bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
There's no positive command to set up the organizational structure known as the synagogue in the Old Testament. In fact, they're not even mentioned. So, were the Jews wrong to start them?
History of Instruments
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There's no positive command to set up the organizational structure known as the synagogue in the Old Testament. In fact, they're not even mentioned. So, were the Jews wrong to start them?
Parakaleo
Puritan Board Sophomore
My view of instruments in worship is not based on synagogue worship, but upon apostolic example. The synagogue is only brought up as a contrast to the temple worship. The apostles' synagogue-like worship in the church is illustrative of the fulfillment of temple worship and the breaking away from it in the New Covenant.
If you can grant the point that, of the two options, the worship God commanded in the New Covenant resembles the synagogue far more than the temple, then you can understand what a leap backwards it would be to re-introduce musical instruments into God's worship now.
I'm a bit concerned that you are operating not with an RPW but an NPW (Normative Principle). The NPW is not confessional and alien to the Scripture. What passages would you appeal to that teach there is greater "freedom" in worship in the New Covenant? The bottom line is that if you offer something to God in worship apart from the firm belief it is what he has commanded, you're blatantly engaging in will worship.
bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
But, again, you're assuming that the "apostolic example" is automatically the no-instruments view, based on what allegedly was done (or not done) as a part of synagogue liturgical practice. I'm more interested in what the New Testament documents actually say. And these documents, being occasional in nature, show that the apostles and the early Christians generally had bigger things to worry about than whether musical instruments were used in worship.
The New Testament example is that we do not see them banning (or even discouraging) the use of instruments in corporate worship. Such a banishment is simply not there.
This is not the RPW but the normative principle
Parakaleo
Puritan Board Sophomore
My conclusion that the apostles did not use instruments is based in small part on reliable accounts that instruments were not used in synagogue worship. It's easily shown from Scripture that instrumentation is not lawful to use in worship outside the temple and by non-Levites. However, these are vanishingly small considerations in light of the much more convincing evidence that the New Testament documents do not make any mention of instruments. This alone is enough to forbid them.
If your starting point is the RPW and you have purposed in your heart that you will not offer anything other than what God has desired in his worship, you cannot offer God worship with instruments. Because you have no way to confirm it is what God desires. That's what I was getting at earlier when I said that you can't bind my conscience to use instruments to worship God. If you can't bind my conscience by God's Word, then neither can you justify using instruments yourself.
Yes, brother. I'm afraid you're correct. I will add that there is usually a high cost involved with returning to a consistent understanding of the RPW. That's why so many people stop short. I have paid this cost. One of the main reasons I needed to leave my former call is that I was unable to lead God's people in worship themed around man-made holy days.
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If one is going to stay within the regulative principle of worship of Presbyterianism, you cannot argue musical instruments as prescribed and then treat them like a circumstance (a circumstance is not prescribed nor an element of worship). If you argue them as elemental (prescribed), 1. then all NT churches must use some sort of instruments (specific prescribed instruments?); 2. we really are back to the OT ceremonial worship which caused Calvin and others to reject any instrumentation. If they are argued as circumstantial merely to aid singing, then the argument has to stay within the realm of the circumstantial.
Parakaleo
Puritan Board Sophomore
I was once one of these "musical instruments as a circumstance of worship" persons, until I realized that musical instruments don't even pass the NPW-test for a biblical circumstance of worship, because of their use as elements in temple worship.
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
Forget about the synagogue, it is just a side comment really. Musical instruments as commanded (as an element, if you want to use that term) was part of the ceremonial law and temple worship. It's fulfilled in Christ, it ends with Christ because they served as a shadow. Since they were part of the ceremonial law and no longer apply at the time of the death/resurrection of Christ, there would have to be a clear positive command in the New Testament. There isn't, therefore, you may not use musical instruments in public worship.
bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
If one is going to stay within the regulative principle of worship of Presbyterianism, you cannot argue musical instruments as prescribed and then treat them like a circumstance (a circumstance is not prescribed nor an element of worship). If you argue them as elemental (prescribed), 1. then all NT churches must use some sort of instruments (specific prescribed instruments?); 2. we really are back to the OT ceremonial worship which caused Calvin and others to reject any instrumentation. If they are argued as circumstantial merely to aid singing, then the argument has to stay within the realm of the circumstantial.
Chris, does Calvin back up his opinion with Scripture anywhere in his writings? In his comments on Psalm 149, he makes this type of comment but doesn't back it up (I realize his biblical commentaries tend to be brief). He just makes the assertion and leaves it at that. One almost gets the impression that his reasoning is: "because I said so."
As far as the Temple service goes, what's fulfilled in Christ is the theological rationale for the Old Testament sacrifices. That's the important thing - and the thing the New Testament stresses repeatedly. Animal sacrifices are no longer necessary because they've been fulfilled by and in Christ.
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
Sure, so where is the positive command for use of instruments, and what is the purpose of them?
bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
Then, make that case, brother. Again, though, the New Testament's silence could just as easily mean that, as I've said before, the New Testament writers had bigger fish to fry than worrying about musical instruments. If God really wanted to ban them from worship, he could have made that explicitly clear. But, He didn't.
bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
There isn't one. It's not a topic the New Testament writers were worried about. The purpose of musical instruments is to enhance and accompany the singing in corporate worship.
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
Where is that described in Scripture, that musical instruments are used to enhance and accompany the singing in corporate worship?
What you are saying sounds like a mix of element and circumstance. What are you saying this is, and where does Scripture describe it for this use?
bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
The Scripture doesn't describe that function anywhere, which indicates to me that musical instruments are most probably a circumstance (see Chris Coldwell's post above listing the various options).
