A
Special Exegesis of Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16
Prof. John McNaugher, D. D., LL.D., Allegheny, Pennsylvania, USA
(with some
modifications of capitalization, punctuation, abbreviations etc.)
As
even a glace at their contents shows, the epistle to the Ephesians and
that to the Colossians are closely alike. About half of the verses in
the former have parallels in the latter, and there are other
resemblances as well. This twinship is explained when it is remembered
that the two letters were written at the same time and to communities
similarly circumstanced. Among the coincidences in thought and language
are to be numbered the texts under study, which almost repeat each
other.
Turning to these duplicate exhortations, it appears at once that they
are of peculiar interest in that they yield a glimpse of the simple
worship of primitive days … True, the question has been raised whether
they have to do with worship at all, whether Paul is not touching merely
upon the intercourse of believers in their family life, at their
love-feasts, their social gatherings, and other meetings, and suggesting
mutual edification by song. On this mooted point the common verdict is
that the main, though not exclusive, reference is to the stated services
of the public assembly, which seem to have been of a free and elastic
nature. That worship, as well as joint instruction, is in mind is
indicated by the concluding words in each citation—“singing with
grace in your hearts unto God,” “singing and making melody with your
heart to the Lord.”
With the foregoing inquiry answered, it may be added as beyond doubt
that all the resources of the early church as regards her treasury of
sacred song are embraced in the “psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs” here mentioned. In the three terms the inventory is evidently
complete. Here then are classical passages which must be consulted in
connection with any investigation into the hymnology of the apostolic
period, passages which have a decisive bearing, therefore, on what
compositions may be employed properly in the ordinance of praise.
As to their meaning, there has been pronounced disagreement. The
advocates of uninspired songs in worship look on them as strongholds,
arguing therefrom that in the age of the apostles the Psalter was
supplemented by new lyrics, and that therefore, as a necessary
consequence, the legitimacy of the modern hymn is established. Some
writers on this side declare themselves in a very dogmatic way,
dismissing lightly the idea of contradiction. On the other hand, it is
alleged that there is no cause for supposing that Paul’s “hymns and
spiritual songs” were anything different from the canonical Psalms,
and that there is no license here for the use of other devotional pieces
than the Psalms in the worship of God. The latter is the view which will
be upheld in this exegesis. It challenges the opposite interpretation as
being but a surmise, and offers a series of substantial reasons for its
own correctness.
To begin with, it should be realized that present usage as regards the
debated terms plays no part in fixing their sense. One can be misled by
the seemingly familiar phraseology, and think forthwith of the hard and
fast distinction now made between Psalms and hymns. But we are
deciphering what was penned in A. D. 61 or 62, long centuries before any
of the uninspired productions in the hymnals of today were extant. In
order, therefore, to make these lines intelligible, we must transport
ourselves back into that past to which Paul and his readers belong, and
there undertake our exposition with open-mindedness and cautious
discrimination.
As an approach toward identifying the poems intended by these
designations, there is clear evidence at hand that all of them were
divinely inspired, indicted under the extraordinary influence of the Holy
Spirit. Preliminary to what is deemed decisive proof, certain
considerations which go to make this important claim a strong
probability may be adduced.
1. First, in these verses the direction given is not to prepare or
provide songs of praise, but only to sing them. On this we must be
permitted to insist. But in the absence of an express warrant for so
doing, would not these Asia Minor Christians have been chary about
writing original hymns for rendition in worship, when the Psalter,
written on the mountain-tops of inspiration, and full of the things of
God, was everywhere, as is allowed, a congregational handbook? Is it
likely that any, self-advised and unaided, would have had the temerity
or the desire to attempt such an innovation?
2. Furthermore, had any of Gentile extraction exercised this liberty,
would it not have excited strong protest among their Jewish brethren?
The first converts to Christianity were generally Jews. These formed the
beginnings of the churches in the towns and cities of the Roman Empire,
and for a time they must have had prestige and privileged position. They
brought with them from the synagogue the highly cherished Psalms, those
Psalms which were associated with their holiest traditions, and which
were known to have been meet for the Master’s use, and thereby doubly
consecrated. Clinging to these with an inherited reverence, they must
have resented vigorously an uninspired Gentile hymnody. The fact,
therefore, that on the subject of praise there is not the slightest echo
of discord or controversy in the apostolic church, indicates that there
was no intrusion of any alien element.
3. Again, it is altogether improbable that hymnists, as measured by even
human standards, could be found in the churches of this date. The
Gentile members, within whose circle the search is confined, had been
but recently rescued form the ignorance and pollution of heathenism, and
they had immature, often faulty, understanding of religious doctrine.
Their literary capabilities, too, must have been limited, for “not
many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, were
called.” Indeed, the low social status of the early Christians was the
standing reproach of hostile critics. All this being true, where are we
to find the mellow piety, the spiritual discernment, the education, and
the poetic genius and art which must be taken for granted if uninspired
songs fit to be named alongside the Psalms are here in mind? Men who
deny the genuineness of Ephesians and Colossians allege that the
reference is to just such songs, and then proceed to conclude that for
this very reason, among others, these epistles betray themselves as
later than the apostolic era.
