The Confession of Faith, Chapter 21 of Religious Worship in the Sabbath Day, Section 2. Religious worship is to be given to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and to Him alone, not to angels, saints, or any other creature, and since the fall, not without a mediator, nor the mediation of any other, but of Christ alone. The first section set forth what we call the regulative principle. In this section we begin to examine some of the reasons for the regulative principle. And we will continue throughout this chapter then looking at various elements of worship. But we need to understand that these various elements of worship are, in fact, the elements that they are because of some of the things that are said right here in this section. The first is this idea that religious worship is to be given to God alone, and particularly to God as he is and exists as the eternal trinity of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That is really a corollary to both the doctrine of the Trinity and I would also say that this is a necessary assertion if we're going to avoid anything like tritheism or polytheism. which is what it would really be. That view, that polytheistic view, is a view that would be held by, say, Arians, or people who would in some way denigrate the nature and glory of the Son of God. They, in so doing, remove from Him a right to the same worship as that given to the Father. Likewise, to those who diminished or even reduced to an impersonal force, the Holy Ghost. So there is a necessary affirmation in that. There is a confession that we are Trinitarian, that we are also very clearly monotheist and not polytheists. So that's the first point. The second point here is one that is added, I suppose, mainly as a dig at the Romanist doctrines. That is, we're not to offer religious worship to angels, saints, or any other creature. But that also would apply, quite honestly, to others such as the Arians who view Christ as a creature. He's maybe the highest creation. They view him as a god, but he, from their point of view, is a created god. And as a created god, that means he's a creature. So that has that has an affirmation of the position of Protestants that we are not going to worship anything other than God. We're not gonna be caught up with relics. We're not going to fall into praying to saints. A lot of this, is a very deep practical concern at the time of the Reformation and remains a concern because the Roman Church is still around. Is that why the Reformed don't use pictures of crosses because it becomes a relic in a sense? There is a sense in which crosses and other symbols have been excluded by those of a more puritanical bent. That is, the Reformed who wrote the Confession, they're going to be much more inclined to exclude these things because of the various associations and the fact that acts of devotion have been associated with them. A lot of these things which may have been at some time or some place, they might have been things which would have been adiaphora. But as soon as there is this idea of worship in any way attached or juxtaposed to these things, then we get very close to creature worship. There are people, because of this, who have a sense, for example, that, and it's because of architecture and all these symbols, they have a sense that their prayers are gonna be heard if they're in a church building. If they're in, the place where the church meets, the architecture, the stained glass, the ornamentation, all of that tends to work in them a heightened sense of spirituality, and that's idolatry. Because the heightened sense is not because they're more aware of God, What they're more aware of is all of these trappings around them. This is why the Puritan meeting houses tended to be very plain. The architecture was very simple. They were very much just meant to be meeting houses, not elaborate, ornate cathedrals. that would evoke this sort of idolatrous sense. The third point that we're going to discuss is that point that since the Fall, no worship, no religious worship, can be given without a mediator. And by the way, there is no other mediator but Christ alone. And we'll have to discuss why that is the case. And again, that statement about no other mediation of any other Christ alone, that language, that language is itself another shot aimed at Romanism. And the idea of the mediation of angels or saints and so on. So, we're going to begin with the first question. And the first question is, is religious worship be given to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and to Him alone? The answer is yes. We're going to begin with Matthew 4, verse 10. Matthew 4, verse 10, Then saith Jesus unto him, Keep thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. That's Christ's response to the temptation of the devil. And we see that that is the case, that scripture teaches that the Lord our God needs to be worshiped. Deuteronomy 6.13. Deuteronomy 6.13. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. Christ, when he responds to Satan, he's responding at least in part in the words of the law. So we know that religious worship is only to be given to the true God. and all the other gods, the idols of men's hands, they're vanity, they're less than nothing. Worship is by definition a showing forth of worth-ship. It is in fact relating to a being in accordance with true worth, true value. So religious worship is that worship that pertains to the divinity. And there's only one true divinity, and that is that divinity which is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. There is only one God. There's only one deity. There's only one divinity. no way to separate one from another. So if we're going to engage in religious worship, it has to be with respect to this divinity, this deity that is the common possession of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And that's really the point, that divine worship is to be addressed equally to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost follows necessarily from the fact that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, being distinct persons, are yet each equally, in the same absolute sense, the one Supreme God. That is, there's one deity. Again, Matthew 4.10, we want to compare it with John 5.23 and 8.49. Matthew 4.10. