Jesus and The Inter-national Anthem
Revelation 14
14 Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. 2 And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, 3 and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. 4 It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as first-fruits for God and the Lamb, 5 and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless.
The Lamb is clearly the centre-piece of John’s vision of heaven’s worship.
The Lamb…
Ø slain – the atoning sacrifice for sin (Revelation 5:6)
Ø standing – in his resurrection and indestructible life (5:6)
Ø sitting – enthroned at the right hand of his sovereign Father (3:21)
Ø surrounded – by the unified worshippers of God’s complete people (hence the metaphor of 144,000) whom no one can number (Rev.7:9).
Music, says Doug Webster, is inspired by the God who sings.
Melody, harmony, rhythm and tone are not human inventions.
Melodic music and harmonious singing of a shared redemption unites people as nothing else does.
Here are angels and Anglicans, elders and Presbyterians, water-washed Baptists and everyone who is blood-washed and redeemed from every part of the planet.
Here are those whose only denominational distinctive is that they bear the Lamb’s and the Father’s name.
And “the Lamb is at the centre of this sacred circle” (Spurgeon).
This is heaven’s worship – the worship echoed here on earth every Sunday morning!
But what does it sound like?
What John hears is “a voice”.
Straight away we learn what true worship is: true worship is articulate and meaningful – not a mere cacophony of noise. True worship is certainly loud but not by being artificially over-amplified, not by a deafening percussion section drowning out the praise. We are not meant to be struck-dumb by a struck-drum! No visceral overload; no panel-beating in the garage but always – body and soul – at the service of the singing!
This worship is high in volume because it sounds the praise of all creation and a multitude no one can number.
It washes over us like a tumbling
waterfall. It
resonates like a mighty thunderclap. It
inspires awe and wonder.
It
lifts us out of moody subjectivities.
It
evokes fear - and draws from us tearful lament and triumphant and victorious
gratitude.
And always it is God-centred. One commentator suggests a Trinitarian echo here:
Ø “While the metaphors are probably just meant to suggest a loud, multi-layered sound, they also display a certain Trinitarian order. The ’voice of many waters’ is the voice of Jesus (1.15). The ‘sound of thunder’ is the voice of God as at Sinai (4:5; 8:5; 11:19). The ‘sound of harpists playing on their harps’ is perhaps suggestive of the Spirit, who, like Orpheus with his lyre, plays music of surpassing sweetness. (Joseph L. Mangina, Revelation)
The harpists are crucial to the worship.
Harpists accompany the singing of a new song and ensure that true worship always voices the sweetness of the gospel of grace and redemption.
In the quaint words of the great Puritan preacher, Richard Sibbes, the Word of the gospel evokes awe and wonder for sure.
Ø “But the word leaveth not the soul there. Therefore, saith he, I heard ‘the voice of harpers harping with their harps’; that is, the sweet tune of the gospel. As the sound of the harp is delightful to the ear, so the sweet tune of the gospel breedeth joy and peace to the soul. After thunder cometh ‘the sound of harpers harping with their harps’. So the power of divine truths is first a kind of marvel, confused wonderment but then it hath the power of thunder and astonishment, then it endeth in the sweet voice of harping, in peace and joy and comfort.”
And always it sounds like one clear voice.
And always the voice sings the one new song.
Ø “Music tells God’s story in song… The reason the Apostle John interchanged ’saying’ and ‘singing’ in his description of heaven’s worship was because he stressed the content of the message that was sung. (Revelation 4:8,10; 5:9,12; 7:10,12). No matter how awesome a heavenly choir of ’10,000 times 10,000’ sounds, the message is never lost in the power of the music. God’s redemptive story is set to music from the ‘song of Moses, the servant of God’ to the ‘song of the Lamb’ and all people will worship before the ‘King of the ages’. (15:3) (Douglas D. Webster, Follow the Lamb)
Darrell Johnson spells out the perennial significance of this for us:
Ø “The Lamb’s people are known by the song they sing. The songs we sing give us away, revealing what is in our hearts. The Lamb’s people sing what John calls ‘the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb’. Two things strike me about the Lamb’s people’s song: it is saturated with Scripture and it is radically God orientated.
Why sing a new song using words of Scripture? Because they want to sing to God accurately, rightfully and in a manner consistent with who God really is.
God has revealed himself in the words of Scripture; and we can best reply to God using the words and phrasing God has used. The Lamb’s people do not sing to God out of their own imagining of who God is; they sing to God out of God’s self-revelation.
Their song, therefore, is radically God-orientated.
It is not about them. It is about their God who won the victory through the Lamb.”
Cherith Fee Nordling quoting Stephen Pickard (Life in the Spirit):
Ø Reflecting ‘the narcissistic anthem of our culture’, which, she comments: ‘calls us to fashion ourselves into an image placed at the centre of everything. It leads, to use Stephen Pickard’s words, to worship that is ‘turned in, self-referential and theologically vacuous’. In a great deal of contemporary sacred song, the constant trap is that the song never rises above the human heart. The character of God vanishes; the worshipper is left locked in a self-referential loop.
We may indeed sing: It’s all about you, Jesus but in fact, after a while, the light may dawn that it is really all about me telling Jesus it’s all about him. (Stephen Pickard, Hymns and Songs: Living on the Edge of Idolatry)
Douglas Webster highlights the faith-bracing, godlessness-defying voice of true worship:
Ø “Blasphemy and bluster gush from the unholy Trinity. Deception and falsehood flow from these miracle-working monsters, but the followers of the Lamb know the Father’s name, sing the new song, and keep themselves pure. The 144,000 stand on Mount Zion and sing a new song. They represent ’the totality of God’s people through the ages’, as well as the militant last generation of believers fighting to the end.”
(Douglas D. Webster, Follow the Lamb)
So ~ (Revelation 10:7; 14:6; 15:3f):
the mystery is the message of the new gospel song;
the melody is the music of the redeemed singing with one voice;
the wonder of worship is the triumph of the Lamb.
Let’s celebrate the coronation of Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Let’s sing our inter-National Anthem:
‘Worthy is the Lamb.’ – the Lamb slain for us, standing above all, sitting in majesty, surrounded by the countless chorus of singers of the new song.
‘How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear.’
And, yes, let’s pray for our new monarch: “God Save King Charles”.
In Robert Lowry’s famous words:
Ø My life flows on in endless song above earth’s lamentation;
I hear the real though far-off hymn that hails a new creation…
No storm can shake my inmost calm, while to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?
Philip Greenslade: May 1st 2023.
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