical scholar David Chilton is worth citing at length because it shows that this fact is appreciated not only by those in liturgical churches:
“God’s people have been saved from the whoredoms of the world to become the Bride of his only begotten Son; and the constant token of this fact is the Church’s weekly celebration of her sacred feast, the Holy Eucharist. The absolute fidelity of this promise is underscored by the angel’s assurance to John that these are the true words of God [Rev. 19:9]. It should go without saying (but, unfortunately, it cannot), that the Eucharist is the center of Christian worship. . . The greatest privilege of the Church is her weekly participation in the Eucharistic meal, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
“It is a tragedy that so many churches in our day neglect the Lord’s Supper, observing it only on rare occasions (some so- called churches have even abandoned Communion altogether). What we must realize is that the official worship service of the Church on the Lord’s Day is not merely a Bible study or some informal get-together of like-minded souls; to the contrary, it is the formal wedding feast of the Bride with the Bridegroom.”10
A Temple not Made with Hands
This heavenly Eucharistic celebration makes sense out of the fact that Christ is always shown in heaven not as the radiant King of Creation but as the lamb “that seemed to have been slain” and who alone can approach “him who sat on the throne” (Rev. 5:6- 7). Christ is simultaneously the sacrificial lamb and the sacrificing priest, “a priest forever” who (Heb. 7:17)11 presents his sacrifice, offered “once for all” (Heb. 10:10), to the Father in the eternal “present” of heaven (Heb. 9:23-28).12 The Church on earth mirrors the continuous heavenly offering by continually offering up the same “once for all” sacrifice in the Mass.
Where Are the Tent Revivals?
Revelation 11:1-2, 19 presents the idealized Temple revealed in Ezekiel chapters 40 through 48. It is the same Temple, “the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation” (Heb. 9:11), that Jesus, as our great high priest (Heb. 4:14), entered after his Ascension. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross did not terminate the pattern of sacrificial, liturgical worship in heaven, but gave it meaning and efficacy by fulfilling it.
We see no “tent revivals” in heaven. There is nothing in heaven that reminds us of the forms of worship peculiar to Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism. All follows Paul’s admonition that “everything must be done properly and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). As Chilton says, the idea of the “sermon- sandwich” (a sermon sandwiched between hymns) is alien to the worship decreed by God. Heavenly worship centers on Christ’s eternal sacrifice, and, in consequence, true Christian worship mirrors and participates in this sacrificial offering. This is why the Mass must be a sacrifice – not a new sacrifice, but an eternal participation in the unique sacrifice of Calvary (1 Cor. 11:26).
Our Lord taught us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What is God’s will but that he be worshiped and glorified? When we pray the Our Father we ask that what God has willed in heaven may come to pass in our midst, that we may participate in the eternal, heavenly praise of the Lord.
Jesus then asked us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Here we ask for “that bread that came down from heaven” – not the supermarket variety, but the supernatural bread through which we “will live forever” (John 6:58). For God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, we must ask for and partake of the Eucharist.
Deja Vu all over Again
As a Baptist witnessing my first Mass, I remember having a strange sensation of deja vu. Somehow I had an intimate familiarity with all that was occurring, even down to some of the responses I was expected to give. Then we arrived at the Sanctus, where we sang: “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest!” Where had I heard that before?
It was then I realized what King Vladimir’s emissaries had realized a thousand years earlier: I was witnessing nothing less than heaven on earth. This was no sermon-sandwich, but the great wedding feast of the Lamb. This was Scripture intricately woven together into a magnificent diadem of praise to the Almighty. This was the worship ordained by God, witnessed by the prophets, established by the apostles, and practiced by authentic Bible- believing Christians now and forever.
T. L. Frazier, a regular contributor to This Rock, is a convert from Evangelicalism who freelances from Los Angeles.
Endnotes
1 Germanus, Ecclesiastical History and Mystical Contemplation, 1.
2 Loraine Boettner, Roman Catholicism (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1962),274.
3 Since anti-Catholics like Boettner usually know little or nothing of liturgical history, they normally limit their statements to generalizations which can be rebutted with a minimum of study. Read Josef A. Jungmann’s book The Early Liturgy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1959; sixth printing, 1980) and you’ll be more than prepared to respond to the average anti-Catholic (see 1 Pet. 3:15).
4 The plural tais proseuchais (the prayers), if it doesn’t refer to the set Jewish hours of prayer (Acts 3:1), implies set Eucharistic prayers said when they “broke bread” (Acts 20:7), a term for the Eucharist likely derived from the fact that the bread is broken after the giving of thanks in imitation of what Jesus did at the Last Supper (1 Cor. 11:24).
5 This greeting is still used in the introductory rite of the Mass. After making the sign of the cross, the celebrant has the option of two greetings: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you” (2 Cor. 13:13) or “The grace and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you” (Rom. 1:7b; 1 Cor. 1:3).
6 Revelation 1:7; 4:8,11; 5:9-14; 6:10; 7:10,12; 11:15-18; 12:10-12; 15:3-4; 19:1-4; and 19:6-7.
7 Revelation 1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14.
8 It is standard among modern exegetes of Revelation to interpret the “harlot” as the pagan Roman Empire. Recently a strong case has been made for interpreting it as “apostate” Israel, which we see persecuting the infant Church in the book of Acts. The cheering over her downfall (Rev. 19:1-3), in this interpretation, would allude to Israel’s destruction in AD. 70. See Kenneth Gentry, Jr. ‘s Before Jerusalem Fell (Fort Worth: Dominion, 1989) and David Chilton’s The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Fort Worth: Dominion, 1987).
9 For example, in the book of Enoch and in apocalyptic works such as the Apocalypse of Elijah.
10 Chilton, 475-477.
11 The primary function of a priest is to offer sacrifice, and, as Jesus is a priest “forever,” this implies the continuous nature of Christ’s offering to the Father. This is found in Hebrews 7:24, where it’s stated that Jesus’ priesthood is aparabatos, that is, unchanging or permanent.
12 It is incorrect to view Christ’s offering in heaven as merely a past-completed action. Since God is eternal and thus transcends the mutable nature of time, Christ’s atoning sacrifice is perpetually and constantly present to him. In the same vein, Christ’s sacrificial death, although it occurred at a specific point in “time,” is described as taking place “from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8 NIV, KJV) with our names written into the Lamb’s Book of Life at that point (Rev. 17:8).