Common Roots
Hebrew Foundations of Christian Worship
by Robert E. Webber, Th.D.

One question which has exercised the minds of liturgical scholars is that of the origins of the two aspects of a single worship service in the early church. The bulk of scholarship agrees that the liturgy of the Word is derived from the synagogue service and the liturgy of the Eucharist developed from the early celebrations of the Lord’s Supper.

Origin of the Liturgy of the Word

The relationship between the worship of the synagogue and Christian worship has received full treatment in C. W. Dugmore’s The Influence of the Synagogue on the Divine Office and The Jewish Background of the Christian Liturgy by W. O. E. Oesterley, and more recently in Louis Bouyer’s Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer. All three authors show that the four essential elements of the liturgy of the Word–readings from the Holy Scripture, a sermon, prayers, and the singing of psalms–were all adapted from the Jewish synagogue worship.

References to the reading of Scripture in Christian worship is common in the liturgy of the third century. The Reader, as in the synagogue, usually went up to the reading desk (pulpitum) and read from the Old Testament, the gospels, and the epistles. Likewise the custom of expounding from the Scripture is derived directly from the synagogue. Even the custom of inviting a visitor or a member of the congregation (as in the case of Jesus at Nazareth) to read and speak was not uncommon among early Christian congregations.

The earliest recorded Christian prayers are also reminiscent of the synagogue, especially in the general content and sometimes in language. Prayers calling on God for help, for healing the sick, for forgiveness, and for peace show similarity in wording. But an even greater parallel is found in the subjects of prayer. Christians prayed for faith, peace, forbearance, self-control, purity, and temperance in words which Dugmore claims the rabbis would have "heartily endorsed."

The Jewish liturgical use of psalms was also continued in the church as evidenced by I Corinthians 14:26, "When you come together, each one has a hymn"; "addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Ephesians 5:19). Pliny in his letter to the Emperor Trajan in A.D. 110 makes reference to the antiphonal singing of Christians.

We may conclude with Oesterley that "the earliest Christian communities continued the traditional mode of worship to which they had become accustomed in the synagogue . . . so that when the time came for these communities to construct a liturgy of their own, it would be the most natural thing in the world for them to be influenced by the form and thought of their traditional liturgy with which they were so familiar."

Origin of the Liturgy of the Eucharist

The second half of early Christian worship, known as the liturgy of the Eucharist (thanksgiving), is also rooted in Judaism as demonstrated by Frank Gavin in his work, The Jewish Antecedents of the Christian Sacraments. Gavin traces the Jewish origin of the Christian thanksgiving to the "blessing of the table," the Jewish grace at meals which included the invocation of the divine name, the expression of thanks, and the act of blessing God for the food. These elements of thanksgiving were part of the Last Supper, which Jesus celebrated with His disciples on the eve of His death. He broke the bread and presumably spoke over it the typical prayer of blessing ("Praised be Yahweh, our God, the King of the world, who brings the bread forth from the earth"), then distributed it saying, "Take, eat; this is my body" (Matthew 26:26).

During this same ritual, the cups were filled four times and drunk. The third cup, the "cup of blessing," held particular significance for the Jews, for the prayer connected with it not only thanked God for meat and drink but also for His benefits, particularly redemption from Egypt, for the land, the covenants, and the law. It was probably after this cup that Jesus said, "Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:28). In this act, Jesus had taken a Jewish custom filled with religious meaning and had given it new meaning in relationship to Himself, His death, and the new covenant.

It is generally agreed by scholars that the earliest form of the liturgy of the Eucharist was patterned after the Jewish meal prayers: the breaking of the bread in the beginning of the meal followed by the thanksgiving prayer over the cup of wine mixed with water at the end.

The origins of the two parts of Christian worship lie in the Hebrew forms. As Alexander Schmemann observes in Introduction to Liturgical Theology, "We have here a dependency of order, not simply a similarity of separate elements, but an identity of sequence and of the relative subordination of one part to another, which defines from within the liturgical significance of each part." The significance of this similarity of form can be understood only when we grasp the meaning of worship for both the Hebrews and the Christians, a concern which we may discover through an understanding of (1) the meaning of worship and (2) the incarnational nature of early Christian worship.

