In speaking of the ecclesiastical framework of the regulative principle I come to one of the matters in the Reformed tradition with regard to the regulative principle which I believe is in need of some clarification. The clarification which follows will, I think, help defenders of the regulative principle better to defend and apply it. At the same time, it will expose an affirmation of the regulative principle which is quite controversial.
The common name given to the principle under discussion is “the regulative principle of worship.” I propose to clarify this principle by calling it the regulative principle of the church. Implicit in historical discussions of the regulative principle is a distinction between worship and the rest of life. This distinction is given acute expression in Williamson’s description of the principle cited above: “What is commanded is right, and what is not commanded is wrong.” If this is an apt description of the regulative principle, and I think it is, it underscores the idea that God regulates His worship in a way which differs from the way in which He regulates the rest of life. In the rest of life God gives men the great precepts and general principles of His Word and within the bounds of these directions allows them to order their lives as seems best to them. He does not give them minute directions as to how they shall build their houses or pursue their secular vocations. The regulative principle, on the other hand, involves a limitation on human initiative and freedom not characteristic of the rest of life. It says of a certain slice of life called worship that it is regulated in a more restrictive and defined way than the rest of life.
The Westminster Confession of Faith at chapter 20 and paragraph 2 provides further evidence for a view of the regulative principle which restricts it to something less than all of life. Notice the part of that paragraph I have placed in bold italics below:
God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to his Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.1
According to this statement sola scriptura has a different application to matters of faith and worship than it does to the rest of life. In the rest of life it means that we are free from the commands of men that are contrary to the Word. In matters of faith and worship it means that we are even free from the commands of men that are beside the Word. This area of life is different.
I will argue, however, that there is a better and more accurate way to describe the aspect of life governed by the regulative principle than “worship.” This description of the proper application of the principle is both too vague in certain ways, too broad in some ways, and paradoxically also too restrictive a description of its proper application. The proper scope or application of the regulative principle may be clarified if we squarely ask the question, What distinction is it that gives rise to the special, more restrictive, and more defined regulation of the aspect of life under discussion? The answer to this question is suggested by an attribute of the church ascribed to it in the Nicene Creed. We believe one, holy, catholic, apostolic church. The church is holy in a way that the rest of life is not. It has a distinctive relationship to God that even other divine institutions like the family and the state do not have. It is the special holiness of the church that gives rise to and necessitates the special regulation of the church embodied in what has been called the regulative principle of worship.
I think this distinction is assumed in many traditional treatments of the regulative principle of worship. It is even suggested, I think, by the confession itself. As I will expand on below, an important supplement and clarification of the regulative principle is stated in the confession’s discussion of the sufficiency of Scripture in the second half of chapter 1 and paragraph 6. Here is what both the Westminster and the 1689 say at that point:
…there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.
In this statement of clarification with regard to the circumstances of the worship of God, it is to be noted that the government of the church is also and immediately mentioned. The suggestion is, thus, present that the government of the church is like the worship of God to be governed by the regulative principle except with regard to the matter of its “circumstances.” It is also clear from the statement of 1:6 that the worship in view here in this qualifying statement with regard to the regulative principle is the corporate worship of the church (at least primarily). This provides, I believe, some justification for the clarification I am suggesting.
John Frame rejects completely both the restriction of the regulative principle to corporate worship and to the church. Yet he himself testifies to the historical propriety of this restriction. He notes:
In the Presbyterian tradition, the regulative principle has been typically discussed in the context of “church power.” …. For them the issue of the regulative principle was the issue of church power: what may the church require worshipers to do? And the Puritan-Presbyterian answer was, quite properly, only what Scripture commands.
This position on church power, however, led some theologians to distinguish sharply between worship services that are “formal” or “official” (i.e. , sanctioned by the ruling body of the church), and other meetings at which worship takes place, such as family devotions, hymn sings at homes, etc., which are not officially sanctioned. Some have said that the regulative principle properly applied only to the formal or official services, not to other forms of worship.
But that distinction is clearly unscriptural….
On the Puritan view, the regulative principle pertains primarily to worship that is officially sanctioned by the church….
I therefore reject the limitation of the regulative principle to official worship services. In my view, the regulative principle in Scripture is not about church power and officially sanctioned worship services.2
As a matter of fact the Anglican views against which the Puritans launched the regulative principle argued that church government as much as church worship was subject to supplementation by the traditions of men. This reality gives a context to the debate over the regulative principle which forces us also in the direction of including the government of the church under the regulative principle. Cf. the classic articulation of Anglican church government by Richard Hooker.3
It is true that chapter 22 and paragraph 6 might seem to imply that the regulative principle has application to other worship beside the corporate worship of the church.
Neither prayer nor any other part of religious worship, is now under the gospel, tied unto, or made more acceptable by any place in which it is performed, or towards which it is directed; but God is to be worshipped everywhere in spirit and in truth; as in private families daily, and in secret each one by himself; so more solemnly in the public assemblies, which are not carelessly nor wilfully to be neglected or forsaken, when God by his word or providence calleth thereunto.
Several things should warn us against a too facile assumption that this paragraph applies the regulative principle equally to family and secret worship. First, the fact that several paragraphs intervene between this paragraph and the statement of the regulative principle found in paragraph one of this chapter must be taken into account. Second, the additional fact that the intervening paragraphs seem to speak clearly of public worship as they reflect on the application of the principle must be seriously considered. Third, the focus of the qualifying statement of 1:6 on the worship of the church ought to caution us about too quickly concluding that the Puritans intended the regulative principle of worship to be applied equally to domestic and personal worship. Finally, even supposing that this might be the case, I believe that this might be viewed as a remaining obscurity in their statement which may be removed by clarification without affecting the substance of their views.
It seems to me that one of the major intellectual stumbling-blocks which hinders men from embracing the regulative principle is that it involves the idea that the church and its worship is ordered and regulated in a way different from the rest of life. In the rest of life God gives men the great precepts and general principles of His Word and within the bounds of these directions allows them to order their lives as seems best to them. He does not give them the same kind of detailed directions as to how they shall build their houses or pursue their secular vocations, as we assert that He does with regard to the church.
The regulative principle, on the other hand, involves a limitation on human initiative and freedom not characteristic of the rest of life. It clearly assumes that there is a distinction between the way the church and its worship is to be ordered and the way the rest of human society and conduct is to be ordered. Thus, the regulative principle is liable to strike men as oppressive, peculiar, and, therefore, suspiciously out of accord with God’s dealings with mankind in the rest of life. The distinction between the church and the rest of life which I am suggesting means that sola scriptura has a different application to the church, than it does to the rest of life.[4]
This peculiarity of the regulative principle makes it absolutely necessary to commence our study of its biblical foundations by opening up its ecclesiastical framework. In other words, we must begin by clearly stating and showing that there is a reality unique to the church and its worship which demands that it be specially ordered in the way that regulative principle assumes. That reality unique to the church is that the church is the place of God’s special presence and is, therefore, the house or temple of God and as such is holy in a way that the rest of life is not. Once we understand the peculiar closeness of the church to God, the special holiness of the church as compared to the rest of human society, we will not be surprised by the fact that it is specially regulated by God. Rather, it will seem eminently appropriate that the church as God’s own house should be regulated by the immediate directives of God. It will seem most suitable that the church as God’s holy temple should be subject to a special and detailed regulation by His Word.
1 I regret to say that the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith changed this admirable, clear, and helpful statement to read as follows: “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to his word, or not contained in it.” This revision loses the crucial distinction implied in the Westminster between how God is the Lord of the conscience in all of life where the commands of legitimate human authorities have an important and necessary role to play and matters of faith and worship where they do not.
2 Frame, Worship in Spirit and Truth, 43-44.
3 Who Runs the Church? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004). This is clear from Peter Toon’s defense of Anglican church government in this book (19-41), and I underscore it in my critique of Toon (112-130). Toon’s defense of Anglican episcopacy is in the tradition of Richard Hooker’s definitive presentation of Anglican church government in his Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie.
4 This seems a problem or objection to some, but I will deal with it in my excursus on the contemporary objections to the regulative principle.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
