Rev. G. I. Williamson

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  www.ligonier.org/tabletalk/2008/1/1031_Inkling_of_Wonde - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 1/1/2008    Last Visited: 5/24/2008  

  I am a Calvinist.No, better to say that I am a rabid Calvinist.I am the son of a Calvinist.
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  When I consider my own theological education, I divide it into three equal parts.First, I was raised by R.C. Sproul.
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  The ghost of John Calvin haunted my home, and for that I give thanks.
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  Second, I studied theology at Reformed Theological Seminary.There, all my professors were required to affirm their commitment to Calvinism as a prerequisite for their employment.Third, as a boy, with the able aid of my pastor, I studied The Westminster Shorter Catechism for Study Groups, by G. I. Williamson.It was there that the pieces fell into place.
  
  When I was in high school, while others were souping up their cars or lining up their dates for Saturday night, I was in my room, reading Calvinists.My children are Calvinists, and I pray their children will be Calvinists as well.Yet, if I am honest and consider those men who have most shaped my own thinking, right after my father and John Gerstner, there stands "Jack," C.S. Lewis.

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  www.all-of-grace.org/williamson/index.html - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 4/9/2007    Last Visited: 10/11/2007  

  G. I. Williamson received the B.D. degree from Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary.He has served congregations of the old United Presbyterian Church of North America, the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, but most of his ministerial labors have been with the Reformed Churches of New Zealand and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (in which he continues to serve).He is author of popular study guides to the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Shorter Catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism.For fourteen years he served as editor of Ordained Servant, a journal for church officers.Click here to send him email.
  
  Writings of G. I. Williamson
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  Index to other articles and reviews by G. I. Williamson (PDF)
  
  Note: the free Acrobat Reader software necessary for viewing PDF documents may be downloaded by clicking here.

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  goteach.gcp.org/ar_sundayschoolcurriculum.asp?id=772928 - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/16/2007    Last Visited: 3/16/2007  

  by Rev. G. I. Williamson
  
  When Paul the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 3:3 NKJV), he described each one of them as "an epistle of Christ ... written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God."This means that every Christian life has a story to tell and the story is written by God.But just as Shakespeare (the author) is much greater and more important than any of the many different characters in the plays that he wrote (such as "Hamlet" or "King Lear"), so God is much more important than the story of Moses or David or Paul.
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  Rev. G. I. Williamson is a minister of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.Now retired, he served pastorates in the OPC and other Reformed denominations for 40 years.He also is a member of the OPC's Committee on Christian Education and the Committee on Ecumenicity, as well as editor of Ordained Servant, a quarterly journal for church officers.Mr. Williamson is well known for his study courses on The Westminster Confession of Faith, The Westminster Shorter Catechism and The Heidelberg Catechism.And he was co-author of First Catechism, GCP's revision of the original Catechism for Young Children.

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  Eusebius, The History of the Church By G. A. Williamson, translator This History of the Church, (to A.D. 324) was writ,

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  www.reformed.com/pub/music.htm - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 1/28/2006    Last Visited: 3/5/2007  