The Meaning of Worship

It must be remembered that the early Christians came into worship from a different perspective than modern Christians. We accept the Old because we have been informed by the New. But they accepted the New because they had been informed by the Old. As Schmemann remarks, "They believed in the New because they had seen, experienced and perceived the fulfillment of the Old. Jesus was the Christ; the Messiah; the One in whom all the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament were fulfilled."

The earliest Christians, then, saw the coming of Jesus as the fulfillment of their worship. Their theology of creation, sin, the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, and the covenantal relationship they had with God found fulfillment and new meaning in Jesus Christ. Christ did not abolish the Old, but fulfilled it by actualizing it in Himself. Salvation was an actual and accomplished fact. History had come to a unique turning point. Consequently the worship of the church became the primary and fundamental expression of the content of both the Old and New covenants. The Old, which anticipates the New, was preserved in the liturgy of the Word, and the New, which fulfills the Old, was expressed in the liturgy of the Eucharist, the remembrance of Christ’s death and resurrection which inaugurated the New.

In the first place, worship is grounded in the character of God. We worship God for who He is. God, as the words of the Gloria in Excelsis describe Him, is the only God, the highest, the Lord God, the heavenly King, the Almighty God and Father, the Holy One. These ascriptions are central to the vision of worship in Revelation 4 and 5. Here a whole host of creatures, angels, and men in ever-expanding concentric circles, are constantly worshipping the Lord, ascribing to Him all honor and glory and praise. He is to be worshiped simply because of who He is–God.

Worship and the Acts of God

Worship is also based on three acts of God: creation, redemption, and covenantal relationship. The first act of God is creation. In Revelation 4:11 the elders worship God because all things exist and were created by His will. The fourth commandment, which instructs Israel to set aside one day of worship to remember God’s act of creation, implies that all of life is sacred, that Israel is to live worshipfully toward God in every aspect of life. The whole of life–eating, drinking, sleeping, working, studying, loving, and playing–is related to God. Creation affirms that life is more than what we see, feel, touch, taste, and smell. There is an interiority to the universe that provokes a worshipful position toward the Creator. For this reason, God set aside one day to be a sign of His lordship over all our time and activity. Through it we recognize God’s rightful claim to every moment of our life.

The second act of God is redemption. In Revelation 5:12 the myriads of angels worship the Lamb that was slain. In the Old Testament Israel is commanded to worship God because He had redeemed them from Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm (Deuteronomy 5:15). Israel’s worship, particularly in the Psalms, abounds with this praise of God for His mighty acts of redemption. God was no remote deity or abstract idea. He had entered into their history, and through power and love redeemed them from their bondage. In the New Testament we worship God because He has personally entered into history through the Incarnation to redeem us and make us His people.

The central act of Christian worship in the history of the church has always been the Communion. The earliest church was found "breaking bread daily." Although this is not a reference to Communion as we know it today (most scholars feel it refers to the Agape feast), it nevertheless points to the fact that the early church celebrated the presence of Christ in their midst in every service of worship through the "breaking of the bread."

The "breaking of bread" looked back to the postresurrection appearances of Jesus on the road to Emmaus, in the upper room, and by the Sea of Galilee where He ate with them. It also looked forward to His return when they would all eat together in the great messianic banquet. By daily breaking of the bread, Christ’s followers were celebrating the presence of the risen and soon-coming Lord in their midst, who was made uniquely present in the "breaking of the bread."

The third act of God to which we respond in worship is the covenantal relationship He has established between us. Revelation 5:9 ascribes worship to God because He has made His people to be a "kingdom and priests to our God." At Mount Sinai God entered into a covenantal relationship with Israel, sealed with blood. They became "a people holy to the Lord . . . chosen . . . to be a people for his own possession" (Deuteronomy 7:6). The Lord became Israel’s God, and Israel became God’s peculiar people. And in this relationship there emerged tangible signs of the union between God and His people–the sanctuary, the priesthood, the offerings, and the appointed feasts and seasons.