4.
Moreover, if the Psalms of Scripture are intended by the word
“psalms,” as is assumed for the present, it is quite unthinkable
that Paul would link human compositions with those of the Spirit of God,
and direct that they be used for the same end. It is true that in most
hymnals the inspired and the uninspired are intermixed, regardless of
the chasm in thought and tone which separates them. Occasionally, owing
to more conservatism and a finer appreciation of the proprieties, this
confusion is modified to the extent that the Psalms are kept together
and assigned the first pages. But all of this is neither here nor there.
We are interpreting Paul, and he had exact conceptions of inspiration.
It was he who distinguished the Old Testament writings, inclusive of the
“God-breathed” literature, clothed with inviolable sanctity (II Tim.
3:16). It was he who described himself, an apostle of the new covenant,
as receiving truth by divine revelation, and as giving it utterance
“not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit
teacheth” (I Cor. 2:13). It seems incredible, therefore, that in this
instance he should trample upon a distinction which elsewhere he guards
jealously and put uninspired songs in competition with those inspired as
having equal teaching worth.
What has been noticed thus far affords cogent grounds for the belief
that the hymns and spiritual songs of our passages were all of inspired
quality. The crowning demonstration of this, however, lies in the
descriptive term, “spiritual.” It matters nothing in the argument
whether this adjective is taken as limiting each of the preceding words
or not. There are those who think that it extends to the “psalms”
and “hymns,” an opinion which is not out of harmony with Greek
syntax. But, of course, there is no rule demanding this, and on the
other hand, as will appear later, there is sufficient reason for
restricting “spiritual” to “songs” alone. At the same time it
reflects character on all the compositions of praise here specified. The
three words may be synonyms, as we prefer to think, or it may be said
with Meyer that the spiritual songs are the genus, of which the psalms
and hymns are the species, or “spiritual songs” may denote the
lowest class of a triple category. In any event, when the phrase
“spiritual” is defined, it is certain that the “psalms” and
“hymns,” no less than the “songs,” are duly characterized.
Now what is the import of the word? In answer to this pivotal question
we affirm that the Greek original, which is pneumatikos, has no
such latitude of meaning as “spiritual” has in English, and that it
designates commonly whatever is immediately given or produced by the
Spirit of God. It is construed thus by an overwhelming majority of
critical authorities, including those of the greatest weight. A few
special citations will not be amiss. Dr. Warfield, of Princeton, writes
thus in The Presbyterian Review: “Of the
twenty-five instances in which the word occurs in the new Testament, in
no single case does it sink even as low in its reference as the human
spirit; and in twenty-four of them is derived from pneuma, the
Holy Ghost. In this sense of belonging to, or determined by, the Holy
Spirit, the New Testament usage is uniform with the one single exception
of Ephesians 6:12, where it seems to refer to the higher, though fallen,
superhuman intelligences. The appropriate translation for it in each
case is Spirit-given or Spirit-led, or Spirit-determined” (July,
1880). In The
Expositor, Dr. Warfield repeats
himself substantially, and adds that this interpretation “is gradually
becoming recognized by the best expositors” (Third Series, vol. 4, p.
137). Dr. Laidlaw, of the
United Free Church College, Edinburgh, treating the term in Hastings’ Dictionary
of the Bible, says that “everything pneumatikon, spiritual,
is a divine product or creation.” Eadie, in his Commentary on
Ephesians remarks that pneumatikos
means “produced by or belonging to the Holy Spirit,” and adds that
this is “the ruling sense of the epithet in the New Testament” (see his comment on Eph. 1:3).
Dr.
Charles Hodge, in his Commentary on First Corinthians, says: “one of the most common meaning of the
word spiritual in Scripture is derived from the Spirit. Spiritual gifts
and spiritual blessings are gifts and blessings of which the Spirit is
the author” (see his
comment on I Cor. 10:3). The same position is maintained by such New Testament
lexicographers as Cremer, Parkhurst, Robinson and Thayer, and it is
advocated in McClintock and Strong’s Encyclopedia.
Among others who comment on the word pneumatikos as it is found
elsewhere in the New Testament and advance the meaning given are Barnes,
Chalmers, Denney, Farrar, Fausset, Fronmuller (Lange Commentary),
Gifford, Godet, Gore, Hort, Kling (Lange Commentary), Moule, Neander,
Olshausen, Sandy, Schmiedel, Stanley, Moses Stuart and Marvin R.
Vincent. Coming to authorities on the passages under review, many of the
more eminent and scholarly sustain the same exegesis and account these
“spiritual songs” as inspired, “the productions of the Holy Ghost
in the department of poetry.” See the New Testament lexicons by Cremer,
by Robinson and by Thayer. From commentators on Colossians or Ephesians
we cite Alford, Beet, Braune (Lange Commentary), Cheyne, Cone, Dale,
Eadie, Ellicott, Findlay, Maclaren, Meyer, Riddle, Salmond, and Tholuck.
