...the Savior goes on to say that they who worship God are to worship him “in spirit.” No longer with the visible sacrifice of a lamb, but inwardly trusting in him who is the Lamb of God’s passover; no more with sprinkled blood of goats, but heartily relying upon the blood once shed for many; no longer worshipping God with ephod, breastplate, and mitre, but with prostrate soul, with uplifted faith, and with the faculties not of the body but of the inward spirit. We who worship God under the Christian dispensation are no longer to fancy that bodily exercise in worship profiteth anything, that genuflections and contortions are of any value, but that acceptable worship is wholly mental, inward, and spiritual.
But he adds, lest there should seem an omission in the description, “must worship him in spirit and in truth;” for though we should profess to worship God only with the spirit and so despise forms, yet unless the soul shall truly love, and really adore, and sincerely bow, our worship will be as unacceptable as though it were formal and outward.
From a sermon entitled "The Axe At The Root," delivered June 17, 1866. Image by Calum Davidson under Creative Commons License.
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