“He That Sweareth To His Own Hurt”

Kevin Cauley

“LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? . . .  He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.”  (Psalm 15:1, 4)

In the year 2000 I lost my job at EDS and began searching for employment.  I picked up some part time work in the interim.  While I was committed to a project, I got a call from the Compaq Corporation.  I scheduled the interview and met with a manager.

The job they wanted me to do was a “dream job” in the computer industry.  I would be technical support for the outside sales department.  I would get a company car, have access to a large computer lab facility, be able to take clients out for lunches on a regular basis at the company’s expense, and all the perks.

At the end of the interview, the manager looked at me and said, “I would like to hire you.  When can you start?”

I replied, “I have a previous commitment with another company to do a temporary project and in two weeks after that project is done, I can start.”  He said that he appreciated my honesty and character; we parted company and he never called back.

We live in a society that by and large values compromise above principle, subjectivity over objectivity, and relatives over absolutes.  It would be an understatement to say that it is easy to get away with not keeping one’s promises in our society.

“Things happen.”

The weather changes.  We don’t feel good.  Other people don’t follow through.  There are any number of reasons that we could enumerate and by and large most would accept our excuse.

In contrast to our society, God’s people, God’s society, are called to a higher standard.  It is a standard that transcends the bounds of society, time, and culture.  It is a standard based upon the eternal character of God.  It is a standard upon which God expects us to live (Romans 12:1-2).

Our God is a God who always keeps his promises (Hebrews 6:17-18, Titus 1:2).  If we desire to dwell in His holy hill, His tabernacle, His church today, we must practice His standard of righteousness.  When we are willing to suffer to keep our promises, God says that is when we are most like Him.

May we, as God’s people, resolve to keep our word and dwell in unity with our God.

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Philosophical Underpinnings of the Emerging Church

In the Spring of 1994, I took a philosophy class entitled, “Interpretation and Translation” in which I was exposed to a theory known as “Reader-Response Criticism.”  This theory suggests that the meaning of any particular text is not so much what the author originally intended as much as what the reader personally experiences when reading.  This theory suggests that there is no one peculiar meaning outside of the context of the reader.  The text could potentially have as many meanings as those capable of reading.  As a result, there are no right or wrong meanings; there are only subjectively understood meanings.

Such a method of reading applied to the Bible would produce any number of “legitimate” teachings.  According to this theory, the important thing is not the intentionality of the author, but rather, the understanding of the reader.  Consequently, the reader’s understanding becomes the ultimate legitimate “truth” and it ceases to be of interest to talk about “right” or “wrong” interpretations.   The only thing that would matter would be to discuss the various interpretations.

This approach to understanding literature is but one facet in a larger cultural movement which re-centers the search for truth upon the truth-seeker as opposed to the truth-Teacher.  It reflects a fundamental choice as to whether we are going to think anthropocentrically (man-centered) or theocentrically (God-centered).  Anthropocentric thinking has been (and is) presented to our culture in the postmodern philosophy of existentialism.

The fundamental tenet of existentialism has been expressed in the formula “existence precedes essence.”[1] Basically, this means that the personal experiences of the subject (i.e. one’s existence) define reality (and all of reality’s accoutrements such as purpose, meaning, truth, etc.).  The concept that reality can or should be defined in terms of absolutes (essences) is shelved.  Postmodern philosophies tend to reject any epistemology that does not based solely on the individual subject.

Consequently, postmodern thinking is not concerned with the absolute truth or falsity of propositions; truth becomes a relative term which makes sense only in the context of one’s personal experiences.  Paramount, rather, is the individual’s expression of those experiences.  This expression takes the form of a narrative or conversation as an individual allows his personal experience to refine his sense of truth.[2] Hence, truth is anthropocentric.

Christologically, postmodernism prefers to focus on how the resurrection narrative affects one’s personal experience.  This emphasis is also anthropocentric because it seeks to explore how one reacts subjectively to the resurrection narrative without presumption of any truth claims posited in the gospel accounts.  Such thinking reflects the “existence precedes essence” doctrine of existentialism.

