As I prepare for ordination, I have done some selective reading of James Bannerman’s Church of Christ.

A few ideas stuck out to me in his chapter on “The Divine Origin, Permanent Obligation, and Legitimate Parts of Public Worship.” I’m using the Banner of Truth Trust edition, but you can find a free PDF at Monergism; using that PDF, you can find this chapter as Part 3, Division 2, Subdivision 1, Chapter 1.

“It has been given to the Church to keep up the public worship of God in the Christian society, according to the method which He Himself has prescribed, to administer those outward means of grace which He makes effectual by His Spirit to the edification of the body of believers, to order and dispense that external provision for gathering and perfecting the visible society of His people in this world which He has appointed for their present good” (339–40).

“The worship of God, publicly and in society with others, is the proper expression towards God of man’s social nature” (341).

“From the very beginning there has been a visible society of men united together upon the principle of ‘calling upon the name of the Lord’ [Gen 4.26] in social union, and separated from other men by the profession which characterizes them as His people. In other words, there has been a Church on earth under every dispensation since the first; the members of which have been distinguished from the rest of the world by the faith which they held in common, and by uniting together in public acts of worship as expressive of that faith” (342).

“[I]n no one age since the first have sinners been left to their own devices or option in regard either to the duty or to the manner of social worship” (343).

These are just a few points that struck me. If you read the whole chapter, there is a much more systematic argument about public worship as a natural (concreated) obligation upon human beings made in the image of God and according to his likeness, and then the additional redemptive developments once humans are considered sinners in need of God’s grace. Emphasized throughout is that God determines both whether and how humans are to approach him in worship.

Bibliography

Bannerman, James. The Church of Christ: A Treatise on the Nature, Powers, Ordinances, Discipline, and Government of the Christian Church. 1869. Repr., Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2016.