Many Christians attend worship services with their local church every week without realizing the cosmic, spiritual context of that assembly. They gather to sing and pray and take the sacraments and hear the ministry of God’s Word. They greet their brethren and enjoy fellowship with them during the week. But their experience of the church is narrow, limited to the congregation (and maybe fraternally related congregations) where they regularly attend.

United with Believers Present and Past in Christ

The Scriptures, however, describe Christian worship as an otherworldly experience in the presence of a heavenly host. We worship with the glorified saints and angels in heaven whenever the church assembles and on a daily basis in family worship and private prayer. When the church on earth worships, we do so with the church in glory:

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. . . . But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Heb. 12:18–24 NKJV)

This passage describes our experience as those united to Christ, made alive by the Spirit, justified, sanctified, and glorified as members of the new covenant. We are always and forever in the presence of these spiritual and heavenly realities. And if that is so on Monday, how much more visible is it on the Lord’s Day? Christians in the local church are not merely worshiping together in a meeting place. They are summoned by the Lord’s call to join the gathering on Mt. Zion, to unite with their brothers and sisters throughout the world and in glory, to sing and pray and praise the God of salvation as part of the one, holy, catholic church.

Just as believers on earth today have been made “alive together with Christ” and raised to be “seated . . . with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:5–6), so we enjoy communion with all those who share the same benefits. We are united not only to Christians in other congregations and nations but to those who have passed from this realm into glory. John Calvin, in his commentary on Hebrews 12, affirms that “we are joined to holy souls, which have put off their bodies, and left behind them all the filth of this world” (s.v. 12:23). Matthew Henry observes the same:

By faith we come to them, have communion with them in the same head, by the same Spirit, and in the same blessed hope, and walk in the same way of holiness, grappling with the same spiritual enemies, and hasting to the same rest, victory, and glorious triumph. . . . Believers have union with departed saints in one and the same head and Spirit, and a title to the same inheritance, of which those on earth are heirs, those in heaven possessors. (Commentary on the Whole Bible, s.v. Heb. 12:18–29)

We have fellowship with “the firstborn ones who are registered in heaven” because we are also firstborn ones, adopted heirs, whose names also have been recorded in heaven. We are united to “the spirits of righteous men made perfect” because we too are righteous ones whose spirits have been justified and have been, are being, and will forever be, perfected and glorified. We have standing in the court of heaven, judgment for our sins having been accomplished and Christ’s righteousness imputed as our own. We are not on probation in our earthly sojourn. We are citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, members of God’s family, and we belong in that assembly of righteous, holy, worshiping creatures assembled on Mt. Zion night and day.

Joining in an Ongoing Worship

This is the spiritual reality of Lord’s Day worship. Whenever a local church gathers, it joins the whole church in assembly. We meet with “an innumerable company of angels” and the saints—once dead but behold, they live—who have been glorified. The fullness of this assembly may not be seen with our physical eyes, but it is no less real for being invisible. On the contrary, it is more real because it is eschatological. This is the church in glory, in worship. The end of all things has come near. We sing on this Lord’s Day in view of that day of the Lord when our Savior returns.

Christian worship transcends time, place, and the earthly realm. We sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” with the multitude that surrounds God’s throne and sings his praises night and day. Worship does not begin when the Lord summons us to the meeting place. We do not start the worship service; we step into it. The church on earth joins worship that is already going on. Nor does that chorus of praise and thanksgiving end when we receive God’s benediction and return to our homes. Heavenly praise is unending, and when the church on earth gathers, we join and participate in it in a special, visible way.

The saints on earth worship alongside the righteous who are with the Lord. We are surrounded by a multitude of heavenly witnesses. We do not need images of saints in our worship services. We do not need to parade icons down the center aisle in our worship. We do not need to surround our sanctuaries with the statues of saints. These are manmade, unbiblical traditions, but they are also distortions of a divinely revealed, biblical truth. We truly are in the company of the glorious ones—saints and angels. We do not worship alone, nor even only with those in the same congregation. The church unites in worship: the whole church, on earth and in heaven, militant and triumphant, visible and invisible. We sing together with all the saints the praises of our Savior and Lord.

Reformed churches rightly reject the iconography and statuary found in other Christian traditions, but we should not reject the spiritual reality those icons and images represent. We are worshiping with Abraham, Moses, and David, with Isaiah, Habakkuk, and Paul. We are singing along with Sarah, Miriam, and Deborah, and with Mary, the mother of our Lord. We are in communion with Athanasius, Augustine, and Anselm; Cyprian, Chrysostom, and Calvin; Jerome, Luther, and Machen, all of whom continue to worship our common Lord. We do not pray to the saints in glory, but we do pray with them. We do not kneel before statues of them, but we do thank God for their lives and influence. We do not kiss pictures of them, but one day we will greet them and be greeted by them with a kiss of love (1 Pet. 5:14). These are not merely historical characters; they are family members, and when we gather on the Lord’s Day to sing God’s praise, we participate in the same heavenly assembly to which they belong. We are with them, though we only see them by faith.

When Christians gather on the Lord’s Day, the church on earth enters the throne room of heaven. We join in a chorus of prayer and praise that is already going on. We step into another realm and participate in the celebration that will occupy us for eternity. This is the design of our existence. This is our destiny. “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever” (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q/A 1). The saints are made and saved to worship the Lord.

Every worship service is full of “ghosts”—the ghosts of those who have gone before and the spirits of men made righteous by the work of Christ, now perfected in glory. God breathed into Adam’s nostrils, and he became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). We are embodied spirits, and when we sing and pray and hear God’s Word with reverence and gratitude, we do so alongside countless disembodied spirits with whom we will one day receive resurrection bodies. This is our company, our family, our future. We are God’s people, together, united by one Lord, one faith, and one hope. Come, and let us worship our King together with them.    

The author is pastor of Reformation OPC in Apache Junction, Arizona. New Horizons, February 2023.