The believers not only serve God in their spirit but also serve Him by the Spirit of God. In Philippians 3:3a Paul says, “We are the circumcision, who serve by the Spirit of God.” Literally, the Greek word translated “serve” means to serve as priests. All New Testament believers are priests to God (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6). Hence, our ministry to the Lord, in whatever aspect, is a priestly ministry, a priestly service. As priests, we must serve God and worship Him in our spirit and by His Spirit. Whenever we get into our spirit, we also get into the Spirit of God. Likewise, when we worship God by the Spirit of God, we also worship Him in our spirit.
Philippians 3:3a indicates that the only acceptable service and worship we can render to God is not by the flesh but by the Spirit of God. The Spirit is the means for the believers to serve and worship God. The Judaic worship and service, on the contrary, involve the flesh and the various regulations related to it. Such regulations include the dietary laws, the keeping of the Sabbath, and circumcision. The service and worship rendered to God by the Judaizers in the flesh cannot be acceptable to God. As New Testament believers, we serve and worship God in our spirit by the Spirit of God. We are the circumcision, for we have been genuinely circumcised by Christ’s crucifixion. Whereas the Judaizers serve by ordinances of law related to the flesh, we serve by the Spirit of God.
The believers serve and worship God in spirit and truth. “An hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and reality; for the Father seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and reality” (John 4:23-24). In typology the worship of God should be in the place chosen by God to set His habitation there (Deut. 12:5, 11, 13-14, 18) and with the offerings (Lev. 1-6). The place chosen by God for His habitation typifies the human spirit, where God’s habitation is today (Eph. 2:22). The offerings typify Christ. Christ is the fulfillment and reality of all the offerings with which God’s people in the Old Testament worship Him. Hence, the Lord’s word in John 4:23 and 24 about worshipping God the Spirit in spirit and reality means that we should contact God the Spirit in our spirit, instead of in a specific place, and through Christ, instead of with the offerings, for now, because Christ the reality has come, all the shadows and types are over. God is Spirit, and worshipping God is to contact Him. Contacting Him is not a matter of place but a matter of the human spirit.
In John 4:23 the Lord Jesus said, “An hour is coming, and now is.” This means that the age has changed. In the past, according to the law of Moses, God ordained that His people worship Him at a specific place where He would establish His habitation with His name (Deut. 12:5). God’s worshippers had to go to that unique place. That was a type. Now the age has been changed, and the type has been fulfilled. Typically speaking, the place of worship should no longer be a place; rather, it must be the human spirit, where God will set up His habitation with His name.
A crucial matter we need to see is that genuine worship, the worship God the Father is seeking, is not in a certain place but in the human spirit. In the Old Testament Mount Zion, the place of God’s habitation and the place of His name, was a type of the human spirit. According to the New Testament, God’s habitation is not on any mountain, nor even in the heavens. God’s habitation is in our spirit. Actually, our spirit is both God’s habitation and the place of God’s name. If we go elsewhere to worship God, this indicates that we have given up God’s name. There is only one place where we can be preserved in God’s name, and that place is our spirit. When we come to our spirit, we keep God’s name and we are preserved in His name. The genuine worship of the Father, the worship He desires, is the worship of Him in our spirit.
The genuine worship of God the Father is also in reality. In the Old Testament the children of Israel were required to worship God on Mount Zion with the offerings. The offerings typify Christ as reality. Christ is the fulfillment and the reality of all the offerings with which God’s people worshipped God. Christ is the genuine sin offering, trespass offering, burnt offering, meal offering, and peace offering. Today we worship God in our spirit with Christ as the reality of all the offerings.
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