As “Reader-Response Criticism” was being touted secularly, a parallel postmodern theological movement emerged as well.  Today, this movement is known as the Emerging Church.[3]

The Emerging Church’s self-proclaimed effort is to engage the postmodern culture with the gospel.  This is laudable.  However, it proposes to do this through postmodern methods and presumptions.  The movement is nebulous.  It includes both individuals who have embraced the core tenets of postmodern thought and individuals who are simply seeking to engage a postmodern culture with the gospel in a postmodern way.

The method the Emerging Church uses to do this involves 1) a surface acceptance of pluralism, 2) engaging the postmodern individual in an open-ended conversational manner, 3) an avoidance of dogmatic assertions which are seen as a consequent of failed rationalistic methods (philosophical modernism), and 4) an effort to affect the postmodern individual through authentic personal behavior or example.  Some consequences of practicing this method are 1) more open forms of worship, 2) communalism, and 3) ecumenism, and 4) concern for social justice.[4]

The approach the Emerging Church uses is appealing, especially to a postmodern culture.  For the Christian, however, it is dishonest.  How so?  Eventually one’s commitment to absolute truth is going to surface into the “conversation” and the appearance of a pluralistic acceptance of all opinions is going to be exposed as a deception.  At this point, one will be unable to avoid dogmatic assertions and one’s behavior will be judged as inconsistent at best and hypocritical at worst.  The individual employing the Emerging Church’s methods will then be forced to evaluate himself.  Since, he will come to the conclusion that he has been dishonest or inauthentic, he will ultimately decide to accept the methods of the Emerging Church as fundamentally true in order to be more consistent in his approach.   Having accepting these methods, he embraces a wholesale abandonment of absolute truth and the adoption of postmodern philosophy.  This becomes painfully obvious when we contrast the basic tenets of Christianity with the Emerging Church’s methods.

The fundamental claims of Christianity are that Jesus of Nazareth died, was buried, and rose again to a new life.[5] To suggest, as postmodern philosophy does, that there are no absolute truths (or in a softer form, systems of truths), reduces the New Testament’s claim to nothing more than how one personally feels about the subject and makes out the witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection to be sophisticated liars.

This is a problem for the Emerging Church movement as Scot McKnight, a self proclaimed member of that movement, says in Christianity Today Magazine.  “Unless you proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, there is no good news at all—and if there is no Good News, then there is no Christianity, emerging or evangelical.”[6] Put another way, postmodernity’s rejection of absolute truth systems entails the rejection of the Gospel as an absolute truth system.  This is the fundamental failure of the Emerging Church.

This highlights the choice the Emerging Church must make between anthropocentric and theocentric thinking.  To reject the Gospel as an absolute truth system causes one’s fundamental focus to be upon man instead of God.  Emerging Church theology reflects this shift in thinking by focusing upon the gospel accounts as solutions to social problems (man vs. man) instead of theological problems (man vs. God).  This focus upon the man vs. man conflict is fundamentally anthropocentric and existentialist in flavor.

Some of the specific terminology used in the movement also reflects its acceptance of existentialist thought.  For example, the term “authentic” is employed to describe personal worship practices.  Practices that are inclusive of individual participation such as personal testimonies, liturgical reading responses, sharing meals, lighting candles and prayer are termed authentic inasmuch as they are perceived as involving the subject in the worship experience.  Being “authentic” is defined, in fact, in a way that is consistent not with objective truth, but with one’s own personal feelings.  Dogmatic propositional presentations of the gospel message are considered inauthentic because they deny the personal feelings of the individual.[7]

The application of these terms, authentic and inauthentic, were employed in existentialist thinking by Martin Heidegger.  He suggested that authentic existence consisted in one’s individual and personal acceptance of his unique, subjective, and independent existence from societal norms and standards blithely accepted by the masses.[8]

The Emergent Church seeks to use that same concept but in a theological way, namely, to suggest that one’s religious experience must be personal and subjective in order to reflect something meaningful.  One’s personal involvement in spirituality is not encouraged because it is fundamentally necessary as a tenet of truth, but personal involvement infuses the subject with his own truth.  In this way, then, the movement would have individuals disengage from the formal and dogmatic religion of the masses that currently presents itself in the form of evangelical Christianity.[9]

The Emergent Church easily attracts individuals disenchanted with religious formalism.  The problem is that it throws out the proverbial baby with the bath water.  Instead of seeking to personally involve them based upon absolute standards of truth (the gospel), the movement replaces absolute standards of truth with a subjectivist standard where truth only has meaning in relationship to the individual’s personal experience.

