Theopedia

Regulative principle of worship

— Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it. Deut. 12:32

The regulative principle of worship holds that the public worship of God may include only those elements he has commanded or instituted in Scripture, whether by direct command or by approved example, rather than whatever a church judges fitting so long as Scripture does not forbid it.1

Confessional Witness

The Reformed confessional family states this in nearly identical terms. The 1689 London Baptist Confession opens its worship chapter: “The light of nature shews that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all… But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God, is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures.”1 The Westminster Confession and the Savoy Declaration state the same principle in nearly identical wording, each opening its own worship chapter the same way.2

Biblical Basis

Scripture commands against both addition to and subtraction from what God has appointed for his worship: “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it” (Deut. 12:32). When Nadab and Abihu offered “unauthorized fire” that God “had not commanded them,” fire came out from the Lord’s presence and consumed them (Lev. 10:1-2). Jesus applied the same principle to the Pharisees’ added traditions: “in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:9). Paul likewise warns against submitting to worship regulations that rest on “human precepts and teachings” rather than on Christ’s own commands, since such rules only have “an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion” (Col. 2:20-23).

Historical Development

The Reformation: human traditions and the conscience

Calvin’s Institutes devotes a chapter to the question of whether the church may bind the conscience by its own decrees in worship. He grants that the church may make orderly rules for discipline, decency, and peace, but denies it any power to add new obligations to what Christ has commanded: “the name of human traditions is given to all decrees concerning the worship of God, which men have issued without the authority of his word,” and the only question worth asking of any such decree is “how God may be duly worshipped according to the rule which he has prescribed.”3

Confessional codification

Within a century, the Westminster Confession (1646), the Savoy Declaration (1658), and the Second London Baptist Confession (1677, republished 1689) each opened their worship chapters with the same principle in near-identical language.2 Writing in the twentieth century, Berkhof affirmed the principle while allowing latitude in its detailed application: “general principles for the worship of God are laid down in Scripture,” while “in the regulation of the details of divine worship the churches are allowed great latitude,” provided no church regulation contradicts “the laws of Christ.”4

Opposing Views

The Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist traditions instead follow what has been called the normative principle: worship may include anything Scripture does not forbid, so long as it serves order and edification. The Thirty- Nine Articles of the Church of England state the position directly: “The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith: And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written.”5 On this view, Scripture’s silence about a practice leaves the church free to adopt it, provided nothing in Scripture rules it out; on the regulative principle, Scripture’s silence itself rules a practice out of public worship.

Objections and Responses

Doesn’t the regulative principle forbid ordinary practices, like the use of a church building or printed hymnals, that Scripture never commands? Reformed advocates of the principle distinguish elements of worship (the parts God has specified: prayer, the reading and preaching of the Word, the singing of psalms and hymns, the sacraments) from circumstances common to any human activity (the time, place, and practical arrangements needed to carry out those elements in an orderly way). The 1689 LBCF itself allows this latitude: “there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God…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.”6 A building or a printed hymnal is a circumstance of this kind, not an element requiring its own scriptural warrant.

Related Doctrines

References

  1. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (London, 1677; republished 1689), chap. 22, “Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day,” par. 1. ↩ ↩2

  2. The Westminster Confession of Faith (London, 1646), chap. 21, “Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day,” par. 1; The Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order (London, 1658), chap. 22, “Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day,” par. 1. ↩ ↩2

  3. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845-1846), book 4, chap. 10, sec. 1. ↩

  4. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1969), 582. ↩

  5. The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (London, 1571), art. 20, “Of the Authority of the Church.” ↩

  6. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (London, 1677; republished 1689), chap. 1, “Of the Holy Scriptures,” par. 6. ↩