A reader writes concerning instrumental music in worship. We do appreciate the interest shown in this subject, and the fact that he was concerned enough to write. He suggests the "harps" spoken of in the book of Revelation authorizes the use of mechanical instruments in our worship today.
We need to note that the book of Revelation is a book of symbols. The record says these things were signified unto John (Rev. 1:1). The word signify comes from the word "sign." A thing that is signified is set forth as a sign. A symbol cannot symbolize itself. The harps, therefore, must be a sign of something else.
"And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder: and the voice which I heard was as the voice of harpers harping with their harps" (Rev. 14:2, ASV).
Did John hear water? No, he heard a voice. Did he hear thunder? No, he heard a voice. He heard a voice as waters. He heard a voice as thunder. He heard a voice "as the voice of harpers harping with their harps." We know the difference between saying a thing "is" and saying it was "as." The passage merely makes a comparison.
The one hundred forty-four thousand redeemed from the earth were singing a new song. In its mighty volume, it was as the voice of many waters and as thunder. The sweetness of the melody was "as harpers harping with their harps."
What were they doing? They were singing. It doesn't' say they were singing and playing. It says, "And they sung a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders; and no man could learn that song but the one hundred forty four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth" (Rev. 14:3). If that proves anything, it proves we are only to sing, not sing and play instruments of music.
Then of Rev. 15:2-3, the reader writes: "They were singing the song of Moses accompanied with the harps that God provided them." But look at verse 1: "And I saw another sign in heaven . . ." A sign means it is something else. This could not be literal any more than the angels and those martyred saints could be physical. The harps here as in the preceding visions, were the symbol of perfect harmony of the redeemed voices singing the song of Moses and the Lamb (v. 3). In Rev. 6:9, John said, "I saw under the alter the souls of them that were slain for the word of God . . ." They didn't have literal, physical bodies or harps. What would a soul do with a physical harp? Paul says in speaking of the resurrection of the dead, "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" (I Cor. 15:44).
If it could be proven, and it can't, that there were literal instruments of music in heaven, the Bible nowhere authorizes its use in our worship to God. The use cannot be by faith (Rom. 10-17). "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23).
"If any man speak let him speak of the oracles of God" (I Pet. 4:11).
Don H. Noblin
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