Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs

Christ by the Holy Spirit has bequeathed to us the most glorious and wonderful way of talking with Him.  It is by the Spirit.  The manner of doing so is set out in the following scriptures and writing.   Every believer sealed by the Spirit, has within him in the Spirit, the right to this. 

Let us find our answers from what Paul says in the scriptures we should now look at.  Only the Word has the answer.  We do not expect to follow any special revelation or anything that may come from outside the covers of the New Testament.   The source must be Divine.  That source has already been established as being the Word of Christ that we consider correctly, to be the infallible Word of God given to us as the Bible.    We read -

Ephesians 5:15-20

The unsaved are unwise.  We are not to walk as those unwise ones but as the wise who know Christ.  Matthew 7:24 shows those who build on Christ the Rock, are wise.  Also, 1 Corinthians 1:24,30; "Christ the wisdom of God"; "Christ is made unto us righteousness, wisdom, sanctification and redemption".

We are to be careful to not waste time; verse 16,"making the most of the time".  The days in which we live are full of wickedness, "Wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived", 2 Timothy 3:13.  Instead of looking for a revival that is nowhere promised in the New Testament, the church living righteously should be looking only for souls to be added to the Kingdom.  Let us say that "the Kingdom" is in the organized church but it cannot be equated with the church as we see it.

    We need the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in churches according to 1 Corinthians 12-14.   In verse 6, KJV “diversities of operations”.  It is really “workings”, “the effect of a thing performed or operated”.  They are the outward manifestations and results of spiritual gifts.  It is the same God who does this.  He “works all things in all”.   It is the Triune God who does this, the Holy Spirit, the Lord Christ and God the Father, verses 3-7.   These gifts are for the good of all in attendance. 

    The gifts are manifested mainly through the believers or ministers prayer in other tongues.  They are one result of this kind of praying.   This is to be a very important feature of the church of Jesus Christ.   There is not one verse of Scripture that tells us these gifts ceased when the Apostles all died.  We are living imperfect lives, in an imperfect world, with an imperfect church and with our very beings still imperfect.  “That which is perfect” of 1 Corinthians 13:8-10.  evidently has not come.

 Therefore, we should be following Truth and the Spirit, having our eyes on the cross of Calvary and its finished work.  We should know 1 Timothy 4:1,2, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron"; 2 Timothy 4:34, "For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths".  Most Tele-evangelists in the West, are in this category.  Be warned and do not listen to them.

It is obvious that every error that has come into the organized church, whether orthodox, Pentecostal or charismatic, has its roots in their adherence to the Old Testament.   We should learn from the Old but only as it is filtered through the New Testament truths.  This tendency is obvious in doctrine, church practices, and its futuristic theology of all descriptions and in its so-called "worship" (that based on the "Tabernacle of David" teaching that includes instruments, dancing and singing).  The erroneous teaching of the "Restoration of David's Tabernacle" has led, in Australia, U.S.A. and Great Britain, to worldly rock music, jumping up and down and entertainment in the services.  We are under the New Covenant with its worship to be in the Holy Ghost as Jesus said in John 4:24, worshipping “in Spirit and in Truth”.

James has already told us what the restoration of the Tabernacle of David is.  It has nothing to do with music or worship or with anything David did.  It concerns David’s Greater Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  At one time at the beginning of the church’s history, there was a conference in Jerusalem.  The apostles and elders (bishops or pastors) were to consider the matter of Gentile believers and whether they should be circumcised as was the custom of the Jews.   The Judaizers proclaimed the need of circumcision in the furtherance of the gospel.

They debated long about it.  Then Peter told them how the Gentiles had been given the Holy Spirit just as the Jews had.  Their hearts were cleansed by faith.  It was without circumcision.  It was salvation by grace alone.  Then Barnabas and Paul related how God had done signs and wonders through them among the Gentiles.  These were wonderful healings and miracles. 

