PAPER NO. 105
THE REGULATIVE PRINCIPLE OF WORSHIP
According to the Revealed Will of God
General revelation, Scripture, and Historic Christianity (the Westminster Confession of Faith) call us to worship God as he is in truth, and not according to our own imagination. They call us to worship God with all the heart and not merely outwardly, in vain.
“The light of nature shows that there is a God, who has lordship and sovereignty over all, is good, and does good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called up, trusted in, and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.” (WCF 21.1).
The principle which regulates worship limits worship to the revealed will of God.
The second commandment requires the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God has appointed in his Word (Shorter Catechism Q. 50). It forbids the worshiping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in his Word (SC Q. 51). The second commandment affirms the regulative principle of worship which limits worship to what God has revealed in his Word.
The regulative principle includes what is commanded; it does not include what is not commanded as well as what is explicitly forbidden. Jesus taught that God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).
The book of Psalms in the Scriptures is given for singing, which is an ordinary part of public worship. “The reading of the Scriptures with godly fear, the sound preaching and conscionable hearing of the Word, in obedience unto God, with understanding, faith, and reverence, singing of psalms with grace in the heart . . . are all parts of the ordinary religious worship of God” (WCF 21.5).
The Psalms alone, and not any songs of human composition, are to be used in singing in the corporate worship of God. Our own heart, which in this life remains affected by sin and comes short of the glory of God, is not sufficient to represent the truth of God, to be confessed immediately in singing by all. A broken and a contrite heart will not put its fallible thoughts of God in place of God’s revelation of himself (Job 42:5-6).
Biblical piety is in contrast to zeal without knowledge. We are sanctified by knowing the truth of God (John 17:17). Singing the Psalms with understanding develops true spirituality. The Psalms affirm the nature of God as both just and merciful. They affirm the Biblical worldview of creation, fall, and redemption in all aspects.
They affirm the will and purpose of God in history in his law and kingdom. They affirm, with hope, the full force of spiritual warfare faced by believers in every age. They are intimately acquainted with the whole range of human emotions. They are always God-centered and not self-centered.
They are Christ-centered in his person and his work, on earth and at God’s right hand.
Through singing the Psalms, the Word of Christ comes to dwell in us richly (Colossians 3:16), and we are filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18-19). The Psalms are to be sung, not as a matter of prudence or preference merely, but as the expression of love for God as he is in truth, not as we might imagine him to be.