I don't have time to look for Calvin's view, but Travis has done that work already (see here). The standard position until the mid 19th century for most Presbyterians and nonconformist churches was that the instruments were part of the ceremonial worship and they don't get a pass by not being specifically stipulated as passing away in the NT, than any other piece of that worship that was not specified. And it is notable that Paul, and he could have easily enough, did not add the instruments specified throughout the psalms to his 'sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.' But I have no real zeal to engage the topic again for the umpteenth time; the literature is abundant. See Travis' general page here on literature. Below Dabney represents the southern Presbyterian view in his review of Girardeau's book.
Dr. Girardeau has defended the old usage of our church with a moral courage, loyalty to truth, clearness of reasoning and wealth of learning which should make every true Presbyterian proud of him, whether he adopts his conclusions or not. The framework of his arguments is this: it begins with that vital truth which no Presbyterian can discard without a square desertion of our principles. The man who contests this first premise had better set out at once for Rome: God is to be worshipped only in the ways appointed in his word. Every act of public cultus not positively enjoined by him is thereby forbidden. Christ and his apostles ordained the musical worship of the New Dispensation without any sort of musical instrument, enjoining only the singing with the voice of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Hence such instruments are excluded from Christian worship. Such has been the creed of all churches, and in all ages, except of the Popish communion after it had reached the nadir of its corruption at the end of the thirteenth century, and of its prelatic imitators. But the pretext is raised that instrumental music was authorized by Scripture in the Old Testament. This evasion dr. Girardeau ruins by showing that God set up in the Hebrew Church two distinct forms of worship; the one moral, didactic, spiritual and universal, and therefore perpetual in all places and ages that of the synagogues; the other peculiar, local, typical, foreshadowing in outward forms the more spiritual dispensation, and therefore destined to be utterly abrogated by Christ’s coming. Now we find instrumental music, like human priests and their vestments, show-bread, incense, and bloody sacrifice, absolutely limited to this local and temporary worship. But the Christian churches were modeled upon the synagogues and inherited their form of government and worship because it was permanently didactic, moral and spiritual, and included nothing typical. This reply is impregnably fortified by the word of God himself: that when the Antitype has come the types must be abolished. For as the temple-priests and animal sacrifices typified Christ and his sacrifice on Calvary, so the musical instruments of David in the temple-service only typified the joy of the Holy Ghost in his pentecostal effusions. https://www.naphtali.com/articles/worship/dabney-review-of-girardeau-instrumental-music/
bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
Thanks, Chris.
This book is often recommended when musical instruments are discussed: Old Light on New Worship by John Price. He doesn't discuss Psalmody and isn't EP, but his book is excellent on this topic and he discusses the history of the use of musical instruments in the OT and NT church.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1881...ew+worship&dpPl=1&dpID=417XZ81Q4FL&ref=plSrch
TheOldCourse
Puritan Board Sophomore
I always respect and appreciate your contributions, but this seems rather different than the perspective the Reformed divines had on worship. For instance, this section by Burroughs seems more in line with a confessional, Reformed understanding of worship and whether there were bigger things to worry about:
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bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
Jeri, do you know who John Price is? The Amazon listing doesn't give any information about him, unless I missed it.
TheOldCourse
Puritan Board Sophomore
He's a Reformed Baptist minister in Rochester, NY.
Andrew P.C.
Puritan Board Junior
Sacrifices were not the only thing fore-signifying Christ:
"V. This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law and in the time of the gospel: under the law it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all fore-signifying Christ to come, which were for that time sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins and eternal salvation; and is called the Old Testament." (WCF 7.5)
Andrew P.C.
Puritan Board Junior
This wasn't the primary purpose of the instruments. All the instruments revolved around the temple and its worship. Instruments were also connected to the sacrifices.
Also, to say "it's not a topic the New Testament writers were worried about" seems to demonstrate the very thing you are accusing others. Where does the Bible stress or demonstrate this idea? It's just an assertion. An argument for the *lack* of something being said in the Bible is also what you are accusing others of: an arugument from silence. At best, you're only asserting your opinions.
Cymro
Puritan Board Junior
Whilst we find no record of the authorisation of synagogues in the scripture per se, the very fact that our Lord attended them on the Sabbath sanctifies their existence. Instruments are a modern innovation into synagogue worship. As to musical instruments, are they not part of the furniture of the ceremonial law as were candles, vestments, incense etc, which were part of that glory which is done away because of the glory that excelleth. Even the construction of the temple, its dimensions, its courts, the shittim wood, the knops and flowers, the altar and the various vessels, all have a spiritual significance under their physical and carnal glory. These were used,"until the day break, and the shadows flee away." Christ has come and brought in the simplicity of worship into a building fitly framed together growing into a holy temple in the Lord. In whom ye also are builder together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
Not really. Read through the New Testament and see how many times music and musical instruments are mentioned. Very rare. This virtual non-appearance shows that the New Testament writers were not concerned with the topic, although there would have been plenty of places where they could have been mentioned (Paul's lengthy instructions to the problematic Corinthians, for example). And, as I've said, I believe this strongly implies that instruments were used (just as in the Old Testament times) and that it was not a problem. Since the instruments were no longer connected with the Temple or the sacrifices (fulfilled in Christ), they were used to enhance and accompany worship.
jomawh
Puritan Board Freshman
I have to ask the question here. With reasoning consistent with what you've said here, what would be your argument against clerical robes, incense, et al, or would you have one?
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Also may I ask? Congregations that do not use instruments do they have less "enhanced" worship?
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Andrew P.C.
Puritan Board Junior
The lack of something doesn't prove the use of something. This doesn't follow logically. If I don't speak about eating oranges, this doesn't prove that I am eating oranges. It only proves that there is nothing specifically talking about oranges. It also doesn't prove motive or intent, thus your argument about them not being worried is an assertion. Logical consequence.
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