Bad worship songs: Forever (Gifford, Jobe, Johnson)

From time to to we examine the lyrics of worship songs. Our desire is not to mock or humiliate, but rather to honestly examine content with a view to calling forth a better worship expression.

With the great volume and variety of worship music available, none of us should have to settle for bad worship songs. We should be able to select hundreds or even thousands of top notch songs very easily.

What makes a song a worship song? Is it enough to contain words like God or holy? How about vaguely spiritual sounding phrases? Should Jesus be mentioned?

We think an excellent worship song should contain at least some of the following elements:

• A direct expression of adoration (God, you are...)
• A progression of ideas that culminates in a coherent story
• A focus on God, not us
• Lyrics that do not create uncertainty or cause confusion
• A certain amount of profundity
• A singable, interesting melody
• Allusions to Scripture or Scripture quotes
• Doctrinal soundness
• Not excessively metaphorical
• Not excessively repetitive
• Jesus is not your boyfriend

It's worth noting the most worship songs contain at least something good. That is, there might be a musical idea or a lyric that has merit. Such is the case with this song. There are some very good parts, like the chorus and the bridge. But on the whole, there's just not enough here to consider it a good worship song.

Video link.

Let's look at the lyrics:

vs 1: The moon and stars they wept

The morning sun was dead
The Savior of the world was fallen
His body on the cross
His blood poured out for us
The weight of every curse upon Him

vs. 2: One final breath He gave
As heaven looked away
The son of God was laid in darkness
A battle in the grave
The war on death was waged
The power of hell forever broken

pre-chorus: The ground began to shake
The stone was rolled away
His perfect love could not be overcome
Now death where is your sting?
Our resurrected King
Has rendered you defeated

chorus: Forever He is glorified
Forever He is lifted high
Forever He is risen
He is alive, He is alive!

bridge: We sing hallelujah
We sing hallelujah
We sing hallelujah
The Lamb has overcome

The Voice Perspective

The first thing we notice is the voice of the song. It is mostly in the Third Person.

• First Person is the I/we perspective. When we talk about ourselves, our opinions, and the things that happen to us, we generally speak in the first person. That is, the voice is talking about ourselves.
• Second Person is the you perspective. The second-person point of view belongs to the person (or people) being addressed. That is the, voice is talking directly to someone.
• Third Person is the he/she/it/they perspective. The third-person point of view belongs to the person (or people) being talked about. That is, the voice is talking about someone else.

The only person directly addressed by the song is death. And the bridge describes our expression, what we are doing. None of the song addressed to God, which we consider to be the best expression of worship.

The Storyline

This song does tell a coherent story. There is a logical procession of ideas, clearly stated without flowery metaphor. 

Doctrinally, we find some problems, some serious. 

Verse One

• Did the moon and stars weep when Jesus died? The Bible doesn't tell us this, so we really don't know. Nevertheless, we grant the songwriters some poetic latitude here.

• Did the morning sun die? Actually, the bright Morning Star died (Re. 22:16). It would have been so easy for the songwriters to use the actual word from the Bible, "star." Is this just carelessness to not properly express Jesus' title? Maybe we're just being nit-picky. But the songs we sing cement these concepts into our minds. Therefore, we think they should be accurate concepts. 

• Was the Savior fallen? This suggests He was defeated and taken out, when instead He laid down His life willingly (John 10:17). This is a somewhat more problematic doctrinal issue, but again we shall grant the songwriters latitude. There are limits to our tolerance, however.

Verse two 

This is where we find some substantial doctrinal deviations: 

• Did heaven look away? No. We address this false idea in depth here. For our purposes today, we shall simply note that when Jesus quoted Psalm 22 on the cross, He was not telling us He was forsaken. He was pointing to the entire Psalm, which contains many messianic prophecies. We think Jesus was telling the people that these prophecies were being fulfilled right before their eyes. 

In fact, in that same psalm we find this in verse 24:

For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.

That is, the very Psalm that Jesus quoted itself contradicts the idea that Jesus was forsaken. Heaven did not look away. 

• Did Jesus do a battle in the grave? This is flatly, grossly unbiblical. Jesus died as the Perfect Lamb, the sacrifice that washed away our sin. His death and resurrection, in and of themselves, were sufficient to defeat the grave. 

Ro. 1:4 and who through the Spirit of  holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God, by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

• The war on death was waged is also false. There was no war waged while Jesus was in the grave. None. In, fact we would suggest there never was a war on death. Death was at war with righteousness, not the other way around. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Death never even showed up to fight!

Conclusion

The rest of the song, minus the fatal flaws of the second verse, as well as the direct speaking to death in the pre-chorus, is rather well done. However, we cannot recommend the song.