Hodge and Barnes are not included in this last list, and their adverse
interpretation furnishes an instructive warning of how expositors may be
swayed by personal inclination and practice. Dealing with the term in
Ephesians 5:19, Hodge writes thus: “This may mean either inspired, i.e.,
derived from the Spirit; or expressing spiritual thoughts and feelings.
This latter is the more probable.” And yet in every instance, except
this one, in which pneumatikos occurs in the New Testament books
on which he has commented, Hodge holds stoutly to the other idea of the
word, and even here he is constrained to admit it as applicable. Barnes
is guilty of the same fault.
The sum of our finding thus far is, first, that there is a body of
strong presumptive evidence for the inspiration of Paul’s “psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs,” and, second, that the adjective pneumatikos
lifts them to this high level beyond peradventure, stamping them as
written by poetically gifted men under the extraordinary impulse and
guidance of the Holy Spirit. In keeping with such a conclusion is the
following from an editorial in the North British Review, of Edinburgh:
“It is probable that, while the miraculous influences of the Spirit
continued upon earth, no uninspired songs were admitted into the public
or private devotions of Christians” (vol. 27, p. 195). Even if we went
no farther it would appear, and we so assert, that in Ephesians 5:19 and
Colossians
3:15 there is not a scintilla of warrant for the use of humanly composed
lyrics in worship. Though other inspired odes than those in the book of
Psalms should be countenanced in these passages, it were a bewildering
feat of inference that would legalize therefrom the multitudinous
hymnology of today, for this has been wrought out at the discretion, and
according to the wisdom, of fallible men. Authorization for such an
uninspired hymnology is imperatively required, but they labour in vain
who seek it here.
To overcome this objection there are some of our hymn-singing brethren
who claim that a hymn penned by a good man and embodying evangelical
sentiment may be rated as “inspired.” Thus Dr. R. McCheyne Edgar, of
Dublin, wrote recently: “His [i.e., the Holy Spirit’s] inspirations were
not exhausted when the Canon was complete; and if he inspires prayers
which have never been embodied in any prayer-book, canonical or
otherwise, is it not reasonable to believe that He has likewise inspired
the poets who have devoted themselves to sacred song, although their
‘spiritual songs’ never could be placed in the Canon?” (Progressive
Presbyterianism, p. 144). Such a contention leads to the most
perilous consequences, hiding a lurking, though an unconscious,
infidelity. It strikes at the scriptural doctrine of inspiration,
confusing it with spiritual illumination, just as was done by
Schleiermacher and his school. Inconsistent, as it is, with the faith of
the church universal, which has always made a marked distinction between
the writings of inspired men and those of ordinary believers, it merits
nothing but censure.
Estimating these “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” as all
inspired, several conjectures remain open. The first is that Paul,
having in mind the strange exaltation which pervaded the apostolic
church, alludes to new miraculous songs improvised on the spur of the
moment by those in a condition of inspired ecstasy; i.e., he alludes to
a rhythmic form of the gift of tongues. This theory has no foundation,
because:
1. A store of existing lyrics is presupposed in the language of these
passages. Evidently Paul enjoins his readers to sing what was then
accessible, and does not intimate unknown, non-existent odes, yet to be
extemporized. Moreover, the “psalms” referred to were in existence,
and the drunken songs of heathen feasts which stand in antithesis in one
of the contexts (Eph. 5:18) were ready-made. Why not these “hymns and
spiritual songs” also?
2. There is no proof that lyrical endowments were among the grace-gifts,
the charismatic activities, of the Pauline churches.
3. Paul said of the gift of tongues that it did not edify the church
except under certain limitations (I Cor. 14:1-33), and, therefore, so
far as instruction was concerned, he must have depreciated kindred
outbursts of feeling voiced in song. Here, however, he urges what is of
prime value for teaching and admonition (Col. 3:16).
Since ecstatic impromptus are not to be thought of, let us turn to
another theory, viz., that inspired songs original to the age and
prepared for general use by the apostles or other supernaturally gifted
men are referred to. This also is baseless and untenable.
1. There is no recorded divine commission in the new Testament
constituting hymnists, nor is there any promised help of the Holy Spirit
in a lyrical direction.
2. Among the diversities of gifts bestowed in rich measure at the outset
of the present dispensation there is no mention of that of sacred poesy,
and yet in Old Testament times hymn-making was just such a gift.
3. There is unbroken silence in the New Testament regarding the actual
making of such odes. The formation of an inspired hymnology was a most
important occurrence in the former economy, so that it is signalised in
the Old Testament. We might reasonably expect, therefore, that there
would have been some hint at least of a similar phenomenon in the
apostolic church, and the more because the long-standing ordinance of
psalmody would have been altered thereby.
