Psalms or hymns?

It is recorded in Matthew 26:30, that the Lord and His apostles sang "a hymn". This took place as they were observing the Passover. The Jews consistently sang Psalms 113 to 118 inclusive, in portions, throughout the Passover season. Consequently commentators generally agree in declaring that Christ and His followers sang these particular psalms at that time.

Should the use of the word "hymn" cause anyone perplexity, we draw attention to this that the literal rendering of Matt. 26:30 is: when they had hymned, or sung praise. Therefore this verse affords not the least support for the singing of uninspired hymns.

On this occasion of the observance of the Passover, the Lord instituted that sacrament which is called the Lord's Supper. Consequently we see the passing over of the Psalms from the Old Testament Passover to be associated for the first time with a Christian sacrament; for the singing of a Psalm followed the institution and observance of the Lord's Supper. This transition was very significant and has a message for us today.

To find full authority for the use of the Psalms only in Christian worship we must go to the Apostolic age. The Lord Jesus had promised His immediate followers the gift of the Holy Spirit to teach them "all things" and bring to their remembrance "whatsoever" the Lord has said to them (John 14:26). Further, Christ had said concerning the Spirit, "He will guide you into all (the) truth . . . and He will shew you things to come." (John 16:13). These tremendously great endowments fully qualified the apostles to order the constitution of the Christian church - its government, doctrine and worship, also to direct its pastoral and missionary activities.

The Lord Jesus, who sent the Holy Spirit to bestow unique powers on the apostles, did not commission them to compose a new psalmody. Why was this? Psalms constituted an admirable manual of praise in the pre-Christian era and they are a perfect book of praise for the Christian era. Much in the prophetic Psalms, and most of them are prophetic, was largely obscure to the Jewish worshipper. Whereas the Christian worshipper, living under greater privileges and in clearer light, marvels at the rich spiritual significance of statements in the Psalms which were but dimly understood in pre-Christian times.

It is instructive to notice the efforts made by some hymn-singers to find support in the New Testament for the use of hymns in worship. The fact is that the New Testament is destitute of anything which would favour the hymn-singer. This we declare in the spirit of Christian charity. There are those who profess to find portions of hymns embedded in the New Testament Epistles. Some scholars do not risk their reputations by making definite statements to this effect. Professor James Orr stated "fragments of these hymns are believed to be found in such passages as Eph. 5:14, I Tim. 3:16". (The Early Church p. 23). That which should be emphasized, for it is unquestionable, is that in the Epistles are to be found very frequent quotations from the Book of Psalms and numbers of these extracts are very long.

Further, it should be borne in mind that all religious poems are not hymns. If it could be shown, and it cannot, that in Eph. 5:14 and I Tim. 3:16 there are fragments of Christian poems, that in itself would lend no support to the theory that those poems were employed in Christian worship.

Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs
The Apostle Paul when calling for orderliness to characterise the worship in the church in Corinth wrote, "when ye come together, everyone of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine . . ." I Cor. 14:26. Thus we see that psalms were in use in the Corinthian Church, and the Apostle made no reference to hymns. In James 5:13 the pertinent advice is given, "Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing Psalms." Most of the psalms are expressive of joy and thanksgiving. James exhorts Christians to sing psalms especially when they are joyful. In addition to those already dealt with, there are other portions of Scripture which refer to the matter or substance of praise. There is Colossians 3:16 "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 you hearts to the Lord." Advocates of hymns in worship claim that this Scripture warrants the employment of hymns as well as psalms in praising God. On the other hand there are those who strongly hold that in this portion of Scripture believers are exhorted to sing only psalms in rendering praise to God.

There is a kindred passage: Ephes. 5:18-19: "Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves (better, 'to one another') in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." As these two portions of Scripture are in certain respects parallel, they will be dealt with conjointly. Both passages have reference: (a) to "psalms, hymn and spiritual songs"; (b) to the singing of them; (c) to the singing from the heart; (d) to offering this praise "to the Lord"; (e) to benefiting one another in the singing of praise.

