This question came across the desk recently – again! This sort of question scares me, and for a number of reasons. One is that it is the wrong question. A better question would be, “What constitutes acceptable worship?” But why is it the wrong question?
To a degree, this depends on the questioner. For a novice it may be an innocent-enough question, but from someone with passing knowledge of such issues it carries with it the a priori recognition that the New testament does not authorise it. It is not found in the New testament and neither was it a part of the worship of the church for centuries. In almost fifty years of preaching I have never been asked questions like these: “Will anyone really be lost for praying to God?”; “Will anyone really be lost for eating the Lord’s Supper?”; or more pertinently, “Will anyone really be lost for singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs?” Why is that? It is because it is evident that the New testament teaches such things, whereas the playing of instruments in worship is not – it is an addition.
In addition to that, it is normally a presumptive question from another angle as well: it is usually intoned that you really couldn’t seriously suggest that anyone could be lost for adding instrumental music to worship. It is evident that the mind is made up and the tail is wagging the dog. Man has judged it okay – or rather man has judged that God has judged it okay, but without a word from God. This is always dangerous, to say the least. People make the same assumption in regard to a host of issues such as baptism, and of late, even homosexual behaviour. Part of the presumption is that the act (singing praise to God with the instrument) is quite normal and harmless, not immoral or injurious and therefore quite benign with no eternal consequences. So, again, a better question would be “What saith the Lord?”
Rom. 15:4 instructs us to look to the Old Testament. We do not live under that covenant but it was written for our learning, and we learn much about God and His dealings with man. 1 Cor. 10:6 says those historical events are our examples (the word is tupos – types). If we approach it from the standpoint of finding out what people will be lost for, it is most instructive. What we find is that people lost fellowship with God for the most harmless and benign of actions. We are also instructed to behold the goodness and the severity of God. If we start at the beginning and work through recorded incidents, our eyes will be opened to the fact that violent or immoral acts aren’t the only way we can sin so as to sever our relationship with God.
Lets begin with Adam and Eve. What was it that broke their perfect union with God? Just eating some fruit! Eating fruit is something that most of us do every day. It is usually a safe, pleasurable, and healthful activity. It certainly rates low on any scale of abominations. Yet this act brought the whole human race undone!
We don’t go much further and we come across the first recorded act of worship, and with it we see that not all worship is acceptable to God. It says that Abel offered in faith (Heb. 11:4) whereas Cain obviously did not. This is not to say that Cain was an atheist – he was not, and he came offering a gift to the God whom he knew was real. What he offered cost him part of what he grew too. The details are not given, but he did not offer what and/or in the way that God prescribed and so it was not in faith, but according to his own dictates. But it is evident that there was no heinous or immoral act perpetrated by the man – “just” a failure of a man to comply wholly with what God had stipulated. Because of that both he and his sacrifice were not acceptable to God. So we learn a man stands or falls with his worship.
What did Nadab and Abihu do that was so heinous they were burned to a crisp? (Lev. 10:1,2) The scripture says they offered strange fire which God did not command. It was incense but it was not the right incense (cf. Ex. 30:8,9; 34-38; 37:29). Were they presumptuous? – obviously. Was that brought on by drunkenness or just that they got used to the glory? We are not told and ultimately it is not important for the import of the lesson to be understood. What the scripture tells us is that the reason for the wrath of God was the offering of unauthorised incense. Now burning incense is no big deal. It is burned daily in homes all around the world and nobody would regard it as a crime. But on this occasion burning the wrong type of incense meant disobedience and God left us an example to learn from (and it is a great thing that God has chosen not to recompense every act of disobedience with immediate and dramatic judgement! see next edition on Covid from God?)
Moses struck a rock on an occasion to get water in the wilderness at the command of God (Ex. 17:6). On another occasion he struck a rock to get water when he was instructed by God to speak to it (Num. 20:8). For this he forfeited his entrance into the promised land. You can beat a child with a rod (Prov. 22:15; 23:13; 29:15), so what’s the deal with a rock? A rock is but a rock. It is impervious to pain, cannot hear a command, and to strike a rock brings no pain and is no great crime. However, it was disobedience.
In 1 Sam.15 we have the record of Saul’s commission to eradicate the Amelekites. We remember the confrontation between Saul and Samuel on Saul’s return from the slaughter. Saul had spared some of the animals and the Amelekite king. He had done most of the job but not all. Samuel likened this to evil, rebellion, stubbornness and rejection of the word of God (vs. 19-23). For this he lost the kingship.
Previous to this (1 Sam. 13), in a panic he had offered sacrifice to the Lord instead of waiting for Samuel the priest to arrive. Being a Benjamite and not a Levite he did something he had no authority to do. The pressing circumstances of the approaching Philistine army and the lateness of Samuel did not grant him the right to do what he did. Again, it was disobedience and displeasing to the Lord.
David took it upon himself to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem on a new cart. After all, they were no longer a bedoin-style people moving through a wilderness when the original instructions were given for a particular order of priests to carry the ark on their shoulders on staves. They were now a sophisticated, modern nation with a capital city and changes could be made commensurate with that. But a man dies that day because David took that liberty (cf. Num. 4:4-15; 7:7-9; 2 Sam. 6:3).
In 1 Kings 13:18 we have the death of a young prophet by a lion. Why did this happen? It wasn’t accidental but because he believed a lie an old prophet told him which was contrary to the instructions God had originally given him. One feels sympathy for the young man, but……
It is to be observed in these types and examples that disobedience comes in many forms – disobedience doesn’t always express itself in violent, immoral or horrendous acts. It can be ‘simple’ things like eating a fruit, offering a different incense, using a cart to save the backs and shoulders of the priests and so on. Would the introduction of unauthorised music in worship be out of place in this list? What will people be lost for? Sins of commission, sins of omission, sins of presumption – things we might measure as little sins. We ought to be thankful to God that He has not made commands so difficult as to make disobedience a fait acompli. Rather, disobedience can be expressed in the disobeying of simple commands.
Will anyone really be lost for worshiping with the instrument? To so worship is a presumptuous act, and why would anyone want to go ahead and introduce something unauthorised, a strange music, into the worship of God? This thing has caused so much angst and misery over the years. Before someone reminds me that it is God who is the Judge, let me say that I am in perfect agreement with that. What I am saying is that we have been warned to take seriously that which the Lord has commanded, and to assume that one cannot be lost for doing that which is unauthorised is foolish. The demands of the New Testament are as authoritative today as the demands of the Old testament were before Christ. God is no respector of persons, and the demands of faith are equal in all ages. God didn’t call on one group to be bound by law and another group to be footloose and fancy-free (Heb. 2:2,3). As I said at the beginning, a better question is What constitutes acceptable worship?
J.W. McGarvey was right when he said We cannot adopt the practice (of playing musical instruments in worship) without abandoning the only ground upon which a restoration of New Testament Christianity can be accomplished. What he meant was that if we can do that which is unauthorised in this area, why can’t we do it in others areas as well. This adoption of unauthorised practices is what has caused the denominational morass, and will maintain it.