In contrast, while true faith approaches God based upon God’s absolute truth, it also must be done with a sincerity of spirit that is truly authentic (John 4:24).  In such a model, however, authenticity comes not from one’s personal involvement independent of any normative teaching, but rather, in conjunction with it.  One is truly authentic when one sincerely believes the truths that are taught in the gospel and behaves accordingly.  A mere personal subjective acceptance of the gospel is neither sincere nor authentic because it denies or at best ignores the very claim the gospel makes regarding the historical truthfulness of Jesus’ resurrection.

More questions need to be answered regarding the Emerging Church.  Why is it critical of formal religion?  What aspects reflect sound theological practices in contrast to denominational Christianity?  How does the Emerging Church’s ecclesiology differ from the New Testament teaching of the church?  This brief overview really has only served to introduce the concept of the movement, its self professed relationship to postmodern philosophy, its ties with existentialism, and its anthropocentric nature.

The Emerging Church movement presents spiritual danger because of its de-historicizing of the gospel, making spirituality a wholly subjective matter, and relegating truth to each individual’s discretion.  Its effect upon these foundational matters will reverberate with harmful consequences in other areas of Christian doctrine as well.  We ought to reject any system (and this movement is a system regardless of its proposed rejection of theological systems) which rejects the concept of absolute truth.

[1] Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism trans. Carol Macomber, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007) p.22.  An online English translation is available at <http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm>.

[2] See for example, Eckhard Tolle, A New Earth (London: Penguin, 2005) p.71, “There is only one absolute Truth, and all other truths emanate from it….  The Truth is inseparable from who you are.  Yes, you are the Truth.”

[3] Carson, D. A. Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2005.

[4] Scot McKnight, “Five Streams of the Emerging Church” Christianity Today Magazine, 11 February 2007. Available online at <http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html>. Accessed on July 8th, 2008.

[5] 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.

[6]Scot McKnight, “Five Streams,” 2005.

[7] McLaren, Brian, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004) p. 107, 151.

[8] Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. Stambaugh (Albany: State University of New York Press: 1996) pp. 169-170.

[9] This is typical Kierkegaardian existentialist theology, his primary thesis being “Truth is subjectivity.”  Kierkegaard, Soren, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, trans. Hong, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1992.

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The Muddy Waters of the “Emerging Church”

Kevin Cauley

In August of 1991 my wife and I visited Vicksburg, Mississippi on our honeymoon.  One sight we could not miss was the Mississippi River.  The United States Geological Service estimates that approximately 373 billion gallons of water flow by Vicksburg every day.  That water comes from the thousands of lakes, rivers, streams, and creeks that flow into it creating the river’s distinctively muddy character.

Christians today live in a world that, not unlike the muddy Mississippi, is influenced by multiple streams of ideas, thoughts, and philosophies.  This period has been characterized as postmodern because of its anti-rational thinking and its complete acceptance of any and all ideas regardless of how ridiculous they may seem.  This is illustrated for us in the chorus of a Charlie Daniels’ song entitled, “Muddy Mississippi.”  “Everybody is alright / Ain’t nobody uptight / Dancing in the moonlight / Muddy Mississippi roll on.”

It should not surprise us that some are placing a special emphasis upon taking the gospel to the postmodern world.  This effort is known as the “Emerging Church.”  It is a pan-denominational effort to engage the postmodern world around us with the gospel, but with a subtle twist.  The “Emerging Church” wants to do this with the acceptance of postmodern presuppositions.

