# Can a Church be too Christocentric?



## thistle93 (Nov 16, 2013)

I know this may sound almost heretical but do you think a church's worship can be too Christocentic? Or for that matter too Fathercentric or Spritcentric?

It seems like those in mainline Evangelicalism primarily focus their worship on the Son. But it also seems those in the Reformed camp can tend to focus their worship primarily on the Father and Charismatics primarily focus worship on the Spirit. I know this is somewhat of a generalization and I am not saying these groups neglect worship of the other persons of the Trinity. Just that one person of the Trinity seems to take priority in worship when compared to the other groups. 

Is not our worship to be Trinitarian? Any good books on Trinitarian worship? 

For His Glory-
Matthew


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## Captain Picard (Nov 16, 2013)

I think you're on to something with the Reformed/mainline/Charismatic divide. While I haven't read anything from the Reformed perspective specifically about a Trinitarian focus in worship,I think my worship experience and understanding of the doctrine was enhanced by James R. White's "Forgotten Trinity".


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## jandrusk (Nov 16, 2013)

I agree that I think there has been some neglect in regards to the third person of the Trinity. Per the confession all three members are one God, the same in substance and equal in power and glory. This is another good reason for Confessions as they bring you back to what the focus needs to be when it becomes unbalanced.


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## Semper Fidelis (Nov 16, 2013)

I think one has to remember that the Reformed faith says a lot about the Spirit and that the ministry of the Spirit is essential in how we understand that the believer is brought into vital union in its worship. It is the Spirit that brings conviction of sin and converts our hearts to turn to Christ. It is the Spirit that illumines the Word that we might rightly understand it. It is the Spirit that seals the things signified in the Sacraments. It's not that it's lacking in our Confessions but that we take it for granted and often do not pray in such a way that we recognize our dependence upon the work of the Spirit for worship to be fruitful either privately in prayer, study, or song or publicly when we gather.

That said, Christ did say that the Spirit would not testify of Himself but directs our attention to Christ because it is Christ Who is our Prophet, Priest, and King. It is through these Offices that He mediates the Covenant to us. We don't have access to heavenly places without Him. It's not so much that we don't worship the Godhead as Trinity so much as we don't have access to the place where Worship is except that Christ mediates for us a way of approach.

Have to run...those are my sketched out observations.


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## Jack K (Nov 16, 2013)

Too Christocentric? The disciples seemed to think it was possible when Jesus told them that they knew the Father because they knew the Son. Philip tried to shift the focus back to the Father: "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us" (John 14:8). Jesus corrected him: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father."

Let's not forget that God is one, and that the Father and the Spirit delight to see Jesus receive honor. To worship him is not to slight the other Persons, but to imitate them. Owen makes this point in his _Christologia_: “Nothing renders us so like unto God as our love unto Jesus Christ, for he is the principle object of his love; in him doth his soul rest, in him he is always well pleased.”

The Father and the Spirit are the most Christcentric Persons of all. It would be hard to be "too Christocentric" without also being too God-like. Not something I worry about.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Nov 16, 2013)

One can definitely become Christomonistic (as Barthian theology always does)...


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## hammondjones (Nov 16, 2013)

Yes.

In fact, I was just reading Berkhof's Vicarious Atonement Through Christ, where he responds to the objection that penal substitution implies a schism within the trinity.

Chapter: The Necessity of the Atonement
Section: Schism in the trinitarian life


> The first objection [that the necessity of the atonement makes God inferior to good men who can forgive without receiving satisfaction] frequently goes hand in hand with a second which finds expression in the following words of David Smith: "It (the penal theory of satisfaction) places a gulf between God and Christ, representing God as the stern Judge who insisted on the execution of justice, and Christ as the pitiful Savior who interposed and satisfied His legal demand and appeased His righteous wrath. They are not one ether in their attitudes towards sinners or in the arts which they play. God is propitiated, Christ propitiates; God inflicts punishment, Christ suffers it; God exacts debt, Christ pays it." ...
> 
> This means that the penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement involves a schism in the trinitarian life of God. But this objection is also base on a misunderstanding, for which the adherents of that doctrine may be partly to blame. *They do not always sufficiently emphasize the truth to which attention was called in the preceding, that the whole work of the atonement originated in the good pleasure of God. Moreover, they frequently give the impression in their private conversation and in their public worship that Christ is the Alpha and Omega of the work of redemption. This tendency is very marked in the life and worship of the Moravian Brethren, but appears with almost equal strength and persistency in the religious attitude and exercises of many others, particularly in our country. Some of them are frankly and piously opposed to a theocentric and insist on a christocentric religion. While they sing the praises of Christ in one hymn after another, they seldom rise to the heights of recognizing the triune God for His eternal love and for His boundless grace.* They stop at the mediate, and forget all about the ultimate cause of their salvation, and might profitably reflect on some of the Old Testament psalms, such are 16, 18, 23, 27, 34, and on such New Testament passages as Luke 1:47-50, 78; II Cor 1:3, 4:15; Eph 1:6, 2:4 and so on. The triune God provided freely for the salvation of sinners There was nothing to constrain Him. The Father made the sacrifice of His Son, and the Son willingly offered Himself. There was no schism in the divine being. The ultimate cause of the redemption of sinner lies, not in one person of the Trinity, but in the sovereign good pleasure of the triune God.


