Musical Instruments in Divine Worship V.
James Dodson
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CHAPTER V.
EVIDENCE THAT NO OPTIONAL WARRANT EXISTS.
There is, in the terms used by the advocates of instrumental music, that which, at a glance, seems inconsistent with evangelical views respecting divine appointments for worship. There is nothing in the whole category of divine precepts that is more particular, mandatory and exclusive, than those which are employed in instituting the peculiar arrangements of God’s own house. There are very substantial reasons revealed why it should be so. Now, the terms permissive, warrant, optional authorization, &c., are in their nature loose and indefinite. Webster defines optional: 1. Left to one’s wish or choice—depending on choice or preference. Illustration, “It is optional with you to go or stay.”
2. “Leaving something to choice.”
He defines permissive: 1. Granting liberty; allowing.
2. “Granted; suffered without hindrance.”
The terms permissive and optional are used interchangeably by those who affirm such a warrant, and, therefore, synonymously. It is necessarily implied in these terms that the warrant which they describe is a mere license, which may be forever neglected without sin. We may always refrain from that which is merely optional, and we cannot be held accountable for disregarding any duty in reference to it. The law permits marriage. But duty in reference to it is to be determined by other considerations than what is contained in the permissive warrant. Permissive laws existed in the Jewish code, warranting, in a sense, polygamy, a loose divorce, and a system of servitude, which were accompanied with such regulations as indicated the intention to reform the people in reference to these institutions, and
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finally to destroy the institutions themselves. The permissive warrant, therefore, must, to be permanent, have something accompanying it which will indicate that the thing warranted is commended and commendable, otherwise it would be useless and trifling to grant it. There must also be something to indicate the conditions under which the warrant may be properly made available. As it is claimed that the warrant for instrumental music is not universally applicable, but only so in particular cases, if it should be applied when it is not applicable, the act would be contrary to the law. Or, if it should not be applied under the particular conditions for which it is provided, it would be contempt. Hence, we would have reason to expect that if God had given such a warrant in reference to instrumental music, He would have embodied in the warrant itself, or in connection with it, some principle defining the conditions under which it is applicable. This is so in reference to other laws, permissive or obligatory. Men are permitted to be office-bearers in the church. But the conditions are defined under which any man is warranted to assume an office.
Now, it is a fact not a little remarkable that, while it is so persistently and confidently assumed that there is such a warrant for the use of instruments, there is an utter failure to bring out any light from the word of God as to the conditions under which the warrant may be safely and properly applied. It has been affirmed, indeed, that the different conditions of the Ephesians and Colossians made it applicable to the one people and not to the other. But no circumstance has been adduced upon which to base such a claim. On the other hand, while affirming that the case of Miriam, in Ex. 15, furnishes an optional warrant for the use of instruments, applicable in all future time, they utterly reject the conditions under which instruments were then employed, as furnishing no example indicating the circumstances under which they are to be employed now. They allow none of
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the incidents connected with that case—the national celebration of a temporal victory—the fact that the people were then in process of preparation for the Levitical ceremonial, and had already received a part of it—the instruments, and the fact that they were only used by the women—the procession—the dance—they allow none of all these incidents to indicate in the least the circumstances under which the warrant may be applicable in New Testament worship. The use of instruments in the temple worship is accepted as confirmatory of the theory of an optional warrant. But the fact that it was obligatory—the kind of instruments used—the persons employed in using them—their connection with typical services—the occasions and the place, are not admitted to have any weight in indicating any of the conditions under which the warrant may be applied now. Upon this question we are to be left entirely in the dark, so far as Scripture teaching is concerned. It is not thus that we reason in reference to other appointments in the worship of God.
We may, as a church, safely stand upon the position that there is no warrant in the Bible for the use of instruments in New Testament worship, so long as it is not shown from the Bible under what conditions such a warrant may be applied. And brethren need not complain of being deprived of their liberty, so long as they fail to show under what conditions the Scriptures warrant them in claiming such a liberty.
We have said that there are very substantial reasons revealed why the appointments of God’s own house and of His own worship should be particular, mandatory and exclusive.
First. There is a persistent and ungovernable tendency in men to corrupt divine worship. The result of the experiment of the whole period before the flood in reference to all divine institutions is given us in the comprehensive summary, Gen. vi., 5: “And God saw * * * * that
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every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Adequate, indeed, is the source of corruption and intense enough in its tendency, as the bitter experience of the church has shown in every age, to form the desire and purpose to substitute in the place of divine institutions the imaginations of men. When Abraham was called to forsake his country and his kindred, it was that there might be one nation preserved from the gross idolatry by which the whole earth had even then corrupted its way. As Israel was not chosen because, as a people, they were better than other peoples, so it was not an indication that they were worse than others that it was so often said that they were a stiff-necked and rebellious people. When their whole system of service had been given them, and they had engaged, by solemn covenant with God, to do all that He had spoken, he replied: “O, that there were such a heart in them.” The one prominent thing in the establishment of their worship was the strictness of divine appointments, and the necessity pressed upon them that they should be “as the Lord commanded.” The one prominent thing in the history of Israel’s career for fifteen hundred years, as it has been also in the sad history of our fallen race, is the disposition to introduce into the worship of God other institutions than those which He has established. Divine worship is designed to subdue the heart by bringing it into close contact with divine perfections, and in that very contact the heart to be subdued will naturally struggle most vigorously to corrupt the means appointed for its subjugation. So it has been in all ages, and so it is to-day. All experience has taught the lesson that human judgment, perverted as it is, is not a safe agency to which to entrust the option of any institution in the worship of God.