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. John 5, 23, That all should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent him. John 8, verse 49, Jesus answered, I have not a devil, but I honor my Father, and ye do dishonor me. So the fact is that in this great matter of worship, there is an honoring, a service and an honoring that is being done to the one supreme divinity, which again is the common property of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So we talked about the doctrine of the Trinity, and so I don't want to try to get into the nuance of all of this, but the fact is, there's only one divine nature and one shared power and glory, which is possessed equally by the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 2 Corinthians 13, 14. 2 Corinthians 13, 14. Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen. There is in religious worship then a necessity that we recognize that there is the shared nature. There's one divine nature. And that that nature is in fact the object of our worship and devotion. This nature is what makes each of these persons worthy of religious veneration and devotion. And it's the lack of that that excludes, quite frankly, everything else. Nothing else possesses this divine nature. Nothing. Nothing else has this divine nature. And as a caveat, just to be clear, when we worship Christ We worship Him as He is the Son of God. And we worship Him because of His divinity, not because of His humanity. We may admire Him because of His humanity, but we don't worship that humanity. That would be worshiping the creature. We don't worship the creature. But when we worship the divinity in him, we are necessarily going to come face to face with that assumed humanity. But we shouldn't, for that reason, fall to worshipping the creature, as if man should be worshipping man. That's an expression of the condescension of that great God. Properly speaking, our worship does not terminate upon His humanity, but upon His divine person as to his divinity. All right, the second question then that we have to ask is this. Is religious worship to be given to angels, saints, or any other creature? I've already said no, but we're gonna look at that in a little bit more detail here. So let's look at Revelation 19.10. Romans 1 25. Revelation 19 verse 10. And I fell at his feet to worship him, and he said unto me, See thou do it not, I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Romans 1 verse 25. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Okay, so this idea that worship is to be given to angels, saints, or any other creature, or that we are to worship God under any other guise than he himself presents is clearly false. Going back to the point before I move on to continue this, with respect to the humanity of Christ, it is a true creature that has been assumed. And the fact, this really goes to the point the problem with pictures of Christ. Pictures of Christ could only only depict his humanity. To encourage people to worship Christ as to his supreme Godhead through an artificial depiction such as that, is to lose complete sight of his divinity. The divinity of God cannot be pictured, the point of the second commandment, by any graven image. There is no picturing that divinity by way of of anything that you can think of, anything you can imagine in heaven or on earth or under the earth. There's nothing, nothing answerable to that. When men draw pictures of Christ, they can't in any way depict his divinity. They don't convey the presence of the divine person. What they're doing is simply trying to give you a semblance of a body. The problem is that the very person of Christ ought to evoke worship. When you have these artificial representations which only represent, at best, His humanity, then we're getting into this realm of creature worship. Now we're beginning to look at the Eternal Son of God incarnate as one who is, in fact, more like man that we have to conceive of as God, rather than the God who became man. It destroys proper devotion and encourages hard idolatry and creature worship. So all these pictures, these depictions, are not only not helpful, they're actually dangerous and they're the kind of thing that makes the people of God more subject, rather than less subject, to idolatry. All right, so there's not any religious worship to do with angels, saints, or any other creature. Thus, we can say the papacy were maintaining that not only God, but the good angels and saints departed, particularly those who are canonized by the Pope, ought to be worshipped and called upon even after a religious manner. Chiefly, they would say the Virgin Mary, that there is a divine power in the relics of the saints, which therefore ought to be worshipped. All which is contrary to the word of God, Colossians 2.18. Colossians 2 verse 18, let no man be guilty of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen vainly pumped up by his fleshly mind. We're not to be exercising ourselves in a religious manner so as to show the worthiness of saints or angels. or even the Virgin Mary. This is a very serious error that the papists inculcate in people. From all of this, there arose this superstitious veneration of relics, the bones of saints and things that they've touched and so on. Calvin wrote an inventory of relics that he was aware of in his day. There were enough fragments of the true cross according to these relics that I think he said you could make three. He said there were certain apostles whose bones There were enough bones