Regulative Principle
of Worship

In the second chapter, we saw that the churches of the Reformation applied sola Scriptura to their confessions of faith, but now we will see how they applied sola Scriptura to corporate worship in the regulative principle of worship.100 The regulative principle teaches that God forbids the church to practice any element of worship except those that He expressly institutes in sacred Scripture. The Second London Confession 22.1 states the doctrine as follows:

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.

The regulative principle of worship stands over and against what theologians call the “normative principle” of worship. The normative principle claims that the church has the authority to institute whatever elements of worship it deems wise unless the Word of God expressly forbids it. Historically, the Reformed orthodox and Lutherans strongly disagreed on this very point. Lutheranism sought a “conservative Reformation,” which conserved the worship traditions of the late Middle Ages and the papacy. Lutheran worship, therefore, includes many forms and rites that are similar or identical to that of Rome. The Anglicans also adopted the normative principle of worship.

Calvin and the Reformed tradition, however, denied that any elements of medieval worship should be retained, except for what the Word of God expressly requires. The Reformed orthodox believed that Lutherans and Anglicans neglected sola Scriptura in the church’s public worship. In The Necessity of Reforming the Church, Calvin explains the Reformed doctrine:

If we would have [God] to approve our worship, this rule, which He everywhere enforces with the utmost strictness, must be carefully observed. . . . The Lord, in condemning and prohibiting all fictitious worship, requires us to give obedience only to His own voice. . . . God disapproves of all modes of worship not expressly sanctioned in His Word.101

The Second Commandment: Moral Law

The regulative principle of worship issues from the second commandment, which forbids idolatry and requires people to worship God according to His commands. The first commandment relates to the object of worship, commanding us to worship God alone. The second commandment speaks to the manner, or way, in which God must be worshiped. The second commandment is part of God’s moral law, grounded in His eternal character, and revealed in creation to every human conscience. That is why the Second London Confession 22.1 says,

The light of nature shows that there is a God, who has lordship and sovereignty over all; is just, good and does good unto all; and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart and all the soul, and with all the might.

God requires a certain posture and attitude in corporate worship. Worship may never be silly, light-hearted, or bombastic. Its purpose is not to lift up the worshiper or make him feel happy, but to honor the one true God of heaven and earth. True worship, according to Scripture, draws one near to God with humility, reverence, and awe. Hebrews 12:28–29 says, “Thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” Psalm 2:11 says, “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.” Isaiah 66:2 says, “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” The Bible teaches us to rejoice in the Lord (Ps. 97:12), but faithful rejoicing is never divorced from reverential fear. To worship God in any other way is to worship a false god of our imaginations.

Exodus 20:4–6 teaches the second commandment:

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Consider the two aspects of the second commandment:

The early church faithfully rejected all images in worship, but by the late 700s, churches began to incorporate images in worship, along with relics (especially the remains of the saints and martyrs). Church buildings began to include icons of Jesus, Mary, the angels, and the saints, where these images were honored, loved, and venerated. Late medieval art even included images of God the Father and the Trinity.

The Reformed tradition firmly renounces all images in worship, including images of Christ. The Second Helvetic Confession, chapter 4, says, “Although Christ took upon Him man’s nature, yet He did not, therefore, take it that He might set forth a pattern for carvers and painters. He denied that He came ‘to destroy the law and the prophets,’ but images are forbidden in the Law and the prophets.” The Reformers insisted that Christ’s incarnation does not give us license to make pictures or statues of Jesus. Jesus Christ is a divine person; therefore, to make a picture of Him would be an attempt to portray divinity, which is expressly forbidden by the second commandment.

Philip Ryken explains some of the problems associated with images in public worship today. He writes,

What the image always wants to do in worship is distract us from hearing the Word. The crucifix, the icon, the drama, and the dance, these things are not aids to worship, but make true worship all but impossible. In a visual age, we need to be all the more careful not to look at the image, but to listen to the Word.102

Covenantally Regulated Worship: Positive Laws

While the second commandment is God’s eternal, unchangeable, moral, and natural law, transcending all of God’s covenants with man, God institutes particular worship elements by His positive law in the different historical covenants. Positive laws are the laws that God posits, or decrees, by way of covenant. Without God’s special covenantal revelation of positive worship laws, no human being would know the right way to worship God. Positive laws, which institute worship elements, can and do change depending on the biblical covenant and its relation to Jesus Christ. The old covenant had one set of elements for worship, but the new covenant has a different set of elements.

