Judging by the prominent place that God has given to music, both in His creation, the general revelation, and in His Word, the special revelation, it seems that we have reason enough to suppose that God loves music.
He not only filled His creation with it, but He gave man an amazing ability to produce music and create music. In fact, the human voice remains the most versatile musical instrument in existence.
Someone said in this regard “that God has marvelously organized the human voice to the point that, in the throat and lungs, there are fourteen direct muscles that can emit up to sixteen thousand different sounds, and in addition there are another thirty indirect ones, which it has been calculated that they can make more than 173 million sounds” (quoted by EB Gentile; Worship God; pg. 211-212).
God gave you the ability to sing, because He wants us to praise Him by singing. He delights when his people sing to him. But not merely for aesthetic delight, but because in that song we reflect his image in us, we proclaim his glory and we relate to him in a fuller dimension of love and intimate communion. I will explain this more fully.
That tendency that man has to express his emotions through singing is nothing more than a reflection of the image and likeness of God in us. Our God not only created the music, but He reveals Himself in his Word as a Being that expresses his emotions, singing.
It says in Sof. 3:17: “The Lord is in your midst, mighty, he will save; he will rejoice over you with joy, he will be silent with love, he will rejoice over you with songs. Another translation may be: “… he will rejoice over you with songs of joy.”
Our God sings, and we, as creatures created in His image and as redeemed men and women to the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14), must give expression to our religious sentiments through the singing.
God asks us to love him with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our strength; that is, with all our faculties as men. And song is a vehicle through which we can manifest a dimension of that love and trust in God, which can hardly be expressed with the same intensity through prose.
John Piper says about it: “The reason why we sing is because there are depths and heights and intensities and types of emotion that could not be satisfactorily expressed by prose, or even by poetic reading. There are realities that demand that we move from prose to poetry, and some demand that poetry be taken further and turned into song” (J. Piper; Dec. 28, 1997).
With this in mind, let us once again return to the subject of the filling of the Spirit. Brethren, what is the work that the Spirit of God does in our hearts to effectively bring us to Christ in repentance and faith? Enlighten our understanding to comprehend in a saving way the great truths of the gospel and transform our hearts to respond appropriately.
It is not a mere intellectual understanding of the content of certain doctrines, but an unshakable certainty in the reality of what those doctrines teach.
We know that the God who made heaven and earth chose us before the foundation of the world to make us partakers of the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. We know that in him all our sins were forgiven and that by his sheer grace we have been given the gift of eternal life.
We know that our God is faithful, unchangeable, almighty, perfect in justice, love, and holiness, and that he has made a pact with his people not to turn back from doing us good.
We know that we have been freed from the condemnation of hell and that we have in Christ an incorruptible, undefiled and unfading inheritance, reserved in heaven for us.
The Holy Spirit has not only made us understand these truths, but also makes them real in our minds, in our affections, and in our will. And that is what makes the Spirit-filled believer sing.
No human being in this world has more objective reasons to sing than the son of God, because no one has been made part of more glorious realities, realities that can hardly be expressed in all their dimension solely through our speech.
Do you know why God delights when His children sing praises to Him? Because that song is a tangible manifestation of that work of the Spirit in our inner being, implanting in us those truths that He wants us to know and believe.
The believer’s song is a faith response to divine revelation. That is why the Christian can sing praises to God, even when he finds himself in the midst of difficult situations. When Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned in Philippi, he says in Acts. 16:25 that “at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and sang hymns to God.”
As dire as our circumstances may be, God still sits on His throne; He is still wise, good, merciful, loving and faithful. And when a believer raises his voice in praise, regardless of the difficulties he has around him, he is proclaiming his unwavering trust in the God of his salvation.
So why do we sing? Because God wants us to sing to Him, because He delights in our singing, even though He knows our weaknesses, and He knows that many times we have to fight against ourselves to sing from the heart and not as a mere lip exercise.
There is a huge difference between the hypocrite who is satisfied with his external worship, and the believer who is on the battlefield bringing his captive thoughts over and over again to obedience to Christ.
One day all believers will give God perfect praise, but that will be when we stand in His presence, completely free from the activity of sin in our lives. In the meantime, we can and should continue to bring our sacrifices of praise, knowing that those spiritual sacrifices are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, as it says in 1P. 2:4.
The blood of Christ that cleanses us from all sin, also purifies our praises so that they rise as a fragrant odor before God and be a delight for His Paternal heart.
I was recently sitting in a worship service when I realized that the person sitting next to me was not singing; so I brought him the hymnbook so he could read the lyrics, but this person, who is a believer, excused himself by telling me that the reason she didn’t sing was because he didn’t know how to sing.
Since we were in the middle of the service, I couldn’t teach him extensively about it, but I quickly told him that the Lord received his praise through Christ, regardless of his voice.
Paul does not say in Eph. 5 that Spirit-filled believers who have a good voice are the ones who should praise the Lord with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. There he says simply that one of the visible manifestations of the Spirit’s control in our lives is that we sing praises.
Someone may ask: “What about Col. 3:16? Because there it says that we must sing with grace”. Yes, but that does not refer to the grace that some have to sing well. What Paul is talking about there is the operation of God’s grace in our hearts. All who have been saved by grace, by that same grace can now sing praises to God.
Let’s sing, then, because you don’t have to have the voice of Plácido Domingo to delight the ears of God. All that is required is a believing heart and a willing throat to give God the glory due to his name.
But there is another dimension of singing that we should not overlook, and it is the benefit that we derive and produce when singing.
Notice once more the text of Eph. 5:19: “Do not be drunk with wine, in which there is debauchery; rather be filled with the Spirit, speaking among yourselves with psalms, with hymns and spiritual songs, singing and praising the Lord in your hearts “.
To whom should we address when singing when we participate in worship, the Lord or the other members of the church? To both. Paul says: “talking among yourselves… singing and praising the Lord”.
Our congregational songs have a vertical dimension and a horizontal dimension that work together. When we sing to the Lord, we teach and exhort each other, while we strengthen the unity of the church.
As someone has well said: “Singing the gospel together as a church forges unity around our distinctively Christian doctrines and practices. Our congregational songs function as devotional creeds. They provide us with a language and an opportunity to encourage each other in the Word and call each other to praise our common Savior. One of the most important functions of congregational singing is that it highlights the corporate nature of the church and the mutual ministry that builds us together” (Mark Dever and Paul Alexander; The Deliberate Church; pg. 116).
I know that the issue of singing and music in the church has become a real battlefield in recent decades. And we must clearly state our position in light of the Scriptures. We cannot and should not ignore the controversy, because there are many transcendental things at stake.
But let us beware lest we become so focused on the controversy that we close our lips and fail to give our God the praise that is due him. Our God is worthy of being praised and exalted.
© By Sugel Michelen. All thought captive. You can reproduce and distribute this material, as long as it is not for profit, without altering its content and acknowledging its author and origin.