4. Not one such hymn, nor yet a single authentic vestige of one, has
been preserved. There are no canticles in the Third Gospel, though hasty
writers speak of the “hymns of the Nativity.” The songs of the
Apocalypse are not quotations from a hymn-book, but integral parts of
the Apocalypse itself; they belong to the visions which John saw as he
was swept away into the heavens. The assertion that there are hymnic
fragments scattered over the New Testament rests on sheer conjecture, a
little euphonious Greek being all that can be cited. Dean Howson,
commentating on the conjecture that a certain passage in Romans is a
lyric quotation, says: “The fact that the passage can be broken up
into a system of irregular lines, consisting of dochmiac and choriambic
feet, proves nothing; because there is scarcely any passage in Greek
prose which might not be resolved into lyrical poetry by a similar
method; just as, in English, the columns of a newspaper may be read off
in hexameters (spondaic, or otherwise), quite as good as most of the
so-called English hexameters which are published” (Coneybeare and
Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, vol. 1, p. 195). Of an alleged
apostolic hymnody a recent critic so competent as Eduard Reuss, of
Strasburg, has said that it “cannot be proved from the doubtful traces
which have been adduced as evidence therefore [i.e., for it]” (History
of the New Testament, vol. 1, p. 162). There being no relics of an
apostolic hymnody extant, the presumption is strong that there never was
such a hymnody. Had extra-Psalmodic hymns and songs of inspired origin
been current in the early church, they could not all have perished.
5. As Cheyne states in The Encyclopedia Biblica (Article on
"Hymns"), the language of Paul presupposes a stock of songs which were
known by heart and easily rose to the lips. Is it supposable that within
a generation after the death of Christ a collection of apostolic odes
coordinate with the Psalms had crystallized into shape, and that these
were familiarly known in the churches of Asia Minor, which were less
than ten years old?
Reviewing the argument, surely it may be held as a moral certainty that
in the infant church of the New Testament there was no creation of
inspired hymns for social worship. Even though, however, the opposite
was admitted, the fact must still be faced that such productions were
short-lived and are lost beyond recall. The matter, therefore, would
remain precisely the same as to us, for no human composures can replace
what were “God-breathed.”
The ground is now cleared for insisting that the praise-songs of these
twin passages are those of the Psalter alone. As a counterpart to the
interpretations which have been negative, it is susceptible of absolute
demonstration that the three terms were applied to the Psalms of
Scripture long before Paul wrote, and that this usage was universally
prevalent in the church of his day. For the proof of this we rely
chiefly upon the Septuagint. The Jews of the Dispersion, not only in
Egypt, but in Western Asia and Europe, spoke Greek habitually. During
the third and second centuries B.C. there was made in their interest the
Greek Version of the Old Testament styled the Septuagint (LXX), so
called form the legend that it was executed by seventy translators. Its
use spread rapidly, and at the dawn of the Christian era all Hellenistic
Jews read their Bible through this medium. Philo of Alexandria, the best
representative of the Hellenist, depended wholly upon the Septuagint,
and Josephus, himself a Palestinian Jew, cites it more than he does the
Hebrew. Accordingly, the heralds of the gospel found this Version ready
to their hand, and it went with them wherever Greek was understood. Just
as the New Testament was written in Greek for Greek-speaking peoples, so
the Old Testament, the only Scriptures of the early apostolic period,
was circulated through the church in the Greek dress of the Septuagint.
That the apostles were well acquainted with this translation and
commonly used it is shown in that two-thirds of their Old Testament
quotations are from its pages. Turning to the recipients of these
letters, it is granted that the Christians in Asia Minor were
predominantly Gentile, and yet, as Ramsay has proved (see The Church in
the Roman Empire and St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman
Citizen), Jews
were numerous in this region, particularly in the Graeco-Asiatic cities,
and the book of the Acts makes it plain that they and their proselytes
were the nuclei of the churches there planted (see Acts 13:14; 14:1;
16:1, 3; 19:8, 10). This alone guarantees that the Septuagint was in
ordinary use in these communities. And even though a Jewish element is
shut out from the reckoning, the Gentile Christians at Ephesus, Colossae,
and elsewhere could have read the Scriptures in that version only which
was in general currency, and which had received apostolic sanction. It
follows that the Psalter-songs, which, it is almost unanimously
admitted, were an integral part of their worship, and which were chanted
to their Greek music, must have been from the translation of the
seventy.
Consulting this great version, the most cursory reader will find, first,
that there is a steady recurrence of these three designations,
“psalms,” “hymns,” and “songs,” in the formal titles to the
compositions of the Psalter; second, that the terms “hymns” and
“songs,” with their related verbs, occur again and again in the text
or body of the Psalms; and, third, that the same terms are employed
frequently in the historical books, both canonical and apocryphal, with
reference to the Psalter. Besides the caption of the entire Psalter,
which is “Psalms” (psalmoi), it is well known that most of
these inspired odes have headlines of their own. In sixty-seven of these
the word “psalm” (psalmos) appears, in six the word
“hymn” (humnos), and in thirty-five the word “song” (oodee),
the same Greek words used in the passages before us. Still further:
“psalm” and “song” are conjoined twelve times, and “psalms”
and “hymn” twice. In the heading of the seventy-sixth Psalm all
three terms stand side by side, just as here, and the heading of the
sixty-fifth Psalm contains “psalm” and “song,” while in the
first verse the composition is spoken of as a “hymn.” It is
noteworthy also in these compound inscriptions that our terms
interchange easily, and that “hymn” is written repeatedly in the
plural, suggesting that in the estimation of the seventy it was
applicable to all the poems of the Psalter. There are such various
phrasings as “a psalm of a song,” “a song of a psalm,” “a
psalm, a song,” “in psalms a song,” “in hymns a psalm,” “in
hymns, a psalm, a song.”