to make two of them. There were literally, and allegedly, gallons of milk reported to be breast milk from the Virgin Mary. This is kind of stuff that potpourri devolves into. These are the kinds of things people do when they lose sight of this principle that we're only to worship God alone, not the creature, not saints, not angels. There is a stupidity in this superstition. It is, frankly, almost impossible to believe, except that we know how depraved men are, and how stupid sin makes men. So, the Papists, of course, They get around some of this at least because they have destroyed the distinction between the first and second commandments. They make it all one. And they don't distinguish between the first and second degree idolatry. So they don't see themselves as worshipping the creature because they would assert at least to some extent that they're worshipping the true God by means of this thing, this relic. Furthermore, they engage in this division of devotion. They would say, look, we don't, there's dulia and there's latria. There's service and then there's this religious service. And we're not giving the worship that belongs to the true God to these angels or saints. But the point of what we've already said about religious worship is this. Religious worship, and there's no doubt that they're bestowing religious worship, it may not be worship to the highest degree that they would accord only to the true divinity in their minds. But you see, the Bible doesn't say anything about degrees of worship. That there's one kind of worship we offer to men and to creatures and another that we offer to God alone. There is worship religious worship, and then there's everything else. There's every other kind of service that we offer. And religious worship, by its very nature, is, as we've said, that which pertains to the true God alone. It's that which is oriented toward the true divinity, toward the true divine nature. So what they're doing is they're trying to evade really the force and clarity of not only the command to worship the Lord God and Him only, but also the warnings against worshiping angels or saints and other creatures. So they're confuted for the following reasons. First of all, because the object of invocation and religious adoration is he only who is omnipotent, omniscient, and the searcher of the heart. You can't really call upon in prayer one who is not omnipotent, omniscient, and searcher of the heart. There has to be an assumption of these kinds of things in religious worship. There's none that know of our necessities and wants, but he that is omniscient. There's none that can actually succor and help us, but he that is omnipotent. So we need more than this. We need to have a divinity. We need one, a nature that is all-powerful, that's all-knowing, if there is to be any purpose in our religious worship. Religious worship makes no sense apart from this. And so it doesn't make any sense to worship angels. Angels are not omniscient. Ephesians 3, 10 and 1 Peter 1, verse 12. Ephesians 3, verse 10. To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers and heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. 1 Peter 1, verse 12. Unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves but unto And we can also say the saints that are departed are not omniscient, as is clear from Isaiah 63, 16. Isaiah 63, verse 16. Doubtless thou art our Father through Abraham, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer. Thy name is from everlasting. Yeah, though Abraham is what? Is ignorant of us. Abraham is dead, he doesn't know. Is Abraham a saint? Yes. Does he live forever before the face of God? Yes. But he's departed. He has not become omniscient simply because he's departed this life. He is ignorant of us. He doesn't know, he has no knowledge. How can we pray to saints who have no knowledge? They don't even know, they wouldn't even know who we are. They certainly wouldn't know what we need or what would really be beneficial. They don't have the power to search the heart. They don't know what is most needful. There's a certain amount, again, of superstition, superstitious stupidity, I should say, in the idea that we should approach Mary. The papists love Mary. They've made her co-redemptrix together with Christ. They think that praying to Mary is particularly efficacious. They think Jesus is a little too busy to pay attention to everyone. And furthermore, if he really wants something done, talk to his mother, because he does whatever his mother wants him to do. There's a lot of superstitious reasoning that surrounds this, and a lot of foolishness in all of this. It's particularly foolish when we understand that the angels, Not only are the angels not omniscient, not only do they not understand everything that's going on, they're not able to grasp the full intent, the full work of salvation. They don't really understand it. It's outside of their experience. To a certain extent, creatures can only take knowledge of that which falls within their experience. You really can't understand things that fall outside of your experience. But that's not true with God. God is omniscient. doesn't need to experience in order to understand. Abram is ignorant, the saints departed are ignorant of us. So the idea that we can call on them, we can cry out to them, that's foolishness. So all this worship, the cult of the saints, this is just superstitious nonsense. And that's because, second, they're dead, and the dead know nothing of our condition. Ecclesiastes 9, verse 5. Ecclesiastes 9, verse 5. For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. The dead are like people who are out of their mind. They don't really know. They don't know anything. They know nothing of our condition, certainly. Their head is above, beyond the present consideration. to the extent that they would know anything with respect to our condition. Their concern, like the saints to