The Normative in Apostolic Worship

The majority report (1947) of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church's Committee on Song in the Public Worship of God gave what has become an influential argument for disregarding inspiration as a criterion for the selection of worship song. This argument by the majority may be divided into four elements for consideration. First, the majority report pleads that an argument based on the distinction between inspired and uninspired song "sometimes fails to take due account of the fact that the New Testament deals with conditions in the early church which have not been continued and which cannot be our present norm. Any singing by the apostles could be considered 'inspired'; and charismatic singing, also 'inspired', was then prevalent. But the apostles had no successors and the charismata have ceased. To adopt the distinction 'inspired' and 'uninspired' may thus introduce the fallacy of arguing from the temporary practice of the early church to our permanent duty. It is better to use a distinction which can be employed without this confusion in a statement of the permanent requirements of Scripture for the Christian church."(137)

The majority report assumes that the inspired texts of the early church cannot be our present norm because the charismata have ceased. However, the report has wrongly stated what is normative about the apostolic church. Arguing from the inability of the church today to engage in charismatic singing, the report draws the unwarranted conclusion that inspired texts produced during the period of revelation are no longer normative. But the church's present inability to produce inspired texts does not justify a departure from the use of inspired texts previously given.

After all, the church possesses in the canon of Scripture a deposit of inspired materials functionally equivalent to the prophecy known in the apostolic church. When the Holy Scriptures provide us with a text, and direct us to employ that text for a certain act of worship, whether reading or singing, the deposit of inspired materials permanently holds a unique and authoritative status. The absence of prophetic gifts in the modern church does not affect this principle in the least. It is a telling omission that the majority report never considers the bearing of canonicity upon the selection of worship song. Writing in the minority report, John Murray pointed out the implications of a canonical provision: "But the Scripture does prescribe for us the way in which we are to worship God in the conditions that are permanent in the church. We are to restrict ourselves to those inspired materials made available to us by the Scripture itself."(138)

Secondly, committee chairman Robert Marsden contended that since any text found in the Bible is divinely inspired, the inspired record of song texts carries no implications for what is normative in the church's singing of praise. In the pages of The Presbyterian Guardian, Marsden sought to explain differences between the two parties on the committee: "The primary objection which has been offered is that we have no evidence in Scripture that there is warrant for singing uninspired compositions. The difficulty in dealing with this argument will immediately be apparent. What these brethren would ask is the impossible - that we cite from Scripture the use of an uninspired song. The very fact that it is in the Scripture guarantees that any song we cite from Scripture is inspired! Who could possibly find an uninspired song in Scripture, and would the Lord demand the completion of so impossible a task before He would permit the singing of uninspired songs to His praise? It would thus be impossible to prove that uninspired songs are authorized in the Scripture, and to demand such proof before one can in good conscience sing uninspired songs is to demand the impossible!"(139)

It should be granted that the biblical text includes the report of such things as the lying statements of the devil, and the conversations of men who spoke without the gift of prophecy. In these cases, the Holy Spirit inspires the accurate recording and the appropriate interpretation of what was said. However, Marsden's objection is misguided because it fails to consider the biblical testimony that it was through prophesying that worship song first came into being. Rather than only the later report of these songs being inspired, the Scriptures declare that the text of worship song possessed an inspiration from the outset, when these songs were first delivered to the church by the seers and prophets. Thus, while the minority report noted that the only worship song known to the Bible is that produced by divine inspiration,(140) Marsden discounted this, insisting that the pattern of inspired song in Scripture could not be taken as normative for us.

Marsden's argument indicates that he had not fully taken into account the proscriptive character of the regulative principle. Marsden says that it would "be impossible to prove that uninspired songs are authorized in the Scripture," but instead of recognizing that this means that uninspired hymns cannot be justified under the regulative principle, he dismisses the central question of whether inspiration is a criterion, and looks for suggestions which might yet favor the cause of an uninspired hymnody.(141)

The majority report offers a third reason for not restricting worship song to inspired texts. A primary thesis of the report is that there are texts in the New Testament which were used for song in the apostolic church, and that the presence of these songs indicates "that our song should embrace the whole extent of God's revelation in Scripture," including the progression of revelation in the New Testament. On these grounds, it is urged that "the distinction between 'inspired' and 'uninspired' song may fail to take into consideration all the Biblical evidence."(142) In other words, the Bible leads us to conclude that songs are needed which reflect distinctively New Testament revelation, and this necessity allows us to lay aside inspiration as a requirement. The report argues that the song texts of the Bible may appropriately be supplemented from outside the canon, in order that worship song can reflect progression of revelation.

