JP Wallace
Puritan Board Sophomore
My response is that the second commandment stated and expounded in Exodus makes that very point, that worship is to be in accordance with that which is specifically warranted and precludes the addition of other elements. In other words the Bible forbids everything not specifically warranted.
Exodus 20: 4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
God tells us here that acceptable worship is worship carried out in love to Him and in accordance with His commandments. Now in the following chapter the second commandment is further expounded and clarified thus,
Exodus 20:23-26 23 'You shall not make anything to be with Me -- gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves. 24 'An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record My name I will come to you, and I will bless you. 25 'And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. 26 'Nor shall you go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.'
Here God even more specifically outlaws the appropriation of the world's worship practices, and teaches us that worship is to be plain. Contextually most important of all it precludes the worshipper from attempting to 'beautify' or improve up the warranted worship methodology by hewing the altar which would profane it.
And then a third text
Deuteronomy 12:29-32 29 " When the LORD your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, 30 "take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.' 31 "You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way; for every abomination to the LORD which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. 32 "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.
Be careful, do not be ensnared by the world's practices, God is not to be worshipped in any other way other than what he has commanded...be careful to observe that and that only, no adding, no taking away (in relation to the revelatory age or covenant administration)
Herein (in these three texts) lies at least part of the evidence for the Confessional position. If it is legalism it is Scripture warranted God-breathed legalism.
"But the acceptable way of Worshipping the true God, is instituted by himself; and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be Worshipped according to the imaginations, and devices of Men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or 362any other way, not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures."