eternity, will be to praise and magnify what Christ is doing. So their focus is going to be entirely different. They're not going to be focused on this world. They're going to be focused on Christ and any knowledge they would take of this world is going to be a knowledge taken only as it relates to the advance of the Kingdom of Christ. And we get a sense of that at least in Revelation with the souls of the saints that are under the altar and they're crying out, They're looking for Christ to arise and take his kingdom. They're waiting for the end of the world. They're longing for judgment day. All right, third, because no man ought to call upon him in whom he doesn't believe, Romans 10, 14. Romans 10, 14, how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? You have to believe in order to call. There has to be a trust. You don't call for those that don't exist. You don't call for things The fact is, calling upon someone, in a sense, is dependent upon the idea of trusting and believing in a way that is reposing, a trust. But no man ought to believe in saints or angels, but in God alone, Isaiah 26.4 and Jeremiah 17.5. Isaiah 26, 4. Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. Jeremiah 17, 5. Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. So, we're not saying that you shouldn't believe in saints or angels in the sense that you should doubt that they exist. But saying that you shouldn't believe in them so as to place your trust in them, so as to call upon them, so as to offer worship to them. That kind of believing in is something reserved to God alone. Right, fourth, because neither saints alive nor angels would suffer adoration or worship through giving to themselves. Look at Acts 10, 25 and 26 and Revelation 22, 8 and 9. Acts 10 verses 25 and 26, and as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down on his feet and worshipped him. But Peter took him up saying, stand up, I myself also am a man. Revelation 22, eight and nine. And I, John, saw these things and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then say he to me, see thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book. Worship God. So we have examples. It's not as if we don't have examples of the the attitude of the saints or of angels when it comes to this idea of worshipping, offering religious worship to them. And in the cases before us, that worship is rejected. Now, saints on earth Well, the Bible not only doesn't prohibit, but in fact encourages us to pray for one another. But that's very different than what the Roman Church is saying when it comes to the departed saints. They're asking for the intercession of saints to come back to this point at the end, but they're asking for the intercession of saints based upon a certain semi-divine character that they attribute to them. They attribute to them, for example, omnipresence. I mean, how else could you pray to Saint Jude or Saint Christopher or Saint Anthony or any of these other saints that people call upon? You have to presume that they're there to hear you. You have to presume that they are actually in a position that they can help you. I presume that they are in a place where they would even care to be bothered with this sort of thing, or need to be bothered with this sort of thing. We know that the angels reject the worship of God. We know that living saints reject the worship of God. Why would dead saints accept that worship? The worshiping of them. The angels reject being worshipped. The living saints reject being worshipped. Why would dead saints, why would they be more forward to accept this kind of veneration or adoration? The fact is, there's nothing about them. If they are saints indeed, then they would not want to detract from the worship that's due to God alone. We know that the worshiping of angels does derogate from the honor of Christ in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him. Ephesians 3 verse 12. Ephesians 3 verse 12. In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him. We have that boldness and we know that the worshiping of angels derogates from the honor of Christ. That's why they decline it. When John falls down to worship him, they decline it. And they command him, in fact, to worship God. And the implications of that is that worshiping angels derogates from the honor of Christ. And we can say the same, frankly, about the living saints. You know, they're not accepting worship. Why? Because that, in fact, would take away from the honor. It casts everything into confusion. And ask a papist sometime about that distinction between duly and latrium, if they're clear on that distinction, that they're supposed to be one kind of worship to the saints and another kind of worship to God alone. And even if they're clear on that, ask them what the difference really is. So they confuse, in a way, reverence for, like, you know, your fellow man with worship, then, right? It's more than reverence. They're worshiping saints. I mean, this is why they have statues of saints. people bow before them and they pray. They pray to those saints to effect something. They're offering a prayer. First they offer religious devotion. They light candles to them. They say their devotions to them. Then they ask them to intercede. That's not your typical reverencing of their common humanity. All right, six and last, because the worshiping of saints and angels is like apolitheism, having many gods. Again, Revelation 19, 10. Revelation 19, verse 10. And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, see thou do it not. I am thy fellow servant and not thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit There's one God. If our worship is divided, if it's divisible, then there is an implicit polytheism. Now the Jehovah Witnesses, I think to their credit, if I understand correctly, they don't actually worship Christ. They only are going to worship Jehovah. They understand, at least, that