Christianity has always been a singing faith and music plays a big role in the life of the church. But church music is also controversial. Some people leave a church because of music, while others join a church because of music. Some churches split because of music, and others make a lot of money from their music.
Jonathan Edwards, a pastor-theologian from 300 years ago, can help us step away from the politics of church music for a bit to consider the theology of church music.
Harmony with God
Edwards reminds us that we’re not the ones who invented church music. Rather, it’s God who gave us music as a means to worship him.[1] God gave us Psalms and the commandments in Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:19 to sing to him.[2] Music is God’s gift to us, to help us harmonise with his goodness. Edwards states it beautifully: “The music of a song of praise is the means of a sense of the excellency of divine things.”[3] We can appreciate that God, his love, his grace, his mercy, his justice are excellent and beautiful through singing about them. There’s a difference, for example, between saying “It’s amazing that Jesus died for me” and singing:
And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died he for me, who caused his pain,
for me, who him to death pursued?
When God shows us his beauty and we respond by singing his praises, it’s as if two harmonic notes are struck together—it feels pleasant.
Edwards helps us to think of music as one of God’s appointed means for us to worship and enjoy him. Music is not just an ornament in public worship. When we sing praises to God, he doesn’t cringe like I do when I watch High School Musical. He delights in our singing because he delights in being delighted when we harmonise with him through worship music.
Harmony in the Soul
The faculties of our soul—our mind, our feelings, and our will—are often out of sync with spiritual things. Sometimes we know God is good but we don’t feel it. Music, Edwards says, can help harmonise our souls. This isn’t simply a matter of “fake it until you make it.” As he wrote in a letter, “Music, especially sacred music, has a powerful efficacy to soften the heart into tenderness, to harmonize the affections.”[4] Edwards insists this is a good thing because the Bible requires us to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt 22:37).[5] Music helps us to feel in our hearts what we know is true in our minds. There’s a difference between knowing about Jesus’s work on the cross and singing about it:
My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought—
my sin, not in part, but the whole,
is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more;
praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
Through this poetry, with the help of the chord progression (and the Holy Spirit!), we can feel the weight of the gospel truth. Through singing that hymn, we get to talk to our own souls.
This means we should feel free to use music regularly for our own souls, even in our private devotions. Paul tells us to “sing and make music from your heart to the Lord” (Eph 5:19). Edwards also gives church musicians permission to play emotionally, for we are helping God’s people feel what they already know and believe.
Harmony with Each Other
For Edwards, music is pleasant because there’s a harmony of sounds that creates harmony with our ears.[6] Edwards sees this harmony in music as “a shadow of love”.[7] In the harmony of music Christians can see the harmony that’s supposed to exist among themselves. Edwards famously notes, “The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other, is by music.”[8] In heaven, every saint will be “as a note in a concert of music which sweetly harmonizes with every other note.”[9]
We ought to strive towards the same ideal in this life. This is one of the most important purposes of music for Edwards.[10] Christians who greatly value the ministry of teaching should know that we are also called to participate in the teaching of others every Sunday while we sing.
There is something very unifying in hearing a bunch of Christians with a loud voice encouraging each other:
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the earth hear his voice;
praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the people rejoice;
Oh come to the Father through Jesus the Son,
And give him the glory, great things he has done.
When serving the congregation, musicians need to listen to each other and display harmony with one another to the congregation, while also listening to them sing. For the Christians in the pews, we too need to listen to others singing and be encouraged by them, while at the same time contributing to the mutual encouragement by singing wholeheartedly.
Edwards reminds us that music in public worship is not just something nice we can do without. It is God’s gifts for us to harmonise our own souls, with God, and with each other.
[1] A History of the Work of Redemption in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 9:211.
[2] ‘Sermon on Col. 3:16’, no. 398 in WJE 51.
[3] ‘Notes on Scripture’ in WJE 15:219.
[4] ‘Letter to William Pepperell’, November 28, 1751 in WJE 16:411.
[5] Religious Affections, in WJE 2:128.
[6] Scientific and Philosophical Writings in WJE 6:335.
[7] Scientific and Philosophical Writings in WJE 6:380.
[8] “Heaven,” Miscellanies 188, WJE 13:331.
[9] “Sermon Fifteen: Heaven is a World of Love,” Ethical Writings, WJE 8:386.
[10] Sermon on Col. 3:16, no. 398, WJE 51.
