As the Lamb took the scroll, or took the book, out of God’s right hand, “the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense…,” [verse 8].There was cause for great rejoicing. They gave the Lamb adoration and praise. The “harp,” or the “lyre,” depending on your translation, symbolized praise. It and an instrument called the “psaltery” [an ancient stringed musical instrument resembling the zither] were the chief instruments of worship under the Old Covenant—not that worship exclusively involved these—but, when the occasion called for it, these were the chief instruments.

We know, of course, that the use of mechanical instruments in the New Testament church is not permitted. We don’t see any example of their use in worship at all. Of course, you know as well as I, that many people will turn to passages like this and seek to use this for their justification for using instruments of music in their worship. We know that according to Paul in Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 19, our worship involves melody—making melody [Ephesians 5:19: “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord…”]. And, yes, you can make melody on an instrument of music, but the kind of melody that Paul speaks of there is the kind that is generated in the heart, in the spirit of the worshiper, not in a dumb instrument. On another occasion, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 14, verses 7 and 8, Paul refers to the harp, flute and trumpet. Again, there are those who would turn to these passages and say, “Well, look! Look! Paul speaks of instruments in those verses!” But again, let’s look at the context, let’s see what Paul is truly speaking about here, and he is not speaking there at all in that section about worship.

John heard the redeemed who were with Christ—the 144,000—singing, whose voice was as the harpers harping on their harps, Revelation 14, verse 2. [Revelation 14:2: “Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father’s Name written on their foreheads. ²And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder. And I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps.”] And John saw those who came off victorious from the beast and his image, having harps of God, Revelation 15:2. [Revelation 15:2: “And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God.”]

Whatever these harps were, they were provided by God, and they were suitable for heavenly praise. That is just a little bit about these harps that we read about here, and this certainly is not, in any way, shape or form, any justification for use of instruments of music in our worship today.

Well, what about those “golden bowls full of incense” that John sees in this image [verse 8b]. He identifies them as “the prayers of the saints,” symbolizing, I believe, literal prayers. Incense and prayers are associated in the Old Covenant. David prayed, Psalm 141, and verse 2, saying, “Let my prayer be set before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” In the New Testament, as incense was being burned within the sanctuary, Luke, chapter 1, verse 10, prayers were being offered without. [Luke 1:8-10: “So it was, that while he (Zacharias) was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, ⁹according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. ¹⁰And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.”] We’ll also see the same combination of incense and prayer as we study Revelation, chapter 8, verses 3 and 4 [“Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. ⁴And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand.”].

Again, neither the harp nor the burning of incense is a part of New Testament worship. But in the vision, they symbolize the praise and the prayer of the saints.

Verses 9 and 10: “And they sang a new song, saying: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth.’”

We see this marvelous, this magnificent, scene there in the heavenly realm, a scene which would appear to be a spontaneous period of worship. The singers that are depicted here are the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders. They sing “a new song.” What was the song? What was the thrust of the song that they sang? It was the song of redemption, or a song of spiritual creation. John says that the song is “new.”

The word in the original Greek language for “new” is a specific word, and indicates something that is new, something that has not been used before. That is because of its content. A “new song” is one in which the consequence of some new and mighty deed, or deeds, of God has come about, has been revealed. So, this is a new impulse of gratitude in the heart. This is in response to what has occurred.

This term that is used here indicating the nature of this song, a “NEW song,” occurs frequently in the Psalms and with the coming of salvation through Jehovah’s servant. Isaiah, in Isaiah 42, and verse 10, wanted all to “Sing unto Jehovah a new song, and His praise from the ends of the earth.”