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The Music Exchange

A tale of two spirits

What? Two spirits? Don’t worry, I’m not selling out to heresy! It’s just that the Bible says that there are two spirits at work in the hearts of Christians — the Holy Spirit and the human spirit. The Holy Spirit gives life as he breathes the Word of God into our hearts, the human spirit acts in response to the Word revealed by the Holy Spirit. The two spirits couldn’t be more different.

The Holy Spirit is God, is therefore perfect and is in sovereign control. Our human spirits, by contrast, are imperfect, they are responsive rather than sovereign, and each person’s human spirit responds differently (and sometimes inconsistently) to different stimuli. For example, Hednesford Town get knocked out on penalties by Salisbury City in the final of the Zamaretto league play-offs. My human spirit — despair; Salisbury City supporter’s human spirit — joy (presumably, though I haven’t met a Salisbury City supporter).

A confusion

What I’ve found is that in Christian music there’s grown up a confusion between the functions of the Holy Spirit and the functions of the human spirit. For instance, each individual’s human spirit is affected differently by music. Some are affected deeply by certain types of music, others are not affected at all by any type of music whatsoever! Now if we confuse the response of the human spirit with the movement of the Holy Spirit, then the response of our human spirit is in danger of becoming the benchmark of our experience of the Holy Spirit.

Here’s an illustration: Jo and Pete go to church. Jo’s human spirit is moved by a Wesley hymn. Is that the Holy Spirit working? It may be, but, if Jo has to rely on Wesley’s hymn to experience the Holy Spirit, then she’s in danger of thinking that she doesn’t have the Holy Spirit if she isn’t moved by (e.g.) a song by Tim Hughes.
Pete (at the same service) isn’t moved by Wesley at all and says, ‘The Spirit isn’t here’. Now if Pete really means that the Holy Spirit isn’t present, then he’s saying something very serious — that the Word of God isn’t being breathed out and that none of those present are Christians. What Pete probably means, however, is that his human spirit hasn’t been stirred by the music or by the atmosphere of the church meeting. The confusion looks tiny Ð just a difference between a small ‘s’ and a big ‘s’, but the consequences can be huge. In both Jo and Pete’s case, their human spirits decide what they think the Holy Spirit is doing, leading either to feeling spiritually superior to the other, or to a lack of assurance that the Holy Spirit is in every believer’s heart, whatever they feel in their human spirits.

A clarification

Romans 8.16 helps put the two spirits in their rightful place, as God reassures Christians of their adoption into his family: ‘The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children’ (NIV). Here, it is the Holy Spirit who speaks to our human spirits to convince them, weak as they are, that God is their Father. This is the verse I always go to when someone like Pete accuses me of not having the ‘spirit’. The Holy Spirit has said through the Word that I am God’s child, so my momentarily discouraged human spirit can submit to that truth in glad assurance. If it was left to my human spirit to decide whether I had the Holy Spirit or not, I would have given up the race years ago (which is why, very sadly, many like Jo and Pete give up on Jesus).

An application

What does this mean for musicians? First, let’s get our language right. The music we provide can only move human spirits. We can’t direct the movements of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is sovereignly in control of our human spirits, not the other way round. That should take a lot of pressure off us. Second, however, if Pete really means by ‘the spirit isn’t here’ that he can’t see any excitement or joy in Jesus during the church meeting, then our human spirits need to cheer up! We should give no reason to anyone to believe that the Holy Spirit is not at work in our hearts as he reminds us in God’s Word of our glorious adoption into his family.

Richard Simpkin