The Ancient Christian church did not use musical instruments in public worship. They did not enter public worship in the West until the middle of the 8th century, i.e., well into the early medieval period. Further, that was one isolated instance, in Spain, licensed by the Roman bishop. As I have noted here many time times, even as late as the late 13th century Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224–74), who was reasonably well-traveled for a medieval scholar, seemed unaware of the use of musical instruments in public worship. He called their use in public worship “Judaizing,” i.e., an unjustified return to types and shadows by Christians. In our time, however, we are awash with musical instruments in public worship in even what are the most confessionally conservative Reformed churches.

The Disconnection Between Our Past And Our Present

In our context, it is easy to assume that Christians have always used instruments in public worship. The reasoning is as straightforward as it is flawed: 1) We are Reformed; 2) We do x; 3) Ergo X must be a Reformed practice. Of course, the conclusion does not follow. It does not follow that whatever a person thinks, says, or does is necessarily Reformed in character. E.g., it is not difficult to find Reformed congregations that are otherwise quite conservative with buildings that feature visible representations of the second person of the Holy Trinity. Of course such is not a Reformed practice since it is a violation of the law of God as we confess it in our catechisms.

Just because musical instruments are widely used now in public worship, in Reformed and Presbyterian congregations, that does not make their use normal or the historic practice of the churches. In the sixteenth century, during the Reformation, following the apostolic practice and the ancient Christian practice, the Reformed churches banished musical instruments from their churches across Europe and the British Isles. E.g., the Synod of Dort ruled against them in 1578:

77. We do not consider the use of organs in the churches to be good especially for the preaching (services). Therefore, we judged that ministers should labor, even though organs are tolerated for a time, that they be removed at the earliest and most suitable time.

The difficulty the Dutch Reformed Churches faced was the need of the Reformed members of the civil government to make alliances with the more numerous and powerful Erasmians, who favored the use of instruments. Think of Parliamentary governments. When there are multiple political parties and none with a majority, alliances are necessary to form a government. So it was is the Netherlands and so the battle against instruments would continue with the Erasmians supporting them and the Reformed ministers opposing them for another century or so.

Two Ways Of Making Melody

Even though we have practically lost touch with our original understanding and practice of worship, the principle remains and calls us to reconsider our practice in light of Scripture as we originally understood it.

Yesterday I was meditating on Psalm 149:3 and Ephesians 5:19.  The Psalm says:

Let them praise his name with dancing
and make music to him with timbrel and harp (Ps 149:3; ESV).

In the Greek translation of v. 3 says,

Praise his name in the choir, with the tympani, and making melody to him with the psaltry.¹

There the verb for “making melody” (ψάλλω) could also be translated “praising.” For the purposes of this argument it does not matter much which we choose. In this context Ephesians 5:19 caught my attention and gave fuel to some doubts I have been entertaining about one part of my argument that I advanced in Recovering the Reformed Confession. There I expressed doubt that Ephesians 5:19 (and Col 3:16) had much to do with public worship. I doubt my doubt. There are hints in the context of Ephesians 5 that might suggest that, as part of his contrast between those who walk in darkness with those who walk in the light, Paul is thinking, at least in part of the passage, of public worship.

In vv. 19–21 he writes:

speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ (Eph 5:19–21; NASB).²

Verse 19 seems to correspond to v. 4 above: “and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks” (NASB).

Rather than “filthy talk” etc., which Paul associates with pagan debauchery, the mouths of Christians ought to be full of God’s Word: “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” These are three of the four types of songs in the Psalter (the 150 Psalms). It has become fashionable to dismiss this identification but typically I find that those who dismiss it have not spent the time to look at the Psalter as it appears in the LXX. When I did I was convinced that Paul did used established categories of songs known to the Ephesians congregation from the Greek translations of the Psalms (see the resources below).

Where would this speaking and praising take place? Where would they be speaking to one another in “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”? Where would they be “making melody in their hearts” and where would being “subject to one another” come to visible expression? In public worship.

The point of this essay, however, is this: as part of his argument to the Ephesians about how they ought to conduct themselves, in contrast to the way the pagans conduct themselves, he not only appeals to their singing of different kinds of songs from the Psalter but he also implicitly contrasts the way we do it now with the way it was done when the Psalms were originally given under the types and shadows of the Old Testament.

Singing The Psalms In Light Of Their Fulfillment

Recently it was argued to me: “You want us to sing Psalms but you do not want us to do what the Psalms say to do, namely, to play instruments.” That is correct and for good reason. The very same Psalms that urge us to play various kinds of instruments also urge us to conduct actual, military holy war against God’s enemies and sometimes they do so in the very same Psalm as in Psalm 149.

