What does the New Testament say about music?

It is certain that hymns were used by the saints in the apostles' days. This is clear from the New Testament itself, and will be evident from the following passages which show (1) that the saints were exhorted to make use of such compositions. "Speaking to yourselves, in psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord" (Eph. 5:19). "Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms [and] hymns [and] spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord" (Col. 3:16). "Is any merry? let him sing psalms" (James 5:13). Moreover we find (2) that we have actual examples of such use — at midnight in the prison at Philippi, "Paul and Silas in praying were singing praises to God, and the prisoners were listening to them" (Acts 16:25. W. K.); at Corinth it was the custom to sing when assembled together. "How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, let all things be done unto edifying" (1 Cor. 14:26). The apostle reproved them, not for the practice of singing (1 Cor. 14:15), but for the confusion arising from the exercise of self-will in the assembly. Surely nothing needs to be added to the citation of these passages to prove that the early saints were in the regular habit of singing praise to the Lord, since both precept and practice unite in a clear testimony to that effect.

A particular example is then given which illustrates the principles thus laid down: "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." (vv. 18‑21.) The world's joy expresses itself in a carnal manner; it is mere natural excitement, such as that caused by wine. The believer's is to be in contrast with this. It is not the exhilaration ministered by mere natural causes, but the deeper delight ministered by the Spirit of God. It is one thing to be indwelt by the Spirit, and another to be filled with the Spirit. All believers are indwelt; but how few, alas, are filled! As we have seen in former chapters, the Spirit, though still sealing, may be grieved, and not able to minister either peace or joy. But to be filled with the Spirit is to be under the direct energy of the Spirit's action. It is here put in contrast with the forced, natural mirth caused by wine. In place of this the believer should have the joy and happiness shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost. This will find its suitable outlet in expressions of joy; not the foolish songs of the world, but the psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs in which the heart, filled with the sense of God's goodness, delights to pour forth its feelings. Thanksgiving is as natural to hearts thus tuned as the idle songs of the world are to the heart excited by the world's gaiety and folly.

In the Assembly the Spirit should control every motion. "What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also. I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also" (ver. 15). God's Assembly is marked by prayer — the expression of dependence — and singing, which is the outlet of the heart's joy. Some people think it is not spiritual to sing — I do not think they have the Spirit's mind. Paul says, "I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupies the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understands not what thou sayest?" (ver. 16) Here is worship; blessing and giving of thanks. What a lovely picture of the Assembly in function. It is marked by ministry that profits, and prayer, singing, and worship. That is what God's Assembly is put together for, to turn to Him in prayer, song, and worship. It is the New Testament analogue of Psalm 29:9 — "Every whit of it utters thy glory."

Now from this cursory examination of the early verses of chap. 14 it appears, that singing is one of the instances adduced by the apostle along with praying and blessing to show that the intelligent co-operation of the saints marks the true working of the Spirit of God in the assembly. Singing in this corporate way is the expression of the hearts of all to God as one. Without a spiritual nature the saints cannot sing to God at all. Without spiritual understanding they cannot sing in communion with one another. Let us therefore when gathered together sing with both the spirit and the understanding also.

When we come to the New Testament we no longer read of any musical instruments as part of worship on the earth – except in a symbolical sense in Revelation[9]. Rather, the directions are: ‘speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord' (Eph. 5:19), ‘singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord' (Col. 3:16).

In addition the apostle adds, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." It is here called the word of Christ because it is the word by which we acquire the knowledge, and are formed in the habits, tastes, and affections of the new man. The word of Christ is thus the revelation to us of what He is, for it is after His image that the new man is created; and dwelling in us richly, it produces communion in the inner life of the soul with all that is revealed of Christ in the word. "In all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another." We may here refer to chapter 1:28 for this same expression, "in all wisdom." It is how Paul admonished and taught. We know that Christ is the wisdom of God, and He is made to us wisdom. (1 Cor. 1:24, 30.) The word of Christ, revealing Him as the centre of all the counsels and glory of God, gives us the knowledge of a wisdom hidden indeed from this world, but ordained before the world for our glory. As entering into these unseen things of wisdom, we are to teach and admonish one another, that so we may help in forming each other after the image of Christ. Another effect of the word of Christ dwelling in us will be the heart expressing itself with grace to the Lord in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs.

In Colossians, on the other hand, the same result is produced by the word of Christ dwelling richly in us. The effect, in the first place, is to be seen in our teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, and then in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in our hearts to God ("to God" is the true reading). We have seen that praise is produced in Ephesians by the Spirit occupying the soul with Christ. So also here; for the word of Christ is but the unfolding and display of what He Himself is, and hence, when it dwells richly in us, we have Christ - Christ in all His glories — constantly present to our souls. It is of necessity therefore that we worship with the voice of praise and thanksgiving.