The regulative principle exists in both covenants. But worship moved from a shadowy typological revelation of Christ in the old covenant to a more direct revelation of Christ in the new covenant. In the old covenant, God commanded a highly external and sensory form of worship that included a priesthood, animal sacrifices, ceremonial washings, candles, incense, and various rituals. This physical and sensory worship of the old covenant was a type of the more inward and spiritual worship of the new covenant. God instituted old covenant worship to stimulate bodily senses through types and shadows, but He instituted new covenant worship to stimulate the faith of His people by the Word of God and the full revelation of Jesus Christ. The old covenant types and shadows did not save in themselves but pointed to the promise of the covenant of grace, which did save. Old covenant saints were required to trust in the Savior to come.

The Old Covenant Regulative Principle

Deuteronomy 12:29–32. The book of Deuteronomy contains the regulative principle of worship for the old covenant:

When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, “How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.” You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

This passage warns against worshiping pagan gods and engaging in their detestable practices. It also forbids God’s people to worship God in the manner of the pagans. Verse 32 is prescriptive for the true worship of God in the old covenant, and by implication, in any covenant. God says, “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take away from it.” God’s people were absolutely forbidden to add or take away from God’s commandments for worship. That is the regulative principle of worship.

Leviticus 10:1–3. These verses are an example of what happened when God’s old covenant priests violated the regulative principle of worship.

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace.

Nadab and Abihu were priests of the Lord, serving in the temple and making an offering to God. But they sinned by offering strange fire, and the Lord consumed them. It is important to see that God did not put these priests to death for worshiping God in a way that He had expressly forbidden. Rather, they offered fire that God had never authorized. They offered God something He did not command. The result was swift punishment.

1 Kings 12:33. King Jeroboam instituted a worship feast that he devised in his own heart. Scripture records, “He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the month that he had devised from his own heart. And he instituted a feast for the people of Israel and went up to the altar to make offerings.” King Jeroboam violated the regulative principle when he “devised” a form of worship “from his own heart.” He worshiped God in a way that He had never commanded. What was the result? Because of Jeroboam’s sin, he provoked God’s anger and brought God’s judgment upon all of Israel (1 Kings 15:30).

The New Covenant Regulative Principle

While we have seen that the old covenant teaches the regulative principle of worship, we now consider it in the new covenant. The Bible teaches that God’s positive covenantal worship laws change with the institution of the new covenant because it has a new Priest. Hebrews 7:12 says, “For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.” Hebrews 8:13 says, “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.” When the old covenant passed away, its positive worship laws passed away with it, too. Consider some of the main New Testament passages that teach the regulative principle of worship.

John 4:24–26. One of the most important passages in the New Testament demonstrating the regulative principle in the new covenant is found in John 4:21–26. Our Lord Jesus speaks to the woman at the well, saying,

“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Jesus explains that the old covenant worship of the Jews in Jerusalem is coming to an end. At Christ’s death, the old covenant form of worship would expire because He would institute a new covenant form of worship (Heb. 9:17). In the old covenant, the nation performed acts of worship, which contained types and shadows of Christ. But in the new covenant, worship must be in “spirit and truth” (John 4:24). In the Greek, these two words convey one idea, which is that new covenant worshipers will worship God with a true knowledge of Christ revealed most clearly in the apostolic teachings of the New Testament. New covenant worship is governed by the New Testament revelation of Christ.

Colossians 2:20–23. This is another important passage that establishes the regulative principle for the new covenant.

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

This passage teaches that the church may never practice any form of “self-made religion.” Some translations render it “will worship” because the false teachers in Colossae were worshiping God according to the choices of their own human wills. However, God strictly forbids all innovations in worship, no matter how well-intended they may be. Some church leaders might have been deeply sincere in their man-made commands: “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch.” But God’s people must do only what He requires in public worship, no more and no less.

1 Timothy 3:14–15. Here Paul writes to Timothy and explains that he is not to be an innovator in the church or creative in worship. Rather, he is to be obedient to God’s Word.

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

Notice that Paul explicitly teaches the regulative principle when he writes to tell Timothy “how one ought to behave in the household of God.” There is a manner in which churches must conduct themselves in submission to what God requires.

Hebrews 12:28–29. In this sermon written to the church of the Hebrews, the writer makes it clear that the church must worship God acceptably. Deuteronomy 4:15–24 expressed the regulative principle of the old covenant, saying that “God is a consuming fire,” which is the same phrase used in Hebrews 12:29. The God who regulated old covenant worship regulates new covenant worship. Consider Hebrews 12:28–29:

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

The Greek word translated “acceptable” means “in a manner well-pleasing.” Worship is only “acceptable” when it is done in the manner that God commands, which means human preference has no place in acceptable worship. Worship must be done reverently, according to what God expressly institutes in His Word, and in awe, with a proper posture of humble reverential fear.

