The Reformation, The Regulative Principle, And The Modern Church: Examining John Calvin’s Dedication To Purity In Worship (Part 5)

by on August 27, 2025 | Comment

Calvin’s Prescription For The Modern Church

The Reformed church today embraces John Calvin as one of our great spiritual predecessors and acknowledges his dedication to purity in the church, and so-called Calvinists champion his ideas on predestination and the sovereignty of God. These same Calvinists, however, would shirk at the notion of removing all instruments from worship, and are in many cases unaware that Calvin decried the use of instruments in worship. The common worship style in churches today is, more often than not, far from what was considered pure Reformed worship in the time immediately after the Reformation. To close out this series, we will address what worship is like in churches today and what Calvin’s writings have to say on the issue.

Changes in Worship

Churches in the modern age utilize a great diversity of the elements in the worship service, including, but not limited to, musical instruments, stage lighting, fog machines, and dancing. Churches today that are considered Reformed—subscribing to the Westminster Confession or the Three Forms of Unity and their articulation of the Regulative Principle of Worship—have not, for the most part, adopted the use of all these elements. There is variance, however, in the way they choose to apply their understanding of the Regulative Principle to the inclusion of musical instruments and the practice of corporate worship in general.

Many of these changes have occurred in “the last thirty or so years.”1 W. Robert Godfrey reflects that these are “the most dramatic and speedy changes” observed since the Protestant Reformation, which emphasizes how vast the chasm is between modern worship and worship in early Reformed churches.2

The church orders of member denominations in the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC) allow for the practice of a cappella worship. The Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America (RPCNA) is the only member that requires its churches to practice a cappella worship exclusively, though there are church members within the other NAPARC denominations who believe that instruments should not be played during corporate worship.3 Only two NAPARC members have elevated the Psalms to the primary position in worship. The RPCNA is the only member of NAPARC to practice exclusive psalmody, while the church order of the United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA) requires the Psalter to be given the “principal place in the singing of the churches.”4

It is clear the contemporary church is quite far from Calvin on this issue. Most churches use instruments in worship, which Calvin believed belonged to the worship conducted under the ceremonial law (to which the church today is not subject). It is far more likely than it should be that a Christian might go his whole life without ever singing psalms—even one so widely beloved as Psalm 23—in corporate worship.

If It Is Sincere, It Is Good Enough, Right?

Despite its emotionally compelling nature, Calvin did not find sincerity to be an adequate defense for the Normative Principle of Worship.5 While sincerity is necessary for the spiritual worship commanded in Scripture, “[exhibiting] some kind of zeal for the honor of God” means naught in this case, for God considers “fruitless” and “plainly abominates” that which is “at variance with his command.”6 Indeed, it is “vain to worship God with human traditions,”7 which Rome was guilty of in countless areas, not just with respect to musical instruments, but also with their invented sacraments and the sacrifice of the mass. Calvin decried sincerity as a “vain defense;”8 it is as meaningless as the kind of worship it attempts to support, especially when it is compared to the sort of worship that is conducted in “spirit and truth” (John 4:24).

Nevertheless, Calvin believed that it was acceptable to make use of musical instruments in private worship. In his commentary on Psalm 33, he says the following:

For even now, if believers choose to cheer themselves with musical instruments, they should, I think, make it their object not to dissever their cheerfulness from the praises of God. But when they frequent their sacred assemblies, musical instruments in celebrating the praises of God would be no more suitable than the burning of incense, the lighting up of lamps, and the restoration of the other shadows of the law.9

Moreover, in his sermon on 2 Samuel 6:1–7, he writes, “It is true that God ought to be heartily praised, both by musical instruments and by mouth. But it is another matter when we conduct the worship of God in church. . . . When we are told that David sang with a musical instrument, let us carefully remember that we are not to make a rule of it.”10 Members of the contemporary church are permitted and even encouraged to worship God through the playing of musical instruments. Calvin did not hold that Christians who play instruments should separate their enjoyment of music from their worship of God, which is the very end of their existence. Their abilities should be used to worship God. Even so, the instant they seek to incorporate those instruments into public worship in the church they are in grave error, participating in types and shadows that have long been abolished by Christ’s coming.

Where Calvinists Reject Calvin

The Protestant tradition owes much to John Calvin, but for many Protestants, including some who consciously trace their Protestant lineage to Calvin, their ideas about how corporate worship ought to be conducted are not owed to the Reformer. Where Calvin rejected instruments in worship as being a return to the type and shadows of the old covenant, they see instruments as approved. Where Calvin emphasized the Psalms as being the greatest guide to worship, many go Lord’s Day after Lord’s Day without singing a single Psalm.

In the final analysis, “Once the judge has decided, it is no longer time to debate,” and it is God who is the judge—no Christian dare contradict that truth.11 If God, in his Word, does forbid, whether by the lack of a command to do so or by an explicit prohibition, the use of musical instruments in the pure and true worship of himself when his people gather together for that purpose, there is no other response his church can give than to heartily embrace the absence thereof. Calvin assuredly believed this and expressed his view unambiguously. Recognizing Calvin’s allegiance to Scripture above all else and his profound concern that the church worship God in spirit and truth, as close as humanly possible to what the Word of God charges, she ought, at the very least, to consider his conclusion, seeking, in the words of Belgic Confession 29, to “[govern herself] according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it” and ultimately “[hold] Jesus Christ as the only Head.”

Conclusion

John Calvin held Scripture to be the highest authority on all spiritual matters. He wholeheartedly believed that the Scriptures teach that instruments have no place in corporate worship and that the Psalms serve as the church’s inspired hymnal. For us Reformed folk, who consider ourselves indebted to Calvin’s dedication to Scripture and reforming the church, the least we can do is prioritize the pure worship of God as well and take Calvin’s words into consideration as we do so. The great saints who have gone before us worked hard to ensure that the church worshipped in a manner acceptable to God. Let us not easily cast aside what they had to say on the matter, and most of all, let us continue in their footsteps, maintaining Scripture as the final authority on how we worship our Almighty Creator.

Notes

  1. W. Robert Godfrey, “The Psalms in Contemporary Worship,” in The Worship of God: Reformed Concepts of Biblical Worship (Ross-shire, U.K.: Mentor/Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 101.
  2. Godfrey, “The Psalms in Contemporary Worship,” 101.
  3. “Chart of Similarities and Differences Among the NAPARC Member Churches,” North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council, accessed April 19, 2024.
  4. “Church Order of the United Reformed Churches in North America Ninth Edition, Ratified AD 2023,” The United Reformed Churches in North America, accessed May 20, 2024.
  5. See part three of this series for further discussion of the Normative Principle of Worship.
  6. John Calvin, The Necessity of Reforming the Church, 10.
  7. Calvin, The Necessity of Reforming the Church, 54.
  8. John Calvin, Institutes, 1.4.3.
  9. John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 1, trans. James Anderson, Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003), 539.
  10. John Calvin, Sermons on 2 Samuel, Chapters 1-13, trans. D. Kelly (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1992), Sermon, II Sam. 6:1-7.
  11. John Calvin, The Necessity of Reforming the Church, 11.

©Juliette Colunga. All Rights Reserved.

You can find this whole series here.

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    Post authored by:

  • Juliette Colunga
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    Juliette is a graduate of The Master’s University (BS, Biological Sciences) and a member of a church belonging to the URCNA. Despite her not being raised Reformed and a background in the sciences, she has grown a deep appreciation for the historic Reformed confessions and is pursuing a MA in Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary California.

    More by Juliette Colunga ›

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