Because biblical revelation about sound abounds, a sound theology of sound must account for all that Scripture reveals about sound. Attention to several passages about one specific aspect of certain sounds points us to another reason to reject the use of certain music.

Thunder as God’s Voice

At least seven passages directly identify thunder as the voice of God speaking, either through paralleling the two or by more directly linking them:

2Sa 22:14 The LORD thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered his voice.

Psa 18:13 The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.

Psa 29:3 The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the LORD is upon many waters.

Job 37:4 After it a voice roareth: he thundereth with the voice of his excellency; and he will not stay them when his voice is heard. ⁵ God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend.

Job 40:9 Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?

Psa 77:18 The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.

Psa 104:7 At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away.

These passages should teach us to consider the very real possibility that when we hear thunder, we may actually be hearing God speaking but not understanding what He is saying. A key passage in the NT supports the validity of our need to be mindful of this possibility.

Human Misidentification of Sound as Merely Thunder

On an occasion when He was in the midst of a crowd, Jesus prayed, “Father, glorify Thy name” (John 12:28a). In response, “then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have glorified it, and will glorify it again” (John 12:28b).

The crowd that was standing by Him heard it and “said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to Him” (John 12:29). Jesus responded to them, “This voice came not because of Me, but for your sakes” (John 12:30).

Several commentators explain what took place at this time:

The Father then spoke from heaven in a thunderous voice, confirming His working in Jesus both in the past in the future. The voice was audible but not all understood it . . . The voice from heaven confirmed faith in the spiritually perceptive but to the unspiritual it was only a noise (1 Cor. 2:14).—Edwin A. Blum, BKC: NT, 318; bold is in the original

He alone could distinguish exactly what the voice said . . . If Jesus hears the voice distinctly, the crowd that was there does not. Some, presumably those less open to observable supernatural intervention, said it had thundered; others recognized that the sound was speech, a voice, and not just noise, but there is no evidence that they could make out what was being said.—D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, 441

The form in which the answer to Jesus’ prayer Father, glorify thy name (28) is conveyed (apparently a loud noise, interpreted by the materialists as a clap of thunder and nothing more, and by the more spiritually-minded as an angelic utterance) brings home to those standing near Jesus (for this, He states, was its primary purpose) the truth that Jesus really is engaged upon His Father’s business.—R. V. G. Tasker, TNTC: John, 149-150.

They heard the sound from heaven without distinguishing the words. . . . The astounding sound coming from heaven was called “thunder” by those who sought a natural explanation. Perhaps the sound resembled thunder to their ears. Others, nearer the truth, connect the sound with Jesus and imagine that an angel from heaven has spoken to him. The thunder hypothesis would be offered by the skeptics of today, who deem any but a natural explanation of supernatural phenomena “superstition.” —R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of John, 871-872

These commentators all note that the passage shows that when many people in the crowd thought that they had heard thunder, they actually had heard the sound of divine communication from the Father to the Son. What many of these people, therefore, thought was just a loud noise in the heavens was actually specific communication.

Additional Relevant Passages

Three other passages also relate times when people heard loud sounds and did not understand that they were actually hearing the speech of supernatural beings, either an angel (Dan. 10:4-9) or of the glorified Jesus (Acts 9:7 and 22:9):

Daniel 10:4-9

While Daniel and others were at the bank of a great river, only Daniel saw “a great vision”:

Dan 10:4 And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel;

⁵ Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz:

⁶ His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.

⁷ And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves.

⁸ Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength.

⁹ Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground.

Daniel notes that the words that he heard were “like the voice of a multitude,” but he gives no indication that he understood what that voice was saying. Later, Daniel was given understanding (Dan. 10:10-21).

Acts 9:7 and 22:9

Two of the accounts of Paul’s conversion record that Jesus spoke from heaven to Saul after He had “arrested” him on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-7; 22:6-9). Those who were with Saul heard a voice but did not understand it:

Act 9:7 And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.

Act 22:9 And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not[1] the voice of him that spake to me.

Like John 12:28-29, this passage shows that humans did not understand that the sound that they heard was actual specific communication by God.

Discussion 

Based on all the passages treated above, our theology of sound must include the reality that we likely often misinterpret actual speech by supernatural beings as merely thunder or some other indistinct loud sounds. Our inability to understand such supernatural speech (cf. 1 Cor. 13:1), therefore, should warn us not to think that we know with certainty that the extremely loud sounds of the music in a rock concert or of the music in many contemporary worship services are not communicating ungodly messages to supernatural beings who understand various communicative properties of sound that we do not.

Conclusion 

Christians who favor contemporary worship must allow Scripture to adjust their theology of sound so that it takes into account properly the divine revelation that shows our human inability to understand fully what certain loud sounds communicate in the supernatural realm and how they do so. Because of its demonic origins, rock music, which is played very loudly to obtain its full effect, must be rejected so that there is no possibility that we will unwittingly communicate ungodly messages to supernatural beings through music whose sounds have aspects that we do not understand.

Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

As a justification for using CCM, some believers assert that good king David worshiped God using a harp that may have been invented by Jubal, an ungodly man. Is this a valid argument for using CCM?

Jubal as the Possible Inventor of Two Musical Instruments

In the first statement about musical instruments in Scripture, Moses tell us through inspiration of the Spirit that Jubal, a man in the ungodly line of Cain, may have invented^[1] two instruments:

 Gen 4:21 And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

Why did the Spirit inspire Moses to give us this information and what are we supposed to learn from it? Because the passage itself does not expound further on the significance of this statement, there is uncertainty about its purpose beyond informing us about who originated some aspect of the playing of these instruments.