Turning from the titles of the Greek Psalter, the terms “hymn” and
“song,” with their cognate verbs and substantives are interspersed
freely through the text as well of its odes, being descriptive of these
compositions. Three citations out of sixteen will suffice. The fortieth
Psalm, third verse, runs: “He put into my mouth a new lay, a hymn (humnon)
to our God.” At the close of the seventy-second Psalm there is the
line, “The hymns (hoi humnoi) of David, the son of Jesse, are
ended.” This colophon may apply to the entire preceding collection,
Psalms 1 and 72, inclusive, as Perowne contends, or it may have been
attached to some group of Davidic Psalms incorporated in the Psalter. In
either case it shows that the LXX. Translators comprehended Psalms
indiscriminately and collectively under the name “hymns” (humnoi).
Again, in Psalm 137:3 we read: “There they who took us captive
demanded of us words of songs (oodoon), and they who led us away
said, Chant us a hymn (humnon) out of the songs (ek toon
oodoon) of Zion.” Here the word “songs” (oodai) covers
all the Psalms, and a “hymn” may be selected at random from these
“songs.”
When we pass form the Psalms themselves to the historical books of the
Septuagint, the terminology is identical. In II Samuel, I Chronicles, II
Chronicles and Nehemiah there are sixteen instances of this, and in them
the Psalms as a plurality are called “hymns” (humnoi) or
“songs” (oodai) indifferently, and the singing of them is
called “hymning” (humneoo, humnoodeoo, humneesis). In the
apocryphal books of the Septuagint, likewise ... the same
sustained usage catches the eye at least ten times, as will be seen by
examining The Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus and
the First and Second books of Maccabees.
This then is the multiplied and cumulative witness of the Septuagint,
Paul’s Bible and the Bible of the Asia Minor churches. Does it not
point indubitably to the conclusion that the apostle intends nothing but
the Greek Psalter when he employs the three denominations it had worn so
long, and which would recur readily to every mind? And here it is
worthwhile to observe again his injunction. He does not tell those
addressed to make psalms, hymns, and songs, but to use such as they had,
and with which they are assumed to be conversant. And what were these?
What in the circumstances could they have been, in the thought of either
the writer or the readers, but that divine system of lyrics known by
these three ancient titles, and which, so far as history reveals, was
the only compilation of sacred songs known by any name? Let it be
supposed that the book of Psalms alone had been used in the Christian
church up to the present, that it had taken root in the affections of
the people, and that in the Authorized Version of the Bible and the
popular praise-manuals its one hundred and fifty odes were styled
psalms, hymns, and songs. Suppose next that a pastoral letter was
dispatched to our congregations, advising the people to let the Word of
Christ dwell in them richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one
another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. What would be
understood by the exhortation? The question answers itself. But these
were precisely the conditions among the churches of Asia Minor.
According to the principles of historical criticism, therefore, the
evidence is ample and decisive that these passages reproduce the
technical Psalter designations of the Septuagint.
As against successful dissent, notice that authorities are practically
unanimous that in the first of the three words the Psalter is referred
to, either exclusively or chiefly. Reuss and others count it
inconceivable that the word “psalm” (psalmos) should have a
wider sense anywhere in the New Testament. So Dr. Alexander, Bishop of
Derry, Bloomfield, Eadie, Hodge, Lathrop, Lightfoot, Maclaren, Oehler,
Olshausen, Reuss, Salmond, Stier, Tholuck, and most commentators. It
being settled then that the apostle in penning the word “psalm” had
definitely before him the Psalter in its Greek dress, how is it possible
to deny fairly that the terms which he conjoins with “psalms” are
limited to that customary application of them to the Psalter which is
testified to by the Septuagint? In such a grouping, coordinated with
“psalms,” and without any new use of them being hinted, how could
they have been diverted from their stereotyped meaning?
Our position, already well fortified, receives striking confirmation
outside the Alexandrian Version. Philo, the learned Jewish philosopher,
writing during our Lord’s life and immediately after (died A. D. 40),
never once uses the word “psalm” or its compounds in connection with
his many quotations from the Psalter, but always “hymn” (humnos)
or one of its compounds. This leads Cheyne to surmise that Alexandria
had a special edition of the Greek Psalter with “hymns” (humnoi)
as its running title (Bampton Lectures for 1889, p. 12), while
Edwin Hatch accounts for Philo’s practice on the theory that
“hymns” (humnoi) was the older designation of the Psalms (Essays
in Biblical Greek, p. 174). Flavius Josephus, the celebrated
historian, who represent Jewish Hellenistic literature in the generation
which followed Philo, tells how “David composed songs (oodas)
and hymns (humnous)" and alludes repeatedly to the psalms as
“hymns.” The New Testament itself, elsewhere than in these passages
in Ephesians and Colossians, agrees unmistakably in the same witness. In
Matthew 26:30 and Mark 14:26 it is recorded that after the institution of
the Supper our Lord and His apostles “hymned” or “sung an hymn”
(humneesantes). All grant that what Jesus is thus described as
singing on that sad night was the second part of the Passover Hallel,
Psalms 115 and 118 inclusive, and yet the Evangelists call this the
“singing of hymns.” Let it be noted that these Gospels echo the
established habit of the church at the time when they were written, and
that they and our two epistles belong to the same decade.
