I recently got the newest Robbie Seay Band CD – Give Yourself Away. This is a really good CD, it’s one of those that you can listen to all the way through. However, we were singing on of the songs from the album yesterday in church and a few of the lyrics struck me as being theologically iffy. Here is what we sang (from the song ‘Song of Hope’)

I will sing a song of hope
Sing along God of heaven come down
Heaven come down
Just to know that You are near is enough
God of heaven come down, heaven come down
That sounds all nice and good, but as followers of Christ the hope isn’t that God will come down, the hope is that God HAS come down. That’s what we celebrate when we celebrate Christmas, that God came down. Emmanuel; God with us. Heaven came down crashing into earth in the form of a baby, born to a teenage family without dime in their pocket, in a dirty barn sorrounded by animal crap. God came down.

I don’t want to destroy the song too much, I actually really like the melody, but the lyrics are just not theologically correct. He then goes on to state that God is near. On the contrary the Bible states that God is here! (Psalm 139, Romans 8:38-39) There is a big difference between God being near and God being here.

Let’s celebrate a God that has come down and God that is here. That is a song hope!