Crowd shot masthead ApologetiX Logo Keith Haynie plays bassBill Hubauer plays lead guitarJ. Jackson sings leadJimmy Vegas Tanner plays drums

Is it right to have Jesus sing like AC/DC for "Back Intact?"

We asked our lead singer and lyricist, J. Jackson for his perspective on this:

I hesitated at first to write the lyrics to "Back Intact" from Christ's perspective, because I don't like to put words into His mouth. But these words are basically paraphrases of what He told the disciples after rising from the dead. And to sing it from the third person rather than the first person made the rhymes clunky, and it didn't parallel the original song as well.

In the original song, AC/DC's new lead singer Brian Johnson tried lyrically and vocally to make it sound as if the band's old lead singer Bon Scott, who died after the previous album, was back from the grave and singing in the first person. Johnson sounded a lot like Scott, and then seeing as the previous album had been "Highway to Hell," it was like an unholy resurrection, albeit a false one ... it was just somebody pretending to be somebody else.

But Christ's resurrection was real, and He came back intact -- without any bones broken Psalm 34:20 prophesied -- and it was in His original (albeit now glorified) fleshly body with the scars to prove it! We thought to have Christ singing it from the first person made a powerful statement and was a startling contrast to the original.

Then there was the problem of singing like Brian Johnson of AC/DC, which is hard enough to do, but we didn't know if people would have problems with Jesus singing in a voice like that. But his voice is described as being loud like a trumpet in Revelation 1:10 and as the sound of many waters in 1:15. And when God speaks from Heaven to Jesus in John 12: 28-29, it says the people thought it had thundered. Also, 2 Samuel 22:14 also describes God's voice like thunder: "The LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded."

Furthermore, God speaks to people in whatever language they understand, no matter how strange or even rough that language may sound to a person who doesn't speak it.