Worship Must Be Trinitarian

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greenbaggins

Puritan Board Doctor
Somehow, it is easy to forget that our worship must be Trinitarian in our focus. We can focus too easily on Jesus to the exclusion of the Father and the Holy Spirit, as many evangelicals do. Or, we can get all riled up about the Holy Spirit, to the exclusion of the Father and the Son, as the charismatics do. Or, in our prayers, we can pray too one-sidedly to the Father, ignoring Jesus and the Holy Spirit, as most Christians seems to do (that is, if they are not praying to Mary!). John Owen is definitive when it comes to communion with the Triune God, and this includes worship:

In the spiritual worship of the gospel the whole blessed Trinity, and each person therein distinctly, do in that economy and dispensation wherein they act severally and peculiarly in the work of our redemption, afford distinct communion with themselves unto the souls of the worshippers...There is no act, part, or duty of gospel worship, wherein the worshippers have not the distinct communion with each person in the blessed Trinity...

This is the general order of gospel worship the great rubric of our service. Here in general lieth its decency, that it respects the mediation of the Son, through whom we have access, and the supplies and assistance of the Spirit, and a regard unto God as a Father. He that fails in any one of these, he breaks all order in gospel worship. If either we come not unto it by Jesus Christ, or perform it not in the strength of the Holy Ghost, or in it not unto God as a Father, we transgress all the rules of this worship. This is the great canon, which if it be neglected, there is no decency in whatever else is done in this way. And this, in general, is the glory of it (from "The Nature and Beauty of Gospel Worship," in The Works of John Owen, volume 9, pp. 56-7).
 
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Lane, this is really good stuff! I heard a pastor say once that most doctrinal errors that creep into the church stem from a separation of the Persons of the Trinity in either our words or our focus.

Thanks again!
 
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