Central to this perspective on congregational worship (part 1 of this 2-part series) is the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union (one Person who is fully God and fully man). In the Person of Christ we find the objective movement of God-to-man and the objective and vicarious responding movement of man-to-God. This double movement is united in the one Person of the Incarnate Son. Therefore, from the first moment of Christ’s earthly existence we have in the one Person of Christ the objective saving activity of God and the objective and vicarious responding activity of man. We must not look at the Hypostatic Union as merely the means of our salvation. Rather, we must recognize that it is actually the place where salvation was accomplished. T. F. Torrance writes:
"The vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ…fulfills a representative and substitutionary role in all our relations with God…such as trusting and obeying, understanding and knowing, loving and worshipping…Jesus Christ…in and through His humanity took our place, acting in our name and on our behalf before God, freely offering in Himself what we could not offer and offering it in our stead, the perfect response of man to God in a holy life of faith and prayer and praise, the self-offering of the Beloved Son with whom the Father is well pleased” (God and Rationality, 145).
Moreover, the Epistle to the Hebrews makes it clear that Christ continues to be the place where God’s movement to man and man’s responding movement to God reside. It is because of this double movement, which was brought to its climax in the death and resurrection of Christ and continues as Christ ministers in the Holy Place (Hebrews 8:1-2), that we now have objective confidence to enter the Holy Place, to draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:19-22). This is why the writer of Hebrews closes his epistle by exhorting us to continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God through our High Priest, Jesus (Hebrews 13:15). T.F. Torrance writes:
"Jesus Christ in his own self-oblation to the Father is our worship and prayer in an acutely personalized form, so that it is only through him and with him and in him that we may draw near to God with the hands of faith filled with no other offering but that which he has made on our behalf and in our place once and for all" (T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, 87).
If my understanding of the Hypostatic Union and its implications for corporate is correct, thinking of congregational worship, as I argued in my last post, simply in terms of what we are offering to God is worship that is not as gospel-centered as we might think. It is worship, it seems to me, that has lost sight of Christ’s vicarious life and continued priestly ministry. Therefore, I believe, pastors would do well not only to teach the congregation about these things but also to lead it in corporate worship in such a way that those present are consciously aware of the fact that “all our worship of the Father takes place properly within the circle of the life of Jesus Christ which he lived in our human nature in such a way that his whole life formed itself into worship, prayer and praise which he offered to the Father on our behalf” (T.F. Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation, 210-211).
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