are referred to in the New Testament in reference to Christ, in the laments of the individual, and in reference to the work of God among his remnant people in the use of the We Psalms. The Psalms of confidence, of trust in trouble, are referred to Christ. The hymns of praise and of thanksgiving are also referred to Christ. The declarative praise, I've already this morning called your attention to the quotation of Psalm 18, 49, and following in Romans 15, 9. And Hebrews 10 picks up Psalm 40, where in the volume of the book it is written, And may I come to do your will, O Lord. That is taken in application to Christ. Declarative praise of the people. You have Jesus himself singing the Psalms in the upper room before he went out. And you find the declarative praise of the Psalms reflected in the Songs of Revelation, where the same kind of language and structure is used in praising God and praising the Lamb. Descriptive praise. Psalm 8 being quoted in Hebrews 2 and Psalm 102 in Hebrews 1 and so on. The Royal Psalms being reflected in Christ's ascension as he goes up as the Lord of Glory. Psalm 45, 6 quoted in Hebrews 1, 8. The Pilgrim Psalms, the Psalms of Ascent, the procession up the Holy Hill. the fact that God is coming to judge the earth. Quotation of 97.7 in Hebrews 1.6. God's marching before the saints to where there is the great assembly, the gathering of the people of God. The thought of Psalm 68 being picked up in the Psalms in reference to the ascension more generally. And Christ as the archegos in Hebrews 12.2 is picking up the thought of Christ as the leader, the one who goes before us. Psalms which refer to Jesus Christ as the messianic king being quoted in the New Testament. There's a whole string of those. Now, you know, without pressing the the argument too far. I don't think there's any quotation in the New Testament that's a direct allusion to the Psalms of Refuge. I mean, not a direct quotation of the Psalms of Refuge in the New Testament. But you get the picture though, don't you? I mean, there may not be a quotation from the Psalms of refuge, but you've got Jesus telling about the church being built on a rock and how it will stand, and the image of the refuge is certainly used, the safety that we have with the Lord. So I think it's helpful to see that as you look in the Scriptures, they all do, in the Psalms, they all do, in one way or other, get alluded to and quoted in the New Testament. So that the New Testament assumes that as we read the Psalms, we'll be aware that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all that the Psalms tell us. So, this A little visual review rather quickly here. Since I like to draw pictures. Can you see that? Maybe not. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. We preach Christ in covenantal praise. The singing Christ, the Lord sings in the midst of the congregation, as we've seen. The suffering servant, the triumphant servant, the anointed King. And then His song among the Gentiles, we sing to the glory of Jesus Christ, as, well, we sing with Jesus Christ, the song of the Gentiles, inviting the Gentiles to join in the praise. Now, we not only sing with Christ, we also sing to Christ. So when we sing the mighty works of God in the Old Testament in descriptive and declarative praise, we are praising the triune God, but our praises are also to Jesus Christ. And that's what we've been seeing, that Jesus Christ is seen as the Lord in the New Testament. And we see his wisdom and his power. We see his rule as the one who governs the universe. and the one who is also the Lord our Savior. The song of Moses at the shore of the sea has become the song of the Lamb. The new song of the kingdom, the royal song, the song of the good news of the presence of the Lord, the song of His ascension, as Peter preaches from Psalm 16 on the day of Pentecost. Psalm 24, ascending on high, and the Psalms of refuge and trust that point us to Jesus Christ as our refuge, and where we can find our trust in Him. So we are singing the mighty works of Christ, His great work of redemption, and we're also singing the glorious name of Christ. We hallow the name of God in the name of Jesus. God proclaims his name and Christ himself hallows the name of God. Jesus is worshipped in the Gospels, the extravagance of Mary's devotion as she anoints his feet. And we worship Jesus through the language of the Psalms. In Jesus Christ we seek God's face. And that was a great issue in the Old Testament, to see the face of God. Jacob wrestled with the angel, wouldn't let him go till God blessed him in the places called Peniel, the face of God, because in the early dawn he saw something of the liniments of the face of God. But we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The psalms yearn for God's face, to see Him, to appear before Him, to be in His presence, and that prayer finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who is the image of God. So we sing God's glorious name in praising Christ, hallowing God's name, seeking God's face, and also delighting in God's beauty. I would refer you here to Psalm 90, I read it in chapel yesterday, but where it says, let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish