18th Century Understanding of Ephesians 5:19

John Gill is a revered but now underused Baptist theologian and Bible commentator who died in 1771. He's famous for his comments on the Old Testament, being an outstanding Hebrew scholar and an expert in ancient Jewish historical writings and commentaries.

Reading through the histories of the kings of Israel and Judah, and the exile and subsequent return of Judah into their land, I've now arrived near the end of these accounts to the book of Nehemiah, which describes how the public worship prescribed by God through David is reestablished. Gill observes that "there was song at the time of the daily sacrifice, in which prayer was also made, as in many of the songs, hymns, and psalms of David..." 

In using the phrase "songs, hymns, and psalms of David," Gill showed that he, like other Puritan and Reformed theologians, understood Paul's "psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 to refer (only) to the book of Psalms in the Old Testament. But this understanding came under increasing attack from the mid-1700's onward, to the point that people now believe that the Greek hymnos in the New Testament refers to uninspired songs composed by men. It's good to read older theologians and their comments on Scripture so we can see that we aren't the first people to study the Bible and reach conclusions on the meaning of Scripture.

Working Hard To Deny The Obvious

Many have worked hard to make Paul's "psalms, hymns and spiritual songs" (Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16) to mean "songs in addition to" the inspired Psalms. Here's an example of this I recently came across. The first few paragraphs reveal the good-intentioned, I am sure, author's dilemma:

"Christian Hymns of the First Three Centuries"

There is no part of the general field of Christian hymnology so baffling to the student or so full of difficulties as the one under consideration in this paper [i.e., the non-Psalm hymnody of the early church]... This is due, first of all, to the unexpected scarcity of original sources. When one views the rise of Christianity from its inception to the period of the Council of Nicaea, 325, its numerical growth from a handful of original adherents to millions of followers at the time of the Edict of Milan, 313, its literary development from early scattered records to the works of the great Greek and Latin fathers, one cannot help inquiring, “What has become of their hymns?”

No wonder finding information on the supposed hymnody sung by millions in the first three centuries of the early church proves baffling and full of difficulties!  This difficulty in finding hymn texts is due to "the unexpected scarcity of original sources." In other words, when researchers go looking for the supposed non-Psalm hymns of the early church they come up empty-handed, and this doesn't make sense to them, considering the otherwise tremendous body of writings that has come down to us from that period. This leads researchers to scratch their heads and wonder, "What has become of their hymns?" The article continues:

Let us abandon at once our contemporary connotation of the word 'hymn'...In the pre-Ambrosian period, Christian hymns were largely of the psalm type, to be chanted in rhythmic periods without rhyme. Not only should the word hymn be conceived in terms of ancient thought, but also the futile attempt to differentiate among psalms, hymns and canticles should be avoided. (Italics and quotes mine)

The researcher admits freely that our contemporary understanding of the word 'hymn' is unhelpful in determining what the early church sang, as their hymns were "largely of the Psalm type." In fact, of course, they were the Psalms, and the article all but admits it when it says that the "futile attempt to differentiate among psalms, hymns and canticles [again, Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16] should be avoided." The author continues:

Specialists in liturgical matters testify to the confusion existing among ancient writers in the use of these words and to the uncertainty of definition which results.

Surely this isn't in reference to Paul when the writer speaks of the "confusion existing among ancient writers?" The apostle was not confused about what the church was to sing or confused in his choice of words. Neither was the ancient church confused about what to sing, or confused about Paul's choice of words. Paul's "psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" were all nouns from the Greek Old Testament in use by the church in that day, and were commonly understood to be terms that described the Old Testament Psalms.

It is better not to multiply difficulties but to hold fast to the actual texts which we know were used in Christian worship. In this study, the extant hymnic sources will be presented objectively. Groups of hymns will be used to illustrate the types current in the period. 

