Qahal – Abiding Principles from the Ceremonial Laws: The Presence of God (5)

Qahal

Abiding Principles from the Ceremonial Laws: The Presence of God (5)

God’s presence is more powerfully known when His people assemble as one body before Him.

Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Exodus 19:17

It pleased God that His people should gather to Him from time to time. He provided Sabbaths and feast days for the assembling of the people, and these would have been a reminder of their first assembly before Him at Mt. Sinai (Exod. 19ff). At that first assembly the people came seeking the Lord and waiting to hear His instructions for them. They were His chosen and redeemed ones, and He would be glorified in and through them. But they must come together to learn what He requires, and, subsequently, to be renewed in what they had learned.

Assembling before the Lord is an important part of what it means to be His people. We will look more closely at the Lord’s Sabbaths and feasts in a subsequent installment in this series. Suffice it for now to say that these special times of assembly provided a heightened focus on God and His goodness, and served to remind the people of who they were and what they owed to God. As the qahal of the Lord—His assembly of chosen and redeemed ones—Israel’s gathering before Him was indispensable to their success in following Him, and this is no less true in our day.

But when we come to assemble before the Lord we must not come in any way other than that outlined for us in the ceremonial laws. We come to God in fear and trembling, even though we know a Mediator exists to protect us from His wrath. We come with offerings to give for His pleasure and honor, which we season with singing and praise and thanksgiving. We offer up prayers like incense, that it might be pleasing to Him. And we wait to hear how He would instruct us, that we may go forth with His benediction, renewed in His glory and set to glorify Him in our daily lives.

The writer of Hebrews admonished even his persecuted readers not to forsake assembling together for worship (Heb. 10:25). Assembling as God’s qahal is integral to our identity as His people and to our ability to know and refract His presence in the world.

For a fuller study of the pattern of worship revealed in Scripture, order the book, The Highest Thing, by T. M. Moore, from our online store. These studies and brief essays will help you to see how the pattern of sound worship, which began in the Law of God, comes to complete expression in the rest of Scripture. Pastors, we’re getting ready to start the next season of The Pastors’ Fellowship. Write to me today at tmmoore@ailbe.org for information about how you join in these online discussions. Our theme for the coming series is “The Worldview of God’s Law.” There is no charge for participation, but you must reserve a place for these monthly gatherings. Subscribe to Crosfigell, the devotional newsletter of The Fellowship of Ailbe.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.