A TRULY reformed Church must not only be reformed in doctrine but also in worship. Numerous Churches who regard or describe themselves as Reformed, are not reformed in worship inasmuch as they have elements in their worship which God has not prescribed – for example, hymns of human composition and instrumental music.
The fundamental rule as to what we are to include in the worship of God is that we use only what God requires and prescribes. This principle, the regulative principle, is found, for example, in Deuteronomy 12:32, “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it, thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.” Again, in the New Testament we read these words from the lips of the Divine Head of the church, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. . .” Matthew 28:19, 20.
In the matter of singing praise in worship, Scripture teaches that the Psalms, and the Psalms alone, are the songs to be sung. Being “given by inspiration of God”, or “God-breathed”, they have come from the mind and mouth of God. What better manual of praise could one have? In any case, the explicit directive of God is: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord,” Colossians 3:16.
Of course, it cannot be argued for a moment that the hymns referred to above are human productions. They are obviously part of “the word of Christ”, that is, they are part of the inspired word of God. This is confirmed by the term “spiritual”, which is applied in the original language to each of the terms “psalms”, “hymns” and “songs”, and indicates that they proceed from the Holy Spirit. The phrase “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” means simply the Spirit-inspired Book of Psalms.
To speak of human hymns as “inspired” is, as J. G. Vos says, “a very loose
Inaccurate use of the term “inspired”. What such people probably mean is “inspiring” or “inspirational”. When we are speaking about the Bible, the word “inspired” has a technical meaning: it means “God-breathed”. The idea is not that God by His spirit breathed something into certain person, but that the words of Scripture are what God has breathed out; that is, they are truly the Word of God. Only the Bible, therefore, is the Word of God. If all hymns were inspired in this technical sense, they would be part of the Word of God, and they would have to be included in every copy of the Bible.”
In his booklet, The Singing of Psalms in the Worship of God, G. I. Williamson says, “The fact is that all three of these terms, psalms, hymns and songs, are used in the Bible to designate various sections contained 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 judgements” (Deuteronomy 30:16), and of “miracles, wonders and signs” (Acts 2:22), so He speaks of “psalms, hymns and songs”. As His commandments, statutes and judgements are all divine law in the language of Scripture; and as miracles, 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.”
Nor will it do to argue that the Psalms have little to say of Christ and that therefore human hymns which major on the person and work of Christ are superior. To say that there is not enough of Christ in the Book of Psalms is, as an American minister said, “a really astonishing thing, for Christ Himself said that the Book of Psalms were written about Him (Luke 24:44). His own dying words were quoted from Psalm 22. . . And then, by the mouth of His servant Paul, He commanded the Churches to keep on singing the Psalms. And why not? He Himself, by the Holy Spirit, was the author of them. And the truth is that there is more of Christ in every psalm written by Him before He came into the world, than in any hymn written by mere men after He came.”
Without a doubt, the Book of Psalms is the divinely appointed manual of praise. It is therefore a serious matter and displeasing to God for any Church or congregation to thrust aside this manual of praise, which He has ordained, and replace it by compositions of men. This is what Scripture condemns as “will-worship”. “It is the duty of Christians to praise God publicly,” says The Directory for the Public Worship of God, “by singing of Psalms together in the congregation, and also together in the family. In singing of Psalms, the voice be tunably and gravely ordered; but the chief care must be to sing with the understanding, and with grace in the heart making melody to the Lord.” □