Making excuses

Thus says the LORD: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. (Isa 66:1-2)

So I read a posting from R.C. Sproul yesterday, Building with Conviction, in which he defends the building of ornate "churches" by appealing to the Old Testament accounts of the building of the tabernacle.

In the final analysis, we ask, what happened to beauty? Modern churches tend to look like prefabricated warehouses, or they’re designed to be functional music halls so that the production of music may have center stage. In the Old Testament, the whole person was engaged in worship. The mind was engaged with the Word of God. The music of the choirs and the instruments mentioned in many of the psalms were part of the design of worship. There was an auditory beauty. There was a visual beauty. There was even an olfactory beauty with the sweet aroma of incense that was part of the experience of worship. All five senses, as well as the mind, were engaged in biblical worship. If we are to worship God fully in truth and in Spirit, we need to incorporate beauty among the gathering of His people wherever possible. This is the model that God followed when He designed the tabernacle, His dwelling place in Israel.

There’s nothing in redemptive history that would make beauty, goodness, or truth suddenly passé or insignificant. These elements, which point to God, are always and everywhere, in every time and in every nation, significant elements of godly worship.

Look at that one sentence again: If we are to worship God fully in truth and in Spirit, we need to incorporate beauty among the gathering of His people wherever possible. So in order to worship God, we must wherever possible have beautiful buildings or at least spend time, effort and money to beautify our buildings? If a local gathering of the church has the means to buy a pipe organ, hire a professional "worship leader" and build an expensive cathedral but chooses instead to meet in a rented school room and use their money to aid orphans and widows, they are not fully worshiping God in truth and in Spirit? Sproul is a careful writer so I can't chalk this up to carelessness.

That is not only not logical, it is eminently unbiblical. I say that cautiously given the academic prowess of Sproul, a man who has been of great benefit to me in his teaching in the past but who I find increasingly hard to understand. When you see the constant appeals for more and more money that go toward foolishness like ornate man-made temples in the name of "worship", I wonder where the focus is. Is it on the Gospel or is it on "my ministry"?

I should hope it is unnecessary to explain to Christians the difference between the tabernacle where God dwelt among His people under the old covenant administration and the utter lack of any buildings or edifices under the New Covenant. In fact, the witness of Scripture is that we, i.e. the Church, are the dwelling place of God and that we manifest His glory in our love for one another, a love that certainly doesn't require us to worship in finely appointed chambers. The early church apparently spent not one iota of time or effort to construct appropriate buildings with the proper atmosphere to "worship" in. In contrast with the early church, this appeal to what we see as beautiful to enhance our worship demonstrates an underlying lack of worship. If you think God is inadequate to worship as He is and that He needs our feeble efforts to create the proper atmosphere to worship Him in Spirit and truth, your reasoning is more akin to that of Roman Catholicism or mormonism where the buildings are designed to give the appearance that something uniquely holy is happening that can only happen there.

God neither needs nor seeks our weak and arrogant attempts at creating a beautiful dwelling place to worship Him. He has indwelt what is the least lovely and impressive possible edifices: His own redeemed people. Many of us aren't much to look at. We certainly are not awe inspiring nor magnificent but we have a glory greater than any cathedral or church because we are God's chosen people, His elect. That is where our glory is, in Him and Him alone. I would rather meet with a small group of Christians in a rented hall with plastic chairs or in the home of a believer than sit in a multi-million dollar monument to man's foolish pride. I would have thought someone like R.C. Sproul would understand that.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Eph 2:19-22)