In Col. 3:16 the statement introductory to praising God is "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly", whereas in Eph 5:18 it is - "Be filled with the Spirit". These statements are by no means mutually exclusive but complementary, for he who has the word of Christ dwelling in him in rich measure, is surely filled with the Spirit; the converse is equally true. These preliminary observations should enable us to perceive more clearly the meaning of these two passages of Scripture.

The word "psalm", which is derived from the Greek word psalmos, is a translation of the Hebrew term mizmor, which is the title standing at the head of fifty-seven of the psalms. Thus it is evident that not every psalm has the superscription "psalm". But it is this word which has come to be the designation of the whole book. Therefore we speak of the "Book of Psalms", the Jews called the entire book the "Book of Psalms", and the Lord Jesus used this designation, e.g., the Saviour declared "and David himself saith in the Book of Psalms . . ." (Luke 20:42).

Thus we see that although the one hundred and fifty units are called in the Scriptures the Book of Psalms, only fifty-seven of them bear the superscription psalm (mizmor) in the Hebrew Old Testament. The title which the Book of Psalms bears in Hebrew is Sepher Tehillim - the Book of Praises. It is this Hebrew word tehillim, which is rendered hymns in the New Testament. Numbers of the psalms in the Hebrew bear the superscription Shir, which is rendered by the English word song. All this indicates that the words "psalms", "hymns", "songs", which appear in Ephes. 5 and Col. 3 are titles borne by different psalms. This shows that the exhortations in these portions of Scripture have reference to the contents of the Book of Psalms and to nothing else. Indeed the New Testament contains no reference to uninspired hymns.

The question may be raised, why did not the apostle, when referring to the substance of praise, use the simple designation "psalms", and thus obviate any cause of perplexity? There are several replies to this query. One is that the use of the three terms - psalms, hymns and songs - when rightly understood, should occasion no perplexity. Another reply is that the Scriptures elsewhere furnish a clearly parallel use of terms. The Jews sometimes termed the whole of the Old Testament "the law", sometimes "the law and the prophets", and sometimes ''the law, the prophets and the psalms". In John 10:34 it is recorded "Jesus answered them, is it not written in your law, I said ye are gods?" Yet the quotation He made was from Psalm 82:6. We read in Matt. 23:40 the words of Christ - "on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets". The Lord Jesus when speaking to His followers after His resurrection declared, "all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms concerning me." (Luke 24:44). On this occasion Christ purposely used the three terms to denote the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures. We, taking a superficial view, might have expected Him to use a single comprehensive term. We may be sure that the apostle, in writing to the Ephesian and Colossian Churches, purposely employed the three terms - psalms, hymns and songs - to give added clarity and force to his directions. Certainly those to whom he wrote knew that the exhortation was to prasie God with the contents of the Book of Psalms.

The Apostle's method is similar to the way in which Acts of Parliament and legal documents are phrased, e.g., "in any box, chest, carton or other container", i.e., he is being precise, avoiding any misunderstanding - he wants the people to know that he includes all of the one hundred and fifty "psalms".

Seeing that the injunction was to sing "psalms, hymns and spiritual songs", the adjective "spiritual" merits our attention. Prof. C. J. Ellicott, D.D., an acknowledged scholar, says that "spiritual" means "such as the Holy Spirit inspired and gave utterance to" (vide Commentary on Ephesians). Dr. Charles Hodge stated that the word "most commonly means derived from the Spirit". (Commentary on 1st Corinthians, p. 173). We know that the psalms, hymns and songs which constitute the Book of Psalms were all given by the Holy Spirit, even as David declared: "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue" (II Sam. 23:2). No hymn-writer, unless daringly presumptuous, would make any such claim on behalf of his own compositions.

Further, we must treat of the application of this adjective "spiritual". The rendering in our Authorised Version makes it qualify only "songs"; but in the Greek language when an adjective is placed immediately after two or more nouns, it has application to all the preceding nouns. It is placed after all three nouns in Eph. 5:19 and Col. 3:16. Therefore an exact rendering of the passage "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" is "spiritual psalms, spiritual hymns and spiritual songs". This is illustrated in II Thess. 2:17, "and establish you in every good word and work". The adjective "good" in the original Greek is placed last and transliterated the passage would read, "establish you in every word and work, good". Our translators recognising that "good" qualified "word" as well as "work" correctly rendered the passage. Had the translators acted consistently and with due observance of Greek syntax they would have made the adjective "spiritual" in Eph. 5 and Col. 3 qualify psalms, hymns and songs. Also, we have already seen that these three terms were given to different psalms in the original Hebrew. It may be noted that the first translation of the Old Testament, the Greek Septuagint version, made approximately 200 B.C., conserves psalms, hymns and songs as titles of the contents of the Book of Psalms.