  Williamson writes: "The whole system of ceremonial worship served as a 'shadow of heavenly things' (Heb. 8:5).
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  The New Testament does not authorize the use of musical instruments in Christian public worship.87 G. I. Williamson writes: "The fundamentalists speak of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, and thus take seriously the fact that this Old Testament worship was commanded by God.
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  Regarding Psalm 150:3, Calvin writes: "I do not insist upon the words in Hebrew signifying the musical instrument [in other words they may just be poetic metaphors exhorting believers to great praise]; only let the reader remember that sundry different kinds are here mentioned, which were in use under the legal economy, the more forcibly to teach the children of God that they cannot apply themselves too diligently to the praises of God."90
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  Too many church leaders are content to defend the status quo. (But, a non-reforming church is a deforming one.) When confronted with the biblical evidence regarding the use of musical instruments in the public worship (also, unauthorized holy days and exclusive psalmody) the response usually is: "I don't want to hear it.Who cares?That's interesting but I love the sound of musical instruments in worship.This issue could be divisive, so just drop it".These answers reveal an unscriptural, anti-Reformed attitude."Is it not evident,painfully evident,that they are really arrogant words? 'Who cares what God wants,' such people say in effect: 'So long as I have what I want!I am the important one!' This is the very antithesis of true religion."108 Human traditions have the ability to pull the heart strings.
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  We have brought into our churches a certain operose and theatrical music; such a confused, disorderly chattering of some words, as I hardly think was ever heard in any of the Grecian or Roman theatres.
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  But the promise made, that "Wheresoever two or three be gathered together in my name, there shall I be in the midst of them," condemneth all such as condemneth the congregation gathered in his name.But mark well the word "gathered;" I mean not to hear piping, singing, or playing; nor to patter upon beads, or books whereof they have no understanding; not to commit idolatry, honoring that for God which is no God indeed.For with such will I neither join myself in common prayer, nor in receiving external sacraments; for in so doing I should affirm their superstition and abominable idolatry, which I, by God's grace, never will do, neither counsel others to do, to the end. ,John Knox (Reformer, Scotland), A Declaration of the True Nature and Object of Prayer (1554).
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  I. The instrumental musick used in the old church of Israel was an institution of God: it was (2 Chron.29:25) the commandment of the Lord "by the prophets."And the instruments are called "God's instruments," (1 Chron.16:42), and "instruments of the Lord," (2 Chron.7:6).Now, there is not one word of institution in the New Testament for instrumental musick in the worship of God.And because the holy God rejects all He does not command in His worship, He now therefore in effect says unto us, "I will not hear the melody of thy Organs."
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  So to those who have no real devotion or spirituality in them, and whose animal nature flags under the oppression of church services, I think with Mr. G, that instrumental music would be not only a desideratum, but an essential prerequisite to fire up their souls to even animal devotion.But I presume, to all spiritual-minded Christians, such aids would be as a cowbell in a concert. ,Alexander Campbell (minister and co-founder of the Christian Church [i.e. Campbellites]), in The Millennial Harbinger (1851).
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  Lowell Mason [noted 19th -century hymn writer and worship leader in Alexander's congregation for four years] said to me t'other day: "I have been an organist all my life; yet if a congregation should say to me, 'Shall we have an organ?' I should scarcely dare to reply 'Yes.'" ,James W. Alexander (minister, Presbyterian Church, USA), "Letter to John Hall, dated New York, May, 1854," in Forty Years' Familiar Letters of James W. Alexander, D.D. (1860).
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  In the same name and by the same authority, that of the Lord Christ, I debar ministerially all impenitent violators of the second commandment; all who, while they professedly worship the true God, do not recognize and act upon the principle that God alone has the right to prescribe the institutes of his own worship;,who worship God by proxy, with choirs111 and organs.
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  Paul says, "I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also."An instrument has no spirit; it has no understanding.The human voice has conjoined with it both spirit and understanding.... God has drawn the line for us when he says, "I will sing with the spirit," not with the organ.
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  I.Williamson (minister, Orthodox Presbyterian Church), "Instrumental Music in Worship: Commanded or Not Commanded?," in The Biblical Doctrine of Worship (1974).
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  In another succinct statement, the Scottish reformer said: "I feared not to affirm, that of necessity it is, that such as hope for life everlasting avoid all superstition, vain religion, and idolatry.
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  Yet, it might have been more shocking to his Presbyterian readers if Mr. Frame simply had come out and said directly, "I oppose the teaching of the Westminster Confession in its description of the parts of worship."
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  In the Preface to the book, Frame claims, "In my view, the Westminster Confession is entirely right in its regulative principle,that true worship is limited to what God commands" (p. xiii). (Including drama, right?) Turning the page, we are assured, "My own theological commitment is Presbyterian; I subscribe enthusiastically to the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, and I trust that that commitment will be quite evident in this book" (pp. xiv-xv).Unfortunately, Frame's commitment to confessional Presbyterianism is precisely what is not apparent in the book.
  
