Venerating Christ in Ordinances
Every religious movement of the ancient
world had ceremonies or ordinances done in honor of or to appease their deities.
And the Israelites were no different, in that their entire sacrificial and ceremonial
system was oriented around God. Of course, with the coming of Christ, these
shadows faded as the reality appeared. And thus, the system of sacrifices was
replaced by spiritual worship in the New Testament era. Yet ordinances did not
go away altogether in early Christianity. Two were mandated by Christ himself.
What is fascinating is that the New Testament regularly speaks of both as being
done “unto” or “in” the Lord Jesus.
Consider baptism as the initiating
ordinance. Three times in Acts, the early Christians declare that one is
baptized “in the name of” Jesus (Acts 2:38; 10:48; 19:5). This use of “name” is
important, because to a Jewish-background Christian of this period, the “name”
of God represents God himself (see especially Ex. 23:21; Num. 6:27; 1 Kings
8:29; 2 Chron. 7:16). Hence, being baptized “in” or “into” the name of Jesus
expresses how such a washing is an actual act of worshiping him. Similarly,
Paul writes of how we are “baptized into Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:3-4). By leaving
out the “name of” (found in Acts), he makes even clearer that the physical act
of baptism somehow binds the confessing believer spiritually to Christ. What
exactly the New Testament authors mean is hard to grasp; we will save the
mystery of the sacrament for another day. But consider this thought experiment.
What if someone said, “Be baptized in the name of Caesar” or “in the name of
Napoleon” or “into the queen”? Regardless of one’s religious perspective or
high opinion of such individuals, such phrasing would either be incredibly off
or downright scandalous. Yet that is precisely what the early Christians said
about Jesus Christ—early and often, and long before sacramental theology had
fully developed. The inescapable conclusion is that early Christians could use
such language only if they considered Jesus worthy of such exalted veneration.
The same is true of the sustaining
ordinance of the Eucharist (or Holy Communion). Observe that the actual name
given to it in the New Testament is the “Lord’s Supper” (Gk. Kyriakon deipnon, 1 Cor. 11:20). Jesus
presides over it. It is his meal. It
is a means of fellowshipping with him,
fulfilling both the Passover meal and the postsacrifice priestly meals of
communion with God (e.g., Lev. 7:11-32). Paul further describes the Supper as “participation
in the blood of Christ” and “participation in the body of Christ” (1 Cor.
10:16). What exactly he means continues to be debated, but it is clear that the
ordinance somehow brings the worshiper into a kind of fellowship with the Lord
Jesus in a way that is unparalleled by any other human meal (see John 6:53).
But to stress how this sacrament is truly an act of worship of Christ, Paul
goes on to compare it with Roman-era cultic meals that were a participation in
the “cup of demons” and the “table of demons” (1 Cor. 10:21). What pagans do to
worship false deities shares a similar pattern with the Lord’s Supper, which is
why the latter had to be handled so carefully at Corinth. It is not a mere meal
but an act of worshiping Christ.
In addition to these primary
ordinances, two other passages further display how early Christians saw Jesus
as an appropriate recipient of acts of veneration. (1) Paul describes how
Christians have liberty to choose to “observe” Jewish feat days or foods—provided
they conduct such act of worship “in honor of the Lord” (Rom. 14:6). Here “Lord”
refers to Jesus, as Romans 14:8-9 makes clear. (2) Throughout the Old
Testament, the “firstfruits” of any crop or livestock are offered to God and
God only. In a subtle comment in Romans 16:5, Paul uses “firstfruits” (Gk. Aparchē) as a metaphor for new believers
and declares them “firstfruits to Christ” (my trans.). Thus, he subtly signals
Christ to be a rightful recipient of the firstfruits, just as God in the Old
Testament era. (Greg Lanier, Is Jesus
Truly God? How the Bible Teaches the Divinity of Christ [Wheaton, Ill.:
Crossway, 2020], 82-84)
