I don’t usually gravitate toward Holy Spirit songs. I’m not exactly a cessationist, but I grew up with the idea that the Holy Spirit primarily acts as the Christian’s conscience, helping us to know right and wrong, and maybe prompting us to share the Gospel or do something nice for someone once in a while. I often feel that songs focused on the Holy Spirit are too centered on a certain emotional experience or the outpouring of charismatic spiritual gifts.

“The Dove” is different. This song by Andrew Holt, Austin Davis, Cody Carnes and Kari Jobe traces the imagery of the Dove as a representation of God’s Spirit from the beginning of creation to the present. I’ve never seen this particular image drawn out through worship lyrics, and I hadn’t previously made some of the connections this song makes. These things made me excited to try this song out and dig deeper into its meaning! But is “The Dove” Biblical? What do the lyrics mean? And will it worship?

Focus

This song is all about the Holy Spirit, his different roles, and our need for him. It tells the story of Creation, Fall, and Redemption through the dove imagery that appears throughout Scripture. It also considers the connection between Jesus’ work and the presence of his Spirit.

This song touches on all three Persons of the Trinity, especially the Holy Spirit and Christ the Son. The Father is identified less specifically. In a couple places, the song refers to the Holy Spirit as “it,” but

“The Dove” includes the singing congregation as “we,” dwelling on our need and desire for more of the Holy Spirit. In the final verse, the individual “I” finds a moment for humble reflection and an opportunity to personally invite the Spirit to dwell within.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
The story of the Dove begins in Genesis 1. In the very second verse of the Bible, we see the Spirit of God fluttering (or hovering or brooding) over the unorganized, pre-creation waters. The Bible doesn’t speak of a dove here, but saying that the Spirit was fluttering over the waters suggests the image of a bird. This line introduces us to the Spirit’s role in creation.

God speaks, ordering the cosmos in six days, and then after he makes man in his image, he calls the whole creation good. At first, man and woman dwell in the garden with God. We don’t get many details about their relationship in the text, but much later in the Bible, Jesus calls his followers his “friends,” so we see that this is the kind of relationship God desires to have with us (John 15:15).

CHORUS 1
The first chorus is simple. We say that all we need is more of the Holy Spirit. We ask him to give us more. What does that mean? The answer here is pretty subjective, and is going to vary by church and individual.

In my understanding of Scripture, you either have the Holy Spirit or you don’t. You don’t receive 10% of the Spirit at your baptism, 20% when you get really emotional at church sometime, and then the rest at a later date. God dwells within you fully when you turn to him and spiritually join Jesus in his death and resurrection (Acts 2:38).

What can and should increase is the influence and prominence of the Spirit in your life. When I pray for more of the Holy Spirit, I’m joining John the Baptist when he said of Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:39-31). I’m asking the Spirit to fill my life with more of his fruit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, and to kill the fruit of evil and selfishness within me (Gal. 5:19-20). I’m also asking the Spirit to give me the spiritual gifts I need to serve better in his church. This is the purpose of spiritual gifts: to serve one another (1 Pet. 4:10). So when I ask for more of the Spirit, I’m not exactly asking for more of the Spirit. I’m really offering him more control of my life, and asking for his work to be more and more evident in me.

I briefly wondered if it is wrong to say that all we need is more of the Spirit. After all, we need Jesus and the Father too! But I think that’s a misguided concern. When we exalt one member of the Trinity, we exalt them all. After all, when God the Father exalts Jesus, giving him the name above every other name, he isn’t in any way diminishing his own glory (Phil. 2:5-11).

VERSE 2
Now, “The Dove” addresses the consequences of sin and the Holy Spirit’s response. The songwriters do this through the story of the Flood. This narrative begins with creation so ruined and corrupted by sin that God regrets having made it (Gen. 6:5-7). The Flood destroys all humanity except Noah and his family, and then when the waters begin to recede, Noah sends out a dove. Initially, the dove can’t find anywhere to land because there is too much water, but then the dove brings back an olive branch, and then it fails to return because it has finally find a place to build its nest (8:6-12). In this song, this dove is a metaphor for the activity of the Holy Spirit throughout Scripture. In the Old Testament, God’s Spirit sometimes “rushes upon” various people to empower them in battle or to prophesy. And He finds a temporary dwelling place in the Temple, but then the Temple is destroyed. When we get to the New Testament, the Spirit of God descends in Jesus at his baptism, and this time the dwelling is permanent. Jesus is the true Vine, and we are the branches, nourished in him to bear spiritual fruit and love one another (John 15:1-17). He is our redeemer and the source of our eternal life.

CHORUS 2
This chorus introduces some new material in the form of four titles applied to the Holy Spirit: Truth, Living Water, Helper, and Healer. These titles illustrated four of the main ways the Spirit works in our lives.

