Biff: Hello my friend. I stumbled across your article on instruments being used in worship, and I find that I must disagree with at least this statement:
There are other verses which also mention singing. BUT there is NOT ONE that authorizes the use of musical instruments to accompany the singing. NOT ONE!! [Biff did not cite the article, but this statement obviously refers only to New Testament teaching.]
Maybe I am missing something. If so, I’d love to learn what it is in order to follow Christ in the way he would want me to.
Gary: Thank you for writing. Before I answer your question, so that I don’t waste time for both of us, may I ask you if it is your view that the Old Testament serves as a pattern of worship for us today?
Biff: It is my view that the Old Testament is valid un-less overwritten by the New Testament. God is unchanging, after all.
Gary: Yes, God is unchanging, but His covenants have changed. If you doubt that, I am willing to come look at the ark you are building. Prior to the Flood, God never authorized man to eat animals; that changed after the Flood (Gen. 9:1-2). He forbade certain meats under the Law of Moses, but He allows everything today under the Christian system (Acts 10:9-20). Did God change when He changed these laws?
Part of the Jewish covenant was the practice of circumcision, but that religious practice was not bound on Gentile Christians (1 Cor. 7:17-20; Acts 15:1, 4). Did God change when He changed the law?
Hebrews tells you that, in order for Christ to be a priest, there had to be a change in the law, since Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, and Moses had not authorized anyone but the Levites to be priests (study Hebrews 7:11-14).
The Law of Moses was taken out of the way and nailed to the cross (Col. 2:14). Did God change? No. People erroneously think that if He has different covenants for different ages that He has changed, but His unchangeable nature has nothing to do with the methods that He uses or the laws that He commands at a given time.
Today we are under the New Testament, and we must have authority from our covenant for everything that we teach or practice (Col. 3:17).
Neither Jesus nor the apostles ever sang hymns with instruments of music. Why not? No church or group of Christians in the New Testament ever sang with musical instruments. Why not? We do not have any authority in the New Testament to use them—but only to sing.
We have no command to use instruments of music; we have no examples of them being used. There is nothing that implies their use. It is a simple matter of lacking Bible authority for the practice. If God wanted us to use them today, He would have authorized them.
Please think these things through carefully. Thank you for your correspondence.
Biff: I am not saying that God changes when the covenant changes, quite the opposite. In all those cases you cited when God changed the covenant or rules governing his followers, God specifically said that this is the way you should do things now, and the old way is no longer valid. In the case of worship and musical instruments, God never specified that there should be a change in operations; so it appears to me that the Old Covenant way of worshiping God with instruments is still valid.
Gary: I see that we are having trouble with words. You said: “It is my view that the Old Testament is valid unless overwritten by the New Testament. God is unchanging, after all.” What is the point of the last sentence, if it is not that the covenant cannot change since God cannot change?
You also ignored everything I presented—or else just considered it superficially. The entire Law was nailed to the cross (Col. 2:14)—not just portions of it that God decided to replace. If the peculiar view you expressed were true (and you have not given a Scripture that upholds it), we would be spending months trying to figure out which portions of the old were true and which had been “replaced.”
The truth is that we are under the gospel—not the Law. Is it possible that you have never read Romans, Galatians, or Hebrews?
Biff: Hmm, I see. The way I’ve always looked at this was that Jesus came to complete Moses’ law, not abolish it. Or, in other terms: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17, KJV). I’m no expert, but I am pretty well versed in Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians. I see the point that you’re making, that the law is dead, and all we have now is the New Covenant. To an extent, I agree. The law is chains, and the Holy Spirit is freedom, and that’s where I think that bringing up these books may have been a detriment to your argument. The new covenant gives us freedom. It seems against logic to say that the new covenant frees us from the law, yet because the New Testament Christians are never mentioned using instruments, we create a new law?
Also, I thought I had addressed the examples you gave by saying, “In all those cases you cited, when God changed the covenant or rules governing his followers, God specifically said that this is the way you should do things now, and the old way is no longer valid,” but I can see how the point I wished to make could have been lost in the poor sentence structure. What I mean is that in all the instances where God changes a law, He makes it clear that the law is changed.
Let me explain in more real terms. When God authorized humans to eat animals, He told Noah to go and subdue the earth. When God authorized humans to eat forbidden foods, He told Peter to rise and eat. When He did away with circumcision as a requirement, He told us specifically through the Divine inspiration of the apostles and had Luke write it for future generation’s reference. At no time did God inspire any apostles to write that we should not use instruments in our worship to God. It seems to me that if the New Testament is silent about an issue, then we must refer back to the laws God had previously established.
I appreciate the healthy discussion we are having on this topic. Thank you for being willing to share information with me on your views. I just don’t want to let something like this healthy discussion to turn into anything unhealthy.
Gary: It is good that you see the point about the Law; you seem to have an open mind. I am evaluating your statements as well. Let me add a little bit more to the preceding point. Since the Law was entirely taken away and replaced by the gospel system, we can only do those things authorized in the new system (Col. 3: 17). One cannot go back to the old to borrow something from it, since that covenant was terminated.
Jesus did fulfill all that was written concerning Him (Luke 24). Having fulfilled it all, it is no longer in effect. Nailing it to the cross is a powerful statement regarding its current ineffectiveness. We cannot have two covenants in effect at one and the same time (no man can serve two masters). The old has fallen away; we are under the new.