“Emerging Church” adherents do not believe that we ought to characterize the message of the gospel as either true or false.  This, they claim, buys into a failed system of knowledge.  Instead, they seek to engage the postmodern culture “non-confrontationally.”  This entails that we simply sit down to have a “conversation” about things; no one is right or wrong; no one is exhorted to give up false doctrine and embrace truth.  All ideas and philosophies are equally legitimized and somehow the postmodern culture is evangelized.

It reminds me of the 1990 movie “Pretty Woman,” in which a rich businessman hires a prostitute to act as his escort.  During the course of their relationship, the businessman ends up realizing that there is more to life than money; the prostitute ends up leaving her life of sex for money.  Both are somehow redeemed from their formerly wasted lives without condemning or being condemned.

In that regard, the “Emerging Church” movement is analogous to evangelizing a prostitute by fornicating with her.  While that seems harsh, some in this movement would accept that analogy as an accurate characterization.  The only “evils” in society are defined as things that cause human suffering and Christianity is simply equated with an effort to solve social problems such as hunger, homelessness, and racism.

Some Christians have even been caught up in this kind of thinking.  They need to be reminded that Jesus didn’t die for the philosophies of men, but for man’s salvation from the philosophies of men (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).  Jesus proclaimed His message as “truth” (John 8:32) and severely chastised those who did not believe it (John 8:44-45).

The disciples confessed Jesus as the one that they knew and believed to be the Holy One of God (John 6:69).  They died willing to confront a similarly pluralistic culture with the absolute truth that Jesus was the way and the gospel was the truth.  If we, as Christians, are unwilling to stand up for the absolute truth of the resurrection of Jesus, then we’ve been evangelized instead of evangelizing.

The muddy waters of the Mississippi are broad and deep, but it is impossible to see anything clearly when surrounded by them.  If we surrender truth to engage the postmodern world with Christianity, we’ve surrendered the whole war.  Let us not seek to be conformed to the world, but transformed out of it (Romans 12:1-2).

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“Altered States”

Kevin Cauley

In 1980 a movie called “Altered States” came out in which a University Professor of Abnormal Psychology sought to explore whether “our other states of consciousness are as real as our waking states.”  In this movie, the professor conducted bizarre experiments with drugs and isolation chambers in order to explore his hypothesis.  The fictional movie portrayed the professor as being able to physically change into other states of existence while conducting these experiments, purportedly to get in touch with “ultimate reality.” [1] The movie buys into the philosophical viewpoint that one’s personal experiences while in altered states of consciousness are no less real than the world experienced under normal, empirical conditions.[2]

In a recent conversation, it was reported that the Bible was a roadmap for normal reality, but that for other realities brought on by altered states of consciousness, other road maps needed to be followed.[3] The statement itself implies that the Bible makes no mention of such altered states or realities, and that it is not intended to address existence in such places.[4] It would, moreover, imply that God has not revealed anything to us regarding such realities in the Bible, thus cutting off the Bible as a potential source of information regarding the existence of such places.  Outside of revelation, then, we must examine the potential existence of such realities in terms of the evidence that presents itself to us outside of Scripture.  So, in looking to examine the claim that other road maps are necessary for alternative realities, how should we proceed?

One way would be to talk to the individuals who claim to have experienced such alternative realities.  This would inevitably lead to a series of conversations in which individuals who have had such experiences verbally explain or describe such “realities” in terms that we can understand.  However, the only terms we can understand are terms related to this reality.  Hence, it would be impossible to describe these alternative realities.  This makes talking to individuals regarding their experiences with these alternative realities a dead end.  We could never get a sufficient description in terms that we could understand.  To such an incommunicable state, mystical religions agree.  William James wrote, “…the absence of definite sensible images is positively insisted on by the mystical authorities in all religions as the sine quo non of a successful orison, or contemplation of the higher divine truths.”[5]

Another way to examine these claims would be to try to experience the alternative reality ourselves.  These altered states of consciousness are purportedly brought on through drug use. Others claim to have had such experiences through intense meditation or as a result of physical trauma.[6] Supposing, however, that we were able to enter one of these altered states of consciousness through one of these methods, we would still be left with a vexing problem.  What is there to connect the “reality” that we experience to the “reality” that anyone else has experienced?  We run into the same problem as above, namely, that we could never sufficiently describe our experience of this alternative reality to another in a meaningful way, even if this other person has experienced it as well.  There is no accurate and meaningful terminology to employ.  Thus we would never be able to objectively confirm (through independent sources) that we have indeed experienced an alternative reality.  This places the entire claim into the realm of the subjective which makes such experiences amusing at best, but falls far short of demonstrating an alternate reality’s true existence.