only God is to be worshipped. No creature is really worthy of worshipping. I think they hide that fact from a lot of people because if you've been brought up in the Christian faith, you at least would have some sense that we are to worship Christ. But if he's something less than God, he's created God, creature, even if he's the highest of creatures, it's apotheism. And in effect, Romanism has embraced a form of apotheism. There is God, who is worshipped in one faction, but then there's religious worship, religious devotions that are to be offered up to creatures, saints, departed saints, particularly canonized departed saints. In fact, the papists attribute to each one of their saints and angels a proper power. which is very much what the heathen did of old to their idols and false gods. Look at Acts 14, verse 12. Acts 14, verse 12. And they called Barnabas Jupiter and Paul Mercurius because he was the chief speaker. Yeah, the pagans, the heathen, they had different gods who were known, noted for having different attributes. different powers. So Aphrodite is the goddess of love. Hades is the god of the underworld. Vulcan is the god of fire. Each one has certain attributes and powers and they're to be respected and in fact they are to be worshipped in such a way as to gain their favor, to have them look at you as someone favorable so that they would bestow the effects of whatever power is attributed to them. What's the difference between that and, say, praying to Saint Anthony that you're going to find something that you've lost? Or putting a statue of Saint Joseph upside down in your front yard in order to help you sell your house? Is that a real one? Yes. I don't have to make these up. I mean, it's ridiculous, the kinds of things that they attribute to these saints. What they're doing is no different than heathen polytheism. In fact, historically, if we were to look back at this, the likeness of what they're doing is very much apparent in the fact that a lot of these saints are actually modeled after and replaced in the Greek or the Roman pantheon various and sundry gods. So the idea here in Acts that that they would think Barnabas was Zeus and Paul was Mercury, because he's the chief speaker. That's not so far-fetched if you're a papist. I mean, this is exactly what they've done. They removed Zeus and they go to Barnabas. They removed Mercury, they put Paul. As they replace these different gods in the heathen pantheon, they replace them with saints, And these saints generally have the same characteristics and same powers, the same niche for answering prayer as those heathen gods that were replaced, the idols. So Romanism in the cult of the saints actually encourages some of the worst and most egregious acts of superstition and idolatry. So again, religious worship is to be given only to God. And if we understand that principle, we really didn't need to discuss not to angels, saints, or any other creature. But in a number of ways, the Bible does underscore this point by showing us and telling us that this is an unacceptable thing and incompatible with true monotheism. There's a polytheism in Romanism. So we shouldn't be surprised when we hear all the talk about Mary's co-redemptrix with Christ, and the move to elevate Mary almost to a point of being a fourth person in the Trinity. All of this brings us to the second part of the proposition in section two here, which is very, very important. Question three, is any religious worship given to God since the fall without a mediator? The answer is no. We'll begin looking at Isaiah 41, verse 28, and Job 9, 32 and 33. Isaiah 41, verse 28, for I beheld, and there was no man even among them, and there was no counselor that when I asked of them could answer a word. For he is not a man as I am, but I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment. Neither is there any day's man betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both. Okay, so since the fall of man, our assertion is you can't worship God without a mediator. That's what the Bible is teaching. There aren't many ways, there are not many roads, not many avenues to God. This is what Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. There is no other avenue. It's just simply impossible that we should approach unto Him, to God, without a mediator. Now, no mediator was necessary in the covenant of works between God and the angels, or God and Adam, because in unfallen creatures there was nothing to bar direct intercourse between them and God. For example, look at Genesis 3, verse 8. Genesis 3, verse 8, And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from It's true at this point they've fallen, but there's a presumption, there's something going on there which is interesting, and that is prior to the fall it seems as if for whatever period of time, and I think it was a very short period of time, but nonetheless it was already customary that they meet with God walking with him in the garden. They had direct access. You know, Adam, and this is all part of the covenant of works, and this is really all part of the relationship that the angels themselves have with God. It is one of direct intercourse. And they are responsible. The angels that kept the first estate are those the equivalent for the angels was of covenant of works. Those who didn't, well, they were cast out. Of course, Adam falls. And at that point, that direct line of communication is broken. fell, and most importantly, the Catechism says, and they lost communion with God. They sinned in Adam, they fell in Adam, they lost communion with God. At that point, there needed to be, what is alluded to in Isaiah and Job, there needed to be a daisman, a mediator, someone who could stand between God and man and put his hand, as it were, on both. Prior to the fall, there is no necessity of a mediator. So the scripture presents no evidence of Christ performing any mediatorial function for them. Yeah, there's... They desire to look in. Why? They don't understand. The angels just don't get it. They don't understand what it is to to deal with a mediator, to approach God through a mediator. They don't understand that proposition or the propositions involved with that. Contrary, Bible implies always that Christ's offices are undertaken because men are sinners. In Matthew 1.21, when we look at all of Isaiah 53, and John 3, 16. Matthew 1, 21. