John Calvin in his 1544 treatise entitled, "The Necessity of Reforming the Church," explained the chief priority of the Reformation to the Roman Catholic emperor, Charles the Fifth, when he said "If it be inquired, then, by what things chiefly the Christian religion has a standing existence amongst us, and maintains its truth, it is a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshiped." Subsequent to this statement of the priority of the Reformation commitment to pure worship, Calvin goes on to clarify that the mode of true worship is that worship which is expressly sanctioned by God's word. Genesis 4:3-5 with its accent upon the form of true worship, is just one of many passages which provided the Biblical warrant for the Reformed emphasis upon the regulative principle of worship given expression in all of the 16th and 17th century Reformed and Presbyterian confessions and catechisms. The first reason given for God's rejection of Cain's offering and His approbation of Abel's offering pertained to the form of these contrasting offerings. This passage teaches that God regards with approval only that worship which He commands and rejects as abominable, worship which man offers from his own imagination and apart from the command of Scripture. Accent upon proper form teaches that worship reflects the divinely ordained antithesis between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent when it is offered according to the commands of God's word. When the church offers the form of worship prescribed by Scripture, it manifests its spiritual character, as being of the seed of the woman. |
