Worshiping In Spirit and Truth

Don: In the story where Jesus met a Samaritan woman at a well, Jesus made one of only eight or nine short, declarative statements concerning God recorded in the entire history of his ministry. That makes it intensely significant. He was generally much more given to asking questions or telling parables.*

In the story, the woman at the well represents all of us, who are in need of the water of eternal life offered to the woman by Jesus. The declarative statement concerning worship is found in this exchange:

The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” (John 4:19-26)

Worship can and will be found in the most unexpected places, at the most unanticipated times, in the most unorthodox ways. In the story of Cain and Abel, we don’t know whether they or God initiated the worship, but in the story of the woman at the well, it was God, when Jesus said “the Father seeks” worshipers who will worship him “in spirit and truth.”

There is a contrast between the woman’s concept of worship, which has only to do with where and how, which Jesus dismissed as inconsequential. Like the woman, it is our inclination to worry about where we should worship and how we should worship when we get there. Must we stand or kneel? Should we clap, or not? Which translation of the scriptures should we read from? Should we sing classical hymns or should we sing praise songs? Should we dress in our Sunday best or in comfortable casual attire? Should we be led in worship by men or by women? Should the leaders be married, or must they be celibate? We have a hundred such questions, but to all of them the answer, as it was given to the woman at the well, was clear and direct: You should worship in spirit and truth.

The statement that “God is spirit” is the same format as “God is love, God is light, God is living water”, etc. But what does it mean? In my view, it means that God is spiritual, and something spiritual is something that is centered upon God. Thus, the spiritual human, the true worshiper, cannot be centered upon his or her own self. True worship must be centered on God and recognize his creative power, as was the key message in the story of Cain and Abel.

Got put it about as bluntly as possible, through Amos:

“I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
“Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
“Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.

All of this is worship centered on Man. But what God wants (he continues) is:

“But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:21-24)

Isaiah brought detail and clarity to what Amos meant:

“Cry loudly, do not hold back;
Raise your voice like a trumpet,
And declare to My people their transgression
And to the house of Jacob their sins.
“Yet they seek Me day by day and delight to know My ways,
As a nation that has done righteousness
And has not forsaken the ordinance of their God.
They ask Me for just decisions,
They delight in the nearness of God.
‘Why have we fasted and You do not see?
Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?’
Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire,
And drive hard all your workers.
“Behold, you fast for contention and strife and to strike with a wicked fist.
You do not fast like you do today to make your voice heard on high.
“Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it for bowing one’s head like a reed
And for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed?
Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord?
“Is this not the fast which I choose,
To loosen the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the bands of the yoke,
And to let the oppressed go free
And break every yoke?
“
Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, to cover him;
And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
“Then your light will break out like the dawn,
And your recovery will speedily spring forth;
And your righteousness will go before you;
The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
“Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
You will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you remove the yoke from your midst,
The pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness,
And if you give yourself to the hungry
And satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness
And your gloom will become like midday.
“
And the Lord will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
“Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins;
You will raise up the age-old foundations;
And you will be called the repairer of the breach,
The restorer of the streets in which to dwell. (Isaiah 58:1-12)

If there is a common, unifying principle to worship—whether it be personal worship, corporate or organized worship—perhaps it is that worship must be spiritual, centered on the activities and efforts of God. We want to put ourselves at the center, but as we shall see in coming weeks, scripture has many instances of the fatality of doing so. As Jesus told the woman, the time is coming when only true worship—in spirit and truth— will count.

David: He also said that that time has already arrived: “…an hour is coming, and now is,…” So there is no time to waste.

Anonymous: Perhaps it means that true worship can happen now, but it will take some people some time to realize it. True worship, the right way to worship, is “in spirit and truth.”

Jay: I have no problem with the idea of worshiping in spirit, which I contrast with worshiping in a physical sense. Worshiping is not really about physical acts, but about things that are spiritual in nature. The passage from Amos makes it crystal clear that feasts and songs of worship mean nothing to God. They are physical things. What is meaningful to God is justice and righteousness, which are in the spiritual realm alongside faith, grace, love. and so on. I do, however, have a problem understanding what it means to worship “in truth.” Might it mean that we should worship in recognition of Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf? I don’t know—it is puzzling.

Donald: We meet to discuss things of the spirit, yet we call ourselves a faith-based organization. Why not a spirit-based organization? Is “faith” more appropriate than “spiritual” to a apply to community? “Spirit” and “spiritual” seem different, too. We can define what we mean by “spiritual” but “spirit” itself is the unknown, the indescribable. Maybe we try to put it in a box in order to help us find out what “truth” is.