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Isaiah 53. Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as tender plant, and as a root out of the dry ground. He hath no form nor calmliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried out our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and was the stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of all of us. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and a sheep before her shears is dumb. So he had opened not his mouth. He was taken from the prison and from judgment, And who shall declare his generation? For he was cut out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grief with the wicked, and with the rich, and his death. Because he hath done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, he hath put on him grief, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the travail of his soul, and he shall be satisfied. His knowledge shall be made righteous, servant justify many. for ye shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the grape, and he shall divide the spoil with strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bear the sin of many, and made an intercession for all the transgressors. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Scripture is very clear then that Christ undertakes these offices prophet, priest, and king, but he undertakes, in fact, the office of Christ itself as a result of the fall. Mediation becomes necessary because of the fall. Men are brought into a state of sin and misery because they've lost communion with God. and they stand in need of a mediator. What was prior to the fall, no longer remains after the fall. That direct line of communication, that communion that all men had naturally with God, unfallen men might have had with God. That is destroyed by the fall. So mankind stands in need of a mediator. Now this is an important point because this point provides at least part of the rationale for what we call the regulative principle. Man no longer has direct communion with God. Man is not in a position to worship God according to his own desires, according to his own imaginations. He doesn't know any longer what God wants or desires because he's lost communion. He cannot know any longer what it is that God will find acceptable worship. In all things pertaining to true religion, man now needs to be told what to believe and what to do. There's no place at which man can come to this knowledge by himself without some revelation. So all of our worship being offered then must conform to that which is acceptable to our mediator in John 4.24. John 4.24, God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Christ says that spiritual and it has to be truthful. Now that's not something that actually pertains to the natural man because the natural man is carnal and the natural man is a liar. All men are liars. There's none that doeth right, no not one. So you can't reason your way to the correct worship of God. You can't sort of work out for yourself the proper manner of worshiping God. That's why our prayers have to be offered according to His will and in His name, John 15, 7. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. And we know our praises have to be those according to his appointment, and they have to the manner prescribed in his word. Hebrews 2, 11 and 12. Hebrews 2, verses 11 and 12. For both ye that sanctify, and they who are sanctified, are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church, will I sing praises Okay, so our praises, if Christ is gonna participate in our praises, we have to praise God in a way that is acceptable. We can't just make it up as we go. We can't offer up things that he is not, that he's not going to be there to be mediator. If we come with our own words, there's nothing for him, for, in which he can acquiesce in order to be a mediator with respect to our praises. So, in Hebrews we're told that he's hymning, he's singing psalms with us. These are words that he's given us as mediator. He's revealed to us the will of God for our salvation. And he sings these very words with us in the midst of the church. We don't have like for that in, for example, hymns of human composition. I don't wanna spend all my time talking about these issues right now. We're gonna come back to the elements of worship in a couple more sections. But the very fact that all of our worship must be mediated, the fact that all of our worship requires this mediation, should help us understand exactly, not only why, but how important that regulative principle really is. Without that regulative principle, you're going into the worship of God like someone would go into arbitration without any counsel or any reliance upon what the mediator is telling you in this arbitration will be acceptable. You're going to go and make demands, you're going to go and offer things that are not going to be acceptable to the other side. Christ is telling us in his word what is acceptable and how to make it acceptable. But we're not invited to pray for just anything. We're to pray according to the will of God. Then we can offer it up in the name of Christ. That is, by His mediation. I can't pray that God, as I heard a Papist one time say on some interview, that He went to Mass every morning. He was a hitman, a mobster, and he went to Mass every morning and prayed that God would give him the strength to kill again that day. Well, only a papist would be so