And now, massing what has been gleaned from the Septuagint, from the
eminent Hellenistic authors named, and from the new Testament itself, it
is indisputable that during apostolic days, in both Jewish and Christian
circles, it was the custom to refer to the lyrics of the Psalter as
“psalms,” “hymns,” or “songs” indifferently. So fixed,
indeed, was this that it persisted in the early Greek fathers and in the
second-century Greek versions of the Old Testament, that of Aquila,
that of Theodotion, and that of Symmachus.
According to the interpretation of these passages here upheld, the
different terms are taken as synonyms. This is certainly true in the
Septuagint, where “psalm,” “hymn,” and “song” interchange
promiscuously, where in fact the same Hebrew noun is translated
“hymn” and “psalm,” and where, in the plural as here, each word
is an appellation for the whole Psalter. (The word neginoth is
rendered “hymns” in the inscriptions of Psalms 6, 54, 55, 61, 67 and
76, while in the inscription of Psalm 4 it is rendered “psalms.”)
Even some who do not find in these New Testament terms an exclusive
reference to the Psalter appreciate that they are synonymous, though the
admission is damaging because of the generally accepted signification of
“psalm” (psalmos). (Lightfoot on Colossians 3:16 says, “It
is quite possible for the same song to be at once psalmos, humnos
and oodee.” Orello Cone says that these “three terms are
essentially synonymous, and the slight shades of meaning between them
are not easily definable.”) That the poems of the Psalter answer in
reality to each on of these terms is patent. As Dr. J. Addison Alexander
said of them, “They are all not only poetical, but lyrical, i.e.,
songs, poems intended to be sung” (Introduction to his commentary on
the Psalms). They are psalms also, for their original rendition was with
instrumental accompaniment. And they are hymns in that they are
intrinsically religious, embodying adoration, thanksgiving, confession,
and supplication to God. So pronounced is their hymnic character that
they have received the designation of “hymns” continuously from the
first. The old Hebrew name of the Psalter, that of the Rabbis and
subsequently that of the Talmud, was Sepher Tehillim, “Book of
Praises,” or, as it might be paraphrased, “Hymn-Book.” Then comes
the early Greek usage, biblical and extra-biblical, already rehearsed.
Succeeding centuries maintain the practice, as is seen in the
Apostolical Constitutions and in the words of such church fathers as Justin
Martyr, Hippolytus, Eusebius, Hilary, Athanasius, Jerome, Augustine, and
Cassian. Testimonies from the Middle Ages might be multiplied at great
length, but Bede, “the Venerable,” gives their gist when he speaks
of the whole Psalter as called “Liber Hymnorum” by universal
consent. Thereafter, through the Reformation period and down to modern
times, the Psalms are spoken of incessantly as hymns. And to-day, in
spite of the popular cleavage between psalms and hymns, all our
dictionaries, such as Webster, the Century, and the Standard, identify
the psalms as hymns, scholarly writers (such as Ewald, Stanley and
Robertson Smith) describe the Psalter as “a hymnal,” “the
hymn-book of the Second Temple,” or “the hymn-book of the Reformed
Churches,” and Psalms are stitched into collections of human
compositions and labelled “hymns” with the rest.
Against the ascribing of these three terms to the Psalter it is urged
that “songs” (oodai) has an attributive in the word
“spiritual” (pneumatikai) which is novel, and which forbids
dependence on the Septuagint in the exegesis of these passages. It is
not “psalms, hymns, and songs,” we are told, but “psalms, hymns,
and spiritual songs.” The objection is plausible, but it shrinks to
the vanishing point and becomes a verbal quibble when the context in
Ephesians is noted. The Greeks, the Asiatic Greeks particularly, were
devoted to music. Song and jest, stimulated by the wine-cup, were the
entertainment of the social hour, and often these were coarse and
wanton. Their very religious festivals included the orgies of Bacchus
and Venus, where vile phallic songs were a feature. In contrast with
this wicked revelry Paul tells his readers to enliven their gatherings
with the joy which the Spirit of God imparts, and to express themselves
in songs which He has inspired. The answer, therefore, to the objection
raised is that, while the terms “psalms” and “hymns” were marked
out as consecrated, the term “songs” had become peculiarly
besmirched in heathen parlance, and the apostle adds the word
“spiritual” to differentiate Christian song from all else and brand
the opposite, which he has in mind, as earthly, sensual, and devilish. (Chrysostom
opposes to this hai satanikai oodai, “Satanic songs.”)