 All this was followed by James having his turn that became the final and ultimate decision by them all, in relation to the Gentiles.  He confirmed what Simon Peter had related as to how God had taken from among the Gentiles a people for His name.  He then declared how this coming in of the Gentiles agreed with what the prophets had said.   He quoted Amos 9:12 that is the verse used by the proponents of the Restoration of David’s Tabernacle as being a restoration of his music, worship and kind of prophecy.  This is what he said –

Acts 15:15-18, “ After this I will return, And I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen; From its ruins I will rebuild it, And I will set it up:

So that all other peoples may seek  the Lord, even all the Gentiles, over whom my name has been called,

Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things known from long ago. “

James had the revelation that David’s tabernacle (poetical term for the throne of David)  would find its fulfilment or restoration in the Lord Jesus Christ.   He is the One who sits on the throne of David forever.  His Kingdom has come.  It is not only for Jews although it is for them first of all, i.e. the remnant who would believe in Christ.  It is also for the Gentiles who have received the gospel of Christ in His Name.

Failure to understand these scriptures in Amos and Acts that are confirmed by Isaiah 11:1 where God says a shoot, meaning Christ, would grow out of it, has caused this grievous misunderstanding called the teaching on “Restoration of David’s Tabernacle”.

Worship, life and practice under the New Covenant are far more advanced than what was given under the Old.  The saints of old did not have the priceless and wonderful manifestations of the Spirit that we have.  Therefore, we should value what the New Testament teaches about this.  We should not be hankering after the Old.  Let us have faith, love and obedience to Christ to follow the treasures of the New.  This is our inheritance in Christ.

  I might mention that the rock music around Australian churches was introduced because two ex-rock singers, at different periods, influenced the leadership in a now large church, to change its style to something that the world could align itself to.  That conception brought in rock based and contemporary songs, non-scriptural words in many cases, the worldly beat, the bands all along with the prancing rock singers.  It cold remind us of the Laodeceans who took on the culture of their time and city.  It made Jesus say to them “Because you are neither hot nor cold I will vomit you out of my mouth”.   Strangely, the city of Laodecea was totally destroyed in the third century, never to exist again.

 That is not Holy Ghost worship.  It has never, to my knowledge, produced any kind of real anointing of the Spirit of God.  It has gone all over Australia.  Sadly this is in the main Pentecostal denomination, no longer Pentecostal, together with other denominations that follow along with this worldly, non anointed, non Holy Ghost so-called "Praise and Worship".  "A little yeast (sin) leavens the whole batch of dough"   Many would say that it has produced an influx of youth in some places.  That is true.  Many do get saved.  Each one can judge for himself.  In other places of the world that do not use this kind of music, there have been far larger influxes of souls.

The emphasis has shifted from being filled with the Spirit as laid out in the Epistles and by Jesus in the Gospels, to getting together for “Praise and Worship” with a worship team on the platform, performing like the world.

David emphasized praise and indeed praise and thanks are due to God.   However, he did not experience being filled with the Spirit and speaking in other tongues.  Today, many of us have and if we have not we should.  The New Testament emphasizes being filled with the Spirit.

  Hebrews 13:14 tells us ”Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.”   It reminds us of Hosea 10:2 where it is translated “bulls”.  We do not offer bulls in sacrifice as Jesus is our sacrifice.  However, we offer through our lips a sacrifice of praise.  We confess the name of Jesus.  We make sacrifice.  

If we  look at Ephesians 5: 17 , we see that the warning goes out not to be foolish but wise.  In wisdom of the Lord we will understand the will of the Lord as is revealed in the Word of God.  We will not follow the works of darkness from the world or from false preachers.  Their works are works of darkness.

In Ephesians 5:18, Paul warns against drunkenness, similar to those who are in debauchery.  That is what the heathen in those days did.  Today, it is common in many countries.  We are not to follow the old paths of sin.  We have been redeemed from them.  We live in the light.  Instead, Paul shows the opposite to what being drunk is.  Certainly, it is not "drunk in the Spirit".  There is no such term in the Scriptures.  How can we connect any kind of so-called drunkenness to the Holy Spirit?