There is not sufficient evidence in either of these methods of inquiry to conclude that anything objective can be observed regarding these alternative realities.  If we are truly speaking of an alternate reality, then it could never sufficiently be described in terms we could understand through the reality we know.  That makes it impossible for someone else who has experienced this alleged reality to communicate it to us, and it makes it impossible to sit down, experience the reality, and communicate it to another.  It cuts one off from objective confirmation of the claimed alternative reality.  The only conclusion left to us, if we are going to be rational, is that these alleged realities are simply subjective states of consciousness brought on by an individual abnormally manipulating his senses to induce wholly subjective experiences.  In other words, there is no “alternate reality” at all; it is, proverbially speaking, “all in their mind.” [7]

Stepping outside of the previous line of thought, we should now consider whether there are any principles taught within Scripture or that we know to be true from correct reasoning that would exclude the existence of these alternative realities.

First, the God of the Bible is set forth to be the God of reality, period; He is not simply the God of “this” reality.  Isaiah declares God to be the one who inhabits “eternity” (Isaiah 57:15) and not simply the god of a particular limited existence.  If God is indeed infinite, as the Bible declares Him to be (Psalm 147:5), then there is no place where man can go, objectively or subjectively, and God not be there.  Paul told the Athenians in Acts 17:28, “For in him we live and move and have our being.”  In other words, our being, our existence, is wholly contingent on God wherever our experiences (objective, subjective, or otherwise) might take us.  There is no “reality” that we can experience where God is not; He is, to coin a word, pan-existential.

Second, the Bible implicitly declares the reality that exists to be dualistic.  This is the concept that there is only one reality, but that it is composed of two fundamentally different realms that are connected together.  In philosophy, Plato first suggested this idea with his description of the physical world having its ultimate explanation in the world of forms, a metaphysical realm.[8] This is also, in essence, what the Bible declares.  Genesis 1:1 implicitly sets this forth when we read of God, with no physical stuff in existence, creating the heavens and the earth out of nothing, ex nihilo, as it were (Hebrews 11:3).[9] Moreover, consider 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:1:

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.  For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.  For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Paul sets up a dichotomy of thought in these verses.  Consider the following contrasts:

  • The outward man vs. the inward man.
  • Light affliction of the moment vs. the eternal weight of glory.
  • Things which are seen vs. things which are not seen.
  • Temporal vs. the eternal.
  • The earthly house vs. the heavenly house.

All of these contrasts lead us to the conclusion that reality is fundamentally dualistic and that the spiritual, not the physical, is the ultimately real place.

When we come to God’s existence as well, we find that God is not a physical Being, but a metaphysical/spiritual One.  We conclude that the physical is not the fundamental essence of reality, but the spiritual, because it is from spiritual power that the physical was created and came into being (Genesis 1:1).  Alternate realities, such as those suggested in the movie “Altered States,” posit something fundamentally different from the Bible’s picture of true existence.  The movie, along with those who posit such “realities,” suggest(s) that somehow the physical is simply another aspect of the spiritual, thus confusing the two concepts all together.[10] However, the Bible makes a clear cut distinction between the two, though it does not preclude their interaction.

Finally, let us appeal to the foundation of rationality itself, the principle of non-contradiction.  This principle states that a thing cannot be itself and not itself at the same time and in the same sense.  For statements, a precisely stated proposition cannot be both true and false.[11] This principle is self- evident.  When we come to an object, whether it is a rock, tree, house, or whatever, we immediately realize that it cannot be both itself and not itself.   Its identity makes it what it is.  This law is not merely true for the physical realm, but for the spiritual as well.  It is a law that covers anything that exists – a law of thought, and hence, a fundamentally spiritual phenomena.[12] By virtue of its being such, that places it in both the spiritual (metaphysical) and the physical realms.