In v. 3 the Psalmist urges the choir (of Levitical priests; 2 Chron 29:20–36) to praise God using various musical instruments. Keep reading:

Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,
And a two-edged sword in their hand, To execute vengeance on the nations
And punishment on the peoples, To bind their kings with chains
And their nobles with fetters of iron, To execute on them the judgment written;
This is an honor for all His godly ones.
Praise the Lord! (Ps 149:6–9; NASB)

Under the Old Testament generally believers were under types and shadows, indicators of heavenly realities and future realities that we have now, in Christ. Under the Old Covenant, a temporary subset of the Old Testament, which began with Moses and ended with the death of Jesus, God also commissioned his national people to destroy his enemies militarily. Under the Old Covenant, God’s people worshipped him with a musical instrument in one hand and a sword in the other. More than that, the same Psalms that called the Old Covenant people to worship the Lord by using musical instruments also called him to worship him with blood sacrifices and offerings: “

Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices,
In burnt offering and whole burnt offering;
Then young bulls will be offered on Your altar (Ps 51:19; NASB).

It is true that the sacrifice that the Lord has always required are “a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart” (Ps 51:17; NASB) but it is also true that, under the types and shadows, those virtues were to expressed outwardly with ritual, bloody sacrifices. In other words, it does not seem possible to extract the instruments of Psalms 149 and 150, for use in New Covenant worship, from the holy war of Psalm 68, 149, 74, and 89 et al or from the animal sacrifices commended throughout the Psalter.

Under the New Covenant we understand that Christ fulfilled all those types and shadows. We are not called to engage in a literal, military holy war. Our war is real but it is spiritual, against principalities and powers (Eph 6:12). Christ is the Lamb of God (John 1:29). He is the temple (John 2:19). He is our high priest (Heb 2:17; 3:1; 4:14; ch. 7–10). All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ (2 Cor 1:20). When Jesus said, “It is finished” all the sacrifices were done “once for all” (Heb 7:27). They will never be re-established.

The ancient Christian understanding and the original Reformed understanding of the movement of redemptive history is that all the types and shadows, the sacrificial system, the holy war, the ceremonial laws, the the civil laws were all fulfilled by Christ and they all expired with the death of Christ.

We should see Paul’s implied contrast here with in Ephesians 5:19 and Psalm 149:3. Under the types and shadows we were called to praise God (“make melody”) with instruments but to the Ephesians Paul wrote that they should be “making melody (ψάλλοντες) to the Lord with the heart.” Paul used the same verb as used in the LXX of Psalm 149:3. He used the same construction. The instruments of praise in Psalm 149 are literal musical instruments. Under the New Covenant, the instrument of praise, of making melody, is “the heart.”

We might miss the contrast because, frankly, for most evangelical and Reformed folk today that Psalter is a lost book but as we regain familiarity with Psalms and sing them the contrast that would have been evident to the Ephesian church is perhaps hidden from us to the extent that we do not much sing the Psalms any more. For those used to singing Psalm 149, they might have expected Paul to say, “making melody with timbrel and lyre” or “with “tympani and psaltry” (LXX) but he did not. He said “with the heart.” The instrument of New Covenant worship is the heart.

Further, in contrast to Psalm 149 Paul said nothing about dancing or (Levitical) choirs. Those things also belong to the types and shadows. As he explained to the Colossians, using the same formula from the Psalter, we sing “with thankfulness” in our “hearts to God.”

So, yes, Paul calls us to sing God’s Word (the Psalms) to him, in public worship, but without the types and shadows. We are sing with the understanding that the types and shadows embedded in the Psalms have been fulfilled for us in Christ and rejoice in that reality.

NOTES

1. Αἰνεσάτωσαν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐν χορῷ, ἐν τυμπάνῳ καὶ ψαλτηρίῳ ψαλάτωσαν αὐτῷ (Brenton).

2. λαλοῦντες ἑαυτοῖς [ἐν] ψαλμοῖς καὶ ὕμνοις καὶ ᾠδαῖς πνευματικαῖς, ᾄδοντες καὶ ψάλλοντες τῇ καρδίᾳ ὑμῶν τῷ κυρίῳ, εὐχαριστοῦντες πάντοτε ὑπὲρ πάντων ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί.
Ὑποτασσόμενοι ἀλλήλοις ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ1,  (NA 27).

Resources

Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs in the Septuagint.

Resources On Instruments In Worship