 Instead, says Paul, we are to be filled (be continually filled) with the Spirit.  With Paul, the connection to being filled with the Spirit is always made to his speaking in other tongues.  This should be our common experience, praying in other tongues.  Being filled with the Spirit always has some expression in prayer in other tongues, then a praying in the Spirit in one's own language.  At all times prayer is to be in the Spirit, whether in tongues or one's own language.

  As verse 19 has stated we are to be filled with the Spirit and this involves speaking in other tongues, and in this among other things, we “sing psalms (poems/words of praise) and hymns (telling of His wondrous Being and works) and spiritual songs (some new song from the Spirit but totally in accord with the Word of God).

 All kinds of prayers are to be by the spirit, Ephesians 6:18.  Also see 1 Corinthians 14:2, 4.  In verses 5-10, Paul teaches about the Gifts of Tongues, Interpretation and Prophecy in the church.  In verse 14, he teaches about praying in tongues, "For if I pray in a tongues, my spirit prays, but my mind is unproductive (he does not understand or use his mind)".  Then he shows how we can pray in tongues and then pray in the Spirit using words that our mind understands.  Verse 18, "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you".  As RWP says, "An astonishing claim that doubtless had an effect on them!"

A church of believers filled with the Spirit, verse 19, will  also follow the translation, "sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks … for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ..."  Notice praise, worship and thanks are to be "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ..."  This all could be called worship.  What exactly is meant? 

Speaking to yourselves in psalms –  This is not to one another.  The New KJV correctly says “to yourselves”.   We do not worship or sing to one another most of the time in this area.  It is “to yourselves” as Paul with remarks of illumination to us says in 1 Corinthians 14:28  about speaking in tongues “to himself” or “holding converse with himself”.   We perform this act to ourselves, personally.

We can now after many years see what is the exact difference between these three expressions, “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs”.  First of all, there is  psalms, ψαλμοι,  I do not think it means those of David.   Firstly, Paul would have said either “a”, “the” or “Old Testament” Psalms.  He did not.  A psalm is a religious song having the form of an Old Testament Psalm.  That would be one showing forth the experiences, the victories, the faith, the intervention of the Lord, His salvation, praise, worship, His death and resurrection and such Psalm themes.

We should notice the difference between the Psalms of David and the psalms we are to sing by the Spirit.  David was under the Old Covenant, singing psalms inspired by the Spirit of Christ and we are under the New.  Therefore, our psalms must go through Jesus.  There is a difference.

Let us note Hebrews 13:8, 13 – “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever – We have an altar at which the ministers of the Jewish tent of worship have no right to eat – So then through Christ, then, (in His Name) let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess His name 0r the fruit of lips that celebrate His Name”.  His Name is Jesus.

Barnes has made this comment:

“By him, therefore - The Jews approached God by the blood of the sacrifice and by the ministry of their high priest. The exhortation of the apostle here is founded on the general course of argument in the Epistle “In view of all the considerations presented respecting the Christian High Priest - his dignity, purity, and love; his sacrifice and his intercession, let us persevere in offering through him praise to God.” That is, let us persevere in adherence to our religion in Christ Jesus.

 These are different psalms we are to sing according to this Scripture.  David offered animal sacrifices.  Our sacrifice is that of Christ Himself on the cross.  His blood in heaven speaks for us.  When he offered sacrifices it had to be through the Levitical priests.  We have no need of such.   Our Hight Priest, Jesus Christ, is in heaven on our behalf, a Priest according to the Order of Melchizedek, not the Order of Moses and Levi.  David introduced into the Old Testament worship a feature of praise and worship that had been missing.  It was a type of what we have been given as the anti-type under the New Testament.   Our worship is to be far more blessed and extensive.

 There is a feature that we all have missed.  The previous verse. 5:18, says, “Be filled with the Spirit”.  The three relate to being filled with the Spirit.  Ordinary psalm singing, hymn singing and chorus singing are not done because we are filled with the Spirit.  Mostly they are performed in a  prosaic way or emotionally, only.

