We’ve made three points about the people of God gathered for worship. First, God’s people coming together for worship form a New Testament temple. “For we are the temple of the living God.”

Second. since this is the case, God dwells in this temple and with His people. God gives us His special presence in covenant love and grace. “Just as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them: and I will be their God, and they shall be My people’ ” (2 Cor. 6:16, quoting Lev. 26:12).

Third, this New Testament temple and dwelling place of God is a foretaste of heaven. In public worship we enter the most holy place. We enter God’s presence. We taste “the good word of God and the powers of the age to come” (Heb. 6:5). From this perspective, the public worship of God is extraordinary. We step out of this world, as it were, into the courts and precincts of God. We enter heaven.

We do not need to read or study our Bibles very long before we realize that God regulates entrance into heaven. The Bible is clear: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:13–14). If people accuse us as Christians of being narrow, we should heartily agree. Christianity is narrow, because God has made the way to heaven narrow.

Furthermore, there is only one way. Jesus proclaimed, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). There is only one way to enter the presence of the Father. You enter by trusting in the perfect life, satisfactory death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. This way is narrow but it is not too narrow. It is just Jesus. “There is salvation in no one else: for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

The point is that God regulates access to heaven. We need to get this point. We vividly see it in the Old Testament. God regulated the sacrifices in the tabernacle and later in the temple. God regulated the times and the actual work the priests accomplished in the holy place. They trimmed the lamps and burned incense every morning and evening. They replaced the Bread of the Presence once a week on the Sabbath Day. Only once a year the high priest entered the most holy place on the Day of Atonement. All that was done was carried out in strict accord with God’s commands.

My line of reasoning regarding public worship is therefore quite simple. Our public worship is an entrance into heaven, into God’s presence, in His New Testament temple. God regulates access to heaven. God therefore regulates our worship. God regulates how we enter His presence in His temple. We may not enter heaven on our terms. In the end, we do not. We are solely at God’s mercy. Now God mercifully gives us direction for entering His presence in heaven in worship.

All of this amounts to what we call the regulative principle of worship. The Westminster Shorter Catechism answer 51 puts it this way: “The second commandment forbiddeth the worshipping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in His Word.” When we understand worship as entering heaven and entering God’s presence, we get the point.