The death of Christ is the wisdom of God by which the love of God saves sinners from the wrath of God, and all the while upholds and demonstrates the righteousness of God.God's glory has facets as diverse as holy wrath and saving love, and yet he does things that reveal that he in fact harmoniously possesses these attributes more than anyone else in the universe. He is dependent on no one. No man can stay God's hand as he sovereignly rules the universe, and yet he does it with unlimited knowledge and perfect wisdom. Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. (Psalm 115:3)
There is obviously lots more to be said, but my point is this: there are absolutely compelling grounds for the praiseworthiness of God, but for some reason the almost universal trend since the 2nd Great Awakening has been to ignore all that. Instead of making God the subject of our songs, we like to make our praise the subject. And that's in the songs that actually make sense. More often, the songs that are coming out today are just an incoherent stringing together of pious-sounding phrases, as if they were written using a P&W edition of those poetry refrigerator magnets. I'm reading this hilarious book by a British writer named Nick Page, called And Now Let's Move into a Time of Nonsense, in which he makes a plea for worship songwriters to write songs that say something coherent and meaningful. I think that's a timely exhortation.
But more than that I want to ask why we think it's more worshipful to ignore all the reasons the scripture gives us to praise God, and go for pure emotional fluff. Don't hear me saying that emotions have nothing to do with worship--I'm with Jonathan Edwards that "true religion, in great part, consists in holy affections." But you don't just come right out of the hatch with cathartic affections. People don't come to church on Sunday with hearts bursting forth with praise to God for all he is and does. They have to be given a vision of God to respond to. You have to labor to paint them a huge biblical vision of God with a view to, by the power of the Holy Spirit, awaken those affections in them.
That's why I love old hymns. Not all hymns, mind you--most hymnals published in the last 75 years are 75% garbage. But the great hymns are ones that present to us something about God's nature or characture or acts that elicits a response of praise (or joy, or godly sorrow, or some other holy affection). I'm glad groups like Indelible Grace are writing new music to these hymns, and I've done that a bit myself.
But I'd like to see some completely new songs written that will feed our faith with truth presented memorably, that will remind us of who God is and what he has done, and that will be our favorites, not because they sound just like Coldplay, but because of how much the truth they communicate has carried us through difficult times.
Here are a few examples:
- "He Is Altogether Lovely" - written by Eric Schumacher, pastor of Northbrook Baptist Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He wrote the words, and suggests they be sung to the hymn tune called "Hyfrydol", which you may have heard with the lyrics "Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners" or "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus". This hymn is based on the content of Jonathan Edwards' sermon on "The Excellency of Christ". When was the last time you sang a song in church that was explicitly about the greatness of Christ? Seriously, when?
- "Awake, My Soul" - A great song written by Sandra McCracken, who is married to Derek Webb and has contributed songs and vocals to all of the Indelible Grace albums. Her album, The Builder and the Architect, is one of the best worship music records I own.
- "Indescribable" - written by Laura Story, recorded by Chris Tomlin.
