There is a line from a famous Smashing Pumpkins song that goes like this:
“Jesus was an only son to You!”
Was Jesus really an only son? Have we been left as orphans? This is a question I want to explore–one that gets at the root issue of so many broken hearts and shattered lives.
The 1990s brought in a swelling tide of simultaneously dark and beautiful music to shoreline of CD players, personal computers, and Sam Goody stores. As the wave came in, a few albums stood at its crest, one of which was Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. In my opinion (one shared by a vast array of music fans and critics), this was one of the best albums of that decade. The 1995 Smashing Pumpkins record is an epic collision of darkness and beauty. It’s a musical black hole surrounded by an arrhythmia of starlight.
One of the more famous songs from this album was the hard-hitting “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.” The song opens up with the following lyrics:
The world is a vampire
Sent to drain…
Secret destroyers
Hold you up to the flames
Art is one of humanity’s most glorious expressions of the state of our heart. It’s like a fun, colorful, and three-dimensional echocardiogram. As a result, it can easily expose certain things that plague the inner cavities and chambers of the soul. One of these particular plagues is something called an “orphan spirit,” which shows up very strongly in this particular song. This is an issue of identity where somebody sees themselves as “on their own.” It’s really just a way of being; the fruit of which often consists of a deep anger towards self, others, and God. However, its most deadly fruit comes out in the words of the chorus of this song:
Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.
This is the fruit of hopelessness. Utter and complete hopelessness.
I want to pull the covers back a little bit and expose how clearly the orphan spirit comes out of the shadows right here. Often, this spirit is sly and hidden. It holds invisible strings that direct a vomiting array of rage, angst, and spiraling emotion in the darker shades of our art. But in this particular song, we are shown the puppeteer itself. It only takes a quick look at the end of the song to see this. In his rage, lead singer Billy Corgan ends by screaming out to God. In a bleak and sarcastic tone, he lashes out about his desire to be a “chosen one.” But he says this next:
“Jesus was the only son to you!”
And then:
“I still believe that I cannot be saved!”
Right there is the fruit of hopelessness as ripe as can be. Such a thing causes spiritual palpations and heart failure in multitudes of people throughout the world. And yet something else is exposed through these lyrics as well. Herein lies the remedy, the heart surgery necessary for this spirit to be vanquished. It is here that we see the true meaning of the word “salvation.”
True salvation is found in sonship—it’s about finding home. Let me explain how this all connects…
If “Jesus was the only son,” then salvation is impossible. Hence, the melancholic lyrics of Billy Corgan. But Jesus is not the only son. He is the Firstborn of many brethren. Salvation comes to one who has returned to their true identity and their true home. They have let go of being an orphan and have returned to the Father, who has always included them in His love. We often hear this described as the religious term “repentance,” but it is really just about a “change of heart” regarding who you are and who your Father is.
Without this sense of home and identity, the world is a vampire. You become a survivor, seeing yourself in a biological pool of evolving strengths and weaknesses. You feel like a rat while the ribs around your heart create an impenetrable cage.
However, when you know that the blood in your veins is eternal—that your blood is the same blood that was in Jesus, and that He is your Brother (and therefore you also have a glorious Father)—things change. The world can no longer drain your blood. No “secret destroyer” can prosper against you. The world might seek to kill you and may even spill your physical blood from time to time, but like Jesus, resurrection and joy will always follow. This is the Spirit of Sonship—the Spirit of Adoption—which is victorious and overcomes all things.[1]
Whether artists and musicians would admit it or not, the hidden cry behind much of our hopeless (and often amazing) music connects to this spirit. But when you know that you have indeed been chosen, that you are son and daughter, its power breaks and your heart is set free from its cage.
We are not rats. We are children of the King, and we have a home… The cage is a lie.
(P.S. Billy Corgan had a deep change of heart later in his musical career. The man who once said “God is empty, just like me” now declares a faith in God. Eight years after Melon Collie, he even sang a hymn to Jesus on one of his albums. He was quoted a few years back, saying “God is the future of rock n’ roll” … I believe him … The orphan spirit cannot overcome the light of truth. It is fading, and the light of identity and sonship is filling the earth more than ever.)
[1] Romans 8:15
(Image Property of EMI)