The History of Psalm Singing in the Christian Church

Informative: "The History of Psalm Singing in the Christian Church" by Terry Johnson (online article).

The Return To Rome

In Spirit and Truth: Worship as God Requires (Understanding and Applying the Regulative Principle of Worship) by James R. Hughes:

"Within a generation after the Puritans, the Protestant Church began drifting back toward the worship practices of the Roman Catholic Church of the late Middle Ages. Today, that return is almost complete. We once again see Protestants following liturgies and ecclesiastical calendars that are similar, if not identical to, those followed by the Roman Catholic Church. In many respects, there is no essential difference."

A very informative online book.

The Inner Life of Christ In The Psalms

A quote from the Preface of "The True Psalmody," published in 1861:

...I believe there is one view of Christ—and that not the least important to the tired and troubled believer—that can only be discovered in the Book of Psalms. I mean His inward life. No eye-witness of the outward man, even though an inspired evangelist (i.e., one of Jesus' apostles), could penetrate the heart. But the Spirit who "searches the deep things of God" has, in the Psalms, laid open the innermost thoughts, sorrows, and conflicts of our Lord.The [writers of the gospels] faithfully and intelligently depict the sinless Man; the Psalms alone lay open the heart of "the Man of sorrows".

Understanding this view has been most meaningful in my enjoyment of the Psalms, and most enlarging of their edification to me. It has shown me Christ more in the Psalms and increased my love for him and my appreciation of all that he bore for his people, in life and in death. I've realized that in the Psalms, as the pre-incarnate Christ speaks of his sufferings to come, and speaks to the Father about them, and calls on Yahweh to save and rescue him, he is training us to do the same. What a tremendous Author of our salvation!

"The True Psalmody" is an old book that as far as I know, can only be accessed online, but it's a valuable addition to those looking to figure out this psalmody/worship question. Here's a link to it: "The True Psalmody". The quote above is from the first Preface of the book by Rev. Henry Cooke, and outlines his story of coming to see the worth of singing only the Psalms in the church.

Christ Sings in the Congregation

Since I last wrote, back in February, I've been gradually coming to a more convinced position that the gathered church, most wonderfully, is to sing only God's word. This conviction has been formed by Scripture. I've also been helped by church history, and the teachings of  many Reformers like Calvin, and by so many of the Puritans, especially, who had to deal with controversies over the singing of the church.

In the two main parallel texts looked to for the doctrine of New Testament singing (Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3), Paul says that our singing is to be in accord with being filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18, 19) and being richly indwelt by the word of Christ (Colossians 3:16). They are one and the same thing—to have hearts richly indwelt by the word of Christ is to be filled with the Spirit of Christ. We are to sing the word of Christ back to God and to each other.

Then consider these words from the author of Hebrews 2:10-12, 13b (quoting Psalm 22:22 and Isaiah 8:18):

For it was fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation [Christ] perfect through suffering. For He who sanctifies [God] and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why He [Christ] is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, "I will tell of Your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise...behold, I and the children God has given Me.

Christ from of old decreed that he would tell in the assembly of his brothers of the Father's great name.Christ will do this praising of the Father's name in song, as he leads in singing the praise of the Father, in Christ's own words, not man's—from the great songbook of the church through the ages, the inspired psalter. This was the Trinitarian plan of Father, Son, and Spirit.

The Greek word for "sing" in Hebrews 2:12 is "hymnneō," which has no other meaning than "to sing". It's the same word used in Matthew 26:30 which basically reads, "And when they had hymned (hymnneō), they went out..."   It's well-accepted that the "hymn" sung by Christ and his disciples on this occasion was one of the Hallel psalms, which consisted of Psalms 113-118 and Psalm 136, sometimes referred to as "The Great Hallel."

If the singing of Hebrews 2:12 is the singing of Christ then the song consists of his words; if they are his words, then they are now the written Scripture. How could it be otherwise—how could we "put words in his mouth," so to speak, even if they are the very best songs man can produce?

There are many more things to say about this, but being limited by time and talent, I'll stop here, and finish with the thought that this is so wonderful to me. Many arguments against limiting our songs in the church to the Scripture, and specifically to the Psalms, may come to mind.

But these protests pale compared to the evidence from the Bible as well as church history that these are indeed the songs we're to sing. If singing the Psalms together is God's will for the church, then nothing but blessing can come from our obedience to do it. However, every local church must come to its own conviction of the rightness of this. Everyone who cares about the singing together of the church should seek to come to a conviction of conscience about it.

Here's a good place to begin reading, if you're interested and willing.This essay on the Ephesians and Colossians passages might help jump-start your thinking (and lead to some good questions) to help you in searching the Scriptures for yourself:

"Of Psalms, Hymns, And Spiritual Songs And The Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW)".  Be sure and click on the link provided to the PDF of the full article.

Also, read through the comments on the Heidelblog post as Dr. Clark responds there to some common questions.

Old Light on New Worship

I have mentioned this book in a previous post, and I wanted to talk a little more about it. (I need to clarify that Pastor Price does not hold to exclusive psalmody and in fact I don't remember whether he even speaks of singing the Psalms. However, this book is very helpful on wrestling through the issues with musical instruments in worship.)

