holiness

THE DOVE – Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes, Passion, The Belonging Co.

/ Jason Henry / 3 Comments

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.

RESURRENDER – Hillsong Worship, Brooke Ligertwood

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

Image by Milada Vigerova from Unsplash

“Resurrender,” written by Brooke Ligertwood and Chris Davenport, is from Hillsong Worship’s 2021 release These Same Skies. This song caught my attention by emphasizing that we belong to God as his children, his temple, his church. It feels very much like a Hillsong Worship song, but there’s also something about the lyrics that feels like a fresh, corporate expression of repentance and dedication. Let’s take a look!

Focus

The main theme of “Resurrender” is belonging to God, and the song explores several biblical images of the Church as God’s people and his dwelling place. As a consequence of this identity and relationship, the singer asks God to help the Church “resurrender” to him.

There is no “I” or “me” in this song, only “we” (the Church) and “You” (God).

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
There is some complex temple symbolism here in verse 1, and I love it! First, we see Jesus turning over tables and clearing out the temple in Jerusalem (John 2:13-16, Luke 19:45-48, Mark. 11:15-19, Matt. 21:12-17). In the story, he tells the money-changers and merchants selling things in the temple, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” (Matt. 21:13) So instead of honoring the temple as a space for people to meet with God, they were using it for personal gain. By referencing this event in the present tense, the authors of “Resurrender” are saying that this event is still going on. We are the temple now, and Jesus continues to clean out the dirt of our selfishness to make room for prayer, turning us into the kind of temple where people can encounter his love and holiness.

Calling us God’s territory is an extension of this idea; we are his possession, the place where he dwells and has authority. (Of course, the whole universe is God’s territory, but the Church is especially so.)

Returning to our “lives upon the altar” refers to Romans 12:1-2, where Paul instructs us to offer our bodies (read: our whole lives) as living sacrifices to God. The Spirit renews and transforms us, making that sacrifice holy and acceptable to God. The “things we did at first” come from Revelation 2:4-5, where Jesus is rebuking the church in Ephesus for abandoning the love they had for him and his people when they first believed. They have lost their passion, enduring suffering patiently, but not living lives of joyful service to God and others. The authors of “Resurrender” are seeking a return to that passionate love and service that filled them when they first believed.

CHORUS
“We are Your people // You are our God // We are your temple // Make us holy like You are”

The chorus sums up the heart of this song in three statements and a request. The first two echo God’s words in Jeremiah 32:38, a promise to Israel that is fulfilled in the Church:

“And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.”

Belonging to God, being his people, means honoring and obeying him, trusting his good intentions towards us and his power to provide for us. There is so much security and peace to be found in the fact that God has made an everlasting covenant of goodness and love with us, his people.

Asking God to make us holy like him is in line with Peter’s words in 1 Peter 1:15-16, where we are commanded to be holy because the God who called us is holy. If we are the covenant people of God, his representatives and his dwelling place, it is right and fitting to ask him to make us holy, or in other words to make us better representatives of his character and his will. (For a fuller exploration of what it means to be holy, check out 1 Peter 1:13-25.)

When we return to the chorus later in “Resurrender,” it gets a couple extra lines. Now we identify as God’s children (Heb. 12:7, Rom. 8:17), not just his people. The familial language adds an extra dimension of closeness. God sets us apart—the most literal meaning of the word “holy”—for his glory (Eph. 1:11-12, 1 Pet. 2:9).

VERSE 2

The Church is called holy and chosen in 1 Peter 2:9 and the sheep of God’s pasture in Psalm 100:3. Consecrate means to make something holy, or set it apart for God’s use. God’s people are commanded to pray throughout Scripture, notably in Matthew 6:9-13 and 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.

When we ask God to help us to please him “where only You can see,” we’re echoing Galatians 1:10. Part of holiness is making choices in faith (Heb. 11:6) to worship God and serve others (Heb. 13:15-16) because it pleases God, not to win the approval of other people.

I’m not sure if the line “every moment matters in eternity” comes from a specific place in Scripture, but I think it’s an extension of two biblical ideas. The first is that even in seemingly small things, we have an opportunity to bring glory to God (1 Cor. 10:31). The second is that God knows and cares about even the smallest details of our lives (Luke 12:6-7).

BRIDGE 1

The first bridge is full of expressions of trust and prayers of devotion. First, we ask that God would mark us with his presence. A mark is something visible to the outside, so this lyric is asking that those outside the Church would know us as God’s people because they can see his presence in us. Jesus says the world will know us as his disciples by the way we love one another (John 13:34-35), and God is love (1 John 4:16), so this doesn’t seem like much of a stretch.

Again, we are God’s temple, or dwelling place. God delights in his people in Zephaniah 3:17 (my favorite Bible verse in case you were wondering).