With the occasion of the word “spiritual” cleared up, it is
submitted that the propriety of its application to the Psalms cannot be
gainsaid. That they are the fruit of the inspiration of God, hailing
form men energized by the Holy Spirit, is reiterated in Scripture (II
Sam. 23:2; Matt. 22:43; Mark 12:36; Acts 1:16; 4:25; Heb. 4:7; 5:5-6),
and is evinced in the treatment accorded them by our Lord and His
apostles. In truth, their inspiration is perceptible, tangible. The book
carries on its front the divine image and superscription, and it is not
exaggeration to say that it is the most conspicuous product of the
Spirit in the bounds of the canon. Here we abandon the defensive, and
contend that this praise volume is absolutely unique in that of its
lyrics alone can it be predicated that they are “pneumatic,” or
“spiritual,” songs. Among existing hymnals there is not another in
all the world which contains such songs, except as they have borrowed
from the Psalter.
Again, it has been asked, Is not this triple enumeration redundant if
the Psalter is made the only reference in the three terms? Why such
multiplication of titles? In reply, note:
1. If there is any difficulty here, it is reduced but little by those
who oppose us in the interpretation of these passages. They do not find
three kinds of praise, as consistently they should do, but they stop
with a twofold classification, for notwithstanding all attempts there
has been failure in distinguishing “hymns” and “spiritual
songs.” They are able to isolate the “psalms” by themselves, but
the “hymns” and “spiritual songs” remain fused and confused. As
between unifying the reference of two terms and that of three, the
difference is not great. If there is tautology in the one case, there is
also in the other.
2. It is common in Scripture to call the same thing by different names
in close connection, this in order to give a fuller and more emphatic
description of it by specifying its various aspects. Paul himself
resorts frequently to such cumulations (Ex. 34:7; Lev. 16:21; I Kings
6:12; I Chron. 29:19; Ps. 19:7-8; 119 [throughout]; II Cor. 12:12; Col.
1:9; II Thess. 2:9; I Tim. 2:1; Heb. 2:4).
3. As a matter of fact, Paul’s Psalter gave the Psalms these very
titles, sometimes in combinations, and twice in the triple combination
of these verses.
4. These precepts in Ephesians and Colossians have a lively and urgent
context, and it is in keeping with this to suppose that their heaping of
terms is, as Dr. S. D. F. Salmond says, with a view to rhetorical force.
Another objection advanced against our interpretation is, that had the
book of Psalms been meant exclusively, the definite article would have
been prefixed to the three words. This article-argument is quickly met.
1. In the Greek Psalter itself the article is not used in connection
with any one of these three titles, not even with the prefatory psalmoi.
2. Paul may have meant the words to be taken qualitatively. This is
favoured in Ephesians, where there is a tacit contrast with bacchanalian
songs.
3. In New Testament Greek, as well as in classical, the article is often
omitted before appellatives which denote a well-known object (see
Winer’s New Testament Grammar, seventh edition, section 19),
and it has been demonstrated already that these three titles were
attached to a historical system of praise well known to the apostles and
the Asiatic churches.
Our exegesis of these passages now nears completion, but it must still
be verified as satisfying the demands of the double context. Consider,
first, the relation in the Colossian passage between the indwelling of
“the word of Christ,” and contain it. As to the phrase, “the word
of Christ,” occurring here only, a documentary or literary conception
of it is improbable. Let it be taken generally as the teaching of
Christ, the body of truth by which men are made wise unto salvation, and
furnished completely unto every good work. And now, we ask, does not the
Psalter gleam and glow with the saving doctrines of Christianity? Does
it not, beyond the four gospels, reveal “the mind which was in Christ
Jesus?” Were the rest of the Bible destroyed, would it not preserve an
exposition of the way of life sufficiently clear to save a fallen race?
Is it not a true instinct which has led publishers to bind up the
Psalter with the New Testament as being manifestly of kindred nature? It
was Augustine, the illustrious Latin Father, who said that “the voice
of Christ and His Church was well-nigh the only voice to be heard in the
Psalms.” Bengel spoke of the Psalter as “a remarkable portion of the
Scriptures, in which the subject of Christ and His kingdom is most
copiously discussed.” More recently, Franz Delitzsch, the great German
exegete and Hebraist, wrote: “There is no essential New Testament
truth not contained in the Psalms.” These testimonies will stand.
Christ faced Himself in the Psalter; nor did He “see in a mirror,
darkly;” and His apostles, judging by the scores of their quotations,
found in its odes the Messianic and evangelical element in abounding
measure. The Psalter reference in these three terms conforms, therefore,
to the requirement of the context, so far as concerns the phrase, “the
word of Christ.” Can the same be said of any rival reference? Can any
pleader for uninspired hymnody maintain that in it there is a
comprehensive presentation of “the word of Christ” equal to that in
the book of Psalms? It was none less than Dr. James H. Brookes, of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, who said a few
years ago: “It is difficult in any ordinary hymn-book to find a dozen
hymns that are in accord with the word of Christ.”
