alexandermsmith
Puritan Board Junior
For example, lighting candles during a service around Christmas. Or even having a Christmas Eve service, for that matter.
So the idea is that God didn't really give a command in regards to these things, therefore we have freedoms where He hasn't regulated things.
Using candles, when God has not commanded their use, is adding to His commands, expressly forbidden in Deut. 12:32. To do anything in worship which God has not commanded is to add to His commands.
"What is not commanded is forbidden" is the definition of the Regulative Principle.
But, does that really follow?
If there are an apple and an orange on a table, and I command you to eat the apple, have I forbidden you from eating the orange just based on the command to eat the apple? That doesn't seem to follow, logically. Nothing has been said about the orange, either way.
Am I missing something?
Well by the fact you have commanded me to eat the apple, and not the orange, it would be a legitimate inference to draw that I was not to eat the orange. Otherwise why specifically command the eating of the apple?