SINGING, IN THE BODY AND IN THE SPIRIT

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Dec 2003 by Guthrie, Steven R

So how do we explain this? Why music in particular? Why is song an apt response to sensuality? Why should darkened hearts be met by tuneful voices? I shall propose three answers to these questions, but all of them share a common hypothesis, namely: the children of light are singing people, not despite, but because music engages body and sense.

1. The embodying Spirit. To see why this should be so, we must first do a bit of preliminary work. Men and women are brought from darkness to light-they are made holy-by the Holy Spirit. How then, or where in the human person, does the Spirit carry out this sanctifying work? Much of the theological tradition contends that the work of the Spirit takes place in spite of-or at best, above-our bodies. The classic Christian hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus, begins this way:

CREATOR SPIRIT, by whose aid

The world's foundations first were laid,

Come, visit every pious mind;

Come, pour thy joys on human kind;

The hymn continues,

Refine and purge our earthy parts,

But O, inflame and fire our hearts,

Our frailties help, our vice control;

Submit the senses to the soul,

And, when rebellious they are grown,

Then lay thy hand, and hold them down.26

The biblical tradition however, does not limit or even focus the redemptive activity of the Holy Spirit on the "mind" ("Come, visit every pious mind"). Rather, the Holy Spirit of God is also revealed as the incarnating Spirit-the One who creates, vivifies, and restores bodies.27

In the valley of dry and decaying bones the LORD tells Ezekiel, "I will make ruach,"28 that is, the breath or Spirit of God, "enter you and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put mach in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD" (Ezek 37:5-6). Here is the Spirit of the LORD at work, not delivering humanity from their bodies, but bringing dead and decaying bodies to full and vigorous life-putting living flesh on dry bones.

We see this same incarnating work of the Spirit in the Gospels. Luke tells us that it is by the Spirit that Jesus is made flesh (Luke 1:35). Moreover, the Spirit-empowered ministry of Jesus is not one by which people are delivered from their bodies, but again and again, one in which broken and decaying bodies are restored and made whole. Similarly, in Romans, Paul says that the Spirit is active in bringing new life, both to Christ's physical body and to the mortal body of the Christian: "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you" (Rom 8:11).

The Augustinian tradition we have considered contends that growth in the spiritual life means directing one's attention away from the body, upward toward the mind and the soul. The biblical tradition however, demonstrates that the Holy Spirit works to bring the whole person, body and soul, to life and wholeness.

I return then to the question previously raised-and the question with which I began: Why music? Why should Paul place such emphasis on the role of music in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit? My first proposal is that music is one way in which the Holy Spirit brings the life of sense and embodied experience from darkness into the light.