  Indeed, what Frame professes to give with one hand, he takes away with the other.In the Preface, he shows his true colors:
  
  Presbyterian worship,based on the biblical "regulative principle," which I describe in these pages,was in its early days very restrictive, austere, and "minimalist."134 It excluded organs, choirs, hymn texts other than the Psalms, symbolism in the worship area, and religious holidays except for the Sabbath.135 Presbyterians in the "Covenanter" tradition, such as those in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America and a few other denominations, still worship this way, but they are in that respect a small minority of conservative Presbyterians today.
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  I have talked to pastors, for instance, who are unwilling to go back to exclusive use of the Psalms in congregational singing, yet feel awkward about singing hymns.
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  And, if it be said, man's soul cannot be painted, but his body may, and yet that picture represents a man: I answer, it does so because he has but one nature; and what represents that, represents the person: But it is not so with Christ; his Godhead is not a distinct part of the human nature, as the soul of man is (which is necessarily supposed in every living man) but a distinct nature, only united with the manhood in that one person, Christ, who has no fellow: Therefore what represents him, must not represent a man only, but must represent Christ, Immanuel, God-man, otherwise it is not his image.
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  42 G. I. Williamson, On the Observance of Sacred Days (Havertown, ND: New Covenant Publication Society), pp.9-10.
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  56 G. I. Williamson, Instrumental Music in the Worship of God: Commanded or Not Commanded?, p. 5.
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  66 G. I. Williamson, Instrumental Music in the Worship of God: Commanded or Not Commanded?, pp.7-8.
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  67 John Calvin concurs: "I have no doubt that playing upon cymbals, touching the harp and the viol, and all that kind of music, which is so frequently mentioned in the Psalms, was a part of the education; that is to say, the puerile [i.e., immature] instruction of the law: I speak of the stated service of the temple.
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  For even now, if believers choose to cheer themselves with musical instruments, they should, I think, make it their object not to dissever their cheerfulness from the praises of God.
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  81 G. I. Williamson, Instrumental Worship in the Worship of God: Commanded or Not Commanded?, p. 11.

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  www.goodtheology.com/inventory.php?target=indiv_book&id - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 4/1/1990    Last Visited: 7/7/2008  

  By: Eusebius, G. A. Williamson (Translator)

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  opc.org/review.html?review_id=55 - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 4/9/2006    Last Visited: 3/12/2007  

  G. I. Williamson, review of D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America D. G. Hart and John R. Meuther, "J. Gresham Machen and the Regulative Principle"
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  Reviewed by: G. I. Williamson
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  I first heard about J. Gresham Machen in 1950, when I was a student at Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary.I was intrigued, but it wasn't easy to get at the truth.I heard many criticisms of Machen, but they were usually nothing more than vague allegations.The more I heard, the less convinced I was that they were true.But how was I to make sure?There wasn't much in print about Machen in those days,at least not much that was readily accessible to me.I finally got some first hand testimony from Clarence E. Macartney, who was then in the final years of his ministry at First Presbyterian Church.
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  I will never forget his clear affirmation of Machen's faithfulness to the truth, and of his church's unjust dealing with him.
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  The most important thing that I gained from this particular book was a better insight into the social and cultural context in which Machen labored.He was the number one foe of the modernists, who used the terminology of the Christian religion, but were in reality anything but Christian.

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  www.all-of-grace.org/williamson/ - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 4/9/2007    Last Visited: 10/11/2007  

  G. I. Williamson received the B.D. degree from Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary.He has served congregations of the old United Presbyterian Church of North America, the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, but most of his ministerial labors have been with the Reformed Churches of New Zealand and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (in which he continues to serve).He is author of popular study guides to the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Shorter Catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism.For fourteen years he served as editor of Ordained Servant, a journal for church officers.Click here to send him email.
  
  Writings of G. I. Williamson
  ...
  Index to other articles and reviews by G. I. Williamson (PDF)
  
  Note: the free Acrobat Reader software necessary for viewing PDF documents may be downloaded by clicking here.

