Questions About Benediction

January 2020 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Questions About Benediction
1. Why do we say “the grace” benediction after church services?
2. When did this church creed actually start?
3. Did the apostle Paul suggest or mandate the early churches to say the grace as benediction after church services?
4. Is there any way or order to say/share the grace when, for example, a young minister cannot do the benediction after a church service?
5. Why do we mostly use 2 Corinthians 13:14 and Psalm 23:6 as the benediction?

ANSWER:Your questions clearly indicate that the church you serve as a young minister has customs that differ greatly from the simplicity of the church order and practices that are found in the New Testament. One reason for this may well be a lack of understanding of the difference between the Church and Israel.

Israel in the Old Testament and in the opening books of the New Testament was God’s earthly people, and their worship was an earthly worship that appealed to man’s senses. Thus there was a priesthood between God and man; the people did not have personal access to God but brought their sacrifices to a priest who then offered them to God (Lev. 1–7). The priest wore special items of clothing when he was on duty functioning as priest (Ex. 28). He had helpers from one special tribe – the Levites (Num. 18:1-7). The worship consisted of offering animal sacrifices and burning sweet-smelling incense. The people could bring their offerings to the priest at the altar, but they could not enter the tabernacle, or later the temple. Ordinary people did not sing at the tabernacle or temple. Instead, one division of Levites served as singers (1 Chr. 25). The priests and Levites used musical instruments in their worship and the priests pronounced a benediction, or blessing, upon the people (Num. 6:22-27).

The buildings used for worship – first the tabernacle and later the temple – were built at God’s direction of costly materials, especially silver and gold. These were where God set His name and were the only places where God wanted His people to worship (Dt. 12). Synagogues originated after the temple had been destroyed and the Israelites were captives in Babylon. They were places where the Scriptures were read and expounded but not used for the worship that God had ordained be done at the temple by His people.

Israel was a nation God had blessed and separated from all others as His special people (Dt. 7). Every child born to Israelite parents was an Israelite by birth. Very few people, like Rahab in Joshua 6 and Ruth in Ruth 2, were added to Israel by faith in the God of Israel.

The Church began. as recorded in Acts 2, by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, who came upon the 120 believers in Christ in an upper room in Jerusalem and baptized them into one body. This took place 50 days after the Lord Jesus had gone back to heaven. From this time on God added daily to the Church those who got saved. In Acts 2:42 we see that from the very beginning they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in breaking of bread and prayers. At first this huge growing Church (3,000 had been saved on the very first day and were added to the original 120) met in the temple courtyard, but broke bread in homes. Soon persecution broke out against them. Many had to flee for their lives, and we do not find them meeting in the temple any longer.

We do not read in Scripture of the believers following any rituals. They had no special priesthood; there was no clergy and laity division. The Holy Spirit was free to lead, the Lord gave gifts, and the apostles designated brothers to function in leadership roles. Rather than one gorgeous building to which all had to come, Christians gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus, for He had promised in Matthew 18:20 that where two or three were gathered unto His name, He would be in the midst of them.

All true Christians are members of the body of Christ, the Church, and He is its Head in glory. The Church is now the house of God, indwelt by the Holy Spirit. It is wonderful to read through the Acts and to see how the Church grew from its humble beginnings. The Epistles, especially those written by Paul, tell us about the Church, its relation to the Lord, and how it is to function. People are human, and problems came in, but these gave God opportunity to have the apostles, especially Paul, write letters to correct wrongs and teach what He wants. There are very many differences between Christianity and the nation of Israel.

Sad to say, very early in the history of the Church, men began to take over and bring in differences from what God had established. In his last letter to Timothy, Paul mentioned that all in the Roman province of Asia had forsaken him; this is an indication that at this early point in history Christians were giving up the precious truth entrusted to Paul about the Church and doing things the way they liked. Many features of Israel’s worship were gradually brought into the Church, so in most churches today a thorough mixture of what God had commanded His earthly people to do, things that appeal to our human senses, are seen in their worship and indeed in all their thinking and doing. The fact of not distinguishing between what was for Israel and what is for the Church is what marks Christendom today; all is mixed together.

This brings us back to the original questions. To say a benediction at the close of a church service is not something the apostle Paul suggested or mandated. We find no trace of anything of this sort in the Acts or in any of his epistles. The apostle closed his second epistle to the Corinthians with the verse referred to in the last question, but this is the only epistle he ends in this way. For this verse or any other to be pronounced by a minister at the close of a church service is probably an imitation of what God told the priests in Israel to say in blessing the people in Numbers 6:22-27.

The fact that a minister would say this benediction or any other one is in itself something else that is foreign to New Testament Scripture, because in doing this the minister is assuming the role of a priest who alone could bless the people. According to 1 Peter 2:4-10 every believer is both a holy priest and a royal priest, having full access to bring worship to God and to proclaim the excellencies of the Lord to men. Hebrews 10:10-25 urges all believers to enter the Holiest, the place that in Israel was reserved for the high priest alone to enter – and he was limited to doing so one day a year. We can thus bring our worship to God without any human intermediaries, or person who is between us and God.

New Testament Scripture says nothing about using musical instruments in worship or about listening to a band or to singers singing, but it does speak about singing to the Lord.

A helpful chapter in connection with Christians meeting together around the Lord – what many would term “church services” – is 1 Corinthians 14. Verse 26 indicates that everyone could come prepared to participate in the meeting, but that all should be done for edification. What is said and done should be understandable and orderly. Women were not to speak in Christian meetings. Nothing is said about a ritual or a creed; these things crept into the services several hundred years after the Bible was written. They were brought into Christian meetings often by well-meaning men ignorant of the vast difference between Israel’s worship which God had instituted for them and Christian worship which the Lord Himself indicated in John 4:23-24 should be in spirit and in truth.

As one comes to understand what Scripture teaches and what it does not teach, one who really is seeking to serve the Lord is faced with the question of whether to separate from the confusion that man has brought into spiritual things and meet in the simplicity we see in the New Testament or to continue on in a system man has created and where man and his ways are prominent. Such a choice is not usually an easy one to make, but one needs to ask himself, “Do I really want to please the Lord, or do I want to take an easier pathway?”

Answered by Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.

ENDNOTE
A very helpful book on the whole subject of the Church, what it is and what God tells us in His Word about how it should function is “The Church of the Living God” by R. K. Campbell. This book is available from Believer’s Bookshelf USA or Believer’s Bookshelf Canada. It can also be read online through Biblecentre.org.