The starting point for this thesis is the assertion that hymn texts sung in the worship of the apostolic church are found in the New Testament Scriptures. Besides pointing to the Book of Revelation's accounts of singing in heaven,(143) the report says that certain prayers and poetic sections of the New Testament may have been songs used in the church. "There is in the New Testament an expansion of song in adjustment to the wider limits of revelation. New songs were used in praise, songs fitted for the new dispensation, and not confined to the words of the Old Testament. Such was the hymn of Mary, recorded in Luke 1:46-55. The songs of Zacharias (Luke 1:67-79) and Simeon (Luke 2:29-32) introduce New Testament elements. A further example of a song containing New Testament elements may occur in I Tim. 3:16. The Greek in this verse actually does present the appearance of poetry. 'The short unconnected sentences in which the words are similarly arranged, and the number of syllables almost equal, while the ideas are antithetically related, are so suitable to religious hymns that we find all these characteristics in a series of later hymns used by the Greek and Latin church'. Lock cites three reasons why it is at least a quotation: the rhythmical form, the use of words not found elsewhere in Paul ('manifested,' 'believed,' 'received'), and the statement of ideas which go beyond the requirements of the text. Thus while there cannot be dogmatic certainty there is at least strong assurance that the best of all suggested interpretations is that which regards this passage as a hymn of praise, customarily employed in early Christian worship. If so, it is again an example of song, the materials of which are derived explicitly from the New Testament revelation."(144)

The first problem with this line of argument is that the New Testament itself nowhere tells us, either explicitly or by any necessary inference, that the so-called Lucan canticles and alleged hymnic fragments were songs, much less that they were so used in the church's worship. Though the majority report appeals to poetic or rhythmical passages in the New Testament, and surmises that they were used for song in the apostolic church, never does Scripture make any such identification of their function.

The significant point here is that propositions which fall short of being a necessary inference from Scripture do not amount to a Scripture authorization for worship practice. Anything less than a necessary consequence from Scripture is not something taught by Scripture, for only the necessary meaning of Scripture is the truth of Scripture. To deny this is to abandon the Westminster Confession's definition of the regulative principle (I.vi.), and to give the character of divine truth to speculative suppositions. The majority report is careless in contenting itself with men's suggestions in matters about which Scripture is silent. It is common for advocates of uninspired hymns to imagine what use might have been made of rhythmic texts, and to make these suppositions the pillar on which to rest a warrant for worship practice. However, the majority report is forced to fall back on claims of probability, precisely because Scripture does not require the conclusions which are claimed.

The starting point for the majority's progression-of-revelation thesis is a speculation concerning the use of these texts, and therefore the terms of the regulative principle are evaded in the premise on which the thesis is contingent. Because the thesis begins with what is conjectural, it cannot establish a sanction from Scripture. There is an obvious contrast when we turn to the Bible's testimony concerning the Psalter, for we have biblical narrative showing the Psalter's place in public worship, and the Psalter itself contains directions that it be used as worship song.

A passage to which the majority report does not appeal is I Corinthians 14, with its references to revelatory tongues in the form of singing. If an attempt were made to demonstrate from Scripture statements that the singing referred to in I Corinthians 14 contained a revelation with distinctively New Testament content, the passage nevertheless indicates that this song bore the qualities of inspired prophetic utterance known in the generation of the apostles. Any argument against the sufficiency of the Old Testament Psalter must still defer to the biblical norm of an inspired text for worship song.

John Murray pointed out the major fallacy at this point in the majority's argument. A claim for the necessity of songs with a characteristically New Testament content does not entail the suggested consequence that inspiration may be set aside as a criterion of song, though this is incautiously assumed by the report. The presumption in the majority's argument is that in order to obtain songs with distinctively New Testament content, we should be free to draw upon uninspired materials. This is obviously not a necessary consequence. The majority plead that there are hymnic texts in the New Testament, but they are not satisfied to use these inspired texts. The majority declare that their argument is for New Testament content, but the conclusion they draw goes further, claiming that the supposed necessity to go outside the Old Testament allows us to go outside the canon.(145) However, the biblical testimony is that the text of worship song is given through revelatory prophecy; it is gratuitous to discover a warrant for laying aside this Scripture norm by appealing to the progression-of-revelation principle.(146)