thou the work of our hands upon us. the work of our hands, establish thou it." You know, there are three classes of terms for beauty in the Old Testament. There are words which describe the beauty of majesty, like the beauty of the cloud over the tabernacle, the glory of God, the beauty of glory. And then there are other terms which describe the beauty of God in terms of design. It's translated holy array in some of the Psalms. The beauty of majesty in Psalm 96.6. The beauty of design, of wisdom in Psalm 96.9. And also earlier in Psalm 90 verse 16. That's like the beauty of the high priest's breastplate with the jewels inscribed with the names of the tribe of Israel, with the linen woven breastplate that held the jewels and was tied around the high priest's chest. The beauty of holiness, of rich design. The first is the overwhelming majesty, majestic beauty of God. The second is the wisdom of God, celebrated in the Psalms. And then finally, the beauty of delight, of refreshing grace. the term for beauty which describes a handsome man or a beautiful woman or a lovely landscape. And all three of these forms of beauty are celebrated in the Psalms, and all three are ascribed to God, that He is the source of our beauty as we praise Him, and He is seen to be beautiful. And Calvin Zarefeld is a very able Christian philosopher and esthetician who's done a lot of thinking about Christian aesthetics. And I must say he warns against thinking of beauty as being ascribed to God. He thinks that's an Aristotelian kind of category and way of looking at it. But I would I would disagree with that. It does seem to me that just as God is the source of all truth, so that Truth is of God, and therefore we find of God the source of knowledge and truth. And God is also the source of all goodness. Ethics are grounded in God. So you can say that metaphysics or ontology is all grounded in God, and ethics are all grounded in God. Well, what about beauty? Yes, I think so, and to defend that, I would strongly agree with Serafelt that the aesthetic dimension is the dimension of elusiveness, of where we see more than one dimension. See, if you see a deer leap, well, it's a very economical form of propulsion, well adjusted to the environment. How in the world can a deer run through a thicket? Did you ever figure that out? They do it, you know, but try it yourself. So, it's very efficient as the deer goes along. But there's something about that. It's more than efficient. We say it's beautiful. Well, what do we mean by that? Well, we mean it has other dimensions. There's a gracefulness to it. There's an ease to it, a simplicity to it. We talk about a solution to a problem being beautiful if it's not messy. We've found a simple and easy, clear way of doing it. That which is beautiful always suggests another dimension in poetry. It's not simply that something is said clearly, but in poetry, images are used, which is a way of saying there's another level of communication. In poetry, often either repetition or some form of repetition is used. so that there's an interweaving, sometimes a very delicate interweaving of words in a way that is quite different from ordinary discursive language. So you see the beauty of poetry because of the dimension of, full dimension, other dimensions, variety of dimensions, multiplicity of perspectives. Vern Poitras at Westminster in Philadelphia is known for the phrase multi-perspectivalism. More than one perspective. Well, there's always that in aesthetics. And my own conviction is that, you see, just as the truth of God is the ground of all knowledge, and the goodness of God is the ground of all ethics, so the richness of God is the ground of aesthetics. That is, God is so full, that is, the abundance of His being, the richness of the diversity and unity of the divine being, God is full of surprises, in the sense that there's always more than we ever imagined in God. He's not only good, but He's amazingly, surprisingly, unpredictably good. There's always more than we ever could have imagined, you see. And the delight that we have in that extra dimension, which I think is at the heart of aesthetic experience, finds its total satisfaction in God. And that's why we speak of, when I awake, I will be satisfied with your form. You see, the total satisfaction. Yes. discernment when we start moving at this subjective level, because there is an evil one who presents himself as an angel of light, makes himself very attractive, and when we say that all beauty is of God, aren't we going to be very discerning You know what I mean? That's why people say, every demon is of God. Everything that's attractive is of God. Everything that makes me feel good is of God. I think we need to be very discerning. Well, every good gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there's no shadow of turning. All truth is of God. Even the devil, can take a truth and put it in the wrong context and turn it into a lie, but it's still so that all truth is of God and all goodness is of God, even, you know, the angel of light has to, when Satan poses as an angel of light, sure you have to be discriminating, but I wouldn't want to disqualify a whole