In this connection we now deal with the introductory statement in Col. 3: 16: Let this "word of Christ dwell in you richly". What is this "word of Christ"? In I Pet. 1:11 it is stated that "the spirit of Christ" was in the Old Testament prophets and through them testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory which should follow. If, as is definitely stated, the Spirit of Christ testified these things through the prophets, then Christ was the real Author of those Scriptures. Prominent among those prophecies, which so testified concerning Christ, is the Book of Psalms, and therefore Christ is the Author of the Psalms. It was with this fact in mind that the Apostle Paul exhorted his fellow-Christians to let the word of Christ dwell in them richly for he immediately referred to the contents of the Book of Psalms as "psalms, hymns and songs". In singing them they would sing "the word of Christ", and by meditating upon them they would have that word of Christ, the psalms, dwelling in them in rich measure. Thus we see that psalms, hymns and songs in Col. 3:16 are in apposition with "the word of Christ". The Christian Church of today would do well to regain that reverence, which characterised the apostolic church, for all parts of the Scriptures. Then instead of criticising the Book of Psalms and other portions of the Scriptures, the Church would view the Scriptures with wonder, awe and reverence.

It should be very obvious that in the early Christian Church the singing of the Psalms was congregational, as in the synagogues, and had no instrumental accompaniments, and no officially appointed choirs. It should be equally obvious that the Psalter is the only manual of praise sanctioned by Scripture. Bishop Westcott wrote "the Psalter in its fulness belongs to no special time." Bishop Pollock of Norwich declared "the Psalms will alway be the best hymn-book of the Church" (Islington Clerical Conference, 1938, p. 8).

The meaning of inspired
The Church in the Apostolic era clearly differentiated between inspiration and illumination. Today the Church has so blurred the distinction that many have come to regard these terms as synonymous. For example, many say that God inspired good persons to write hymns. This usage of the verb "inspired" is not Biblical. Inspiration guarantees infallibility. The word "inspired" in Scripture means God-breathed. This indicates that the words are given by God, and therefore express the mind of God with divine accuracy. This is the claim which the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments make for themselves. John Bunyan was illuminated by the Spirit of God to write many helpful books, especially The Pilgrims Progress. But this wonderful allegory is not inspired; if it were, it necessarily would possess as much authority as the Scriptures. Bunyan rightly did not claim inspiration for his writings, but David the psalmist did, when he said, "the Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue" (II Sam. 23:2). When David sought divine light, in order that he might understand better the Word of God, he prayed for illumination thus, "open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law" (Ps l19:18).

The Apostles, as we have seen earlier in this section, had been promised inspiration by the Lord Jesus, and they rightly claimed it. The true minister of the Gospel may justly claim to be illuminated by the Spirit of God, but it would be presumption for him to claim that his words are inspired or God-breathed. People who think lightly or contemptuously of the Biblical doctrine of verbal inspiration, and regard it as something mechanical would do well to consider that in order to guarantee divine accuracy in the expression of divine truth, the words must be divinely given. We could not be assured of accuracy, if God gave only the thoughts to His penmen and left it to themselves to choose the words. Moreover the Scriptures claim for themselves verbal inspiration. The prophets made this claim for their statements, so did Christ and His apostles, as may be seen in the following selected Scriptures. The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah each testified that the Lord said to him, "I have put my words into thy mouth: (Isa. 51:16, Jer. 1:9); David declared, His word was in my tongue" (II Sam. 23:2); the Lord Jesus said, "the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life" (John 6:63); the Apostle Paul affirmed that he spoke "not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth" (I Cor. 2:13). The Biblical doctrine of inspiration guarantees the infallible accuracy of the Scriptures.