John Calvin believed that worship is the soul of a righteous life; it is one of the twin pillars of Christianity, the other being the gospel of Jesus Christ.¹He said, “We are not to seek from men the doctrine of the true worship of God, for the Lord has faithfully and fully instructed us how he is to be worshiped” in His special revelation, the Holy Bible.

Calvin based his convictions about worship on the sufficiency of Christ to be our whole wisdom, as taught in Colossians 2. Like Paul, Calvin condemned self-made religion (or “will worship,” Col. 2:23) as a form of spiritual bondage.²Thus, God’s special revelation (the written Word) and His Son (the living Word) are inseparable from genuine worship. Malcolm Watts writes, “‘Reformed worship’ is worship that is conducted strictly according to God’s written Word, which is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy God” in Christ Jesus.³

In this brief article, we want to underscore that the rule of worship, the foundation of worship, the songs of worship, and the spirit of worship, are all intimately connected with God’s special revelation in His Word, which enables needy sinners like us to worship the triune God, in Christ Jesus, with all our mind, soul, and strength in the public gatherings of His church.

The Rule of Worship: Biblical Commands⤒🔗

What controls, regulates, and fills what we say and do in public worship? Public worship is service given to the King of kings for His pleasure and honor. Christ alone is King of the church; all our worship must therefore be obedience to His special revelation, the Bible. Calvin taught that the church has one King, our Savior Jesus Christ, and He is “the sole lawgiver of his own worship.”⁴This idea today is called the regulative principle of worship. Robert Godfrey writes, “In its simplest terms the regulative principle holds that the Word of God alone regulates, directs, and warrants all elements of worship ... We may worship God only as he has commanded us to do in the Bible.”⁵The basic form of biblical worship is three-fold: the Word (read and preached), the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), and prayer (spoken and sung).

The regulative principle is taught throughout Scripture. Christ rebuked the Samaritans in John 4:22, saying, “Ye worship ye know not what.” God repeatedly told Moses that he must build the tabernacle according to the pattern revealed to him (Ex. 25:9; etc.). Deuteronomy 12:32 says, “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.” To add or subtract from God’s instructions for worship, is to deny that the Holy Scriptures are sufficient for doctrine and obedience. Numbers 15:39 and Ezekiel 20:18 warn us that in our worship we must not follow our own hearts or the ways of our fathers. Our Lord Jesus said that worship based on merely human ideas is worthless (Matt. 15:9; cf. Isa. 29:13).

At the bottom of the regulative principle is a profound sense of the holiness of God. The Lord said in Leviticus 10:3, “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.” The Lord was saying that those who worship Him must do so in a manner that lets people know He is the holy God, indeed a consuming fire. As John Owen said, only God is the Judge of what pleases God.⁶

The Foundation of Worship: Biblical Gospel←⤒🔗

The foundation of worship is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jeremiah Burroughs said that in worship we draw near to God (Ps. 95:2, 6; 100:2).⁷Who can lead us into the presence of God? The church tends to waver between shrinking back from God, depending on mediators and intercessors like the saints, or presuming upon God’s love and rushing into His presence.

Christ is our only Mediator with God (John 14:6; 2 Tim. 2:5). Calvin wrote, “Since no man is worthy to present himself to God and come into his sight, the Heavenly Father himself, to free us at once from shame and fear, which might well have thrown our hearts into despair, has given us his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, to be our advocate and mediator with him.”⁸Let us therefore depend upon Christ that our worship may be pleasing to God (Heb. 13:15). Calvin wrote, “Let us learn to wash our prayers with the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”⁹

The Songs of Worship: Biblical Psalms←⤒🔗

The Reformers and Puritans employed an ancient form of worship largely forgotten in the modern church: singing the Book of the Psalms found in the Bible. Calvin quoted Augus­tine, “When we sing these songs ... we are certain that God puts the words into our mouths as if he were singing in us to exalt his glory.”¹⁰John Cotton said that privately composed hymns could also be sung, but only in private worship, not public worship.¹¹

The crux of the Reformed and Puritan argument for singing the psalms of the Bible is Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Cotton noted that these same words psalms, hymns, and songs, are “the very titles of the songs of David, as they are delivered to us by the Holy Ghost himself.”¹²

Though spiritual men may write new songs today, Cotton said that they may err, but the prophets “carried by the Spirit” as they wrote the Scriptures “cannot err.”¹³The Puritans believed that songs of mere human origin have their place, but “our devotion is best secured” when our songs come from “divine inspiration,” that is, the inspired Scriptures.¹⁴

The Spirit of Worship: Biblical Fear←⤒🔗

We must be zealous for pure worship, because God is zealous for the glory of His name. It may surprise people to hear it in this man-centered world, but God loves His glory even more than He loves our very lives. However, pure worship is not just about outward elements and content. In John 4:24, the Lord Jesus declares, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

Spiritual worship is not a passive experience; it requires concentration, exertion, diligence, and “striving” with all your might (Rom. 15:30) to serve God with a single-minded focus upon His glory (Col. 3:22). In true worship, we do obeisance to God, and thereby learn childlike fear and obedience. David prayed in Psalm 86:11, “Unite my heart to fear thy name.” In worship God must be the center of our attention and affection. Then we worship Him in Christ with holy reverence, heartfelt joy, humble loyalty, and sincere devotion. In that holy, lofty devotion we call worship, we are so enamored with God that we ourselves fade away. Consequently, as Stephen Charnock said, “All our thoughts ought to be ravished with God” as our “treasure,” not easily distracted by “every feather” and “bubble” of this world.¹⁵So Burroughs said, “When we come to worship God, if we would sanctify God’s name, we must have high thoughts of God; we must look upon God as he is upon his throne, in majesty, and in glory.”¹⁶Worship shaped by God’s special revelation is worship offered to God in accord with His Word, centered upon His Son, and granted by His Spirit; it reaps more healing joy in ten minutes than the world can give us in a lifetime of shallow joys.

True worship blends holy fear and holy trembling together with unspeakable joy that we are absolutely secure for this life and a better to come, in Immanuel, God with us. Then we worship God from the inside out, knowing that the soul of worship is soul worship, even as we respond to His greatness by presenting Christ back to His Father in the arms of faith, trusting that He will get His glory in and through us and that all things work together for good to those who love God (Rom. 8:28).

True worship through special revelation is our only fitting response to God; it is a spiritual and moral imperative. Do you worship the triune God in accord with His special revelation contained in His Word? By the Spirit’s grace, is the fruit of your worship evident in your obedient response to the written and preached Word?