Revelation 19 provides for us a striking record of a future time when there will be repeated heavenly exclamations of joyful praise to God:
Revelation 19:1 And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God: 2 For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. 3 And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever. 4 And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia. 5 And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. 6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
Suppose that various groups of people on the earth would hear these composite sounds (produced by these heavenly beings) successively emanating from heaven but would not be able to hear distinctly the words being spoken. Suppose further that among these groups of people, some groups in certain cultures would regard the composite sounds as joyful, but other groups in other cultures would not regard them as being joyful sounds.
Would the differing characterizations of these sounds by differing groups in differing cultures show that what joyful praises sound like is culturally determined and does not have any objective, fixed character to it?
Because these sounds will be the composite sounds of righteous heavenly beings and because the Spirit has revealed them to us objectively to be the sounds of joyful praise to God, those cultures on earth that would regard these composite sounds not to be joyful sounds would be wrong in their assessments. It is not true, therefore, that what the sounds of joyful exclamations of praise sound like is culturally determined.
Rather, Revelation 19:1-6 establishes that the composite sounds of such joyful praise and therefore the composite sounds of such joyful music do have an objectively joyful character to them that is not culturally determined.
Furthermore, because all these exclamations of praise will be produced by godly heavenly beings, we know that all these composite sounds will be the sounds of godly praise. These facts, therefore, establish for us that the composite sounds of godly joyful music have an objectively joyful character to them that is not culturally determined.
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