I. INTRODUCTION
A. Throughout the history of Israel, the people praised God with instruments of music. For example, consider the exclamation of Psalm 150.
1. Praise the LORD! Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty expanse.
2. Praise Him for His mighty deeds; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
3. Praise Him with trumpet sound; Praise Him with harp and lyre.
4. Praise Him with timbrel and dancing; Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe.
5. Praise Him with loud cymbals; Praise Him with resounding cymbals.
6. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD!
B. As we gather together in the assembly of the New Testament church, we bring no trumpets, harps, lyres, timbrels, stringed instruments, pipes, or cymbals. Why have we omitted these from our worship?
C. We have very good reasons for omitting these from our collective worship, and by doing so we have not neglected the Scripture at all, but rather we have kept it whole in its context as we will see in our study.
II. THERE HAS BEEN A CHANGE
A. In all things, a Christian must seek to understand what God desires from man, and he must then present to God that which pleases Him.
1. The goal of pleasing God rather than others or self is abundantly clear in the New Testament.
a. 2Corinthians 5:9 -- Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
b. Ephesians 5:10 -- ...trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
c. Colossian 1:9-10 -- For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
d. Hebrews 11:6 -- And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
2. From these and other New Testament passages, we see that one must first understand what God's will is before he can perform His will and please Him.
a. This concept is simple, but many neglect it by doing what they think will please God or doing what pleases men rather than doing what God has revealed as His will.
b. We know what God wants of us only because He has told us in His word (2Tim. 3:16-17). This is true in everything, including worship.
B. Since the time of the Old Testament, the collective worship prescribed by God has been changed. This change and its timing were indicated by Jesus in John 4:20-24.
1. A Samaritan woman introduced the subject of worship when she said to Jesus, "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship" (v. 20).
a. "This mountain" was Mount Gerizim, the mountain of blessing from the time of Moses in Deuteronomy 11:29. The Samaritan's temple had once been on this mountain (built in the 5th century B.C., destroyed in the 3rdcentury B.C.), and it remained as the center of Samaritan worship in the first century (as it does to this day).
b. The woman's statement to Jesus is a veiled question. She was prompting Him to explain the differences between her people's worship and His people's worship.
2. Consider the Lord's answer in verses 21-24:
Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
a. Jesus affirmed that Jerusalem was the correct place of worship at that time, but a change was at hand which would make the location in which worship was given to be irrelevant.
b. With the coming of Jesus, physical aspects would no longer define the worship that God desires. Since then, God has revealed the deeper spiritual aspects of worship, for "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
C. What is this new worship "in spirit and truth" that God wants?
1. We can understand from John 4:20-24 that to worship God "in spirit" must be different from worshiping Him in flesh.
a. Jesus said, "God is spirit," meaning that His nature is spiritual rather than physical.
b. By comparison, the worship He desires is also to be spiritual rather than physical.
c. Thus, we can understand that the place of worship, whether on a mountain in Samaria or in a temple in Jerusalem, has no bearing on true spiritualworship.
2. Worshiping in spirit is in contrast to the fleshly worship of the Jews done in Jesus' day.
a. Consider Hebrews 9:1-10. Notice the elements of this style of worship according to the Law of Moses.
i. There was a physical temple or tabernacle, a fleshly priesthood, and physical sacrifices.
ii.Suitable to this type of worship was mechanical instruments of music.
b. Now, God's worship is spiritual.
i. There is now a spiritual temple or tabernacle (1Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:19-22), a spiritual High Priest (Heb. 4:14-15; 9:11), a spiritual priesthood (1Pet. 2:5, 9), and spiritual sacrifices (Rom. 12:1; Heb. 13:15).
ii.Suitable for this type of worship is spiritual music, not the music of mechanical instruments.
D. This change of worship came with the change in covenants at the death of Christ.
1. The book of Hebrews emphasizes the superiority of the new covenant of Christ and the obsoleteness of the old covenant. Notice Hebrews 8:13 -- When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.
2. This new covenant of Christ took effect with His death. Consider Hebrews 9:16 -- For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it.
a. We understand this concept in the affairs of men. A man's last will and testament has no power while he lives, and he is free to do as he pleases with his estate. However, once he has died, his will takes effect.
b. Likewise, the death of Jesus put into effect His will and testament, which is the new covenant made with His blood (Luke 22:20).
3. Just as it is no longer necessary under the new covenant for the Jewish priests to enter the tabernacle or temple to offer blood sacrifices (Heb. 9:1-10:17), so also it is unnecessary to perform other acts of worship from the old covenant. Instead, the new covenant prescribes its own worship.
4. Unlike the old covenant, the new covenant is not for Jews only, but rather it is for both Jews and Gentiles, who are joined together in one body, the church (Eph. 1:22-23; 2:11-22).
5. In this body, Christians now worship collectively in spirit and in truth according to the will of Christ in the new covenant.
III. CONCLUSION
A. In this first part of the lesson, we have only laid a foundation to answer the question of why we do not use musical instruments in worship. This foundation has taught us that the practices of collective worship under the old covenant do not define our worship under the new covenant of Christ.
B. In the second part of the lesson, we will consider the New Testament's specific directions concerning music in the assembly.