Handiwork and Jesus

The barbarians are at the gate.

And they play the electric guitar.

This is the main point of the first chapter of Can We Rock the Gospel, by Dan Lucarini and John Blanchard, and it gets even better from there.

“…rock music is worldly, evil, and something to be avoided.”

“Rock music is a stumbling block and a scandal to many Christians today and it is dividing the church.”

“…What is undeniable about rock is its hypnotic power.”

“…using [rock] in God’s service is spiritually perilous.”

“There is music that reflects God’s glory and there is music that does not.”

“…Christian rockers are… imitating a music style that was created and inspired by men who… have rejected the God of the Bible.”

“The central paradigm of rock ‘n’ roll is a kind of voodoo… that’s far removed from the sober values of western culture.”

“…Put out the fire. Demonstrate once and for all your allegiance to Christ and your opposition to Satan by clearing these musicians’ material out of your life and out of your home.”

“If you are serious about being a disciple of Christ you should not lay yourself open to possible demonic influence through these records.”

“The throbbing beat of rock-and-roll provides a vital sexual release for its adolescent audience.”

“Anything that might help to create that kind of syndrome (proclivity towards drug addiction because of rock music) should be avoided like the plague.”

“Kids at a heavy metal concert don’t sit in their seats; they stand on them and move – it’s the spirit of rebellion.”

“Rock music and tattoos have also seemed to go hand in hand… some Christian teenagers are rushing to get a tattoo… in direct violation of the fifth commandment.”

“Under rock music, the secretion of hormones is more pronounced… which causes an abnormal imbalance in the body’s system… and impairs judgment.”

“The low frequency vibrations of the bass guitar, along with driving beat of the drum, affect the cerebrospinal fluid, which in turn affects the pituitary gland, which in turn directs the secretions of hormones in the body.”

“…The essence of the actual musical form tends to reproduce itself in human conduct.”

“Rock music… opens the door to psychological manipulation.”

And there are still five more chapters to go!

“’Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God’ (James 4:1). No Christian in his right mind would want to play around with this warning!”

“Can a rock ‘n’ roll song explain what is meant by God, sin, judgment, the death of Christ, repentance, faith, or justification? If not, how can it convey the gospel?”

“Can we truly touch peoples’ hearts by tickling their ears?”

“The drum trap set arrived on the platform about two months ago. The respect, reverence, and humility have vanished from our sanctuary.”

“Rock music in all forms is controversial, closely associated with ungodly behavior, and at times downright dangerous. Why then would Christian musicians choose it to accompany the praise and worship of God… to proclaim the gospel of his grace… risk causing false conversions and creating soft disciples… (and) choose to offend millions of other Christians”

“…in our times we are dealing with a troublesome style called rock…”

“Nowhere in the Bible does God command us to ‘redeem’ music, nor does Scripture give any examples of God’s people redeeming the evil music of a secular or pagan culture.”

“Music about God should be like God…”

“Would you expect to find this kind of music in heaven?”

“It is our conviction that rock music… is… contrary to the teaching of Scripture.”

“Turning your back on rock music would set you free from the need to wrench your church music away from its grubby associations from things such as rebelliousness, occultism, sexuality, and the drug culture.”

“By abandoning rock music… you would be free to experience an infinitely healthier dimension of Christian life and witness.”

“Time saved in advertising, planning, organizing, supporting, and attending gospel concerts, religious road shows and the like could be put to better use in activities that have clear New Testament backing.”

I could go on with more quotes but the basic gist of the argument is this: rock music is satanic in origin. The music itself is dangerous. It cannot be redeemed for God’s glory. It must not be used in church. It is unbiblical. Those who enjoy or employ this style of music do so at their own and at their congregation’s spiritual and literal peril.

Their stories are sad: people who fell into deep sin and for whom a hallmark of that period was the presence of rock music, pastors who forced a new style on a congregation, insensitive worship leaders, hurt congregation members, and the sad temptation for some Christian musicians to seek their own glory or wealth through performance.

Their warning is dire: rock music is destroying the church, endangering the proclamation of the Gospel, and has power over anyone exposed to its beat. The beat itself is evil. It was designed to induce rebellion. It is a tool of Satan and it must be resisted.

But their arguments are fatally and fundamentally flawed. It all boils down to how you view handiwork and how you view Jesus.

1. Handiwork
Music is God’s handiwork. And guess what? We have been given dominion over handiwork.

Harold Best says it excellently in his book Music Through the Eyes of Faith:

“As glorious as the creation is, it was merely created and not begotten. A strawberry, a galaxy, a dolphin, and a sea lion are not in the image of God. They are handiwork, pure and simple, thus of an entirely different order.

The next point is crucial. Having made the creation and having created us in his image, God has given us particular assignment that could not have been given to any other created beings. In telling Adam and Eve to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground (Genesis 1:28), God was setting down a basic principle. Man and woman, created in the image of God… are neither the same as the rest of creation nor subject to it. While materially they can be outweighed by a mountain or overpowered by the force of the ocean, and while they are incapable of changing the speed of light, they cannot be morally, spiritually, or behaviorally overcome by anything in the creation around them.”

– The Creator Is Not the Creation and the Music Maker Is Not the Music, pg. 16

News flash, my Christian brother or sister: you have dominion over handiwork. Therefore, no beat, no chord progression, no rock band, no orchestra, no modulation, no snare drum pattern, no organ prelude, no electric guitar rhythm, and no brass trio has any power over you.

It would be absurd for me to look at a toaster and say to the person next to me: you better be careful standing next to that toaster. If it starts clicking to a certain rhythm, it will make you want to do drugs and have sex and rebel against God. It would be absurd because it would be granting a power to the toaster that it does not have. It would be making an idol out of the toaster to say that it has power over your actions.