In the New Testament there is another covenant, sealed with the blood of Christ, through which the church becomes Christ’s peculiar possession, "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people" (I Peter 2:9). This new relationship is the Body–the body of Christ, an extension of the Incarnation, the continued presence of Christ on earth, a divine organism inhabited by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. In it there are tangible signs of the presence of Christ–the Word, the sacraments, the priesthood, discipleship, discipline, power, worship, prayer, and love.

The Incarnational Nature of Early Christian Worship

The incarnational nature of early Christian worship points to the mystery of God’s plan of salvation known through signs and symbols in the Scripture and enfleshed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the chief mystery of the church. Because the worship of God’s people, whether in the Old or New Testament, points ultimately to the mystery of the Incarnation, the worship of God is always through Christ.

This early Christian understanding of the incarnational nature of worship is rooted in Jewish thought. As Gavin points out in The Jewish Antecedents of the Christian Sacraments, "A sound Christian definition of sacrament (incarnation) proceeds from the characteristically Jewish premise that the material world is not evil, but good–since God made it and saw it to be good." Consequently this holistic approach to reality always relates the phenomena of nature to God.

The specific rites and institutions of Judaism illustrate the basic principle of the coinherence of God in His creation. And Christian theology stands in direct line with the Hebrew conception of wholeness and coinherence in her theology of the Incarnation (that God became man); her Christology (that the human and divine exist together in a single person); her ecclesiology (that the church is both divine and human); her understanding of Scripture (the human is divinely inspired) as well as other doctrines which can be understood only through this incarnational model.

Because early Christianity affirmed a holistic concept of reality, it continued to stand in the Hebrew conviction that we can see God through the material world, that material things may be signs and symbols of sacred realities. For the early church the most significant material symbols which communicated eternal realities were the bread and wine of the Eucharist. The incarnational aspect of Christian worship was realized in the Eucharist, the bread and wine being symbols of the death of Christ, by which man is redeemed. The purpose of worship, to praise the Father for redemption through the work of His Son, is proclaimed both by the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist.

The early Christians refused to define exactly what happened to the bread and wine. For them it was something more than a mere physical bread and wine, for Christ was actually present in a renewing and nourishing way. But it was something less than a crass physical presence like that taught later by some eleventh-century theologians who insisted that if "you bite the bread you have bitten the body of Christ." The early Christians wished to maintain the mystery of the Eucharist as the culminating point of worship which pointed to the redemption of Christ and served as a means of receiving the benefits of the death of Christ.

Restoration

The origins, then, of Christian worship lie in the synagogue worship and in the "breaking of the bread," which, although it had its origins in the Jewish meal prayers, found new meaning in an identification with the body and blood of Jesus. The meaning of Christian worship is rooted in the character of God (who He is) and in His acts of creation, redemption, and covenantal relationship, allowing material things to be signs and symbols of sacred realities, even as God Himself took a human body. Returning to these principles and practices for Christian worship today would seem appropriate.

Dr. Robert E. Webber, Myer Professor of Ministry at Northern Seminary, is director of the Institute for the Renewal of Worship and Spirituality and founder of the Institute for Worship Studies. He teaches worship at prominent seminaries and lectures on worship in nearly every denomination. He is author and editor of over twenty books on worship including the eight-volume work, The Complete Library of Christian Worship, and his most recent book, Ancient-Future Faith.

You may purchase The Complete Library of Christian Worship ($399) or Volume 1 of the Eight ($49) from Restoration Foundation.

"Dr. Robert Webber has edited a magnificent, comprehensive Library of Christian Worship that is composed of eight volumes. Volume I is entitled "The Biblical Foundations of Christian Worship" and includes extensive information on the language and practices of worship that were derived from Judaism’s temple and synagogue. I highly recommend this volume and the entire library for those who are serious about studying Christianity’s Jewish roots."–Dr. John D. Garr of Restoration Foundation PO Box 421218, Atlanta, GA 30342.

Guestbook | Table of Contents | Restore! Magazine | Restoration Foundation Home