Thus, the second commandment establishes the transcendent moral law, which teaches that we must worship God according to what He requires, without any human additions or false worship of any kind. But the particular covenants in redemptive history determine which elements God requires by way of positive law.

New Covenant Elements and Circumstances of Worship

New Covenant Elements of Worship

New covenant elements of worship are the aspects of worship that God expressly institutes in the New Testament. In the new covenant, God commands the reading of Scripture: “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim. 4:13). He commands the preaching of the Word of God: “Preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2). He commands prayer: “Pray then like this . . .” (Matt. 6:9); “My house shall be called a house of prayer” (Matt. 21:13). He commands the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Col. 3:16). He commands baptism: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). He commands the Lord’s Supper: “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24). He commands tithes and offerings: “On the first day of the week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up” (1 Cor. 16:2). He requires public confessions of faith: “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness” (1 Tim. 3:16). He also teaches solemn oaths and vows in public worship (1 Thess. 5:27). Thus, religious vows in ordinations are done in obedience to the regulative principle.

The central element of new covenant worship is the Word of God. The supernatural gifts present in the early days of the new covenant, including prophecies, tongues, interpretations, and revelations, were the very Word of God. The high point of public worship in the new covenant is the preached Word of God. Every other element of worship depends on God’s Word. We take the sacrament, which is a visible word of the gospel. We pray according to God’s Word. We are to sing according to God’s Word. We are to confess the doctrines of God’s Word. We give our offerings with gratitude in light of the promises of God’s Word.

New Covenant Circumstances of Worship

There is an important difference between the elements of worship and the circumstances of worship. Elements are commanded in the New Testament. They must be done. But circumstances of worship may vary from church to church. Here is how the Second London Confession 1.6 describes circumstances: “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 other words, the Bible does not speak to the circumstances of worship, though it does say in 1 Corinthians 14:40 that “all things should be done decently and in order.” Services of worship should be ordered by the light of nature and godly wisdom.

What are circumstances of worship? They are attending factors or events that support the elements without diluting the elements or making themselves a prominent factor in worship. A circumstance exceeds its boundary when it begins to usurp an element in any way. The role of circumstances is to serve the elements as much as possible, while remaining in the background.

Circumstances might include factors such as lighting, seating, the length of the sermon, the style of the sermon, air conditioning, the time of the corporate gathering, and the details of the organization and administration of worship. The light of nature and wisdom determine the necessary circumstances of worship.

I believe instrumentation is a circumstance of worship, which means it should never overpower congregational singing, a commanded element. While instruments are never commanded, Colossians 3:16 says the church should sing “psalms.” The word “psalm” in Greek means to play upon a stringed instrument, or it is at least derived from a root with that meaning. Musical instruments are therefore not commanded, but they seem to be implied as a circumstance, which is only permitted to support congregational singing and should never occupy the prominent place in the worship service. Instruments in worship should be limited, if used at all, and only carry the congregational singing. When an instrument begins to overpower the congregation’s voices, then a circumstance has been converted into an element.

Liberty of Conscience

Some say the regulative principle is restrictive and binding. But, in fact, the opposite is true. The regulative principle is a doctrine of Christian liberty. It says that your leaders do not have the authority to make you do anything in public worship that the Bible does not say you have to do.

I know of a church where the worship leaders asked everyone to sing and do the hokey pokey, putting their right hand in and their right hand out, shaking it all about, etc. A number of years ago, the worship leaders of a large church led the congregation to sing “Let it Go” from Disney’s Frozen for Christmas. Another church spun a prize wheel to see which visitor would win a free Xbox.

Sadly, church leaders often implement such violations of the regulative principle to appeal to more people, to increase the sizes of their congregations and even their own salaries. However, the regulative principle teaches that churches are free from having to submit to any elements of worship that the Bible does not institute.

Liberty from Pagan Worship

Pagan worship works to stimulate human passions and appetites. Pagans used drums and repetitive music to create feelings of encounters with the gods, as various human cravings were correlated to different gods of the pantheon. Horrible and detestable practices and immoralities would accompany pagan worship. Sadly, what takes place in some churches today has more in common with pagan practices than with biblically instituted worship.

Over and against pagan worship, Christian worship does not aim to excite or satiate human passions and cravings, but to engage our minds and intellects with the Word of God and to lift our affections to Him (John 4:24). Rather than beginning with the emotional fluctuations and longings of created human beings, Christian worship begins with the transcendent God in Jesus Christ, who is eternal and personal Truth, Goodness, and Beauty and who calls His creatures to behold Him in His Word by His Spirit, commune with Him, glorify Him, and conform to His holiness.