Once more. By these psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs the Colossian
Christians are told to “teach and admonish one another.” But since
it is the usual manner of the apostle to refer his readers to Scripture
for instruction and admonition, and since for these ends he draws
heavily upon the Psalms in his epistles, the divine praise-book is
suggested at once as his only thought. Certainly, it is hymns of a
definitely dogmatic, instructional type which are presupposed. And it is
just here, in perceptive power and in doctrinal substance, that the
Psalter hymns tower splendidly above all others. The Psalter may be
religion, and not theology, as it is sometime put, but nevertheless it
has a thoroughly didactic character that is unapproached and
unapproachable by lyrics uninspired.
Thirdly, in Ephesians the “speaking one to another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs” is the sequel of being “filled with the
Spirit.” Instead of the excitement of strong drink, be God-intoxicated
through the infilling of the Spirit, and give vent to your joyous
emotions in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. So runs the exhortation.
Here again, how exactly the Bible songs correspond to such a connection.
Receive the fulness of the Spirit, and then pour out your souls in the
hymns of the Psalter, indicted as they all are by the Spirit and redolent
of His holy inspiration. The Pneuma and His own pneumatic Psalm: what
God hath joined together in this passage let not man put asunder.
The last clause in each passage is worthy of a moment’s notice. In
Colossians, according to the revised text, the singing was to be “unto
God” as the Object and Auditor of praise, not to Christ distinctively
and exclusively. This, as all are aware, is emphatically true of the
Psalms, which, though full of Christ, and specializing Him over and over
again, do not forget His organic unity with god in the essence of the
Divine Being. The parallel in Ephesians reads “to the Lord;” yet
there, too, as verse 20 shows, Christ is looked upon as the mediator
through whom the sacrifice of praise is offered to Him who is the
ultimate source of blessing, “God, even the Father.”
Summarizing the results of our exegesis, it has been determined—
1. That the “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” of these passages
included nothing that was uninspired, nor any compositions newly
inspired in the apostolic age.
2. That they are all embraced in the book of Psalms, this finding being
based upon the impregnable testimony of the Greek Bible and Psalter used
by Paul and the Pauline churches, upon the usage of contemporary
Hellenistic writers, upon the witness of the gospels according to
Matthew and Mark, upon the conformity of the Psalter to this threefold
characterization, and upon the fact that an exclusive reference to the
Psalms satisfies every postulate of the context.
The alternative theory, though, as we believe, purely conjectural and
arbitrary, has not been brushed aside in any cavalier style, for no
statement in the process of exposition has been an over-statement, but
has been attested substantially. If the exegesis now submitted be sound,
it follows that the apostolic church employed the Psalms alone in the
ordinance of worship, and that to restrict ourselves to them in this
sacred exercise is a New Testament commandment.
Under the opposite interpretation, let it be noticed
1. That the Psalms still have the primacy, taking precedence of hymns
and spiritual songs, and that most hymn-singing churches ignore this by
confining themselves to a human hymnology.
2. That the singing of uninspired hymns in worship is not barely
permitted, but is explicitly prescribed, and is, therefore, binding—a
contention which few would care to defend.
Appendix
Among the authorities upholding the foregoing interpretation of these
passages (Col. 3:16; Eph. 5:19) may be mentioned the following:
Clement,
the celebrated Greek Father who presided over the catechetical school at
Alexandria (Paidagogos, book 3, chapter 4)
Jerome, the most
learned of the early fathers of the Latin church (Commentary on Ephesians)
Beza,
the friend and ablest coadjutor of Calvin (Commentary on Colossians)
John Owen, the
prince of English divines in the seventeenth century (Preface to a
metrical edition of the Psalms published in 1673 for use among the
Independents and Dissenters of England)
Jean Daille, d. 1670, a
celebrated French Protestant minister (Exposition of Colossians)
Cotton
Mather, d. 1728, the well-known New England author
Thomas Ridgley, a
standard English writer on theology (Body of Divinity, edition of
1819, vol. 4, p. 134)
Jonathan Edwards, d. 1758, the noted American
divine and metaphysician (History of Redemption, Period 1, Part
5)
John Gill, a learned Orientalist and Baptist theologian of the
eighteenth century (Body of Divinity and Commentary on Ephesians)
John
Brown of Haddington, Scotland, professor of divinity in the Associate
Synod of Scotland, d. 1787 (Dictionary of the Bible)
William
Romaine, an eminent author of the eighteenth century in the Church of
England
Walter F. Hook, d. 1875, an Anglican dean and ecclesiastical
historian (Church Dictionary)
The Encyclopaedia Britannica,
article on "Hymns," by the Right Hon. The Earl of Selborne
William Binnie,
of Scotland (The Psalms: Their History, Teachings and Use [London,
1877])
H. C. B. Bazely, of Oxford, England, d. 1883
(Biography)
E. L.
Hicks, Hon. Canon of Worcester, Church of England (Biography of Henry
Bazely)
Edmund Reuss, of Strasburg, the great Alsatian Protestant
Theologian, d. 1891 (History of the New Testament)
Taylor, for
many years professor of Greek Language and Literature in Union College,
Schenectady, NY (The Bible Psalmody)
Philip Schaff, of Union
Theological Seminary, New York City, the distinguished church historian,
d. 1893 (History of the Christian Church, vol. 1, p. 463)
John A. Broadus, of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
(Commentary
on Matthew).
