In Spirit & Truth
As I scroll through social media, I often see video clips of worship services from various churches that are, quite frankly, embarrassing. I’m not even talking about the woke churches that have completely denied the Faith, installed women pastors of both sexes who declare their pronouns, and have rainbow vestments and paraments. I’m talking about the churches that run the gamut from movie-themed worship services to people looking as if they are having epileptic seizures. Many of these so-called evangelicals scoff at liturgical forms. They will attribute their freestyle, expressive worship to being led by the Spirit. They are not like the Rainbow Liturgical Clowns who deny the Scriptures. The latter crowd would be considered relatively conservative when it comes to believing the Scriptures. They believe their worship forms are Scriptural because they worship “in Spirit and truth.” They believe the truth about Jesus, and their worship is “led by the Spirit.” The problem is that this biblical phrase doesn’t come close to justifying any of these practices.
Worshiping “in Spirit and truth” comes from a conversation Jesus had with a Samaritan woman at a well (Jn 4). The Samaritans’ history began during the time of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. The kingdom split into the northern kingdom, which eventually took the name of its capital city, Samaria, and the southern kingdom of Judah. To keep people from returning to Jerusalem, Jeroboam set up golden calves at the northern and southernmost points of the region. Interestingly, the Samaritans rejected all the Scriptures except the five books of Moses to justify their rejection of David’s house. They believed Mt Gerizim was the place to worship because that was the place God prescribed through Moses to pronounce the blessings of the covenant. They eventually built a temple there.
When Jesus speaks to the woman at the well, she wants to know what Jesus thinks about the dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans concerning the place to worship. This is not unrelated to the woman’s plight. She is the embodiment of Samaria, the sister of Judah, who was once Yahweh’s bride (cf. Ezek 23). True worship, therefore, involves who the true bride of Yahweh is. Her question is not a rabbit trail.
Jesus tells her that the Samaritans are wrong and the Jews are right. The Temple in Jerusalem is, literally, the place to come “bow down.” However, there is coming a time when even the temple in Jerusalem will be the wrong place to worship. Faithful worshipers will bow down “in Spirit and in truth” (Jn 4:23-24).
Jesus isn’t condemning external worship forms. He is not saying, “Spiritual worship is that which is only internal.” Worshiping in Spirit and truth is an eschatological statement concerning the place “bowing down” will take place in the future.
Worshiping in the Spirit is worshiping where the Spirit resides. In the time of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Spirit was there. That’s why the Samaritans were wrong and the Jews were right.
But where is the Spirit now? Earlier, John recorded an incident in which Jesus proclaimed his body to be the new Temple (cf. Jn 2:19-22). The Spirit dwells in the collective body of Christ, the church, a truth confirmed on the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit lit the altar fires on the heads of the disciples.
This fits well with the second part of that phrase, “the truth.” The truth is not a non-personal set of propositions but a person. The Law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (Jn 1:17). Jesus said, “I am … the truth” (Jn 14:6).
Worshiping in Spirit and truth is worshiping the Father united to the Son through the power of the Spirit. This is what Paul speaks of in Ephesians 2:18, where he says, “For through [Jesus] we both [Jews and Gentiles] have access by one Spirit to the Father.” Worshiping in Spirit and truth is not a contrast between external and internal worship or formal versus informal worship. Worshiping in Spirit and truth has to do with being joined to the Father in the Son by the Spirit. It means worshiping in the way that has been reshaped by the revelation of Jesus. The Spirit is no longer “confined” to the Temple in Jerusalem so that you must travel there to draw near to God. Wherever the body of Christ gathers to bow down is the place where the Spirit dwells.
The legitimacy of liturgical forms is in no way denied or even discouraged by Jesus’ statement. In fact, the Spirit, as we see from the beginning of his work in creation, creates order and is quite liturgical in doing so. Paul confirms this in 1 Corinthians 14 because the Corinthians were too disorderly in their worship practices. The outlandish worship practices that we see in many churches can’t be attributed to the Spirit, and, therefore, can’t be justified by Jesus’ words concerning worshiping in Spirit and in truth.
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