 To Paul, being filled with the Spirit always implies prayer in other tongues, 1 Corinthians 14:14,15 “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays.  I will pray with the spirit; I will sing praise with the spirit”.  The early church for one hundred years, each meeting, would pray aloud together in other tongues.  They would worship together aloud in other tongues.  Paul definitely intends that we speak in other tongues and sing in other tongues.  Then we also sing psalms as explained above, in our own tongue.

Before singing psalms and hymns by the Spirit, we should, if necessary, first of all pray in other tongues that Paul means about being  filled with the Spirit.

Hymns - Υμνοις· "Extemporaneous (without preparation) effusions (pouring forth of words) in praise of God, uttered under the influence of the Divine Spirit, or a sense of His special goodness".  See Acts 16:25  We should note  the following remarks.

Spiritual Songs – The use in Greek of Ωιδαις denotes words, that it is of a metrical composition and that it is a song.  Being “Spiritual” they are songs directly of the Holy Spirit.  This indicates they are the words of the Spirit from our spirits, having metrical composition and being a song.  This is  tending to magnify God and edify.  It is indicative of the  Spirit’s presence imparting the true anointing.  This means that we are to sing in other tongues.  It is a joy and a grace of God to be enabled to sing in this way.  We magnify and praise the Lord and at the same time edify ourselves.

  Being filled with the Spirit will always involve praise and thanks to God.  Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:15 “I will sing praise with my spirit”.  The previous verse indicates that with him, when his spirit was involved in communion with God, it was in a tongue or language of the Holy Spirit from his spirit.

  We should not forget that all these things we are to do only happen because we are “filled with the Spirit” as in the preceding verse where we are commanded to “Be filled with the Spirit”. How much we have missed of the purposes of God.  How little we have understood and still do in our churches today, of the glories of what the Spirit is to bring to us and lead us into.   The emphasis should not be on our natural music but on our supernatural worship, singing, praying, praising and glorifying the God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

  Regarding this passage of Scripture, these psalms are not The Psalms of the Old Testament.  The hymns are not our church hymns and choruses.  The songs are not the songs of our choirs or soloists.  They are something far more heavenly and glorious.  We fall far short of this and deprive ourselves, the church and the world of the glories of the Presence of God by the Spirit.  I write this knowing that most churches will not listen.  However, there are those beloved ones with humble and contrite hearts who are willing to learn what “the Spirit says to the churches” in Ephesians about it.

 May there be preachers by the grace of God who will learn and experience the truths of these verses in Ephesians.  May they preach as with a golden trumpet, the same truths to others and by the Spirit lead them into this same experience  as they are all filled with the Spirit.    It can be so.  Let us join in faith that it will happen.

Singing and making melody in your heart –  A comment goes like this, "The heart always going with the lips.  It is a shocking profanation of Divine worship to draw nigh to God with the lips, while the heart is far from him.  It is too often the case that, in public worship, men are carried off from the sense of the words by the sounds that are put to them.  And how few choirs of singers are there in the universe whose hearts ever accompany them in what they call singing the praises of God!" 

However, one thing this quotation omits is  "Singing in the Spirit".  To understand this, we need again to go to 1 Corinthians 14.  This time, we look at verse 15.  "I will sing praise with the spirit".  This obviously refers to Paul's spirit that is in filled by the Holy Spirit.  "I will sing praise with the mind also".  Going back to our previous explanation on this chapter, we have to say that "singing with the spirit" is singing in other tongues and that "singing with the mind" is singing with words in one's own language that come from the Holy Spirit as we use our minds.  Taking this back to Ephesians 5:18,19, it is obvious that in the congregation, there are individuals who sing songs in other tongues and in their own languages.  Also, from Romans 8:26, we understand that the whole congregation sings songs of the Spirit ("spirit'ual songs"), that is they sing together from the Spirit in other tongues.

 Do not be surprised to hear this explanation.  I myself have experienced it personally, in my own ministry and in the ministry of others, where the whole congregation will sing together in other tongues.  Romans 8:26 reads, "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray (includes praise/worship) as we ought but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs that baffle words" (words from our minds) or "unutterable" by us from our own minds.  The words we speak in prayer or worship thus are words from the Holy Spirit, i.e. other tongues.  What poverty and disobedience with rebellion, in the church's worship!  Jesus said, John 4:24, "They who worship the Father must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth".  Many churches do not even have  much Truth, let alone worship in the Spirit!