Second. Divine wisdom is a necessity in the application, as in the institution of the worship of God—in the use of the form, as in the warrant for it. United Presbyterians are agreed upon this principle, as applied to prayer—to
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the forms of teaching by preaching and reading the word of God—to baptism and the Lord’s supper, and that the principle is applicable to singing the praise of God. Our faith in the use of these ordinances is not to “stand in the wisdom of men.” The very simplicity of the mode of New Testament worship is a display of divine wisdom, and is intended always to be so. The whole administration of the gospel, under this dispensation, is “to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.” The dictation of human judgment is entirely excluded from it. “This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth my praise.” Isa. xliii., 21. The church, with her head, her members, and all their functions—her means and capabilities for the exhibition of the glory of God, is a living incorporation of spiritual power by the hand of Christ. In these respects she is peculiarly Christ’s—a house built and furnished for Himself by His own hands. The touch of a human hand mars the building. The intervention of human judgment as to what shall constitute any part of the furniture of that house, or what shall not, according to its own option, would, it is humbly submitted, be a profanation of and intermeddling with what is wholly the production of infinite wisdom—that wisdom which can alone comprehend the best mode of impressing truth upon the heart, and the mysterious relation between the means and their spiritual results. It is ever the dictate of wisdom to accept cheerfully the appointments of Christ, who is a minister of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man, and who, as a High Priest over the house of God, has set the seal of imperative authority upon everything in the worship of God in that house.
Third. The position that no part of divine worship is optional is emphasized by the rigid adherence by Moses to the obligations imposed upon him in reference to Levitical worship. Not only did God tell him how the tabernacle and its furniture were to be constructed and set up, and
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direct him by his spirit to write an accurate and particular description of each item in the whole construction, but he gave him a pattern of it all. When the whole service of the tabernacle was arranged it is declared again and again—seven times in 16 verses, Lev., 8th chapter—that it was “as the Lord commanded Moses.” Nadab and Abihu varied from that command in the use of the fire with which they kindled the incense, and were stricken down for disobedience. We know no distinction between the fire of the altar and the fire they used except that made by the command of God. Indeed the principle of mandatory appointment is one of the significant features of the whole ceremonial. It is the one lesson taught above all others with regard to the necessity of obligatory appointment in all worship, both in its substance and mode. It gives the emphasis of divine command to the minutia of that worship. It is because Moses so rigidly adhered to this principle that he receives the commendation, Heb. iii., 5, “Moses verily was faithful in all his house,” and this is the ground of comparison between Christ and Moses. Moses was faithful as a servant; Christ is faithful as a son over his own house. Are we to suppose that the son would be less particular, and that his appointments would be less obligatory in building the spiritual house than those of Moses were in building the temporal house? It is said in reference to both, “He that built all things is God.” It means that praise and all other institutions of the house are fixed, and not to be changed or varied by human option in mode or substance. If we consider the building of the temple, and the provision made by David for the additional features of its service, we have the lesson still before us. David had not only a pattern of the temple and its furniture by the Spirit, but “the Lord made him to understand in writing by his hand upon him.” 1 Chron., 28th chapter. All the changes in the service, including the new feature of instrumentation to
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conform it to the magnificence of the temple, were made in exact obedience to the divine command, and to secure this exactness not only was David guided by the Spirit, but Gad, the seer, and Nathan, the prophet, were employed conjointly with him. To impress this principle more deeply upon the mind of David and all concerned, the breach was made upon them in the death of Uzzah, in connection with a disregard of the due order in the removal of the ark. The event stands in close conjunction with the arrangements for the temple service. The transgression consisted in David’s making the service connected with the occasion an optional one, both in conveying the ark and the song, and the accompaniment with instruments. So the ark was carried upon the cart, “David and all Israel played before God with all their might,” &c. David afterward confesses the disorder—assigns the whole service to the priests and Levites, and the service was accepted. David seemed to be the leader in the service, and, therefore, put on the garb of a priest, perhaps as indicating that he had the divine commission to introduce the new ingredients into the temple service, of which this was a part, as Moses introduced the original service of the tabernacle. It is remarkable that the only instance clearly defined of the optional use of instruments in the worship of God under a warrant, for their use should be so signally rebuked, as in this first attempt to remove the ark. We repeat, then, that in the original appointment of the Levitical ceremonial, and in the changes made upon it in fitting it for the temple service the great lesson taught thereby is the necessity of obligatory appointment in all divine worship, both in mode and substance.