There is an excellent resource called the Preachers Institute which recently had an excellent article called, The Eternal Liturgy vs. Contemporary Worship. It is an extremely good article. What particularly impressed me was the way in which it handles several of the Old Testament Scriptures in order to point out that liturgical worship is quite in line with Old Testament prophecy. Let me give you a couple of examples.
At least twice in the New Testament, in Acts 7:44 and in Hebrews 8:5 it says that the Old Testament tabernacle and Old Testament worship was, “according to the pattern.” That is, the claim of the New Testament writers was that Old Testament worship was not simply a human invention, but was modeled on the worship of the heavens itself.
It is claimed by non-liturgical Protestants that there is no such pattern for worship in the New Testament. The only problem is that this ignores both several Scriptures and the witness of the Early Church Fathers. For instance, in Malachi, the article points out that there is a very interesting prophecy, “My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord. (Malachi 1:11)” I find it interesting that somehow this Scripture suddenly becomes strictly symbolic when read by non-liturgical believers, since quite often these same believers insist that Scriptures should be interpreted literally whenever possible. Since incense was part of the regular use of the Church from very early times until the Reformation, it would seem that the prophecy was indeed fulfilled and it would seem that the Reformers were mistaken on their claim that the use of incense was not for the New Testament Church.
One of the stronger verses comes from the Book of Hebrews when the author insists that Christians, “We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.” This, again, becomes a purely symbolic verse among non-liturgical believers rather than a statement of the continuation of the heavenly pattern of worship. There was an altar that was a copy of the heavenly altar in the Old Testament, and there are altars that are copies of the heavenly altar in the New Testament. That is the claim of Hebrews. And, the Early Church Fathers go on to insist that there are New Testament priests who serve according to the order of Melquizedek just like there was an Old Testament priesthood that served according to the Levitical order.
Well, I could go on, but I would recommend that you read the entire article.
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