The article speaks confidently of "actual texts which we know were used in Christian worship," of "extant hymn sources," and of "groups of hymns used to illustrate the types current in the period." But then what follows is an attempt to force various early documents, including some New Testament passages, to yield hymn texts,*  but this is all based purely on conjecture, and is anything but objective, solid reporting. The fact is that the only texts that are known to have been used in Christian worship were the Psalms. There is no record that uninspired songs were used in the public worship of the church in its first centuries.

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It makes one wonder! Why the ongoing, relentless effort to deny the fact that the early church sang the Psalms exclusively (just as the Old Testament church had done)?

*On the supposed hymn fragments contained in the NT epistles, see here.

And More On Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs

G.I. Williamson on what Paul meant by the phrase (in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3) "psalms, hymns and spiritual songs:"

The proper interpretation of scripture terms requires that we discover, not what we mean by these terms when we use them today, but what the inspired writer meant when he used them. And it is one of the oddities of biblical interpretation that this rule is commonly observed with reference to the term 'psalms', and commonly disregarded with respect to the terms 'hymns' and 'songs'. For the fact is that all three of these terms are used in the Bible to designate various selections contained in the Old Testament Psalter. 

In the Greek version of the Old Testament familiar to the Ephesians and Colossians the entire Psalter is entitled 'Psalms'. In sixty-seven of the titles within the book the word 'psalm' is used. However, in six titles the word 'hymn' is used, rather than 'psalm', and in thirty-five the word 'song' appears. Even more important, twelve titles use both 'psalm' and 'song', and two have 'psalm' and 'hymn'. Psalm seventy-six is designated 'psalm, hymn and song'. And at the end of the first seventy two psalms we read that 'the hymns of David the son of Jesse are ended' (Ps. 72:20.) In other words, there is no more reason to think that the Apostle referred to psalms when he said 'psalms' than when he said 'hymns' and 'songs', for the simple reason that all three were biblical terms for psalms in the book of psalms itself. 

We are in the habit of using the terms 'hymns' and 'songs' for those compositions that are not psalms. But Paul and the Christians at Ephesus and Colossae used these terms as the Bible itself uses them, namely, as titles for the various psalms in the Old Testament Psalter. To us it may seem strange, or even unnecessary, that the Holy Spirit would use a variety of titles to describe His inspired compositions. But the fact is that He did so. Just as the Holy Spirit speaks of His 'commandments and his statutes and his judgments' (Deut.. 30:16, etc.), and of 'miracles and wonders and signs' (Acts 2:22), so He speaks of His 'psalms, hymns and songs'. As commandments, statutes and judgments are all divine laws in the language of scripture; as miracles and wonders and signs are all supernatural works of God in the language of scripture; so psalms, hymns and songs are the inspired compositions of the Psalter, in the language of scripture itself... 

The New Testament evidence sustains this conclusion. On the night of the Last Supper Jesus and His disciples sang 'a hymn' (Matt. 26:30). Bible expositors admit that this was the second part of the Hallel Psalms (115-118), which were always sung at the Passover. (New Bible Commentary, p. 835.) Matthew called this psalm a 'hymn' because a psalm is a hymn in the terminology of the Bible. To the same effect is the Old Testament quotation in Hebrews 2:12, in which the Greek word 'hymn' is quoted from Psalm 22:22. In this quotation from an Old Testament psalm, the word 'hymn' is used to denote the singing of psalms because the Old Testament makes no distinction between the two. But if Scripture itself says that psalms are hymns, and that hymns are psalms, why should we make any distinction between them?

If we grant that the Apostle used biblical language in a biblical sense there is no more reason to think that he spoke of uninspired hymns in these texts (Col. 3:16, Eph. 5:19) than to think that he spoke of uninspired psalms, because hymns are inspired psalms in the holy scriptures.

On Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs

I have posted a link to this before but will do so again today because it's just that helpful. R. Scott Clark discusses what Paul means by telling the church to sing "psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs." What did those terms mean to Paul's readers: did they mean the same to them as they do to us today? Very necessary information in framing the conversation about what we are to sing in public worship.

Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs in the Septuagint