area of God's revelation of himself because it can be corrupted by sin, because so can ethics be corrupted by sin, so can truth be corrupted by sin and turned into a lie. But what I'm suggesting is that, you see, the source of reality in all its wonder and fullness comes from God Himself, the Creator. And the reason I brought this in, well, see, are the psalms a kind of waste? See? Psalm 119, that's such a long psalm. It goes on and on, right? I mean, every single letter of the Hebrew alphabet and eight verses for every letter? I mean, what does Psalm 119 tell us? We ought to walk according to the law of the Lord. Well, you can say that in ten words or less, right? I mean, why not come right out and tell it? Why all this meandering around? There's a kind of meditation that's called the lotus form of meditation, where you take a center of thought and then you go out and come back. It's supposed to be like the petals of a lotus. You go out and come back, and go out and come back, and go out and come back, and go out and come back. Well, Psalm 19's kind of like that, you know. It starts and takes you off to think about something and brings you back to God's Word. And you think about something else, back to God's Word. And something else, and back to God's Word. You know, on and on and on and on. And it's got all this literary artistry to it, see. And, yes. I'm reading Alter's book on non-parallelism, and you see the energy that is expelled in saying something that could be said in a very simple way. And yet there's, you know, the two verses, and the second one goes further than the first. And they don't even do that simple process by one way. They'll do it through multiple ways. Yeah, how far it goes, we don't even know yet, because they're still digging up more things, you know, they're talking about some of the students of Hebrew poetry are pointing out there's rhyme and reason to the way in which they even use the masculine and the feminine of nouns, you know. There's an order to that. In the first colon, it might be masculine, masculine, and the second one feminine, feminine. I think maybe at this point their imaginations may be running away with them, I don't know. But still, there is structure, and there is structure and order in the psalms, you see. And it's an aesthetic structure and order. It's that extra dimension business, see? Now, of course, there are functional aspects to it. If you do it by the ABCs, it's easier to remember. You know where you are in Psalm 119, because every single verse begins with a letter that you're in. If you're in Coff, everything begins with Coff. So you kind of know where you are. So there are functional aspects to it, but there's all this beauty in the songs. Let the beauty, and then I brought out, you see, the different aspects of beauty. The tremendous, overwhelming, majestic beauty of the glory cloud. the ordered, structured, designed beauty of the way in which Psalm 119 is put together, for example, the beauty of wisdom, of order, and then the beauty of loveliness, the beauty of grace, the beauty of refreshment, in which Jesus Christ is the one who is altogether lovely, the fairest of ten thousand, in which we take delight in Him, though He was made hideous in His sufferings, so hideous that He was inhumanly disfigured in His sufferings, yet to us He is the One who is the Lord of glory and the One who is entirely beautiful to our hearts and souls. Well, we can Think about that some more and we will be spending some time looking at the literary structure of the Psalms. Yes? It's talking about garments that are ordered, made beautiful for the processions and so on. Yes? Well, that's another subject we could have a long. Thank you. We could have a long discussion here, talking about why don't we have the Psalms in the Old Testament, why don't we have a New Testament book of Psalms. And my quick answer to that is, it has now come out in a new edition. The Trinity Hymnal. And my wife was on the editing committee and you all ought to buy one, you see. The new edition of Trinity Hymnal. Now, I'm not joking, I'm really not joking. Because, see, you take one of two positions here. Either the book of Psalms, because it is such a marvelous outpouring of praise to the living God, because it is an inspired, divinely inspired book of praise, either that is the only book of praise we ought to use, because we ought to sing praises to God in inspired words, or not. And if it is, then we ought to sing the Psalms exclusively. And that is the argument, of course, and has been the argument in Reformed circles, and not only in Reformed circles, Church of Christ circles too. Of course, Reformed background, the Church of Christ originally. But there are these beliefs that you ought to sing only the Psalms. Now, there's a superficial argument against that that's quite mistaken from Ephesians and Colossians, because there doesn't it say, sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And so, not just psalms, but hymns and spiritual songs. So psalms are what you find in a versified form of the Book of Psalms, Psalms for Praise. The hymns are what you find in a hymn book, and the spiritual songs are the things you throw on the wall with an overhead projector, and they're accompanied by guitars. Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, three categories. Now, that's completely mistaken, I hasten to point out, because all these terms that Paul uses in Ephesians and Colossians are terms that are found in the superscriptions to the Psalms. So these are varieties of the Book of Psalms. There are hymns in the Book of Psalms, there are spiritual songs in the Book of, there are songs in the Book of Psalms, and Paul adds the word spiritual. So the, my friends, the covenanters at Geneva College and the Reformed Presbyterian Seminary in Pittsburgh, they earnestly maintain that we ought to sing only the Book of Psalms, and only the inspired psalms. Now, one modification of that would be you can sing not only the Book of Psalms, but also the inspired songs from the beginning of the Book of Luke, for example. You could sing those too. And then a further modification would let you sing some scripture paraphrases. Well, the songs of Revelation and other inspired songs. But that would still hold to the principle that you ought to sing only inspired songs and not non-inspired songs. And I respect that argument, and certainly you can have wonderful blessing as you sing the Psalms. And in many of the Covenanter churches, the Reformed Presbyterian churches that are called Covenanter because it goes back to the covenanting days in Scotland when the Reformed faith was being maintained by a national covenant. And the exclusive use of Psalms has been characteristic of the branch of Presbyterianism in the United States that is called Covenanter. But I say, much as I respect their viewpoint, I do think it's mistaken, and let me explain why. You really need to look at both Colossians and Ephesians, at the passages that speak about the use of song in worship. Let's look First at Ephesians 5 verse 18. Be not drunk with wine in which is riot, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God, even the Father, subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ. And then over in the book of Colossians, the third chapter, verse 15, And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which you are also called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God. Now, I think the way you want to determine this question is to take these two passages, I have it on an overhead but I don't have it with me, take these two passages and collate them. These are parallel passages in Ephesians and Colossians. So set them down side by side, the two phrases, and where they overlap, recognize that, and where they're different, recognize that. And when you put them together, what you see is that Paul is teaching that we are to be filled with the Spirit, and that we speak to one another in these psalms and songs. And then he also says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Now you see, why does he say, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly? And then that word of Christ enables you to admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Well, obviously, what he has in view is that under the blessing of the Spirit, instructed by the Word of Christ, we can sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Now, how is the word pneumatikos, spiritual, how is that used in these epistles? What does Paul have in view when he says that? Well, you see that in Colossians chapter 1, that we might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. See, so the expression of the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs is an expression of spiritual wisdom. It's not from drunkenness that we sing, but it's from the spiritual wisdom that's given to us in Christ. And that spiritual wisdom that we gain from the Word of Christ enables us to teach one another in wisdom in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Psalms. So there's a clear continuity here. What Paul has in view is that in the Church there will be, by the blessing of the Spirit, growth in spiritual wisdom derived from the Word of Christ that will enable us to exhort one another effectively. I'll say that it's under the blessing of the Spirit as the Word of Christ produces wisdom in you that enables you to speak in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. If what you're doing is just singing words that have already been given to you as part of the inspired scripture. There'd be no need of the richly indwelling Word of Christ producing the wisdom that produces these psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So I just would maintain that the language of Paul in these two epistles makes it clear that he's not thinking of just singing the Psalms. Now, and of course, in 1 Corinthians 14, he says, when you get together, if anybody has a psalm, well, does that mean he's just selected one, that he's saying, let's sing a psalm too? I don't think so. I think it means that under the blessing of the Spirit, someone has a psalm to sing and ask others to join. Now, another issue, quite a different issue, is this. How about charismatic gifts? Are the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs of which Paul is thinking, are they inspired nonetheless? Not Old Testament inspired songs, but inspired by charismatic gifts, so that people are singing by revelation. Oh, I think that certainly happened. