By: Henry Knapp
I’m not an emoji user (had to look up how to spell “emoji!”). But, I realize why people use them—an image can capture more than mere words can describe. An emoji of a crying face conveys sorrow in a powerful way; a winking eye is mischievous; eyebrows down equals anger. This perhaps helps explain why the Scripture uses imagery so often—the totality of God’s work, the beauty of heaven, the depravity of sin, the joy of salvation, is so vast and overwhelming, that no words can express. So, we are often left with images and word-pictures to describe the most meaningful experiences of the Christian.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the biblical image of salvation as going from death to life. The Bible uses the word picture of a dead man to describe our spiritual state when we are separated from God. I love this because it cuts at the core of our self-sufficiency. If it is true that we are dead apart from Christ (Ephesians 2:1, 5; Colossians 2:13), then we are truly lost, unable to do anything. Dead men don’t save themselves; they don’t even contribute to the saving process. It is humbling, challenging to our pride, and convicting. Acknowledging our poverty in spirit opens our lives to God’s redeeming work. Seeing ourselves as “dead” without Christ is ultimately a marvelously freeing thing.
The picture of death to life, however, speaks not only of who/what we were before Christ, but it also gives us a picture of who we are after Christ—we are alive! Suddenly, the cadaver breathes! The corpse arises, dances, and sings. If “dead” well describes our existence apart from Christ, then “life” is a great picture of being united with Christ in salvation.
So, having come from death to life, what should we do, we who have been made alive in Christ? Well, how unlikely would it be for a living person not to breathe? Certainly, one natural thing for the newly-made-alive would be to take in air—for if they don’t… are they really alive? The living simply do certain things; a natural part of being alive. What “comes naturally” to those who are alive in Christ? What flows from being spiritually alive like breathing naturally comes to those who are physically alive?
It is hard to imagine that worship would not head such a list—what is more natural for the newly-alive than to praise and thank the One who made them so? Proclaiming the One who saves should come as automatically for the Christian as breathing does for the living. Notice, my thought here is not that worship somehow saves us, or that we “merit” our salvation by coming to church—far from it! Heresy! Rather, my thought is that some things simply come naturally to those who are alive, like gathering for worship. A crucial part of our salvation is our corporate worship—coming together as His people to proclaim our “aliveness” and God’s work at making it so.
Gathering in worship should not be an add-on for the believer; coming together to praise and proclaim shouldn’t be something we do when we can fit it in. Worship is like breathing—it is something that simply flows from being alive in Christ. Part of our “Worship+2” paradigm here at Hebron captures this idea; worship is a natural part of living; and so, let us “be alive” together! I look forward to seeing you in worship in the coming weeks.
To the praise of His glory, Henry