God is a rational God.[13] When we, as God’s creation, seek to be rational, then we must exclude any alternate states of reality as nothing more than subjective manipulation of one’s sense experience.  One might reply that if we exclude sense experience, regardless of how distorted it might be as an avenue from determining what reality is, then we have in essence excluded all reality together.  But this presupposes an empirical epistemology.  It is not with our sense experience alone that we come to conclusions about reality, but rather, the combination of sense experience with the ability that we have to make appropriate discernments based upon the law of non-contradiction and other such fundamental laws of thought.  In fact, it is the law of non-contradiction that makes it possible for us to discern between one particular item experienced and another, whether by vision, hearing, smelling, touching, or tasting.  A thing cannot be both itself and not itself.  Of this we are cognizant a priori.  That is the basic rule of discernment that we bring to the table of our experience of reality whether that reality is physical, spiritual, or even some subjectively posited alternate reality.  We simply cannot escape using this principle to filter our experience and, if we cannot escape it, then we require evidence based upon it to prove the existence of any suggested realities.

In conclusion, so long as man’s thinking continues to be based upon the law of non-contradiction, and God’s existence continues to be infinite and eternal, we cannot accept the premise that the Bible is only a roadmap for one reality among many.  Instead, we explicitly affirm the Bible to be the roadmap for all reality.

[1] Altered States. Dir. Ken Russell, Warner Bros. Pictures production. Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers, 1980, video recording.

[2] Perhaps similar to the thought of Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, (Grove Press: New York, 1958).

[3] Presumably the motivation behind this statement is to suggest that one need not follow the Bible if one has learned to transcend this reality.

[4] One wonders if such a statement implies that one ought to explore these realities before coming to conclusions regarding the correctness of the Bible.

[5] James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, (Penguin Classics: London, 1982) p.54.

[6] Leary, Timothy F. et. al., The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, (Citadel Press: New York, 1995) p. 11.  It is even suggested that dreaming may be considered an alternative reality.

[7] In this regard, I would agree with Paul Kurtz when he says, “Appeals to mystical experiences or private subjective states hardly suffice as evidential support that some external being or force caused such altered states of consciousness; skeptical inquirers have a legitimate basis for doubt, unless or until such claims of interior experience can somehow be independently corroborated.”  Kurtz, Paul. Why I am a Skeptic about Religious Claims. May 23rd, 2008. <http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?page=pkurtz_26_4&section=library>

[8] Hamilton, Edith, Ed., The Collected Dialogues of Plato Including the Letters, (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1989) pp747-750..

[9] See also 2 Maccabees 7:28 and Torchia, N. Joseph, Creatio ex nihilo and the Theology of St. Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Polemic and Beyond (Peter Lang Publishing: Bern, 1999).  Augustine’s concept of ex nihilo was polemic in response to the Manichean view of the physical world being an emanation of God.  Hence, the world (perceivable reality) was not distinct from God in this theology.  If, however, creation is ex nihilo, reality becomes fundamentally dualistic for the thing created stands in stark distinction to the creator, exactly opposite of the Manicheans contention.

[10] Not very different from the Manichean view and others.  See Tart, Charles T. ed., Altered States of Consciousness: A Book of Readings (Wiley: Hoboken, 1969).

[11] Sproul, R.C., The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped our World (Crossway Books: Wheaton, 2000) p.41-43.

[12]Aristotle, Metaphysics IV Section 4.  Ross, W.D. Trans, (University of Adelaide: Adelaide, 2007).  Available online at <http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/metaphysics/index.html>.

[13] See Isaiah 1:18, Acts 17:2, Acts 18:4, Acts 24:25.  See also Moreland, J.P. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Intervarsity Press: Downers Grove, 2003) p.606-607.

