Torrance: Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace

Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace

James Torrance | ISBN 0830818952



MWS 501 - Prof. Eric Bolger - 4 January 2006

As a worship student in Bible college, I often threw around the term “Trinitarian worship.” While worship styles and structures are negotiable, our content unwaveringly must be Trinitarian. It was not until reading this work by Torrance, however, that I began to understand what this actually means. Trinitarian worship is not simply worshipping a triune God or singing songs that make sure to name all three members of the Trinity. It is understanding how the person and work of this God in three persons informs and enables our worship.

Torrance opens with descriptions contrasting Unitarian and Trinitarian approaches to worship. The Unitarian model is characterized by the action of the one doing the worship. The focus is on me and my works; I worship God when I perform or participate in certain actions that are worship. In this model, Christ is a good example for us to follow. Trinitarian worship, on the other hand, is characterized by a realization of, response to and participation in the person and action (past, present and future) of Christ. We participate in the very ministry of Christ in and to the world, and we find ourselves guided by the Holy Spirit through Christ into relationship with the Father. In this model we do not merely mimic the example of Christ, we join Him in His work.

Out of these two models stem three prevalent theologies in churches today. The Harnack/Hick model emphasizes the individual relationship of each soul with God. Christ offers us His example of a relationship with God, but His relationship is not something unique. We can all achieve the same connection with God on our own. In the Existential model, there is a stronger Christology presented in that it is because of Christ’s work (not merely His example) that we are able to have a relationship with God. Christ accomplished something in history—at the event of His death and resurrection—that now intersects with our experience allowing us to now enter into relationship with God through a chain of events (repentance, conversion, baptism, etc.) The final model, the Trinitarian or Incarnational model, also is based on the work of Christ, but in a much more holistic and dependent way. Christ has accomplished for us what we could not do on our own. He now invites us to partake through the Holy Spirit in His own relationship with the Father. We are connected to God through Christ in the strongest and most dependent sense.

Torrance continues by further fleshing out what it is to embrace Trinitarian worship. As he describes the work of Christ as Priest and Mediator, the emphasis is once again that Christ alone is able to fill these roles and our works mean nothing. While I have heard many sermons on being saved by grace alone, Torrance repeatedly hammers covert Unitarian nails on the head. How beautiful that even repentance is not a work that conditions God’s grace towards us, but is rather an amen to His proclamation of our guilt and His provision of propitiation.

I have seen churches that proclaim “saved-by-grace” but emphasize all the worship-works we must do. I have also been in circles where people truly understand their depravity and inability to do any good works, but do not realize the glorious call to participate in the work of Christ. I am currently with a wonderful congregation that embodies grace in ways that I have never experienced before, but I still do not think we get it. This community is the closest to a Trinitarian model that I have experienced, but we still fail to recognize how this affects every aspect of our lives—every aspect of our worship. I find hope in knowing that we are all on a journey. I know that I continue to be stretched and amazed at who God is and what He has done. I continue to be humbled that He allows us and calls us to participate in what He has and is and will do. This triune Godhead becomes more real to me with each day.