Regulative Principle Distinction

[NaphtaliPress]

Part of many presbyterians so called disagreeing with the 'puritan' regulative principle comes down to something Calvin constantly focuses on: superstition and will worship. We want to make worship more special ... to us. Calvin constantly exposes that if one examines these citations from him. He's a meme of the compromised presbyterian pot calling the entertainment focused kettle black.

 

[bookslover]

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.



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?

Why would "it be a legitimate inference to draw that I was not to eat the orange" if I haven't said anything about the orange either way. All I've said is that you must eat the apple. Why does that command automatically mean that you cannot eat the orange?

 

[Scottish Presbyterian]

Why would "it be a legitimate inference to draw that I was not to eat the orange" if I haven't said anything about the orange either way. All I've said is that you must eat the apple. Why does that command automatically mean that you cannot eat the orange?

Your commands about eating are not comparable to God's commands about his worship. There is no analogy. Apples and oranges.

 

[Tom Hart]

Why would "it be a legitimate inference to draw that I was not to eat the orange" if I haven't said anything about the orange either way. All I've said is that you must eat the apple. Why does that command automatically mean that you cannot eat the orange?

Your analogy fails chiefly because the reader lacks adequate context to make any sense of it. For a start, why are you telling us to eat an apple? Is there a reason? Why should we assume that we shouldn't eat the orange? Based on the information given, we can't really assume anything. After all, who are you in this analogy? A boss, a king, or a stranger?

I might suggest that you refine your analogy, since, as it stands, it does nothing to serve anyone's argument.

 

[alexandermsmith]

Why would "it be a legitimate inference to draw that I was not to eat the orange" if I haven't said anything about the orange either way. All I've said is that you must eat the apple. Why does that command automatically mean that you cannot eat the orange?

Because you have explicitly told me to eat the apple. If you had placed both before me and said "help yourself" then the obvious conclusion to draw is that I may take either or both. But to command me to eat one and not the other, implies I'm not allowed the other. It's not absolute but it is strongly implied. Anyway I don't want to make too much out of this analogy for the reasons given by others but it's worth pointing out that the way you constructed the analogy doesn't necessarily prove what you want it to prove.

 

[Tom Hart]

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.

I could not agree more. This point needs to be strongly emphasized in discussions on worship.

When anyone says that the thrice Holy God has left some part of worship unregulated - in other words, given over to the imaginations of men - we simply ought to reply that he has given no such license. On the contrary, in the clearest terms, God opposes any adding to or taking away from his word.

 

[CovenantWord]

I write in support of the point made by Tom Hart and alexandersmith above.

One of the important purposes of considering hypothetical ethical scenarios is to help clarify implicit moral propositions. For instance, imagine a firefighter entering a building ablaze, realizing he has time to rescue only one creature, either a baby or the family dog. Should he rescue the baby, he will have revealed his moral priority. His decision can be presented in logical form:
Major premise: Human life is more valuable than animal life.
Minor premise: A human and an animal are in urgent danger.
Conclusion: Save the human life.

This clarification of the major premise may be applied to the question about consuming the apple or the orange. The man is explicitly permitted to eat the apple. He eats the orange. This choice reveals his moral proposition:
Major premise: Authority permits what it does not forbid.
Minor premise: The orange is not forbidden.
Conclusion: The orange is permitted.

In the second scenario, the man restricts himself to eating the apple:
Major premise: Authority forbids what it does not permit.
Minor premise: The orange is not permitted.
Conclusion: The orange is forbidden.

From a strictly logical point of view, neither major premise is superior to the other. Yet, in our antiauthoritarian society, the first premise is generally assumed to be the only moral option; but, to quote Sportin' Life, it ain't necessarily so. Our major premise, our moral policy, must be derived from special revelation alone.

This, then, is how deductive logic applies to questions of worship and Church governance, according to RPW:
Major: What is not permitted is forbidden.
Minor: Proposed worship activity X is not explicitly permitted.
Conclusion: Activity X is forbidden.

 

[Ryan&Amber2013]

I did some further investigating today. Here are a few passages that stand out:

You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.
Deuteronomy 4:2

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.
Proverbs 30:5‭-‬6

I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.
Ecclesiastes 3:14

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
Revelation 22:18‭-‬19

But then, reading Matthew 23 in the sermon this morning, this stuck out:
“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.
Matthew 23:2‭-‬3

This could refer to only the law of Moses, but in fairness Jesus does tell them to observe"whatever" they are told.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

This could refer to only the law of Moses, but in fairness Jesus does tell them to observe"whatever" they are told.

The Scribes and Pharisees were the official preachers of the day and bore that authority in the visible church. So the Lord is guarding against any that might take his condemnation of their hypocrisy and false teaching for doctrines the commandments of men to mean He was condemning their office or the Law. We're in Mathew 23 in the morning service and have reached the Woes against the Scribes and Pharisees. See Poole's explanation and others Here.

 

[VRH]

As a tangential side note, in English, we distinguish easily between “which he had not commanded them to do” (not required) and “which he had commanded them not to do” (prohibited) by word order, but in Hebrew no such simple distinction exists. In fact, the Old Testament has no precise equivalent verb to “to prohibit” and elsewhere uses “not to command” in exactly that sense (see Jouon 160k). In Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5 and 32:35 the phrase “which I did not command” (‘ašer lo‘ tsivvîtî) has reference to those who offer their children as burnt offerings on the high places, something specifically prohibited in Leviticus 18:21. This does suggest that Leviticus 10 (along with the Jeremiah passages cited above) are not quite the slam dunk proof texts for the RPW they is sometimes treated as being. As some of the other posts have argued, I think you can still get there from other texts, but its important to make sure that our working is valid as well as our conclusions.

Thank you for your insights here. How is our understanding of 'which I did not command' shaped by the clauses immediately following it ('nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:')? The translation as given seems to move us in the direction originally suggested by Josh.

 

[Ryan&Amber2013]

The Scribes and Pharisees were the official preachers of the day and bore that authority in the visible church. So the Lord is guarding against any that might take his condemnation of their hypocrisy and false teaching for doctrines the commandments of men to mean He was condemning their office or the Law. We're in Mathew 23 in the morning service and have reached the Woes against the Scribes and Pharisees. See Poole's explanation and others Here.

That definitely seems like the rational explanation. Why would he say "do whatever they tell you" though, knowing they were extra-biblicists? Thanks!

 

[iainduguid]

Thank you for your insights here. How is our understanding of 'which I did not command' shaped by the clauses immediately following it ('nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:')? The translation as given seems to move us in the direction originally suggested by Josh.

Good question. I think it's a rhetorical sequence in which each of the terms builds on the previous: "I did not command you to do this....in fact I didn't even say it [in a different context where you might have thought I wanted you to do it, even though it wasn't an explicit command]....in fact, I didn't even think it [let alone say it].... I think the logical completion of this rhetorical argument remains unexpressed: in fact, I explicitly commanded you NOT to do this...but you did it anyway.

Does that make sense?