The Holy Spirit is the Truth because he teaches us the things of God and helps us to remember Jesus’ words (John 14:17, 14:26). The Holy Spirit is the Living Water that Jesus promises us. He not only satisfies our spiritual thirst, but overflows from our hearts to nourish and refresh others (John 7:37-39). Jesus calls the Spirit the Helper and sends him to us to dwell with us forever, since Jesus is no longer physically present with his people (John 14:16). We need the Holy Spirit’s help to complete the Church’s mission of making disciples and building God’s Kingdom, and he is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to be with us in that mission (Matt. 28:18-20, Acts 1:6-8). The Holy Spirit is the source of spiritual gifts, including every gift of healing that God provides (1 Cor. 12:9), and even more importantly, he is the power that raised Christ from the dead and that raises us to new life in Christ now and forever (Rom. 8:11).

BRIDGE:
The Upper Room is where the first disciples received the Holy Spirit on the Jewish holiday of Pentecost. He appeared to them as tongues of fire resting on each of them on accompanied by the sound of a mighty rushing wind. The Spirit enabled them to speak in other languages so that the visiting Jews from all over the world would be able to hear the Gospel (Acts 2:1-13).

In evoking this scene and asking God to pour out his Spirit in the same way, we’re not asking for the same visible manifestations of tongues of fire, rushing wind, and speaking in other languages. Rather, we are asking for the Holy Spirit to empower us for ministry and fill us with his light to shine forth the Good News about Jesus and his Kingdom.

VAMP:
As the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is worthy to be worshiped as “holy, holy, holy,” the same cry that never ceases around God’s throne (Rev. 4:8, Isa. 6:3).

Calling God holy means that he is set apart, different from us, morally pure and perfect, sacred. Throughout the Bible, when something unholy (like our sin) comes into contact with something holy, either the holy thing becomes polluted, or in the case of God’s presence, the source of sin is destroyed. Because of Jesus’ incarnation, death, and resurrection, God’s Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us and make us holy instead of destroying us in our sin. The Bible Project has an excellent video that does a much better job of explaining this idea of God’s holiness.

VERSE 3:
Probably my favorite part of the song, this verse connects the work of the Holy Spirit to the work of Christ.

In Acts 2:38, Peter tells the listening multitude “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” So the presence of the Spirit is possible because of the forgiveness we have in Jesus’ death. Moreover, it is connected directly to baptism, which is our act of joining Christ in his death and resurrection (Rom. 6:3).

For a deep dive into how we are cleansed by Jesus’ blood, see my review on “Thank You Jesus for the Blood.”

At the end of this verse, we finally tie the whole narrative of the Dove together. Throughout the song, we’ve seen the Dove searching for a place to create, or to recreate, and he found a resting place on Jesus at his baptism. Now, that same Spirit is transforming us into the image of Christ! Put another way, Christ is being formed in us (Gal. 4:18-19).

So we see this beautiful picture that the Dove of the Spirit is resting on the image of Jesus being formed inside each one of us. There’s a beautiful sense of completion and rightness here. This is how God intended to dwell among us; it’s been his plan ever since the beginning.

Accessibility

This one’s deep! I think most people will understand portions of the song, but the full meaning isn’t clear without a wealth of Biblical background knowledge. Having said that, this song teaches the story of God from a fresh perspective and a different angle, and it illuminates the work of the Holy Spirit in a way I think is unique and valuable.

People might misunderstand what it means to ask for more of the Holy Spirit, or to ask for another Pentecost, or what “the Christ in me” is, especially if they have been influenced by charismatic or new age theology.

I think the melody of this song is singable and congregational. It repeats itself a lot and is easy to learn, except possibly the bridge.

Music

This song tells an epic story, and it needs some time to do it! The live version of “The Dove” is 10 minutes long, and I’ve managed to shorten it to about 7:00, but that’s all I can do without seriously reducing the effectiveness of the lyrics. With this kind of marathon worship song, dynamics are super important. It’s got to start soft and stay that way for a while, so the lead vocalist needs to support the song with intensity rather than volume. In the second half of the song, a couple of strategic builds accentuate the majesty of God’s Spirit finding a dwelling place with his people through Christ the Son.

The chord progression is familiar and doesn’t pose any particular challenges, except that no one likes to play in Ab, so I suggest lowering it a half step to G. The quick passing chords in the chorus and bridge give the song forward motion. As I mentioned, the lead vocalist has to carry a lot of weight in this song, especially in dynamics and range (octave +5). The instrumentalists shouldn’t have much difficulty with this one.

Conclusions

I knew this one was going to take some analysis, but I feel like I learned a lot about the Holy Spirit through studying this song! “The Dove” is a magical unicorn of a worship song that teaches deep things about God and his story through fresh lyrics and imagery. It never feels stilted or belabored, and it also doesn’t get mushy about the Holy Spirit or focus too much on feeling the Spirit, which Holy Spirit songs sometimes have a tendency to do. It’s congregational, and I think the complexity of the lyrics serve to call the people to a better understanding of God’s Spirit rather than to confuse them. My only concern is the challenge of leading this song vocally.

Will it worship? 100%. I’m grateful for this song and the spiritual nourishment it is providing me and my congregation!

Image by Lenstravelier from Unsplash

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.