I can see why you might want to go to the Old Testament for a precedent, but it cannot work that way–especially as it pertains to worship. We do not have seven golden candlesticks in our church buildings; we do not burn incense day and night—or even in our Sunday worship. We do not have a holy place and a Most Holy Place separated by a veil. Where in the New Testament does it say to quit doing any of these? You argued that the New Testament makes it clear when something has ceased. My answer is that it does not do so because it is not necessary to do so, since the old covenant is fulfilled and finished.
We derive our authority for our teachings and practices from New Testament commands and teachings, from the approved examples that we find, and from implication. The use of instruments of music to accompany singing is not found in any of those.
And do you not think that this fact is significant—that they were accustomed to using instruments to praise God? Why did they suddenly and thoroughly cease using them—so that there is not a single mention anywhere?
Biff: Let me address this paragraph by paragraph. [He repeats the entire first paragraph and then says]:
“And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, [do] all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him”? Is that the verse you meant to cite? It seems rather irrelevant to this topic to me. And as far as the last line in that paragraph, I think this is the main place that we disagree, the covenant was not terminated, it was completed. It was not destroyed, it was fulfilled. This is why I quoted the verse: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matt 5:17, KJV). I quoted the whole thing again because it seems that one of us is either misunderstanding what Jesus says here or ignoring the basic facts. [Apparently, he could not grasp that, if it is fulfilled, it is no longer in effect. Concerning that explanation, he quoted the second paragraph and then commented]:
Again, “fulfill” does not mean that it has been destroyed, rather completed. The law was incomplete without Jesus’ sacrifice. Now with Jesus being nailed to the cross, the law was nailed with Him; so we no longer have to shed blood as a sacrifice. This does not mean that the entire old covenant was done away with, rather the condemnation that comes along with it (Rom 8:1). This is not two separate covenants, it is the old one being completed, creating a new covenant. (By the way, I was thinking about the statement, “We cannot have two covenants in effect at one and at the same time,” and the covenant with Noah comes to mind…. Do you suppose that God’s promise to Noah that He would not flood the earth again is void? Just a side thought…)
{After copying the third paragraph, he wrote]:
But it does. In John 4:21-24 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God [is] a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship [him] in spirit and in truth.
In this passage, Jesus is saying that no longer do people have to worship God in one place in one way, soon everyone can freely worship God wherever they want in spirit and in truth. Notice, He doesn’t put restrictions on that. It doesn’t say, “and they that worship him must worship [him] in spirit and in truth and in voice.” [After paragraph 4 he wrote]:
Again, I believe that if the New Testament is silent on an issue, we should refer to the Old Testament. [His final comments were]:
it probably had something to do with the fact that Christians were meeting illegally underground in house churches at the time, and instruments would draw attention to their gatherings. Also, instruments were not as widely used in that time anyway, so they most likely would be an afterthought when it came to planning their worship services.
In the end, it comes down to this: There are no Biblical grounds for your belief that all things must be specifically authorized in a positive way in the New Testament to make it right. There are hundreds of things that aren’t specifically authorized in the New Testament that we all do every day, including you. Did Jesus or the apostles authorize drinking caffeine [This approach seeks to trivialize God’s principle of authority, gws]? I haven’t found that verse yet, but I’ll keep looking. Yet I assume that you enjoy beginning your day with a hot cup of Folgers? My point is that if there are no teachings, examples or implications that something is wrong or sinful, then why place it in that category?
Gary: The best statement (and most pertinent one) that you made is that you do not understand the relevance of Colossians 3:17, though I have used it and cited it practically every time I have written you. It is not difficult, but here it is parsed. “And whatever you do [is there something excepted here?] in word [that means what you teach as the Word of God] or do [that means whatever you practice religiously], do all in the name of the Lord Jesus [that means by His authority; in other words, where does He authorize it?], giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
This is the covenant of Christ, not Moses; it is given to all nations and people everywhere—not to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. It works like this: Do I have authority to sing songs, hymns, and spiritual songs? Yes (Col. 3:16). Do I have authority from Jesus to sing these songs with musical accompaniment? No. There is no authority for it. There could not be anything more relevant to this discussion. Instead of glossing over it, why don’t you seriously think about this principle?
The Law is fulfilled and therefore done away with. God abolished it (Eph. 2:15). The Law was nailed to the cross. Where do you read in these words that a part of the law was nailed to the cross? Look at the context.
The covenant of which you speak regarding Noah was made with him AND his descendants AND all flesh (Gen. 9:9-11). Furthermore, there were no terms of obedience; it is a covenant of promise.
The Law of Moses required certain things; the Jews found more than 600 laws in it. The New Testament has different terms of obedience. These two covenants conflict with each other. They did not have the Lord’s Supper; we do not have an annual Day of Atonement. They were supposed to annihilate the Canaanites (Deut. 7:1-5); we have no such command. Since the New Testament is silent about this, shall we go on a Crusade to kill any survivors? They had dietary restrictions, and we do not. They had the Sabbath day; we have the Lord’s day. The two covenants are DIFFERENT. We do not have a modified version; we have a different covenant, period. [Space prohibits the entire reply; the remainder of the correspondence will follow next week.]