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Singing With the Instrument in the Name of the Lord

Christians have a divine obligation to use instrumental music in worship! Many people today use pianos, guitars, and other similar instruments in their worship. This is NOT the kind of instrument of which I am speaking. But the Bible does teach us to use an instrument to accompany our singing in worship to God. In Ephesians 5:19 we read, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Notice the phrase “in your heart” in this passage. The instrument upon which God expects the Christian to “play” is the heart. Colossians 3:16 states this principle in similar words, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” In both Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 instrumental accompaniment is commanded. Singing is to be accompanied with a specific instrument, namely, the heart. Please note that when God specifies something, we must respect God’s instructions.  We refer to this as specific authority.  Let’s look at several Bible examples that illustrate this principle.

One great example where God specifies the use of a particular item is Noah and the ark. If we look back at Genesis 6:14, God tells Noah, “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch.” We don’t know what gopher wood was, but Noah knew! God specified this type of wood for a reason and Noah was expected to respect God’s specific instructions in that regard. In Genesis 6:22, “Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.” Noah built the ark out of gopher wood because God told him to do it that way and was saved from the flood.

Another great example of specific authority is found in Exodus 12, where God gives Moses specific instructions for how to avoid the tenth plague-the death of the firstborn. Part of the instructions was to kill a lamb, take the blood and put it on the doorposts and lintel with a bunch of hyssop twigs (Exodus 12:7, 22). The Bible says that when God saw the blood, He would pass over the house and spare the firstborn. God specified a lamb’s blood. Those who followed God’s specific instructions were spared the life of their firstborn. Those who used anything but the blood of a lamb lost their firstborn that night.

We read of a man named Naaman in 2 Kings chapter 5. Naaman had leprosy, a deadly disease, but through the prophet Elisha, God gave Naaman the opportunity to be healed. God gave Naaman a specific condition. Naaman had to immerse himself in the Jordan River seven times. Naaman was angry because he didn’t want to get into that nasty, muddy, dirty Jordan River, but God had specified THAT River. Naaman wanted to go back to his homeland and immerse himself in one of the rivers of Damascus. He said, “Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage” (2 Kings 5:12). But those rivers could not have cleansed him. Only after washing seven times in the Jordan did Naaman’s leprosy go away.

As a last example, many in the religious world today observe the Lord’s Supper. Paul tells us that this holy meal is to be observed in remembrance of the death of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:24). Both Jesus body and His blood are represented in this supper. No doubt everyone in the religious world who observes the Lord’s Supper can tell you the elements used within it. These elements are the bread and the fruit of the vine. These things were specifically mentioned by Jesus as items that were to be used to in this supper (Matthew 26:26-29). Now ask one who observes this religious practice if Jesus would be happy if we substituted a McDonald’s hamburger for the bread and Coca Cola for the fruit of the vine. The predominant response you would receive would be, “Of course not. Jesus said to use bread and fruit of the vine and that settles that.” To which we reply, Amen.

In each of these Bible examples God specified something and those who wanted to receive the blessings of God were expected to do as God had specified. Noah was to build the ark of gopher wood because that was what God specified. Moses was to use the blood of a lamb because that was what God specified. Naaman was to immerse himself seven times in the Jordan River because that is what God specified. Christians are expected to partake of the bread and fruit of the vine in the Lord’s Supper because that is what God specifies. In each of these instances to abandon, substitute, or add something different for what God specified would be to ignore the specific authority of God. Noah’s ark would have sunk. Moses would have lost his firstborn son. Naaman would have died of leprousy. Christians would have observed “in an unworthy manner” (1 Corinthians 11:29). The principle in each of these examples is the same. When God specifies how He wants something done, we must do it the way God says to do it without deletion, substitution, or addition.

Let me refine my question in the title of this article. What instrument should the Christian use to worship God in song? God has specified the heart as the instrument the Christian is to accompany song in worship to Him. If we delete the heart, substitute some other instrument for the heart or add some other instrument to the heart, then we worship in vain. Should we accompany our worship to God in song with any other instrument of music than the heart? No, we should not. To do such would be to abandon the blessings that God says we have through worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Our worship to God must be done as God has specified, in His name. To worship God in any other way than the way God has specified is to place our own righteousness above the righteousness of God. Let us humbly submit to God’s will in our songs of worship.

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