History records the Early Church for the first 150 years of its existence, prayed and worshipped in other tongues out aloud, together, in every meeting.  Why are we so unbelieving and disobedient today?

"Making melody in your heart" deserves notice.  "Heart" refers to the spirit of man, particularly in the New Testament.  We should remember that there is a change under the New Covenant.  The Old Covenant had a different system, order and experience, albeit a prelude or even type of the New.  Consider David, under the Old Covenant.  His experience was not one of being born again, as we are.  He did not have an understanding of the mystery of the gospel or of Christ.  He was not baptized in the Holy Spirit.  He sang songs and played music, "by the Spirit of God".

 These Psalms he was inspired to produce were used for worship in his Old Testament Tabernacle.  The worship there was not the kind “in Spirit and in Truth” that Jesus spoke about.  It involved mainly singing in Hebrew, with orchestras and even dancers.  It was interspersed occasionally with prophetic songs, as the Spirit rested upon individuals.  This was an external form of worship.  Some of the Psalms were used in procession as they went up on the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles.  They sang them as they proceeded onwards.

 During that feast and the others, there was always the sacrifice of animals, as shown in Leviticus 23:37 “These are the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you shall celebrate as times of holy convocation, for presenting to the Lord offe4rings by fire – burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its proper day”.  In verses 18, 19, the Lord set out the numbers in that particular case of seven lambs, one young bull, two rams – one goat, two lambs. These were the ordained sacrifices.

We are not under any of the above system.  The Old Covenant has finished forever.  We are under the New Covenant.   Jesus Christ was offered on the cross of Calvary as the only sacrifice for sin.  We quote Hebrews 9:26, “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself”.  We do not offer animal sacrifices nor follow the worship form of David. 

 Now worship is not external but internal, to be offered in Spirit and in Truth and regardless of any particular so-called holy place.  It is to occur because we are to be all filled with the Spirit as David and the Old Testament saints never were, not having that same privilege then that we have now.  

The  His testimony on his death-bed was, 2 Samuel 23:1-2, "Now these are the last words of David; The oracle of David, son of Jesse, the oracles of the man whom God exalted, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the favourite of the Strong One of Israel; The spirit of the Lord speaks through me, his word is upon my tongue".  His experience could not come up to ours under the New Covenant.  We are born again of the Sprit of God, Christ lives in us and we are to be filled with the Spirit in line with the experience of Paul and not of David.

 Then again, there is Mary, the mother of Jesus.  In Luke 1:47, she said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour".  Later on, she experienced the infilling of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost with the others.  She then came into the area of knowing the "power" of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, which basically is speaking in other tongues, from one's spirit.  It is not from one's soul and is as described by Paul, 1Corinthians 14:14,  "my spirit prays".

 Most people baptized in the Spirit in services, leave the area of the spirit and stay in the area of the soul.  This is non-spiritual.  The soul as the source is always carnal, even though it be often with real emotions.   Jesus told Peter that what was of man was of Satan.  Even rock concerts are full of emotion, being raw emotion and Satanically inspired.

 We are to worship the Lord in the Spirit, from the spirit and not from the soul.  The spirit of the born-again person, filled with the Holy Spirit, will influence the soul in its emotion and expression but the soul will never be the base.  It is to be the spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit.

 Even ordinary hymns, can have the expression of the spirit filled with the Holy Spirit, as we sing.  This is impossible with the present contemporary, charismatic music that often contains unscriptural and un-spiritual content.  Whole churches do not know what Spirit-filled worship is!  All in the name of erecting opulent buildings as churches, filled with a great crowd giving millions to the organization!  Whether they all will make heaven is another matter.  They certainly are not making it to the Bible standard!  Are we personally?  We will have to answer individually when we stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, as all believers must do.

We are to be giving thanks to God with our lips, for what He has done for us and is doing for us, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.