We all know the power of music. The gift and the danger of it is that it moves us. All styles. All genres. All instruments. An unaccompanied chant can move us. A rock band can move us. Music moves us, and that’s how God (not the Rolling Stones) designed it. This is why anyone, whether it’s a choir conductor, a worship leader, an organist or a trombonist, must be careful. So God has given us the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:17), to help us steward his gifts (like music) with wisdom.

But it’s one thing to say music has power to manipulate our emotions and it’s an entirely different thing to say that music has power to manipulate our behavior, expose us to demonic influence, or keep us from proclaiming the Gospel. To quote Steve Brown, that’s a lie straight from the pit of hell and it smells like smoke.

The Christian has dominion over handiwork. Therefore, music does not have dominion over us. Even more therefore, the Christian can use any and all sorts of music to the glory of God. Nothing is outside the bounds. This is real freedom. And unless this makes you slightly uncomfortable, you probably don’t get it yet.

More from Harold Best:

“Let’s concentrate on something that almost never comes to mind: the music that Jesus heard and made throughout his life – the music of the wedding feast, the dance, the street, and the synagogue. As it turns out, Jesus was not a composer but a carpenter. Thus he heard and used the music made by other, fallen creatures – the very ones he came to redeem. The ramifications of this single fact are enormous. They assist in answering the questions as to whether music used by Christians can only be written by Christians and whether music written by non-Christians is somehow non-Christian. But for now, it is important to understand that even though we don’t know whether every piece of music Jesus used was written by people of faith, we can be sure that it was written by imperfect people, bound by the conditions of a fallen world and hampered by sinfulness and limitation. So even though we do not know what musical perfection is, we do know that the perfect one could sing imperfect music created by fallen and imperfect people, while doing so completely to the glory of his heavenly Father.”

– The Fall, Creativity, and Music Making, pgs. 18 and 19

Oh, how wonderfully freeing and exhilarating a thought: Jesus, the “perfect one”, the sinless, spotless, perfect Lamb of God, sang songs written by sinful people, in his generation, and he did so to his Father’s glory and pleasure.

God has given us music. It’s his handiwork. And he’s given us dominion over handiwork. If songs and melodies written by sinful men were still good enough for Jesus to sing, then we must not fear that we are in any danger because of them.

To say that a particular beat or genre or instrument can never be used to glorify God is to say that there are areas where God’s rule does not extend. And it is also to say that Jesus doesn’t offer full justification and redemption. And that leads to my final and most important point.

2. Jesus

“For by a single offering [Jesus] has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” Hebrews 10:14

One offering, once and for all (1 Peter 3:18), Jesus Christ crucified, makes me faultless before the throne (Jude 1:24), gives me confidence to approach the Father with confidence (Hebrews 10:19), not by my own merit (Ephesians 2:8), or because of my own efforts, but because I’ve been redeemed by Jesus (Romans 3:24).

Jesus covers all my sin. All of it.

And he covers all of my music too.

There is no indication in scripture that once you become a Christian and are “in Christ”, that is, reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:18), God’s pleasure with you or your offering is based any longer upon your own or your offering’s goodness. The purest we can make ourselves is still filthy before a holy God. The most innocent we can make our offerings is still not enough to prevent them from defiling his most holy place on their own.

Our selves and our offerings are covered by the blood of Jesus when we put our trust in him.

No music on its own is acceptable to God. Suppose you discovered a man on earth who had sinned the least. And this man had never heard any music before to corrupt his ears, never read any tawdry gossip to corrupt his mind, and never been tempted by an image. Suppose this man composed a beautiful symphony, performed by nearly-as-equally sinless as him. We can call this the most-pure musical offering that man can offer.

Now suppose you discover a worship leader who has committed his fair share of sins. He’s listened to all kinds of music, some good, some not so good, and some really good. He only knows a few chords and he really enjoys using those few chords to write simple worship songs and playing them with a band. There’s a drummer and bass player too. The genre could be classified as “rock”. They lead the singing at a church that meets in an old warehouse in Chicago. It gets a bit loud sometimes. We can call this the below-average not-terribly-refined, loosely rock ‘n’ roll offering.

Which of these gets closer to being acceptable to God on their own? The one composed by really good people? Or the other one that’s composed by a guy who listens to Coldplay and leads worship on the side as a volunteer? Which one pleases God more?

Answer: neither. God’s acceptance of an offering has absolutely nothing to do with that offering’s or the offerer’s goodness.

Our being accepted – and our music being acceptable – is 100% based on Jesus’ perfect sacrifice. We come to the Father through Jesus. Period. No other criteria. No other basis. No other questions asked.

We can’t make music perfect enough to please a perfect God.

In God’s eyes there is no “more acceptable” or “less acceptable”. Its all or nothing.

The good news of the gospel has far-reaching implications. Farther reaching than we might like to believe. So far that our music making is implicated.

Those who maintain that rock music cannot and should not be used in church are making a grievous mistake: they forget that Jesus is the only thing that makes our music and us acceptable to God.

God is great and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable (Psalm 145:3). Thrown into one giant pot, every worship team, choir, pipe organ, guitar, choir anthem, contemporary song, bass guitar pattern, trumpet descant, four chord progression, Handel’s Messiah, chant, sung Psalm, and drum set add up to about 1/900,000,000^th of the glory God is due. His glory is unfathomable.

And so God says to us: here is music. Use it, and use it well. You have dominion over it. Use it to my glory. And here is my Son, he will redeem you and make a way for you to offer it in my very presence. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! (Psalm 150:6)