foolish, so stupid, as to think that that might be an acceptable thing. They've abandoned the regulative principle. We have to pray according to the will of God. We can't pray for things that are contrary to the will of God. We can't ask God to help us commit sin. In fact, we're to pray that we're not even led into temptation, let alone committing sin. So we need this. We need guidance in these things. We need instruction in these matters, because we don't know. We don't have a mind or heart to know, naturally. And to assume that God is just going to accept something because we said it or we did it, that's to approach God without any consideration of the need for a mediator. So by saying that we need a mediator, the Westminster Divines are really telling us why we need a regulative principle as well. Why this principle is important to us, or should be important to us. Christ is standing there to mediate. And that's not simply, as so many people tend to think, a one-way street. They seem to think that Christ's purpose, that he liveth ever to make intercession, to make acceptable whatever thought or behavior that they have. That's antinomianism. And when you think that there is no regulative principle in the worship of God, that's Antinomianism in your worship. There is a lawlessness in that, and lawlessness is the spirit of Antichrist. Romanism has brought that lawlessness in the worship of God to its highest pitch. But many so-called evangelicals are not far behind in the corrupting of the worship of God because they ignore this regular principle. And when they ignore it, what they're doing, what they're asserting is, in essence, their belief that mediation is not important in the area of worship. That God must simply accept whatever they do because they're doing it. And that, that is a lie. That is idolatry. All right, the last question. Is any religious worship given to God since the fall accepted in mediation of any other know look at Romans 5 1 & 2 and Hebrews 9 15 Romans 5 verses 1 & 2 therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope Hebrews 9, verse 15, for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, the redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. All right, so thus then does a popish church err maintaining that saints departed and chiefly, again, the Virgin Mary, are mediators and intercessors between God and man. they are very much of the mind that you've got these saints, these canonized saints, and particularly the Virgin Mary, who are in positions of mediation. Now again, this presumes a kind of polytheism, but it also fails to recognize of the mediation of Christ. It's really a method of hiding your evasions of the regulative principles. Again, Romanism takes this to its highest pitch, but they're confuted because, first of all, Scripture affirms expressly that there's one mediator between God and man, namely the man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2, 5. 1 Timothy 2, verse 5, for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Yeah, there's one mediator. There aren't a lot, this would have been a very good place for Paul to say, well, there's one main mediator and then a lot of other mediators that maybe aren't quite as effective or don't quite have the breadth of experience or depth of knowledge or breadth of power. These are people who have departed and they're going to offer a limited scope. But Paul says very clearly to Timothy, there's one mediator. There is no other. Which again is why there's only one way. Christianity is an exclusive religion. People try to make it out to be inclusive. They are mistaking a lot about Christianity. It may be with a number of Eastern religions that you can be, you know, a Buddhist in something else or a Hindu in something else. But you can't really be a Christian and something else. There is an exclusivity. And it's because there's only one mediator. And that really points up why it is so hard to be saved if you're in the Roman church. There's only one mediator. You're gonna be tempted to offer up a series of prayers to other mediators of your devising. Second, because no man can come to the Father but by Jesus Christ, John And there is only one way, and that way is narrow. And the gate is narrow. There's only one way. There aren't a lot of mediators. There's only one. And that one has said that there is no other way. This idea that we can find another way through some other mediator is just false. By Him alone we have access to the Father, Ephesians 2.18. Ephesians 2 verse 18, for through Him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. So it's through him that we have access to the Father, not through any other. This is why the apostles confess in Acts 4 that there is no other name given under heaven whereby men can be saved. There's only one mediator, and he alone provides access to the Father. Now, if you read your Bible, would be asking yourself, why would any papist who actually reads his or her Bible, why would that person ever be tempted to pray to anyone but Christ, or to anyone but God in Christ's name? He is the mediator. Third, because the scripture promises that they shall be heard, that in the name of Christ seek such things that are according to the will of God. 1 John 5.14. 