We have the positive direction of Scripture to speak to one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; but psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs mean compositions rhythmically and metrically arranged; so that I judge that the use of such compositions is scripturally authorized. I would add that I think the spiritual mind will detect at once what is really given of the Spirit in such compositions and what is not, even when merely added to make up the measure or rhyme. Moreover, also, those who believe in the action of the Holy Ghost, as the true and only power of blessing, look for the liberty of the Spirit of God, not bondage — liberty in everything that is of Him for edification. The binding to a form of prayer is not this; but the exclusion of hymns is not that liberty either. Only it is to be sought that hymns should be really composed under His influence, and not mere human poetry.

And here I will allow myself to make some remarks which, I think, may be helpful to souls often charged with the inconsistency of using hymn-books, whilst they object to forms of prayer. There is no such thing in the New Testament as a body of praise metrically prepared for Christian use. There is no provision of psalms, or hymns, or spiritual songs, written by inspiration for the Christian; there is very abundantly for the Jew. Do you wonder at this? It seems to me simple, suitable, and full of interest. The Jew needed such praises made for him; the Church does not; for the Christian and the Church, having the Holy Ghost, as the Jew had not, has within a full spring for making melody in his heart. This seems to me the reason why there is no external supply provided for Christians. To the Church, having the ever-present and indwelling Holy Ghost, belongs the well of living water; nay, each individual Christian has it, and so far, naturally and normally, breaks out into psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. Thus, what to some is an evidence of the need of human forms, or to others a ground for falling back on the psalms of David, is really the most striking proof, in the simplest possible way, of the actual blessedness of the Church of God and of the Christian, if they had only faith to use their goodly heritage. Those who are under all the dolorous experience of the law, and cannot therefore enter into proper Christian worship, may, no doubt, require to be provided and stimulated with the Jewish store of the psalms, which, if they only understood, suppose a wholly different experience as well as relationship. There is no spring of joy in themselves; they want a provision for them outside. But just because we have Christ, and, besides, the Holy Ghost as a divine power for enjoying our Saviour, with our God and Father, it would be to lower the Church's place to make for our singing a provision of psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs in the word of God. Holy Scripture deals with the Christian as grown up to man's estate, and supposes the Church, unless beguiled by deceivers, to be standing in full liberty before God, in intelligence of His mind, and confidence of His love, entering into the riches of His grace and of His glory in Christ; and this because the Holy Ghost is in the Christian and in the Church. The consequence is, that such conscious blessedness naturally — not to say necessarily — finds its expression, as is said here, not merely in praise, but "speaking to each other in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord."

Again, I do not the least doubt that these psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs here spoken of were Christian compositions — not indeed extemporaneous, any more than Davidical, but their own suited expressions of various praise. They were the fruit of the Spirit of God working in the early believers, causing them to express their own proper joy to God, instead of casting them on an inspired provision, which does not enter into their distinctive privileges and joy, but in all directly belongs to others who are as yet to come. Does not this, then, fully meet those persons who urge captious difficulties, and say, "After all, you have a hymn-book, and we must have forms"? It seems to me so. The expressions here really intimate that there were known metrical compositions of these kinds; that there was a due and characteristic expression of praise and thanksgiving, as well as of the different spiritual experiences of the Christian. These varieties seem meant by "psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs." They have each their own proper character, and no one can take up a Christian book of praise to God without finding one and the other and all of these things. But, I repeat, these compositions are left room for among Christians, instead of being provided ready by God's inspiration outside themselves; indeed, this is one of the peculiarities of the Holy Ghost's action in the New Testament. He has come down to be in us. He is not merely One who writes for us and teaches us: there is this kind of testimony. You will find, particularly in the Apocalypse, and occasionally elsewhere, even the prophetic character of revelation still, as "The Spirit speaketh in the latter times," etc. Thus we do not lose in the New Testament the predictive element which abounds in the older Scriptures, any more than the narrative. There is in the epistles special instruction on Christian standing and conduct, ministry, etc. Besides, the Holy Ghost leads the believer in joy and praise. He does not give up His function in furnishing authoritative injunctions or visions of the future; but neither is in any way the characteristic dealing of the Holy Ghost with the Christian or the Church. The praise of children, the expression of common as well as of individual joy in the Lord, cannot but go forth from the heart now, as well as from the lips, to the praise of God, and this, too, in a rhythmical form.

It is evident, from Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3, that the Christians of that early day had psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, quite distinct from those God inspired by David and others for His ancient people. Not a word implies that what was sung in the assembly of God was either a Jewish psalm or of New Testament inspiration. They were therefore, I presume, substantially such as Christians in our day, and in all days, are wont to use. Only they sought the Lord's guidance, and the fellowship of all, on these solemn public occasions. Our chapter is of importance in proving that they sung in the assembly; as the other epistles referred to, as well as James, prove the use of hymns in private or alone. Of course the power of the Spirit was sought in both; as He indeed dwells in the individual Christian no less than in the assembly.