Why is Only the Triune God to be Prayed to and Venerated?
Why is glory and worship only to be given to God? Because only the Triune God is good. The only entity in the entirety of Bible that is said to be holy is God.
Revelation 15:4: Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.
I would like to make the concession that about half of the modern translations of Matthew 25:31 refer to angels as holy, but even the angels refuse veneration because God is greater than them.
Revelation 22:8-9: And I am John, who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had shown me these things. But he said to me, “Do not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!”
The Triune God is the Only Source of Goodness and Salvation
I would like to posit that in the entire history of mankind, no one was able to claim the state of holiness other than God. Even the people that God specifically set aside to be His own, were still ubiquitously sinful. But even when Israelites failed God consistently, God still honored the covenants He made with them. The Israelites’ inability to attain holiness is why they could not justify themselves to God through the sacrificial system or through observance of Mosaic Law.
This is why God had to introduce a new system of sanctification based on mercy and faith instead. Due to man’s insufficiency, God wrote the law on the hearts of His people and forgave their sin so He could pull the weight for us.
Hebrews 10:16 “This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My Laws in their hearts and inscribe them on their minds.” 17 Then He adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.
Mark 10:18 “Why do you call Me good?” Jesus replied. “No one is good except God alone.
When Jesus articulated that no one was good but God, that was to be taken literally. Even forgiven of our sins we are still, by nature, tilted away from God and toward selfishness. This is why Jesus left us with the Holy Spirit, which regenerates and cleanses men as long as they submit to His lordship and repent.
John 14:26: But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
Titus 3:5: He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
Romans 8:11: If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Not to beat a dead horse, but it really does bear repeating that Jesus did this because men could not justify themselves with either works or rites.
Hebrews 10:5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired 6 but a body have you prepared for me; 6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. 7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.”
What does this mean now that our sins are forgiven and the Holy Spirit is turning the heart’s of God’s chosen toward Him? It means the Triune God has literally done practically everything. Through Jesus, God provides us the only definitive means for sanctification as a product of His mercy and grace. Humans by nature, religious or not, are still kind of lousy.
Titus 3:4-7: “But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
God is Glorified Through His Mercy, as He has Always Been
God chooses who He has mercy on toward the ends to His own glory.
Romans 9:17: For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy , and He hardens whom He wants to harden.
Isaiah 43;25: I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remembers your sins no more.
God knows the fates of all men and orchestrates the path of those He calls. This means that He further presides over their sanctification as their facilitator.
Jeremiah 10:23 I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. 24 Correct me, O LORD, but in justice; not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing.
Romans 8:28: And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.
Proverbs 16:9 A man’s heart plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.
Not only does God know and guide their path, but God specifically predestines those He claims for good works.
Ephesians 2:10: For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.
God Does Literally Everything Good so He Demands Undivided Worship
Literally every aspect of goodness and salvation in this world is from God alone. In that regard, when God says that He will share His glory with no one, it is because no one else deserves any part of it. There’s a reason why Jesus, being of the Godhead, became the sole mediator of our salvation. If anyone else became necessary for salvation, God’s glory would be divided.
Isaiah 48:11: For My own sake, My very own sake, I will act; for how can I let Myself be defamed? I will not yield My glory to another.
When Jesus says that only God is the subject of worship and servitude, it is because no one else is worthy.
Luke 4:8: And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.”
God alone must be venerated and worshiped. This is reinforced both in the Old Testament and the Apostolic Letters:
Isaiah 44:8 Do not tremble or fear. Have I not told you and declared it long ago? You are My witnesses! Is there any God but Me? There is no other Rock; I know not one.”
1 Corinthians 7:35: And this I say for your own benefit; not to put a restraint upon you, but to promote what is seemly, and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord.