Bad worship songs: Man of Sorrows - Hillsongs, Crocker, Ligertwood

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.

We should note that our title is about worship songs. A bad worship song can be a good song. 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, Man of Sorrows.

Audio link.
-------------------

Lyrics:

[Vs. 1] Man of sorrows Lamb of God
By His own betrayed
The sin of man and wrath of God
Has been on Jesus laid

[Vs. 2] Silent as He stood accused
Beaten mocked and scorned
Bowing to the Father’s will
He took a crown of thorns

[Chorus] Oh that rugged cross my salvation
Where Your love poured out over me
Now my soul cries out hallelujah
Praise and honor unto Thee

[Vs. 3] Sent of heaven God’s own Son
To purchase and redeem
And reconcile the very ones
Who nailed Him to that tree

[Bridge] Now my debt is paid
It is paid in full
By the precious blood
That my Jesus spilled
Now the curse of sin
Has no hold on me
Whom the Son sets free
Oh is free indeed

[Vs. 4] See the stone is rolled away
Behold the empty tomb
Hallelujah God be praised
He’s risen from the grave

Overview

The song lyrics in the verses and the bridge are sung to the crowd, partly as testimony and partly as edification. The lyrics in the chorus, however, turn to addressing God directly. So the direction of the words alternate between horizontal and vertical.

We don't necessarily have a problem with this technique, since it is found quite often in the Psalms. A noteworthy example is Psalm 33, which begins as an exhortation to worship (vs. 1-3), turns to describing the wonders of God and His mighty works (vs. 4-21), and only in the very last verse does the Psalmist turn to address God directly:

Ps. 33:22 May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.

The psalmist of course sang these lyrics. Though it is a song, we would not consider it appropriate for congregational worship. Similarly, we would prefer that congregational singing actually sing worship to God, and not sing about Him as if He weren't present. 

The chord structure is basic, consisting of I - IV - I - IV - I - V, with the concluding stanza a IV -V - I turnaround. The chorus is vi - IV - I - V in the first two stanzas, and IV - I - V -  vi - IV - V - I to finish it. The bridge is largely the same as the chorus with slight modification.

The pleasant pentatonic melody is simple and singable, though as is typical for a lot of modern worship songs the song is pitched too high for anyone not a tenor. In the key of F the chorus begins with a high F and goes even higher by the time the word "hallelujah" is reached.

The orchestration is surprisingly restrained for a Hillsongs, characterized by sort of a drum march through the verses, turning a little more straight ahead on the choruses and bridge.

Problems

This song makes a lot of specific doctrinal statements which invites a more careful examination than a typical worship song. And we find three troubling lyrics.

In the first verse:

The sin of man and wrath of God
Has been on Jesus laid

In the bridge:

Now my debt is paid
It is paid in full

In the bridge:

Now the curse of sin

The first two statements are based on Calvinism/Reformed theology, which teaches that the Father punished Jesus. We believe this is quite false. Neither sin nor the wrath of God were laid on Jesus, which we explain here. And sin is not something for which God needs to be paid. The Bible does not teach this. See our explanation here.

Lastly, there is no place in the Bible that describes sin as a curse, though it is not unreasonable to infer it from Scripture. We discuss this here.

Conclusion

The song articulates a good deal of proper doctrine along with a couple of questionable statements. But if a particular church holds to Calvinist doctrine the song is then theologically sound. Aside from the song being primarily directed towards the congregation, we can find no other objection.