John 4:23-24 “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. (24) God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
It is only under the New Covenant that the saints can worship God as He desires to be worshipped, for in the above quoted passage of scripture our Lord Jesus teaches us that because God is Spirit that He desires those who worship Him should do so in spirit and in truth. And so it is only the saints under the New Covenant that can fulfil this role of worship, and we can do so because our spirits have been born-again. The saints under the Old Covenant, being spiritually dead, could never worship God in spirit and could therefore only worship God with their understanding. And so even though God accepted that form of worship, it was not the worship that He desired. We can now understand why the apostle Paul placed singing with his spirit before singing with his understanding (1 Corinthians 14:15), because Paul understood that under this dispensation, that God places greater emphasis on spiritual worship than on worship with the understanding. Sadly many in the church today, because they have never experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit, are unable to worship God in spirit and continue to worship God with their understanding just as the Old Testament saints did. Nevertheless it is only the spirit of the believer that is able to fully express to God His greatness and the greatness of His works, for our understanding in this life has no concept of who God really is. As an aside, to worship God in truth simply means to worship Him without hypocrisy, i.e. God is seeking those who genuinely worship Him and not in pretence.
Michael E.B. Maher
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