WHAT IS YOUR STAND? (PART- I)
WHERE DO YOU STAND ON INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC?
WHERE SHOULD YOU STAND?
by Stafford North
is to study the various positions taken for and against their use and then to examine each
in light of scripture. Below are listed the most widely recognized of these positions, pro
and con, and some thoughts on each.
A Review of Positions Favoring the Use of Instruments in Christian Worship.
1. Instruments should be used in Christian worship because they are commanded.
Those with this view cite Psalm 150:3, for example, which says “make music to
Him with tambourine and harp” and 2 Chronicles 29:26 which says they used
cymbals, harps, and lyres as “commanded by the Lord through his prophets.”
The weakness of this view is that the commands and examples are from the Old
Testament plan for worship and not from any teaching for Christian worship. In
the Christian age, we do not worship as the Jews did with priests dressing in
special clothing, offering of animal sacrifices, burning of special incense, and
confessing sins over the head of a goat. To look to Jewish worship for what is
acceptable in Christian worship is not God’s way. Jesus told the woman at the
well (John 4:23) that the time had come when people would worship God in a
new way, and in the Christian age we follow that new plan contained in the New
Testament. To use commands about Jewish worship as authority for God’s plan
for Christian worship is to use the wrong source. Those teachings are not our
guide in the Christian age. Christ nailed that law to the cross (Colossians 2:14)
and Romans 7:1-7 says that it has passed away. In discussing this point, some
say, since Jesus worshipped at the temple where instruments were used in an
indication that we can worship in this way. Does that apply to all the actions of
temple worship such as offering animal sacrifices and other special ceremonies of
the priests? We follow Jesus’ example by worshipping as God has taught for our
era just as He followed God’s plan for His era.
2. The use of instrumental music in Christian worship is authorized by the New
Testament’s use of the Greek word psallo, a word which means to sing with an
instrument.
The New Testament does, in some passages, use the word psallo in regard to
Christian worship. In Ephesians 5:19, for example, the passage says to “Sing
[ado] and make melody [psallo] in your heart to the Lord.” The original meaning
of the word psallo was “to pluck.” Over time it was associated with “plucking” a
stringed instrument. Then it came to mean to “sing while plucking.” Still later, in
New Testament times, it was typically used to mean to sing without an instrument
(Ferguson 13). We all know that words can change meaning over time. Take the
word “cool,” for example. For years this word meant that something was less
than room temperature and thus was “cool” as opposed to “warm.” Now,
however, the word is often used to mean that something is “neat,” or “hip” or
“stylish.” “Cool” has a new meaning, and so have “neat” and “hip.” Words do
change in meaning.
We should not be surprised, therefore, that over several centuries, “psallo” had
changes in its meaning. Look carefully, however, at Ephesians 5:19. It says to
sing (ado) and make melody (psallo) in your heart. In this passage, the word for
sing is ado which clearly means to vocalize in song. Literally translated, the verse
would read, “sing (with your voice) and sing with your heart.” The verse uses
psallo to describe something one does with the heart. Surely the verse does not
mean we can play an instrument with our hearts. If the word necessarily includes
the use of an instrument, then the passage says I must sing and along with that I
must play an instrument in my heart. What could that mean? It can and does
mean that I should sing and, as I sing with my voice, I should sing or “make
melody” with my heart. Since to do something “with the heart” means to do it
“with feeling,” or “with meaning,” another way of stating the meaning of this
verse is to say we should “sing and feel and mean what we are singing.” All the
translators of major versions of the New Testament have understood what the
word psallo meant to those of the first century and have, therefore, translated it
“sing.”
To argue that psallo authorizes the use of instruments puts one in a very odd
situation. If “psallo” means to “sing with instruments,” it is very strange that
early Christians did not do it. The historical record on this point is quite clear.
Musical instruments were not used in Christian music until about a thousand AD.
As late as 1250, the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas was opposing the use of
instruments in worship. Are we really to believe that early Christians, who knew
Greek very well, knew that psallo meant to sing with instruments but they never
did what the word called for? Clearly they knew that psallo did not imply the use
of instruments to accompany singing for such was never their practice. The
Greek Orthodox Church, also well acquainted with the Greek language, still does
not use instruments in its worship. If instruments are inherent in psallo, then one
could not fulfill the command of that word without using instruments and that
would mean that a cappella singing falls short of the command and that everyone
would have to play an instrument.
The Latin word a cappella, in fact, is a word used to describe early Christian
music. It means “as in the chapel” or “as in the church.” The very word everyone
uses to describe “singing without instruments,” then, means to sing like the
church sang in the early centuries. To say, then, that the word psallo implies the
use of instruments is to say the writers of scripture told the church to use
instruments and yet, while the church was under the leadership of these very
writers, they didn’t do as they commanded. So the psallo argument is not a
justification for the use of instruments in Christian worship.
3. Instruments are allowed in Christian worship because they are mentioned as being
part of worship in heaven. Some say, as John relates the vision he sees in heaven,
he mentions instruments in the worship. Since, the argument goes, we will use
instruments in heaven, we should be allowed to use them on earth.
This argument sounds good on the surface but a careful examination reveals its
flaws. Let’s look at the passages in Revelation which some say justify their use in
Christian worship. Revelation 1:10 speaks of one whose voice is loud “like a
trumpet.” Just a loud voice. No worship with instruments. Revelation 14:2
speaks of a sound like a “roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder.
The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. And they sang a
new song before the throne.” The singing here is compared to rushing waters and
to thunder and to the sound of harps. No worship with instruments here either,
but there was loud singing. In Revelation 18:22, when the wicked city is
destroyed, the angel said there would no longer be the music of harpers or flute
players or trumpeters in the city any more. This verse speaking of secular music
on earth and is not describing a worship scene.
In Revelation 5:8, the text says, “the four living creatures and the twenty-four
elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding
golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a
new song.” The elders and living creatures are seen holding both harps and
golden bowls. We are told that the golden bowls of incense are a figurative
expression representing the prayers of the saints. As incense, in the Jewish age,
rose as a sweet smell to God, so in our age, our prayers rise as a sweet smell to
him. The harps, of the Jewish age, here are a figure also taken from the Old
Testament worship, to represent the singing in heaven. When the passage speaks
directly of what these creatures and elders did musically, it just says they “sang a
new song.” Still no worship with instruments. Revelation 15:3 says that those
victorious over the beast “held harps given them by God and [they] sang the song
of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb.” Again, a group is said to
be holding harps, still used as a figure from the Old Testament, for when we are
told what they actually did, we are told they “sang the song of Moses . . . and the
Lamb.”
So these passages in Revelation that mention harps are using these instruments in
a symbolic sense as does Revelation with bowls of incense, lambs, an altar of
burnt offering and an altar of incense. Do we want to take all of these figures,
like the altar for incense and the altar for burnt offering and make them
justification for using these things in our Christian worship?
Even if one were to prove that the heavenly scene has singing with instruments,
that would not be proof that Christians on earth should use them. We must take
our practice in Christian worship from what God has directed Christians to do in
their worship. So, no proof from Revelation either that actual instruments are
used with singing in heaven and certainly no proof that they are to be used in
Christian worship.
(To be Continue)>>>
Joseph Khati
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