A Lecture on "The Indispensable Place of Music in (the) Reformation"

Last Thursday (8th of January) a few of us went to a public lecture by the denomination whose church plant we are a part of. The lecture was entitled "Music's Indispensable Place in (the) Reformation" and was given by Prof. Barrett Gritters from the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary.

It was an excellent lecture, showing the high importance (indispensable!) of music in the church.

(Click here to read Prof. Gritter's article on Music on which the speech was based and here to listen to the recording of the lecture.)

The music that God requires from and in the local church is the congregational singing of the (only) songs that God Himself has given to His Church, the Psalms.

It is to be congregational because the members of the church are instructed to sing to one another in the churches (Eph 5:19 and Col 3:16), because in the church of the new dispensation all believers are prophets, priests and kings. This was an essential part of the Reformation, since the Romish Church had not only stopped congregational singing (and replaced it with choirs), but sung only in Latin, which the common people could not understand. It is sad to see that modern "worship" is simply a move back to Rome and its idolatrous worship - in modern "worship", the singing is done by a band, with the congregation merely accompanying, if they can be heard at all. Never mind the charismatic babblings which cannot be understood by the congregation (even though 1Co 14:9,11,27-28 forbids even the speaking of real foreign tongues/languages in the church without interpretation).

One of the main purposes of music in the church, which is often forgotten, is that the saints mutually "teach and admonish" (Col 3:16) one another. How is this done? A very superficial and random look at one verse in the Psalms will answer this clearly: "Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, because his mercy endureth forever" (Ps 118:1). In this verse, the saints (a) exhort each other to "give thanks unto the Lord", (b) teach that the reason for praising God is "for he is good" and (c) teach that God is good to us in that "his mercy endureth forever". For this reason, it is also highly important to pay attention to the words in being sung in church - to not pay attention is the same as not paying attention when you are having a conversation with a friend but to day-dream at the same time; highly insulting!

Also, in singing the Psalms we sing the doctrines of the Bible, since the Psalms contain nearly all doctrines of Scripture. This means that in congregational singing of Psalms we (a) teach one another these doctrines, (b) proclaim the Gospel and (c) confess our faith. For example, through their singing we teach one another original sin (51:5), that God created all things (19), justification by faith alone (32), total depravity (53), God's hatred of the reprobate (5:5, 11:5), God's unfailing love for His children (138:8), and on and on and on (read any random Psalm and you will be astonished at how many doctrines it contains). Christ and the Apostles frequently quoted the Psalms to prove certain doctrines (e.g. Rom 3). The book of Psalms, along with Isaiah, is the most frequently quoted OT book in the NT.

Furthermore, congregational Psalm-singing is a form of public congregational prayer, in which the church entreats God for His mercies.

A point was made about the power of music, to which most people today can attest from experience. We are emotional creatures, and our emotions can be strongly influenced by music. This influence can be used correctly if it leads to true worship of God. Therefore, the music should (a) consist of doctrinally-correct lyrics (the Psalms), and (b) be of high quality. The interesting example of John Calvin was given, who organised for the children to be taught good singing in the schools so that they could then lead by example on Sunday morning and teach the parents to sing well and in tune. Also, (c) the tunes accompanying the church's singing should not be the tunes of the world, since singing these tunes will only bring their fleshly and lustful connotations into the heart of the worshipper.

We were warned of the abuses of music, for Satan always attempts to turn everything to his evil uses. Modern pop music uses the vehicle of music to indoctrinate especially children and teenagers with the goodness of illicit sex, drugs, lying, and all other sorts of filth. And more particularly, in the Church it is a well-documented historical fact that, once songs other than Psalms were being sung, these new songs eventually became sources of heretical teachings, most particularly, Arminianism and charismaticism/emotionalism. It is of course horrific that many "evangelistic" events consists mainly of emotional manipulation through which the unconverted are "encouraged" to "give their lives to Christ", this Christ being the false Christ of Arminianism. One might as well enter into a Mosque, listen to emotional music, and then be asked to "trust Allah", with the same result.

What a glorious privilege we have to sing the songs of God with His people! And what a glorious hope we have, that one day we shall join the heavenly choir of the ascended and triumphant Church to worship for eternity at His throne for eternity!