David: I agree that “in spirit” is easier to to define than “in truth.” To me, “spirit” is the inner light, the spirit of God in all of us. It sounds self-centered to say that, but really it is not, if we humbly accept that the urgings of that spirit—which we all feel—do not arise from ourselves. What is the “truth” is much harder to fathom.

The grandiose words that conclude the passage from Isaiah…

“Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins;
You will raise up the age-old foundations;
And you will be called the repairer of the breach,
The restorer of the streets in which to dwell.

…suggest that the goal, the desired outcome, the end product of worship is our restoration to the garden of Eden, the repair of the breach with God. In preceding verses, Isaiah clearly lays out the criteria that constitute true worship. To me, those criteria are strikingly similar to the criteria laid out in the judgment scene for entry into the kingdom of Heaven.

Jay: The truth issue is bothersome because, in my limited human mind, I tend to conflate truth with fact and with right. That then leads toward what seems to be a proper way to worship. The problem is, it doesn’t seem spiritual. It causes dissonance. Kingdom criteria such as spirit and worship have to be timeless, but what we take for “truth” might not be. Human truth is shifting sand. We could fudge the issue by treating “spirit and truth” as one and the same, but then… we would be fudging the issue!

David: It would be interesting to research the words used in the original Aramaic and the various translations leading to what we see as the simple word “truth” in the English Bible, to see if there are any other possible interpretations.

Anonymous:  When we worship we often forget or ignore the fact that we ourselves are not living the truth of the gospel. If we are not true to ourselves, how can we worship God in truth? If we tell ourselves lies, how sincere is our worship of God? Isaiah and Amos tell us the right way to worship. We know we should worship that way—but we know we do not. We continue to worship in our own sweet way and kid ourselves that our worship is accepted by God. It is not. I need to find and act upon the real truth—the way of Jesus—within me before I can worship truly.

Chris: Strong’s Concordance notes that truth is not merely truth as spoken; it is truth of ideas, reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth revealed to man, and straightforwardness. It may not bring much clarity to our discussion. I equate worship in spirit with personal as opposed to corporate worship. Truth is what brings people together for corporate worship. The problem is that we define truth, instead of admitting that we cannot fully comprehend divine truth.

Don: What’s interesting is that Jesus was responding directly to the woman’s question about where was the proper place for worship—in “this mountain” or in Jerusalem. She was asking a question of worldly place, of worldly fact, but he did not answer with fact. The truth to which Jesus was referring was not about some worldly factual matter; it was about something else.

Jay: A synonym for truth is honesty, or sincerity. To worship in spirit and honesty, or spirit and sincerity, seems somehow more comprehensible than “in spirit and truth.” But this again makes worship personal rather than communal. We are all different in how we practice and express honesty and sincerity, which in one sense is worldly—mortal, but in another sense is timeless insofar as it is acceptable to God.

Donald: We can’t really judge another’s sincerity—though we do it all the time, and put people into boxes. We often hold different perspectives from others—and are prone to changing our perspectives over time. It’s arrogant to define our perceived truth when others may not perceive it as truth. I prefer the word “sincerity” in this context. Because I respect Don, I seek his approval of my ideas, but if I did not respect him, I would not care what he thought of them.

Don: I think the answer to the question of truth lies in Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life.” Any worldly, fact-based truth inevitably points to our selves, not to God. And that’s what we do with our songs and liturgies and culture and habit and gender and all the things that trouble and divide us in worship. None of these have anything to do with the way, the truth, and the life of God. None of them directly addresses issues of justice and righteousness, or brings bread directly to the hungry or shelter directly to the homeless. Worship needs to focus in the spirit and with the heart of Jesus, who is Truth with a capital T.

David: Much as I am drawn to the easy notion of worshiping “in spirit and sincerity,” the mortal in me must reluctantly conclude that if Jesus had meant “sincerity” he would have said “sincerity.” He didn’t. He said “truth.”

Don: The woman at the well asked about the place of worship. Another aspect of worship we shall be discussing is the day of worship—the Sabbath. Jesus had very little to say on the matter, except that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). Yet we—and especially our Seventh Day Adventist church—make such a big deal of it.

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* According to those who have made it their business to count events in the gospels, Jesus was asked 183 questions, but he himself asked 307 questions. Only three times did he answer specific questions with specific answers. See, e.g., Copenhaver, Martin B. (2014). Jesus Is the Question: The 307 Questions Jesus Asked and the 3 He Answered. Nashville: Abingdon Press.