Because the Noahic Flood destroyed all humanity living at the time of Noah except Noah and certain members of his family, we cannot be certain that there was any direct connection between these instruments and the instruments called by the same names after the Flood. If neither Noah nor any of his surviving family played these instruments or knew of these instruments through some other means, it is possible that the knowledge of these two instruments was completely lost after the Flood and somebody else later invented similar instruments or even the same instruments without knowing anything about the harps and the organs of which Jubal originated the playing.

Furthermore, Scripture provides no indication that Jubal was the inventor of the other musical instruments mentioned in Scripture, such as the timbrel and the psaltery. This fact further cautions us not to make too much of his possibly inventing the instruments that he may have invented.

In fact, Scriptural emphasis on King David’s making musical instruments for divine worship (1 Chron. 23:5; 2 Chron. 7:6; 29:26-27; Neh. 12:36) makes a dogmatic assertion that David played the same instrument that Jubal possibly invented all the more a debatable point. If David actually invented some or all of these instruments instead of just commissioning the making of them or crafting them himself, the instruments that David played in divine worship may not have been traceable at all to the harp that Jubal possibly made.

A proper consideration of Jubal’s possibly inventing these two instruments, therefore, must account for these other truths from Scripture. These considerations show that David may or may not have played a harp possibly invented by Jubal.

Nevertheless, the rest of this post will examine what significance there would be for the debate about CCM if David did in fact play the same instrument that Jubal may have invented. To understand that significance, we need to take a closer look at Jubal’s originating the playing of the musical instruments that he did and the morality of David’s use of one of them.

A Closer Look at the Morality of David’s Use of the Harp that Jubal May Have Created

When Jubal originated the playing of the harp and the organ that he did, he either created or played musical instruments that obviously only produced instrumental music. As a member of the ungodly line of Cain, Jubal may have invented and likely played these instruments with wicked intent.

Our understanding of the actual nature of the instrumental music that he produced, however, depends entirely on the position that we take about whether instrumental music is inherently neutral or even moral.

Case 1: Instrumental Music is Inherently Neutral or Moral

Let us consider first what would have been true if we do hold to the inherent neutrality or morality of instrumental music. Holding the position that music itself without lyrics cannot be sinful requires that we also hold that no matter how wicked Jubal was and regardless of how wicked his intent was in his playing, it was impossible for him to produce any instrumental music that was in and of itself evil.

Because there was no way for him to play those instruments to produce instrumental music that was itself evil, all the instrumental music that he produced must have been either neutral or moral. Since his instruments, therefore, produced, only neutral or moral music, neither his instruments themselves nor the music they produced were evil.

In that case, even though Jubal would have been a wicked man who originated the playing of his instruments for a wicked purpose, he could not have accomplished his wicked intent solely through the intrinsic nature of the music that he played through his instruments. Any wicked activities for which he used his instruments, therefore, would have been wicked not because of the intrinsic nature of either the instruments or the music they produced; some other aspect of the activities had to be wicked for him to use those instruments for evil.

Because neither his instruments nor any of the music that they produced would have been capable of being evil, the use of those instruments that he may have made by godly people (especially many centuries later) would have posed no moral issues whatever. Even if David had used the same instrument that Jubal may have invented for his wicked purposes, there would have been no moral problems with his doing so because the instrument itself was not evil and it was incapable of producing any inherently evil instrumental music.

Case 2: Instrumental Music Can Be Sinful

What happens, however, if we hold that music itself without lyrics can be sinful? In this case, Jubal would have been able to produce instrumental music that was itself wicked.

He could then have accomplished his evil intent solely through playing those instruments. Would that therefore have made his instruments evil or their use by someone else wrong?

The only way that his instruments themselves could have been evil was if they were capable of only producing sinful instrumental music. For that to have been true, no matter what notes or combinations of notes he played or how he played them, the resulting instrumental music would always have had to have been sinful.

Of course, his creating such instruments was impossible because individual musical sounds or tones in and of themselves cannot be evil. We must conclude in this case, therefore, that his instruments were not inherently sinful and that they were inherently capable of producing both godly instrumental music and ungodly instrumental music.

Because his instruments were not inherently sinful and because they were capable of producing godly instrumental music, David’s use of one of those instruments for godly purposes could not have been inherently wrong.

In either case, therefore, David’s use of the harp that may have been invented by Jubal could not have been wrong based on the consideration of who may have invented it.

Does David’s Use of the Harp Possibly Invented by Jubal Justify CCM?

The above discussion shows that regardless of what position we take about the possibility of music itself without lyrics being sinful, David’s using a harp that Jubal possibly invented could not have been intrinsically wrong because the harp itself was not evil nor could it have been. This conclusion is true whether Jubal invented the harp or its playing or both as a wicked man with a wicked intent or as a wicked man with a humanly good intent.^[2]

Is the same true for CCM? For the same to be true of CCM, it would have to be proven that music itself without lyrics could not be evil.

Conclusion

Brethren who wish to show that using CCM is legitimate cannot do it by pointing to David’s use of a harp that may have been invented by Jubal as a valid parallel to their use of CCM because the harp itself could not have been inherently evil even if Jubal’s intent for possibly making it, using it, or both was evil. Because the same is not true of the instrumental music used to create and play CCM, David’s use of the harp possibly invented by Jubal does not justify CCM.

Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.