Later in this study we shall examine at length the bearing which progression of revelation has upon the sufficiency of the Old Testament Psalter. At the moment, however, it should be noted that God has supplied us both with a canonical Psalter, and also with a completed canon with which to interpret the fullness of meaning found in the inspired words of the Psalter. The second of these functions is explicitly illustrated in such New Testament passages as Matt. 5:5, 17-19 (Ps. 37:11); 13:10-15, 34-35 (Ps. 78:2); 21:4-16 (Pss. 8:2, 118:25-26); 21:33-45 (Ps. 118:22); 22:41-46 (Ps. 110:1); 26:63-64 (Ps. 110:1); 27:35-46 (Pss. 22:1, 7-8, 18; 109:25); Mark 12:35-37 (Ps. 110:1); 15:24, 34 (Pss. 22:1, 18); Luke 1:41-55 (Pss. 35:9, 107:9); 1:67-79 (Pss. 41:13, 72:18, 89:52, 106:10); 19:35-40 (Ps. 118:25-26); 20:41-44 (Ps. 110:1); 22:66-71 (Ps. 110:1); 23:34 (Ps. 22:18); 23:46 (Ps. 31:5); 24:27, 44-47; John 2:13-17 (Ps. 69:9); 6:30-33 (Pss. 78:24, 105:40); 10:30-36 (Ps. 82:6); 12:12-16 (Ps. 118:25-26); 13:18-21 (Ps. 41:9); 15:21-25 (Pss. 35:19, 69:4); 19:24 (Ps. 22:18); 19:31-36 (Ps. 34:20); Acts 2:25-36 (Pss. 16:8-11, 110:1); 4:10-12 (Ps. 118:22); 4:24-28 (Pss. 2:1-2, 146:6); 13:30-37 (Pss. 2:7, 16:10); Rom. 4:4-8 (Ps. 32:1-2); 8:35-39 (Ps. 44:22); 15:8-12 (Pss. 18:49, 117:1); I Cor. 10:25-27 (Ps. 24:1); 15:22-27 (Ps. 8:6); Eph. 1:20-23 (Ps. 8:6); 4:7-13 (Ps. 68:18); Heb. 1:3-14 (Pss. 2:7, 45:5-6, 97:7, 102:25-27, 110:1); 2:5-12 (Pss. 8:4-6, 22:22); 4:1-11 (Ps. 95:7-11); 5:1-10 (Pss. 2:7, 110:4); 7:11-28 (Ps. 110:4); 10:1-14 (Pss. 40:6-8, 110:1); and I Pet. 2:4-8 (Ps. 118:22).

The Old Testament Psalter is the only canonical book of worship song, but it is to be understood through the light thrown upon it by the completed canon. If it could be shown that the revelatory song spoken of in I Corinthians 14 embraced a progression of revelation, the obvious explanation for this inclusive reach of content is not adverse to the argument for canonical psalmody. Tongues and prophecy were exercised in the worship of the apostolic church as a transient divine provision to fill the gap until the New Testament revelation had been committed to writing. With the completion of the canon, the exercise of extraordinary prophetic utterance, whether in prose or in song, was withdrawn from the church, and the church's worship was left dependent on the sufficiency of the written canon, both for song texts and for the interpretation of those song texts.(147)

Fourth, the majority report dismisses inspiration as a criterion by appealing to the nature of worship as a response of the church to divine revelation.(148) It is certainly true that the exercise of singing praise is a response to God. But the report fails to recognize that it is a further question whether the text of the song we sing is itself revelation, or a production subsequent to revelation. The biblical testimony is that God provides the text of worship song to the church through revelatory prophecy, and the church employs the divine revelation. The majority report assumes that God makes his revelation, and then the church responds with words of its own. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church's recent reprint of the committee reports is given a title which reflects this perspective: Our Songs in God's Worship.

Notes
(137) "Report of the Committee on Song," p. 56.
(138) Murray, "Minority Report," p. 65.
(139) Marsden, "A Study of Committee Reports," p. 73.
(140) Murray, "Minority Report," p. 65.
(141) Cf. G. I. Williamson, "Trinity Hymnal, or The Content of the Book of Praise in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church," in The Biblical Doctrine of Worship, ed. Philip W. Martin, John M. McMillan and Edward A. Robson (Pittsburgh: Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, 1974), pp. 273-74.
(142) "Report of the Committee on Song," pp. 56-57.
(143) Ibid., p. 54.
(144) Ibid., pp. 57-58.
(145) Ibid., pp. 56-57.
(146) Cf. Murray, "Minority Report," p. 65.
(147) Cf. Michael Bushell, The Songs of Zion, p. 81.
(148) "Report of the Committee on Song," p. 58.

Go to the next installment:
XII. Singing of Psalms: Sufficiency of the Biblical Canon