It's written by a pastor named John Price, who pastors a Baptist congregation in New York. He's not famous, not a celebrity pastor, and hasn't spoken (as far as I know) in any big-name conferences. That in itself doesn't qualify him or disqualify him. I only mention that because in this age of popularity-driven books, DVD's, live simulcast conferences and such, a quiet "no-name's" book about an important and controversial topic isn't likely to cause much of a stir, not enough to filter down to the attention of the average Christian in the average church. But that doesn't mean the book is not sound, helpful and important.

Any book must be judged on its own merit, not by the fame or charisma of the author. The standard by which to judge is, of course, the teaching of Scripture. I believe this book is very Scripturally solid.

Pastor Price makes the case for the fact that God has always regulated the activities of his gathered people. He has always prescribed what is to be done and how. He (God) has never left it to chance, or left it up to us to come up with innovations, bright ideas, or anything else of our own invention. He has made all clear in his word, both in the Old Testament and in the New; but as is often the case, clarity does not equal simple (not in the sense of the doctrine falling effortlessly into our hands).

Just realizing that much—that God has always prescribed for his people the activities that they are to engage in when they meet together as the church—is hugely helpful in causing us to stop short and determine to take a serious look at what we are doing, and why. That realization caused Pastor Price to take a step back, and in the fear of the Lord to check it out! He came up not with new, previously unheard of information, but with old information that has by and large been forgotten.

I won't go on about it in this post, but will just leave it at that. There are very important things to know about the doctrine of the singing of the church, and it takes an understanding of God's prescriptions in both the Old Testament and the New to get them. John Price has laid some very important foundational work in his book, I believe. Is he right in every aspect? It's not for me to say for sure, though I do believe from my own studies that he gets his main emphasis right. I'm convinced that we need to be talking about this in our own churches. Because we care about what God wants and has prescribed, we should be open to reconsidering what we do when we gather as the church.

The Church Only and Ever Sang the Word of God

I've been floored to realize that for both Israel and for the apostolic church, the songs they sang—all the songs they sang—were inspired songs. These songs were each and every one written by God's appointed spokesmen, his prophets. These were the songs given to God's people to sing.

No one was free in Old Testament Israel to innovate in penning new songs for the people to sing. The songs of the Old Testament were all written inerrantly because they were written prophetically. Moses (Deuteronomy 31:19-32:44), Deborah and Barak (Judges 5:1-31), and of course King David, the anointed "psalmist of Israel" (2 Samuel 23:1) come immediately to mind. Korah and others who wrote some of the Psalms were also prophets. We know they were because in the Old Testament, "prophet" is the very definition of the one who inerrantly spoke God's words, words which became written Scripture ("in former times God spoke to us through his prophets, but in these last days he has spoken by his Son"—Hebrews 1:1).

Again, these were the songs, the only songs, that Israel was to sing. The Psalms were the songbook of the nation of Israel., and no command of God ever abrogated that. Where is the New Testament command that changes the command to sing only the words of God given through his prophets?

To our modern ears, Paul's command in Ephesians 5:18-19 and Colossians 3:16 to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs sounds like a mandate to songwriters. We might get the idea from it that fresh new songs for the church to sing were being written. But it wasn't so. "Hymns" and "spiritual songs" were descriptions used in the headings of the Septuagint Psalms—the Greek Scripture that Christ and the apostles used, and from which they quoted. Paul's readers would have understood Paul, in speaking of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, to be talking about singing what God's people would have always sung: the word of God.

Where does that leave us today with our song lists for Sunday morning filled with songs written by 20-year-old recording artists? I think it leaves us a good ways away from God's command, to say the least.

More later. I was simply struck, a while ago, by the stark fact that God commanded one thing—that his people sing his word—and that he never rescinded that command.

Singing Together and Musical Instruments

Over the past years and months, I have become an adherent to the regulative principle of worship (i.e., what we do when we gather as the church). I hear a lot of people talking about the regulative principle, but many no longer adhere to the historical understanding of it. The regulative principle is that what we do in worship must be regulated by the word of God; therefore, only what is prescribed in the word of God may be practiced in worship.

Alternatively, the normative principle, which most churches now hold to, says that as long as any practice or activity is not forbidden in Scripture, it may be done in worship as long as it measures up to a denomination's, or local congregation's, criteria. This opens the churches up to whatever practices and activities are approved by its leaders and demanded by the congregation.

My conviction gained from Scripture is that God has always prescribed the lawful practices and activities of the gathered church. In the New Testament no less than in the Old, God's word is very specific about what the church should do. When the Old Testament worship forms passed away, so did its many activities, except for the ones prescriptively described in the New Testament: prayer, praise, singing as prayer and praise, giving, preaching and teaching, breaking bread together/the Lord's supper, water baptism.

I highly recommend this book: Old Light on New Worship: Musical Instruments and the Worship of God, a Theological, Historical and Psychological Study by John Price as a place to begin. Fascinating!!

Here's a website with a lot of good information on the regulative principle, the need for it, and consequence of not adhering to it: Musical Instruments in the Public Worship of God.

Happy researching—I hope you will!