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  opc.org/os.html?article_id=4 - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 1/1/2006    Last Visited: 5/28/2008  

  Editorial - Galvanized Iron: A Tribute to G. I. Williamson for His Pioneering Work on Ordained ServantOrdained Servant
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  Editorial - Galvanized Iron: A Tribute to G. I. Williamson for His Pioneering Work on Ordained Servant
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  G. I. was born Gerald Irvin Williamson in Des Moines, Iowa, on May 19, 1925.After being graduated from Drake University in 1949 (the year I was born) and Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary in 1952 with that wonderfully antique degree, the B.D. (bachelor of divinity), he was ordained on June 1, 1952, by the Presbytery of Des Moines in the United Presbyterian Church of North America.He served UPCNA churches in New Bedford, Pennsylvania, and Fall River, Massachusetts.In 1954 he was received into the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, where he served a church in Monticello, Arkansas.In 1955 he was received into the Presbytery of New York and New England of the OPC.His article "What's So Special about the OPC?"tells why he came into the OPC.For the next seven years, G. I. served Grace OPC in Fall River, Massachusetts.From 1963 to 1983, he served two churches in the Reformed Churches of New Zealand, sandwiched around a four-year stint with a Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America congregation in Park City, Kansas.
  
  Finally, in 1983 G. I. returned stateside for good, both his and ours.He served the OP churches in Carson and Lark, North Dakota, until his "retirement" in 1993.Well, it may have been a retirement from the pastorate, but certainly not from serving his Lord's church.From 1993 to 1995, G. I. helped plant a church in Hull, Iowa.In 1995 the congregation joined the newly formed United Reformed Church.It was in 1992 that G. I. began editing a new OP periodical, Ordained Servant (which was made possible by the willing assistance of God's people at Bethel OPC in Carson, N.D.) And now, after publishing his fifty-third issue in his eighty-first year, he has handed over the reins.
  
  G. I.'s extensive experience in various Reformed churches solidified his firm commitment to historic, confessional Presbyterianism.His passion has been to instruct the church in its confession and catechisms, and to inculcate that faith in the worship and life of the church through the ministry of an active, pastorally oriented eldership.
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  It is one of the great honors of my ministry to follow in the footsteps of G. I. Williamson as editor of Ordained Servant.I hope to continue his fine efforts to cultivate confessional consciousness in the mind of the church through the faithful ministries of its officers, that Scripture may be understood and lived to the glory of God.
  
  How I Intend to Build on G. I.'s Work
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  As part of our tribute to G. I. Williamson, we begin with one of his editorials that, more than anything I have read, sums up his principled love for the Orthodox Presbyterian expression of our Lord's church.
  
  The general secretary and the CCE have given me considerable latitude in redesigning Ordained Servant.
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  Our own "Galvanized Iron" Williamson is a fine example of such a Christian soldier.I hope to explore those riches that are right under our noses.Machen is particularly useful because he lived in the same world we inhabit.He excelled in understanding the modern world and engaging it from a distinctly confessional perspective.
  
  There are two things in particular about Machen's Christianity that I hope to see mirrored in Ordained Servant.First, he was able to communicate profound ideas with cogency and clarity.Such clear thinking and its excellence of expression in print is what we will aim at.Second, his strong convictions were always held as a true Christian gentleman.He was not afraid to disagree passionately, but he always did so compassionately.

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  www.all-of-grace.org/williamson/rpw.html - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 4/9/2007    Last Visited: 10/11/2007  

  G. I. Williamson
  
  How are we to worship God?That is the question that we shall consider.And I believe the answer is already implied in our firm adherence to the Bible as the inspired word of God, and as the only infallible rule of our faith and practice.
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  But I really don't think many scholars are even interested in this vital subject.And, anyway, my concern is not so much with the scholars as it is with the rank and file membership of our churches.Are they really familiar with what the Scripture says on this subject?It's my experience, after nearly forty years in the pastor ministry, in four Reformed denominations, that they are not well informed concerning this matter.2 I will therefore, without apology, center my attention today on precisely these once well-known examples.
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  But I think it's more likely that he acted on the basis of the same revelational data that we ourselves have in the first three Genesis chapters.
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  For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."
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  The things that went into the Tabernacle were produced (like the Bible itself) by special divine inspiration: "See, I have chosen Bezaleel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts [and] I have appointed Aholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, to help him.Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded. . .They are to make them just as I commanded you" [Ex.31:2-11].
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  To the contrary, "all this, said David, have I been made to understand in writing from the hand of the Lord, even all the works of this pattern" (v. 19).
  