1 John 5.14, and this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. Okay, but conversely, there's no promise in all the word that they shall be heard that pray to saints or angels. John 14.13 and 14. John 14, 13, and 14. And whosoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. There's a promise. Whatever you ask in the name of Christ, he's gonna do it. Do you have like promise for that with respect to departed saints or the Virgin Mary? Is there any promise of an effectual mediation through saints or angels? On the other hand, if we ask anything in the name of Christ according to the will of God, we know that it will be heard and it will be done. Right, fourth, because the apostle says, whatsoever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, not in the name of saints, Colossians 3.17. Colossians 3.17, whatsoever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him. So anything you do, you're to do in the name of Jesus, not in the name of the saints. And yet that's exactly what you're doing if you're praying to saints, if you're seeking intercession of the saints. You're seeking mediation other than Christ. And that's not doing all that you do in the name of the Lord Jesus. Right, fifth, because Christ, who is called the propitiation for our sins, is also called our advocate with the Father. 1 John 2, verses 1 and 2. 1 John 2, verses 1 and 2. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And He's a propitiation for us, and He's a mercy seat. And He is, as that mercy seat, He's called our advocate with the Father. He is our mediator, at least in part, we're told, because of His atonement. You can't say that of any of the saints. They don't stand in that relation to us. advocates with the Father, there's only one advocate. Because there's only one mediator. Because there's only one who's offered an atonement, who is a propitiation for our sins. Which brings us to the sixth point. Because mediation is a part of the priestly office of Christ, which is only proper to himself and which cannot be divided between him and the saints. Look at Hebrews 7, verse 25. Hebrews 7, verse 25, wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Yeah, he can save to the uttermost, right? Why? Because this is what he does. He lives to this end to make intercession for them. This is part of his priestly office. He hasn't divided that between himself and others. He's kept to himself this priestly office, which is why he said, save to the uttermost. We don't need another mediator. There's a certain foolishness in even positing that we would need another mediator, that we would benefit from having some other. There is no need of mediation, intercession of saints or angels. Christ intercedes on behalf of his people. And he does so because he is our mediator. Again, he takes our prayers and makes them acceptable to God. That doesn't, the fact that he forgives and cleanses us of the impurities and the errors in our pray, that is not an excuse for undertaking to pray in a fashion that is contrary to the word of God. We're not, to do that. Likewise, we shouldn't think that the fact that Christ is mediator, that he's in fact made this atonement, this propitiation for our sins, that that is then a license to sin. People who reject the regulative principle very often say that, you know, well, you're not going to worship God perfectly anyway. We shouldn't even attempt to keep the law of God. We shouldn't even concern ourselves with what's right or wrong. Which is why Paul says, you know, does the grace of God make void the law of God? God forbid. It establishes the law. undercut the grace of God or the mediation of Christ is not meant to undercut the righteousness of the law. Mediation of Christ is meant to establish that. So far from this idea that grace, we're under grace, we're not under law, that that should be an excuse for us to worship God just according to our own imaginations, our own devices. That's very, very faulty thinking. And it's faulty thinking that leads to a number of things which are just simply idolatrous in the worship of God. Are we going to worship God perfectly? Are we going to please God in all that we do Well, certainly not apart from the Spirit of God working in us, not apart from the mediation of Christ. But the fact that we need that mediation of Christ is not our excuse to abandon the law altogether, to live and do whatever we see fit. We haven't been called to serve God according to our own desires or our own devices. our own imaginations. We're to serve him in the way that he's commanded, and he's commanded us how to serve him in and through the word of God, particularly in matters of right and wrong with respect to his law. All right, seventh, because the saints are not to be called upon as we proved in the previous question, and I just wanna look quickly at John 16, 23. John 16, 23, and in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Yeah, again, we can find a number of places where we're told to call upon God in the name of Christ. We don't find any passages, and this is exactly our point with the regulative principle, okay? We don't need an explicit condemnation. We simply need to have Christ saying, pray in my name, call upon God in my name. And if he gives no intimation, we are to call upon God in the name of any other. That is regulative. We don't do it. We don't need all these other names. He doesn't have to tell us all the names we can't use. When he tells us to use his name, he is excluding all other names. Just like when he tells us to sing songs, he's excluding all other song. Just like when he tells us to use vocal music, he's excluding all other kinds of music, such as mechanical or instrumental music. when he tells us to celebrate and keep the Sabbath day. He's excluding the keeping of all other days, unless he tells us. And the reason for this regular principle, I just want to conclude with this admonition and warning. The reason for it is simply this. Our worship, our religious worship must be offered up through the mediation of Christ alone and no other. And if we attempt to approach God in his worship through our own devices, we are rejecting that mediatorship of Christ. We're rejecting him as mediator. And in fact, we're trying to mediate a deal on our own, a service on our own. a worship on our own, something that God has not commanded. Next time we'll begin talking about the issue of prayer since under the rubric of prayer we're going to be covering with some of these in other ways as well. Some of these other topics under, I believe, Section 5.