The devil used to lead heavenly worship?

Every time I’ve heard this myth, it’s come from either a music pastor, a worship leader, or a musician. You can probably guess why. If not, I’ll spell it out for you later.

It’s part of the myth that Satan used to be someone important in heaven; in fact it was previously named Lucifer, the greatest of all angels, if not the head angel. Lucifer was the prettiest and most sparkly of all angels. Better and smarter and mightier than every angel there was, and God bestowed upon it power and authority and responsibilities and blessings… but it got full of itself, rebelled, and fell.

I should point out only the rebelled-and-fell part of the story comes from bible, Rv 12.7-9 and the reason the devil did so is rather simple: Jesus came to earth to save and rule it, and the devil doesn’t like this plan at all. Rv 12.1-6 But it was defeated by the actual mightiest angel, Michael.

If the story sounds like Satan’s fudging its résumé, of course it is. Satan’s a dirty liar, remember? Jn 8.44 Problem is, Christians have fallen for it, and still share it with one another. Still teach it to newbies. We think it’s true. We forget we’re not to trust the devil; even when it tells the truth, there’s deception involved, ’cause it’s trying to lead us to destruction. That’s what it does.

Anyway. Part of this greatest-of-all-angels idea leads Christian musicians to this particular myth: What’s the very most important job in heaven? Why, worshiping God of course. So Satan did that for a living. It led worship. It led the heavenly choir.

Is there a heavenly choir?

It’s debatable whether there’s such a thing as a heavenly choir. I mean, there are beings who worship God day and night, but if you’re thinking of a big singing group accompanied by backing tracks, I recommend a good Baptist church. That’s not really what God has in his throne room.

In Revelation, John relates a vision Jesus gave him of 28 beings whose sole job appears to be worshiping God:

• Twenty-four “elders”; no idea whether they’re human. They wear white, wear gold wreaths on their heads, and sit on 24 thrones encircling God’s throne. Rv 4.4 They have harps. Rv 4.8
• Four living things (Greek ζώων/zóhon, KJV “beasts,” NIV “living creatures”) which each resemble a different animal, have six wings, and are covered in eyes. Rv 4.6-8 They also have harps.

It appears the four living things are leading, and the elders are responding. The living things constantly say, “Holy holy holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is coming!” Rv 4.8 and this triggers the elders to fall down before the throne and throw their wreaths towards the One on it, Rv 4.9-10 and say more worshipful stuff: “Lord, you deserve to receive glory, value, and power; for you created everything, and they exist by your will.” Rv 4.11

They don’t necessarily sing this stuff. But they could, I suppose. They have harps. Or at least John recognized them as harps, but they could’ve been zithers or cellos or sitars for all we know.

Which job would Satan have in this setup? Was it one of the living things, and there used to be five? Or one of the elders?—but then it wouldn’t lead worship, but respond to the living creatures.

Part of the “used to lead choir” idea comes from an old definition of the world choir which people don’t use anymore. In either the fifth or sixth century, 14 books supposedly by Dionysius the Areopagite from the bible, Ac 17.34 were circulating in the Roman Empire. Yep, they’re fanfiction; or as scholars call ’em, pseudepigrapha. One of the books was Περὶ τῆς οὐρανίου ἱεραρχίας/Perí tis uraníu yerarhías, “On the hierarchy of heaven,” popularly known by its Latin name De Cælesti Hierarchia, i.e. Celestial Hierarchy. It claimed God had organized his angels in pretty much the same way as the Roman Emperors set up their imperial court, and there were nine choirs of angels, bunched into groups of three, and prioritized thisaway:

1. Seraphim.
2. Cherubim.
3. Thrones.
4. Dominions.
5. Virtues.
6. Powers.
7. Principalities.
8. Archangels.
9. Ordinary angels.

By “choir,” not-really-Dionysius did not mean these are nine different heavenly acapella groups, competing for heavenly prizes. He meant these were orders—angels with different jobs and duties. Seraphim announced stuff, cherubim declared stuff, thrones led stuff, dominions regulated stuff, and so forth. The top angels were seraphim, which announced stuff, so Lucifer would be one of those.