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's in view in 1 Corinthians 14, a psalm that's been given of the Spirit by someone who is a prophet or someone who is filled with the Spirit to give utterance. I think that the charismatic gifts of the apostolic age were revelatory gifts. It's my conviction that there are no longer revelatory gifts given in the church because the foundation has been laid once for all. But nevertheless, it's perfectly clear that the singing was not simply songs of David, but New Testament songs, songs filled with wisdom, songs rich with the word of Christ, songs in the name of Jesus Christ. Now, if we have no trouble taking the Colossians 1 passage, we have no trouble taking that and applying it to ourselves, that we would be filled with the knowledge of His will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding. We have no trouble with that, do we? That's a prayer for all of us. Well then, if we're filled with wisdom and spiritual understanding, can we not then express ourselves to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs? And I would say certainly yes. And so my answer to this question is why we don't have an inspired book of Psalms in the New Testament is this, that in the fullness of the gift of the Spirit in the New Testament, in the fullness of the Word of Christ given to us in the New Testament, we're given a marvelous liberty in worship. so that we can sing new songs of praise to God. It's part of the superlative blessing of the New Testament time of fulfillment. that we are not given one book of song, but we are freed to sing songs through the wisdom that comes from the richly indwelling Word of Christ. And you see then, this applies not just to song, but it applies to worship more generally, doesn't it? that while the elements of worship are given to us in scripture, so that we must be careful not to invent new elements of worship, nevertheless, the New Testament does not give us a book of Leviticus. The New Testament does not give us all sorts of details. The Old Testament has its book of song to be used, but the New Testament creates in the community the capacity for the production of fresh songs of praise and of glory to God, so that the New Testament Church has indeed become a New Testament Church, has become a singing church, and through the ages, has sung the praises of God. Instructed by the Psalms, guided by the Psalms, but not limited to the Psalms, because the wisdom of the Spirit given through Jesus Christ enables us to frame afresh the praises of God in the preparation of new songs. You see, we can exhort one another And that's part of our gathering for worship, isn't it? To exhort one another. Well then, if we exhort one another in song, we're free to do that too under the New Testament freedom of the spirit. Yes. Yes, that's what they tried to do. They tried to say, They try to meet the objection that the Psalms, marvelous as they are, do not give us all the fullness of New Testament revelation. They try to meet that objection by saying, well, now when we look back at the Psalms, we see them with new eyes, and therefore we can And they would approve of this course, you see, to help to see Christ in the Psalms. And Jack White, a very good friend of mine, who's a leader at Geneva College, was a pastor for quite a number of years, and I had the privilege of worshipping at times in his church in Pennsylvania, and he did a beautiful thing. Before they would sing a song, he would give a little quick, beautiful little summary. of how Christ is found in that song. Just a few sentences, you know, but he said, now let's sing. And then, you know, that was well done, beautifully done, and helped people to sing with New Testament understanding. So I certainly appreciate that and approve of it, but I still think the objection is not really met. that is really a condition of the weakness, because he is agreeing, he is saying that we must sing only in spot-times, and yet he would get up in like an un-spot-time. Well, alright. Well, okay. Jack isn't here to defend himself, so. Okay. Would the singing of new songs include different forms and vocal singing, such as drama or dance? No. All right, what other questions? Yeah, that's a good point. I think I hadn't really given much attention to that. But I think that's well, well, a point well made. Good observation. Would the You would think there would be a more definite reference if he really were thinking of just the Book of Psalms. You know, this course has been taped, but this course has wandered so far from the structure I'd laid down. You're a good class, and you come up with wonderful questions, and then I answer them, but I hope it proves profitable anyway. I'll make one more desperate effort to get back on track. We won't tape them, though, for the third hour today or tomorrow. The taping efforts will be made tomorrow in the first two hours. It will be dismissed a little bit early for lunch. And but let's try to get back on time at the quarter after. OK.