Liberty from Infant Baptism

The regulative principle of worship is one of the main reasons Reformed Baptists separated from the Independent paedobaptists. The Reformed Baptists come from Puritanism, which sought to reform the English church, especially its worship, according to God’s Word. When that became impossible due to the Anglican archbishop William Laud (1573–1645), who opposed the Puritans by great persecution, they separated or were removed from the English church.

Within the Independent wing of Puritan separation, some of the Independents saw a need to apply the regulative principle of worship to infant baptism as well, considering this to be the consistent outworking of the Puritan mindset. That is how the Reformed Baptists emerged in their historical context. Reformed Baptists came to believe that the new covenant never institutes the baptism of infants; therefore, it is a forbidden worship practice.

Liberty from Papal Innovations

The papacy thinks that God is united to His people through the church by the seven sacraments, which involve the application of holy materials that miraculously elevate human beings to the divine. The waters of baptism remove original sin. The body and blood of Jesus, when eaten during mass, raise human nature into union with God, preparing it for eternal glory.

But Reformed churches understand that God unites Himself to His people by way of His saving covenant of grace, His sworn oath to redeem His people, which is revealed in the Bible. Therefore, the Word of God must be central in His worship, and God’s Word must limit worship because His covenant people are united to Him and grow in His grace through His Word by His Spirit. The regulative principle centers the Word of God in worship and forbids all unbiblical, unwarranted, superstitious practices.

Liberty from Government Interference

Since God instituted the elements of Christian worship and gives the church the keys of the kingdom, the civil government has no authority whatsoever to interfere with, change, or substitute those elements God has instituted for worship. In the seventeenth century, the monarchs of England sometimes sought to impose forms of worship on the churches, demanding that they use and conform to the Book of Common Prayer and other man-made traditions and ceremonies, but churches faithful to Christ’s regulative principle of worship refused to be bullied into submission by the edicts of tyrants. Christ is Lord of His church, and it is bound to obey only His commands for worship in the new covenant.

Liberty from Pragmatism, Silliness, and Manipulation

Some evangelical churches add elements to their worship services that may be well-intended but are not divinely instituted for Christian worship. Sam Waldron warns against “mundane or silly announcements in the middle of worship, the unwise tradition of hand-shaking in the middle of worship, badly organized testimony times, clown shows, mime, liturgical dance, movies and drama . . . deafening worship bands and the predominance of special music.”103 To this list, one might add laser light shows, smoke machines, and puppet shows. I have even heard of staff arm wrestling contests as part of public worship. All of these things violate the regulative principle of worship.

A number of years ago a certain Baptist church installed a baptistry (since removed) for children shaped like a fire truck with red paint and lights. As soon as a child was baptized, streamers and confetti exploded from the truck and its lights began to flash. Church leaders hoped this would make baptism more interesting to children, and it must have succeeded! I am sure every child in the church wanted to be baptized. Of course, such a manipulative device was never instituted by God. It turns a circumstance (a baptistry) into an element, making the baptistry itself the main event in order to get children to receive baptism and increase a church’s baptismal numbers.

I know of another church where the pastor stood on the stage wearing a white apron with a tall baking hat on his head. He was surrounded by movable ovens that were cooking something that smelled delicious. After a few introductory words, the lights dimmed and the church watched several movie clips about the baking preparation, where the cooking staff had made quite a mess in the back. The pastor’s short message provided one thought from one part of a verse from the Bible. The partial Bible verse was, “All things work together for good for those who love God” (Rom. 8:28). The pastor’s thought from this text was that “God can take your mess and turn it into something delicious.” He explained that even though the staff made a mess in the back, there are now delicious cookies for everyone to enjoy. Each person received a cookie on the way out of the building. Of course, this violates the regulative principle because the church neglected the true elements of worship, especially preaching the Word, and because God never commanded the things that were done.

Ordinary Means of Grace Ministry

Many churches design elaborate programs and creative ministries hoping it will increase their numbers and reach the community for Christ. Most of this kind of programming is well-intentioned. But when churches shift their focus to methodologies not revealed in the Bible, they often neglect the things God calls them to do. Confidence in man-made methods can far too easily replace confidence in what God has required of the church.

Liberal churches think the Bible’s message needs to be fitted to modern man, especially by deemphasizing sin, the cross of Christ, and repentance. They focus instead on helping the needy. Pragmatic churches believe the church’s methods need to be updated to reach each new generation. They may poll the community to find out what lost people want and how to reach them. But faithful churches submit themselves to the means of ministry that God prescribes in His Word. This is the only way a church can grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Ministry centered on the ordinary means of grace is simple. It does what God says, and it trusts God with the results.