Now yeah, none of this comes from bible, and really it’s bunk, because the Old Testament indicates seraphim and cherubim are two different species of heavenly creature; they’re not just a caste or office. But generations of Christians were just fascinated by phony-Dionysius’s “insights” into how heaven ran, and spent way too much time speculating about it, and adding even more mythology to it.

So these “choirs” are nothing like the heavenly choirs the worship pastors are talking about. As for what’s actually happening in heaven according to John the Revelator, these guys sound so busy, why would any of them have time to start plotting a rebellion against the Almighty, who was and is and is coming? Like they say over and over again: He’s Almighty. You have no chance against him. And he deserves our glory, value, and power; nothing exists apart from him. If Satan had been reciting this all day every day, clearly none of it sank in.

But nah. It’s more likely Satan had the job the bible described him as having: Accusing people. And rebelling because it forgot its job was only to make reasonable objections, and got downright unreasonable and evil about it.

The prince of the power of the air.

Music pastors claim some “proof” that Satan used to lead heavenly worship, is Paul’s description of “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” Ep 2.2 KJV Supposedly this is Satan, working the airwaves. And as you know, the airwaves are radio waves… and have you heard all the devilish pop music which gets broadcast over them? You know the devil’s obviously behind all that.

Okay. While I’m not the biggest fan of a pretty big percentage of popular music, let’s face it: Paul was not thinking of broadcast radio when he penned Ephesians. You could try to make the argument the Holy Spirit who inspired Paul knew full well that 18 centuries after he wrote this letter, humans would figure out how to tap the electromagnetic spectrum and broadcast popular entertainment over it. Though that’d imply this verse was null and void for 18 centuries, because humans hadn’t yet invented radio. That’s neither a wise nor valid interpretation.

Yes, music can travel over the airwaves. Any sound can. Some sounds are useful; some really aren’t. People sharing these myths about Satan as a worship leader: This’d be one of those not-so-useful sounds.

When Paul wrote Ephesians, it was to former pagans who’d become Christians, and when they worshiped the “prince of the power of the air,” that’s not Satan; ancient pagans would’ve recognized this reference as being to Zeus. Satan doesn’t rule the air any more than it rules the world; Jesus has conquered the world, Jn 16.33 remember?

There are two usual reasons this myth is popular, and gets widespread by musicians. One is the not-so-humble view they have of themselves as worship leaders: They think their job is one of the most vital in the church, if not the most important. I’ve heard many a music pastor declare the only reason we Christians oughta go to church is so we can worship God together in song; otherwise everything else can be done at home. Listening to a sermon, praying, even holy communion: We can do that from a distance, same as we did during the pandemic. But for some reason we gotta congregate so we can sing together. Somehow it’s a form of spiritual warfare: There’s a constant battle in the heavens above between angels and devils, and whenever we sing to God, it fuels the angels and panics the devils. And their job is kinda like a five-star general for God, encouraging the saints to fight evil with our praises.

This depiction of what worship music does: More Christian mythology. It doesn’t come from bible! Try to find any passage of scripture which explains the purpose of worship music this way. You won’t succeed. It comes from Christian novels. From fiction. Not the Holy Spirit.

The other reason, of course, is there are a lot of people who really don’t like music. (Startlingly, some of them are music pastors!) They don’t like popular music; they definitely don’t like contemporary Christian music. They despise secular rock and country and R&B. They only like hymns; not for the music itself, but the content. And sometimes they like white gospel music, a.k.a. sucky bluegrass. But they have a very limited view of what’s sacred and what’s crap—and they blame Satan for all the crap.

I’m tempted sometimes to blame Satan for crappy music. But I’ve known plenty of crappy musicians. We depraved humans are plenty capable of creating all sorts of evil on our own, including lousy music of every kind. It’s all human-generated. Seriously.

Claiming the devil’s behind pop music is giving it way too much credit. Satan’s not that clever!