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## Peairtach (Nov 16, 2013)

Ordinarily and prevalently public worship should be addressed to the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit, thus involving all three Persons as one God.

Often the minister will add the words "one God" to the end of the Apostolic benediction, which I think In my humble opinion is good practice, to remind the congregation, if needed, that we have only one God, and the Three are one God.

The Spirit comes, not to draw attention to Himself, but to the Father and the Son.

I don't think Reformed worship in my experience, focusses excessively on the Father; sometimes not enough.

If the above pattern is kept in mind it should prevent imbalance. I'm not saying that it is wrong to directly address the Son or the Spirit in leading public prayer, but it should be the exception In my humble opinion. We are collectively and formally approaching the Triune Jehovah, rather than speaking intimately to the Lord Jesus or to the Holy Spirit in our closets.

My thoughts on this are slightly inchoate and unformed on this, so comments would be welcome.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2


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## Leslie (Nov 16, 2013)

I don't understand how it can be wrong to be Father-centric. Jesus was. The whole purpose of atonement is to bring us into relationship with the Father. Focusing too much on Jesus is focusing on the road, not the goal. Unbelievers reading the NT are impressed with how Jesus was "hung up" on His Father. It's Father-this and Father-that. Are we not to be imitators of Christ?


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## py3ak (Nov 17, 2013)

We ought to be careful of dichotomizing what Scripture unites.

John 5:22,23


> For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.



John 14:1


> Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.



Sometimes people claim christocentrism; but when this supposed christocentrism detracts from a robust trinitarianism, from the basic theocentrism manifested in all the Bible and in the life of Christ himself, or from the word of God as our supreme rule it is clearly demonstrated that this is not a genuine exaltation of Christ, but an ignoring of Christ's own concerns and an elimination of the context within which Christ's true nature is understood. 

Christ is the center of God's purposes. A genuine and proper christocentrism will understand everything in Scripture in reference to Christ and see it by his light; a false and improper christocentrism will exclude many things contained in Scripture, as though they were irrelevant to Christ.

We worship God; it is _deity_ that is the ground of worship; and so we worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not separately or distinctly, but unitedly and undividedly.

This being said, I don't think it is surprising that in some people's thought or experience there is a particular emphasis on one person or another, or even one relation and character. We are all limited, and God transcends us at every point. It may be that someone finds a particular sweetness or comfort in the thought of Christ as advocate, whereas the experiences of another lead him to delight most in Christ as king. Since none of us can exhaust the unsearchable riches of Christ, perhaps it is good that we should apprehend different facets in different degrees of detail and delight. In the same way, while we should draw unspeakable comfort from the idea of a reconciled God, from the revelation of a heavenly Father, of a divine redeemer joined to our nature, and of an almighty Spirit dwelling within, it is perhaps natural that different people have a better grasp of one than another, or even that we ourselves at different stages in our pilgrimage find one or the other taking up more of our thoughts. Since we can't simultaneously meditate on all the doctrine of God, perhaps the best we can do is a perpetual willingness to be captivated or recaptivated by an aspect that is currently not uppermost in our apprehension.


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## MarieP (Nov 17, 2013)

I think it depends on what you mean by Christocentric. To neglect the Father and the Spirit would actually not be a Christocentric thing to do. Jesus told us to pray to the Father, and He said that "I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You”- Heb. 2:12. Jesus told us that it was good that He go to the Father, for He would send us another Helper, the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit testifies of Jesus.

I don't believe we will literally see the Father or the Holy Spirit, but we will see Jesus face-to-face. So while worshipping God is Trinitarian worship, we are able to approach God through Jesus Christ- it is His flesh that was torn for us.