The regulative principle of worship establishes an ordinary means of grace ministry in the church.104 The means of grace are called “means” because they are the ways God distributes Christ’s saving graces to His people through the Spirit in the church. Christ saves His people by grace alone through faith alone, but the ordinary means of grace are the tools or instruments by which Christ gives His grace to those who put their faith in Him. These means of grace are called “ordinary” for three reasons. First, because they are ordained by God in His Word. That is, God commands, or orders, His churches to practice them in Scripture. Second, God ordinarily, almost exclusively, uses these particular means to save and sanctify His people, though in His sovereignty, God is free to operate apart from these means. Third, the means are called ordinary because there’s nothing spectacular or extraordinary about them. God uses the seemingly weak and ordinary things to accomplish His great purposes of saving grace.

Acts 2 is one passage classically used to explain the ordinary means of grace. After Peter preached the gospel at Pentecost, Acts 2:41 says that many “received his word” and after that “were baptized,” and then three thousand souls “were added” to the local visible church in Jerusalem. Notice that there’s a clear order of progression here. First, they received the Word of Christ. Second, those who received the Word were baptized. And third, baptized believers joined together in a local church.

Acts 2:42 goes on to tell us what the church members did when they gathered together as a church. It says, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” The Greek word translated as “devoted themselves” means that these early Christians were strong and steadfast in giving constant attention. They gave themselves to certain primary disciplines together in the local church.

The ordinary means of grace in this passage are the Word and the sacrament, while the other activities refer to the church’s response to these means. The apostles’ teaching (the Word of God), baptism, and the breaking of bread or the Lord’s Supper (the sacrament) are means of grace.105 When God’s people receive these gifts of grace, they reflexively respond with faithful prayer and fellowship. They share in congregational singing, and they sing to God in prayer. They give material gifts to God when they give their offerings, and they share in those gifts when the church distributes them to those in need.

In 1 Timothy 4:11–16, the apostle Paul exhorts pastor Timothy in an ordinary means of grace ministry. Paul says,

Command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

The Second London Confession 3.6 speaks of means in connection to the salvation of the elect. It says,

As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so He hath, by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained all the means thereunto; wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ, by His Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith unto salvation; neither are any other redeemed by Christ, or effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. (Emphasis added.)

Conclusion

The regulative principle of worship grows out of the Bible’s sufficiency to govern the worship of God’s people. Corporate worship is based on the moral law of God, but its particular elements are regulated by the Bible’s positive laws, which are rooted in particular covenants. Thus, while all corporate worship is characterized by devotion to the one true God, without any idolatry and with holy speech on the Sabbath day, corporate worship differs between the old and new covenants due to their historical relationships to Christ’s coming.

The regulative principle is also a principle of Christian liberty from man-made innovations in corporate worship, in that it frees the church from tyranny and helps to unite God’s people under His Word. In the new covenant, the regulative principle is closely associated with an ordinary means of grace ministry, which are the Word and the sacrament. These means of grace lead worshipers to the means of gratitude, including prayer, fellowship, congregational singing, etc. In the next chapter, we will explore the great doctrine of Christian liberty, which is the culmination of Reformed theology.

  1. 100. For a good resource on the regulative principle of worship, see Terry L. Johnson, Worshipping with Calvin: Recovering the Historic Ministry and Worship of Reformed Protestantism (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2014). See also, Sam Waldron, How Then Should We Worship?: The Regulative Principle and Required Parts of the Church’s Corporate Worship (Leyland, England: Evangelical Press, 2022). For a classic work, see Jeremiah Burroughs, Gospel Worship (Morgan: Soli Deo Gloria, 1990).

  2. 101. John Calvin, “The Necessity of Reforming the Church,” Selected Works, 1:128–129.

  3. 102. Philip Graham Ryken, Written in Stone: The Ten Commandments and Today’s Moral Crisis (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 81.

  4. 103. Waldron, How Then Should We Worship?, 112–113.

  5. 104. See J. Ryan Davidson, Green Pastures: A Primer on the Ordinary Means of Grace (Palmdale: Reformed Baptist Academic Press, 2019).

  6. 105. For a brief historical account of how the early Baptists viewed the sacraments, see Michael A.G. Haykin, Amidst Us Our Beloved Stands: Recovering Sacrament in the Baptist Tradition (Bellingham: Lexham, 2022). See also an exegetical treatment in Richard C. Barcellos, The Lord’s Supper as a Means of Grace: More Than a Memory (Fearn: Mentor, 2013).