  Now why was this so important?Why did everything have to conform to a pattern revealed first to Moses, and later to David?The reason is self-evident: God will not be worshiped in any other way than as he has commanded.As Calvin once said: "I am not unaware how difficult it is to persuade the world that God rejects and even abominates every thing relating to his worship that is devised by human reason."8 But the truth is that "there is nothing more perilous to our salvation than a preposterous and perverse worship of God."9
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  No, the primary reason,which is far more important,was stated in this way by the prophet: "they have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire,something I did not command nor did it enter my mind" [Jer.7:31].13 How could God make it any clearer?Worship which is not commanded by God is therefore forbidden.
  
  Here, then, is the uniform principle taught in the Old Testament Scriptures, summed up in these words of Moses: "Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you" (Deut. 4:2).
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  Therefore go and make disciples...baptizing them...and teaching them to obey everything I have17 commanded you" (Mt. 28:18-20).This, in our view, is exactly what the Apostles did.They taught what Christ had commanded them, not what he had commanded plus their own inventions.
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  I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain" (Gal. 4:9-11).
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  And, if they did, I could at least respect them for being consistent.
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  This is a subject that I began to study many years ago, and from my research I am struck by two things: [1] I have never seen any exegetical proof that God wants us to produce our own hymns and sing them to Him in worship instead of the Psalms.As a matter of fact the arguments that I have seen, defending the prevailing practice today, always seem to me to stand on a Lutheran foundation.Instead of attempting to prove that the present practice is what God commands, there is usually a subtle shift to the argument that 'it is not forbidden.' But this utterly fails to meet the criterion set down in the Scripture. [2] A second thing is this: it is simply an historical fact that the great change the Reformed Churches made, in substituting uninspired hymns for the inspired psalms, was not the result of new discoveries in the content of Scripture.It was not a reluctant change compelled by careful exegesis (at least this is true in the several instances of this innovation in the history of the Reformed Churches known to the writer).No, the change came, rather, by way of giving in to increasing popular demand.I once had opportunity to discuss this subject with an elderly minister of the (old) United Presbyterian denomination.I asked him what brought that Church to change its stand on the exclusive use of psalms in worship, as it did in the 1925 creedal revision.His answer was interesting.He said the church had already started, some years earlier, to celebrate such days as Christmas.Then, he said, after these had become well-entrenched, the pressure began to grow to bring in,by popular demand,music 'appropriate' for these celebrations.
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  I came to feel the weight of the Biblical, Confessional and Historical data supporting the regulative principle soon after I graduated from Seminary in 1952.But, for many years, it was almost impossible to interest anyone in a serious discussion of the regulative principle of divine worship.I believe the primary reason for this has been, quite simply, inertia.When people are comfortable with things as they are it is hard to get them to reconsider.After all, why create problems?For many, therefore, the strongest possible argument is a simple statement confirming the status quo.I was forced to the reluctant conclusion, therefore, that the regulative principle was quite dead in most Reformed denominations.
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  The problem I have with this argument is that I find no basis for it in Scripture.To the contrary, what I find is that God has given a different command for these two elements of worship.Jesus did not leave his disciples without specific instruction concerning prayer.To the contrary, what he did was to teach them what is commonly called 'the Lord's Prayer,' saying: ,In this manner, therefore, pray:" [Mt.6:9].
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  I cannot see that any of these assumptions are valid.
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  4 The Westminster Confession of Faith speaks of those truths which "by good and necessary inference may be deduced from Scripture" (I,vi).
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  What do I mean by will-worship?I mean, any kind of worship which is not prescribed in God's own Word...Inasmuch, therefore, as these people did not show any reverence for God by consulting His record of the rules which He had laid down for their guidance,,seeming to think that, whatever pleased them must please Him,,whatever kind of worship they chose to make up would be quite sufficient for the Lord God of Israel,,therefore, it ended in failure...How I wish that all religious denominations would bring their ordinances and forms of worship to the supreme test of the New Testament...But, alas! they know that so much would have to be put away that is now delightful to the flesh, that, I fear me, we shall be long before we bring all to worship God after His own order."
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  22 Note, for example, Paul's statement in I Cor. 11:23, "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you ... etc."
  
  23 (Monsma & Van Dellen, The Church Order Commentary, Zondervan Pub.Co., 1941, p. 273).

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