Now it is true that the Spirit of the Lord spoke, and not only by David, in the Psalms, but that fact does not make the case.
I never claimed that it did; it was a counter-argument to your atomisation of a book of holy Scripture and suggestion that individual Psalms were written by David without the national worship in mind.
Whether you like the fact or not, it is a fact that certain psalms were written by David and others before the national worship was set up. It is therefore speculation to assert that all of them were intended for national worship.
In the list I gave you, to which your post is a reply, I included certain psalms which you don't mention above. One of them was Ps. 98: 4:5. Ps 98 exhorts "all the earth" (i.e., the nations) not the sanctuary to "Sing praise to God with the lyre and the sound of melody".
This example commands all other earthy nations to sing praise to God with instruments and it does not require them to do so in the sancturary. This psalm is not provably in the context of sanctuary worship.
[At least you concede that your other examples provide no warrant for what you are seeking to justify from the Psalms. As for Ps. 98, it belongs to a general pattern which alternates between "enthronement" and "new song" psalms. If one notes its canonical positioning between 97 and 99, it will be clear that it formed part of a series of Psalms which called on "Zion" to be glad in her king as the king of all the earth who manifests His saving power on behalf of His people.
Since we know from the book of Jeremiah that the subsequent editors sometimes distorted the order in which prophecies were given, we may not be certain that the order in which the psalms are presented is either original or in consequence, significant. Your dismisal of Ps 98, therefore, does not follow by necessary consequence and since one true counter example is enough to rule your argument out of court, your point fails.
If the nature of prophecy is properly accounted for, there is no basis for understanding the reference to musical instruments as foretelling their use in the New Testament. It is well known that the New Testament times of reformation were foretold according to the forms and institutions which were in use under the Old Testament. Thus Isa 66:23, "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD." No one supposes that the new moon feast would be observed by all nations for ever. This is simply an accommodation of the prophetic word to the understanding of the people to whom it was initially delivered.
Two points: Ps 98 is not prophecy but exhortation. It simply instructs the nations to worship with accompanied songs without telling them to limit the location they do so to Jerusalem.
Second, the entire reason we know that the Isaiah passage is accomodation is that the NT is clear that all the sacrifices are fulfilled in Christ's one sufficient sacrifice. The point of this entire thread is whether or not there is no explicit teaching in the NT that necessitates regarding Ps. 98 as accomodation.
Of course you can object, but you certainly have no basis for doing so. The fact is that God inspired these songs. It can hardly be called a confusing state of affairs when God inspires His servants with new revelation when He had already made provision for it. The people were to constantly look for that prophet like unto Moses, and to diligently prove the prophetic word from age to age.
I most certainly have a basis for objecting. Your view has God acting contrary to his nature, something Scripture tells us he cannot do. I wrote:
God is free to add commandments to his people at any time but his own nature prohibits him from doing so in a way that creates confusion since such action creates a contradiction with his own nature.
for as Paul writes, "he cannot deny himself".
Commanded forms of worship are not prophecy. Yes, the OT saints were to expect prophecy, but:
premise 1) if your view of the RPW is correct, they were also commanded not to worship in ways which God had not explicitly commanded in the covenant. premise 2) If God now makes changes to the worship practices outlined in his covenant without amending the covenant he is creating confusion and denying himself.
premise 3) But when David makes changes to worship practice, he is not put to death,
Conclusion) therefore the Jews understood God's instruction differently than you do.
Break the syllogism or abandon the argument.
The Davidic covenant necessitated the development. And if one has ears to hear he will hear the Spirit testifying to this covenant throughout the Psalms.
I don't argue that the promises of Messiah did not warrant the addition of sung praise and accompaniment therof to Israel's worship. They do. And since its anticpation was celebrated with ASP, how much more does the achievement of that sacrifice warrant the same would be the counter in logic alone absent clear Scriptural testimony to the contrary?
I simply point out that the changes were not an addition to the Sinai covenant. Rather the institution of unaccompanied sung praise was tied to the institution of sung praise itself. And sung praise in the NT era is not solely synogogal and not sacrificial in character. For unless you want to argue that the that the apostolic church did not sing pslams at a communion service, the church continued to sing praise at the remeberance of one sacrifice - that of Christ's death. If accompanied sung praise was fitting at the sacrifies, logically it is also fitting at the rememberance of Christ's death, absent Scriptural testimony to the contrary. When Paul tells us to sing psalms in Ephesians, we must therefore assume he is leaving open the whole range of Israel's worship practice since he does not qualify his statement. In Colossians he specifically does bring them in as a teaching tool, but he does not exclude sung praise or accompanied sung praise from the communion service.
It is not merely a parallel, but an identification which the Holy Spirit specifically makes in Ps. 68 and Gal. 4. One's biblical theology cannot afford to ignore the express teaching of the Holy Spirit.
One has to prove one's theology biblical as opposed to what one thinks is biblical. This you fail to do. For you do not refute my demonstration that the parallels between Sinai and the tabernacle are simply not close enough to make your point. Nor do challenge my demonstratio that initiation of a covenant is not the same as obligations under it.
and when Jesus replies nothing more may be shown by his words than he abolishes the notion that there was now in the New Covenant, one special place of worship. There is no evidence in the context that anything more than that was intended.
The ceremonies were tied to Jerusalem as the centre of Israel's worship, as even a cursory reading of the Psalms will reveal. If the centre is removed then the ceremonies must fall with it.
You have here paralleled an interesting statement by Westminster Divinie Anthony Burgess who argued that since the Jewish state had failed, the Mosaic civil law code, as a system, also expired with it. But neither Burgess nor the Assembly went so far as to argue that every Mosaic civil stipulation was now inapplicable: general equity meant that some stipulations remained valid in the NT era.
Now I proclaim that animal sacrifices and temple cease in the NT with the end of the Old Covenant. But I deny that sung praise and accompanied sung praise also fall with it. For neither sung praise nor ASP were Old Covenant commandments and I observe that sung praise is commanded in the NT, that there remains one sacrificial context remaining praiseworthy in the NT, and ASP cannot be shown to be separated from sung praise anywhere in the NT.
Since the worship practices of David were not constituted part of that covenant that vanished, they are not automatically shaken when the old covenant is taken away. They are occasional commands of God remaining valid because the rationale establishing them still applies in this age.
Haggai wrote after the exile, and spoke concerning the glory of the second temple exceeding the glory of the first temple. His words specifically relate to the ordinances instituted by David. The apostle says things which are made shall be removed by this universal shaking. This means that all carnal ordinances of the OT have been abrogated. Hence the Hebrews ought not to turn away from God who speaks to them from heaven, which would be the result if they rejected the Christian synoagogue in favour of the temple worship.
The rejection of temple worship in the NT did not extend to the praise ordinances as is reveled by the command to sing psalms. In addition, you are continuing to presume that which you have yet to prove i.e., that the praise ordinances were Mosaic. Lacking such proof, your argument fails.
Christ's dialogue with the Samaritan woman lays down two of the three conditions for NT worship: it must be in spririt and in truth. Paul gives us the third, our worship must not be confusing (either to ourselves or to outsiders). Other than that, all is legitimately variable. I am not insisting that those who want to restrict their worship to sung psalms are necessarily committing sin. If churches want to do so among themselves, that is a matter about which we are not to argue. I merely deny that you have a biblical case for demanding that all Christ's church conform to your practice.
