Bad Worship songs - King Of Kings - by Brooke Ligertwood, Scott Ligertwood & Jason Ingram

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 good 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 as many as possible 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
• A certain amount of profundity
• A singable, interesting melody
• Scripture quotes or coherent allusions to Scripture
• Doctrinal soundness

Further, a worship song should not:

• contain lyrics that create uncertainty or cause confusion
• be excessively metaphorical
• be excessively repetitive
• imply that Jesus is 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 today's song, King of Kings.

Video link.

Lyrics:

1) In the darkness we were waiting
Without hope without light
Till from heaven You came running
There was mercy in Your eyes

2) To fulfil the law and prophets
To a virgin came the Word
From a throne of endless glory
To a cradle in the dirt

(Chorus) Praise the Father
Praise the Son
Praise the Spirit three in one
God of glory, Majesty
Praise forever to the King of kings

3) To reveal the kingdom coming
And to reconcile the lost
To redeem the whole creation
You did not despise the cross

4) For even in Your suffering
You saw to the other side
Knowing this was our salvation
Jesus for our sake You died

5) And the morning that You rose
All of heaven held its breath
Till that stone was moved for good
For the Lamb had conquered death

6) And the dead rose from their tombs
And the angels stood in awe
For the souls of all who’d come
To the Father are restored

7) And the Church of Christ was born
Then the Spirit lit the flame
Now this gospel truth of old
It shall not kneel it shall not faint

8) By His blood and in His Name
In His freedom I am free
For the love of Jesus Christ
Who has resurrected me

This song wants to be a sort of a statement of faith on the order of the Apostles' Creed. As such it makes many specific doctrinal claims. This means it will tend to receive more careful scrutiny than most worship songs.

We first notice that the song changes the narrative voice. Verses 1, 3,4, and 5 are directed to God. Verses 2, 6, 7, and the chorus are directed to the congregation in the manner of instruction. And, lastly, verse 8 is a statement of testimony. We think the chorus in particular, being the ultimate landing place of any song, could have been slightly rephrased to personalize it, for example:

We praise you, Father
We praise you, Son
We praise you, Spirit three in one
God of glory, Majesty

Our praise forever to the King of kings 

Ordinarily changing the narrative voice does not greatly trouble us, for many of the Psalms employed this technique. However, the Psalm writers did not do this arbitrarily. Changing the narrative voice has a dramatic effect, often shifting attention from the Psalm writers' problems and complaints to either implore God to act or to give Him exaltation.

Psalm 18 is an example. David recounts his many troubles (vs. 3-5), then tells of God hearing his prayer (vs. 6). He then embarks on a long description of the awe-inspiring characteristics of God (vs. 7-18). He continues by telling of why God rescued him (vs. 19-24).

Then the narrative voice changes. David begins to address God directly, using the word "You" (vs. 24-29).  This is sort of a vignette of worship, after which David goes back to addressing his audience, proclaiming the greatness of God (vs 30-34). But then once again exalts God directly (vs. 35-45), and culminates the psalm with more declarations to his audience (vs 46-50). 

These shifts can be confusing, so such techniques should be used carefully in a worship song.

Musically, the song is very singable, falling very naturally both rhythmically and melodically. The verse chord structure is I (first inversion) - IV - V - I, about as simple as it can get. For the chorus, I - IV- vi - V, also simple. The bridge is vi - IV- V - I for several stanzas, then changes to the verse chords for great dramatic effect. 

As a vehicle for worship, the chords and melody are just about perfect.

However, let's take a look at some of the lyrics, where we find two problems in particular:

Problem 1, verse 1:

In the darkness we were waiting
Without hope without light
Till from heaven You came running
There was mercy in Your eyes

This verse is an odd outlier from the rest of the song. As we mentioned, the song is generally a series of declarations about what we believe, but verse one starts out the song by describing our futile state prior to Jesus saving us.

The problem is, we were not waiting for Jesus in the darkness. We were enemies of God (Ro. 5:10). We were hostile to Him (Ro. 8:7). When He came to rescue us (Col. 1:13) we didn't even know we needed rescuing (Ro. 3:10-11).

The verse could be slightly modified to reflect correct doctrine by changing a single word:

In the darkness we were captured, or

In the darkness we were helpless

Problem 2, verse 3:

To reveal the kingdom coming
And to reconcile the lost
To redeem the whole creation
You did not despise the cross

The problem here is the last stanza, You did not despise the cross, which is false:

He. 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus knew the cross would be an awful experience: 

Mk. 14:35-36 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Jesus clearly did not regard the cross positively. The songwriters could have easily used a different word like 

You did not regard the cross, or 

You did not esteem the cross, or even

You died upon the cross.

There is direct doctrinal error in this song. As much as we want to, sadly, we cannot recommend it.