"THE TRUMPETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT"
Larry Yarber
"Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1st Corinthians 15:51-52).
There are at least two other passages which deal with this same subject matter and which are deserving of our attention here, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch angel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:" (1st Thessalonians 5:16). "And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matthew 24:31). Since the trumpet was used as a signaling devise by man throughout the Old Testament dispensation of time and in the early history of the New Testament age, it would appear that it is being used in a symbolic manner in the above passages, "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle" (1st Corinthians 14:8)? As man sounded the trumpet to signal some great momentous event, so God will signal His own return with a loud tempestuous noise, "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, ..." (2nd Peter 3:10).
In support of the claim found above, we turn again to the book of Revelation and the symbolic use of the trumpet throughout its pages. Both, Peter and John state that the prophets of God were given spiritual truths in symbolic language, "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow" (1st Peter 1:10-11). And, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:" (Revelation 1:1). To signify means, "... To make known by signs, speech, or action; to be a sign or indication of; represent; to betoken or portend. ..." (WEBSTER, p. 899). Repeatedly, throughout the book of Revelation, John uses the trumpet, symbolically, to represent the voice of God's servants, "I was on the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet" :(Revelation 1:10). "And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound" (Revelation 8:13). Thus, one can only conclude that the trumpets of heaven are nothing more than loud, clear, and distinct voices.
Furthermore, since the physical things of this world are temporal, how could they exist in heaven, "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the thing which are not seen are eternal" (2nd Corinthians 4:18). And, as we noted in an earlier article, "ye are not come unto ... the sound of a trumpet, ... But ye are come unto ... the general assembly and church of the firstborn, ..." (Hebrews 12:18-23). Even if these passages were talking about a literal trumpet, Paul affirmed that it would be the last trumpet to ever sound (1st Corinthians 15:51-52). And, even then, it is used to signal an important event and not in worship of God. To use these texts in an attempt to justify the use of mechanical instruments of music in worship of God is to stretch the Word of God to its ultimate limits (2nd Peter 3:15-16). May we never be found guilty of doing such a thing as this!