The next three lines focus on trusting God’s discipline. We praise his love for being firm (Heb. 12:6) and tender (Eph. 4:32). We express our desire to heed his correction, a major theme of the book of Proverbs (10:17, 12:1, and many others). I also like the placement of God’s title as our Shepherd in between these two mentions of discipline. The Psalmist expresses comfort at God’s use of his rod and staff, not terror (Ps. 23:4). Even when God uses his staff on us, we know it’s to pull us back from a cliff edge or a venomous snake, not to cause us misery.

God does all things well (Mk. 7:37), and his laws and judgments are always perfect and true (Ps. 119:66, 142).

And now, without further ado, we arrive at the song title: “Resurrender!” I was surprised to learn that “resurrender” is a real word! (Albeit an obscure one that my browser keeps underlining in red as I write this.) Merriam-Webster says it means “to yield anew.” I think the authors must made this same discovery, since “yield anew” are the last two words of the bridge. This part of the song entrusts everything that we have, all that we are to God, believing that he will respond to our sacrifice by renewing and restoring us, not leaving us empty. In the New Song Cafe session of “Resurrender”, Brooke Ligertwood explains this line a little more, saying, “It’s very hard for the Lord to restore what we’re holding onto and trying to fix ourselves.” I think she’s right, not that it’s hard on the Lord to restore us when we’re being stubborn, but that it’s hard on us.

This section of the song reminds me of Joel 2. In this passage, God’s people have persisted in disobedience, and he is promising a very painful season of discipline and even destruction. In verse 13, the prophet says, “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” And then in verse 25, God promises “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…my great army which I sent among you.” So when we endure hard discipline under the Lord’s hand, we can trust that when we return our hearts to Him, he will restore us, and even replace that which he has taken from us with something better. In Joel, this means a restoration of Israel’s food supply, but more importantly, the clear and evident presence of God in their midst. We just need to be careful of a simplistic understanding of this sort of promise. (e.g. I surrendered my car to God, so now he has to give me a new, better car.)

BRIDGE 2

“If You’re calling, we’re coming // We’re not walking, we’re running”

And now we arrive at the super-repetitive modern worship bridge! Not a lot of new content here, just a succinct statement of the song’s theme in prayer form. We are eagerly pursuing God’s call, dedicating and surrendering ourselves to him yet again. And again. And again. (x6)

I poke fun, but I don’t think this kind of repetition is necessarily a bad thing. These words are simple, and out of context they might not mean a whole lot, but the rest of the song has fully explained what it means to belong to God and surrender to him, so the bridge provides ample opportunity for the congregation to own and internalize this prayer. I also think that the

Accessibility

In my opinion, this song has a higher barrier to entry than most contemporary worship songs. The scriptural language is rich with meaning, but that meaning will not be immediately apparent to unchurched guests, or even many of the worshipers. The chorus is fairly straightforward, if you know what it means to be God’s temple and to be made holy. Bridge 1 is detailed and self-explanatory, except for the easily misunderstood line “You will restore what we return to You.” Bridge 2 is simple and repetitive. So this song does have some accessibility concerns, but they are mostly caused by the depth of the lyrics, and the song is so unified in its theme that it kind of explains itself as it goes.

Music

Simple piano chords at the beginning and unison vocals. Gradual introduction of strings starting in the first chorus. Percussion and guitars come in subtly in verse 2, followed by some harmony. In the second chorus, we settle into a chill tom groove, though it quickly vanishes as we return to piano and unison for the bridge. Dramatic step up in dynamics for repeat bridge that builds into a standard chorus groove with the full kit, followed by a big instrumental. We drop down again for the heartfelt bridge 2, which builds back up into another big chorus. Then it ends on a nearly a capella bridge 2. You could cut all the bridge 2s if you wanted to shorten it by a couple minutes, but you would lose the meditative/transformative nature of the second part of the song.

There are several different melodies, since there are several different sections. There are some tricky skips in the verses and bridge 1, but each melody is repetitive enough that it can be (mostly) learned on the first hearing. The vocal range stays within an octave 98% of the time, which is helpful for congregational singing. The most distinctive feature of the chord pattern is the C/E in the verses and bridge, which gently pushes the song forward and keeps it from getting stale.

TLDR: it’s in standard worship song form except that it has two different bridges and each gets its own subito piano and sustained crescendo, which works well but makes for a long song. It’s also fairly easy to play and sing.

Conclusions

In the same interview I referenced earlier, author Chris Davenport describes this song as “a returning, but not a retreating,” in the face of adversity, particularly the Covid-19 Pandemic. It is a reminder that we belong to God, and we need to daily surrender to his purpose, discipline, and provision. I’ve seen many worship songs that speak to the individual’s identity in Christ, but this is the first song I’ve seen in a long time that speaks so clearly to the whole Church’s identity.

Will it worship? Definitely. Looking forward to singing it in church, with the Church.

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.