And I say that as one who also believes (in the words of JI Packer) that we may measure one's Christianity by how much he makes of God as his Father. But another thing to consider is that it's in Christ that we have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Salvation is Trinitarian, but Paul said that for him to live is Christ, not for him to live is the Father or for him to live is the Holy Spirit. 

Related to this, this morning my pastor taught an excellent Sunday School on the Unsearchable Riches of Christ!

"500 sermons on Joseph is too much. 500 sermons on David is too much. But 500 sermons on Christ doesn't even begin to get to the end."

Pt 44, Ch 18 Unsearchable Riches - SermonAudio.com


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## Free Christian (Nov 19, 2013)

I think I know what you mean Mathew. Years ago I rarely gave the Holy Spirit much thought, I don't know why really I just didn't. These days though I am very, or I like to think I am, conscious of the Godhead and think of Them all. I don't know how to put this so Ill just say it. Too much Jesus is never enough, too much of the Father is never enough, too much of the Holy Spirit is never enough, but not enough of any is never good enough.


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## THE W (Nov 24, 2013)

Is not the entirety of God's Word Christocentric? Does it not all point to Him?

God's people, regenerated by the Spirit, worship the Son to the glory of the Father.

I would think that being "too Christocentric" would be ironic in that you would have to lack understanding of who Christ is and what the Word of God's testimony about Him is.


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## GloriousBoaz (Nov 24, 2013)

Semper Fidelis said:


> That said, Christ did say that the Spirit would not testify of Himself but directs our attention to Christ because it is Christ Who is our Prophet, Priest, and King. It is through these Offices that He mediates the Covenant to us. We don't have access to heavenly places without Him. It's not so much that we don't worship the Godhead as Trinity so much as we don't have access to the place where Worship is except that Christ mediates for us a way of approach


 This is very true and is how i usually explain this to others but I also stress the need not to neglect worship of any of the members of the trinity. I still do sense something awkward in the over~devotion to Christ and the expense of the rest of the Trinity, perhaps Trinitarian~Preferentialism. The church I used to go to one of their favorite sayings, they said it so much that it was almost a cliche, is "It's all about Jesus" which leads me to something else that is bothering me and I don't know what to think of it, it bothers me when Jesus is always called Jesus without His titles of either Lord or Christ or Lord Christ which He earned. To my knowledge the scriptures after His death and resurrection all the writers always refer to Him with His titles unless they are referring to a point in His ministry pre~crucifixion. 


Leslie said:


> Focusing too much on Jesus is focusing on the road, not the goal.


 That's interesting. Hmmm...


py3ak said:


> In the same way, while we should draw unspeakable comfort from the idea of a reconciled God, from the revelation of a heavenly Father, of a divine redeemer joined to our nature,


 I see this in people who tend to over~emphasis Christ's humanity, where as the Puritans and those of the past where more balanced or maybe even more on the side of His divinity because of their reverence whereas now this over~emphasis on His humanity is because as Sproul would say "there is trauma when a holy God meets with unholy people" and so it is more comforting to relate to His humanity, which is certainly something we should do, but not at the expense of His deity. He is worthy of being worshiped fully, and though we won't do this perfectly there's no reason to lower the bar. Also different people are built different, for instance some are more mercy~like and some are more of a hardcase and those tend to relate to God's mercy or justice respectively but we need to step outside ourselves and grow in the other direction as well to maintain a balance in our worship and apprehension of God I believe that is what Reuben meant when he said 


py3ak said:


> perhaps the best we can do is a perpetual willingness to be captivated or recaptivated by an aspect that is currently not uppermost in our apprehension.


 To which he is most certainly correct. 
Also a thought is that the holy spirit in charismatic circles usually isn't representative of the really Holy Spirit, not always, but sometimes. So that is something else to consider.


MarieP said:


> I think it depends on what you mean by Christocentric. To neglect the Father and the Spirit would actually not be a Christocentric thing to do.


 This is very helpful to me.

Most people don't understand the nuances of the doctrine of inter~Trinitarian love, that would solve a lot of this. I will leave you with a quote from Spurgeon's Anthology:



> MARK, Beloved, the union of the Three Divine Persons in all their gracious acts!
> We believe that there is one God,
> and although we rejoice to recognize the Trinity, yet it is ever most distinctly a Trinity
> in Unity. Our watchword is
> ...


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## MW (Nov 24, 2013)

Backwoods Presbyterian said:


> One can definitely become Christomonistic (as Barthian theology always does)...



Excellent observation!


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