God Is (Not Reckless) Love

Guest post by Rev Sam Murrell of Oak Harbor, Washington

Sam is the pastor of Grace by the Sea Anglican Church. He holds a Bachelors in Music from Covenant College and an MDiv from Covenant Seminary.  He is currently a Biblical Worldview Teacher at Little Rock Christian Academy. He and his wife Susan have eleven children and twenty-one grandchildren.

Cory Asbury’s hot new Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) anthem Reckless Love, co-written with Caleb Culver and Ran Jackson, has taken the evangelical church by storm since its release in October of 2017. It may well join the ranks of the most popular CCM songs of all time along such titles as MercyMe‘s I can Only Image (1999), Oceans (Where My Feet May Fail), which appeared from the Australian worship group Hillsong United in 2013, and more recently Chris Tomlin‘s cloying Good Good Father(2013). Both young and old professors of Christ are raising their hands in ecstasy as they sing of the “reckless love” their God has for them. But should the response to this song be one of jubilant enthusiasm? Is this song worthy appropriate of corporate worship?

I proclaim that it is not. I contend that Reckless Love should not be used in corporate worship because it communicates an inadequate, even unbiblical, understanding of humanity’s sin.  And is thus an inadequate, non-biblical understanding of Christ’s atoning work. If this is true, the worship it inspires does not meet the requirements set forth by King Jesus Himself in John 4:23, where he declares that right worship must be done “in Spirit and truth”. The CCM song that is the subject of this argument cannot be defended as soundly rooted in the truth of Scripture; therefore, it cannot have the Spirit’s blessing. In short, I hope to show that this song does not communicate biblical truth and is not appropriate for use in a public worship service.

I believe the main reason people want to sing this song is the sing-song melody and the formulaically catchy tune. It is emotionally engaging, and for many this fact alone trumps its lack of substance or content. Like many CCM songs, the focus is not God, His redemptive work in creation, but rather the focus is turned inward onto the individual worshipper. At first glance one may think that the focus is God’s love; after all, it’s right there in the title. But the real concern of the song is the object of God’s love, namely me the individual. There is no interest in God’s corporate concern for His Church, it is completely focused on the individual. The middle section of the song, the reflective bridge, drives home the self-centeredness of this song, “There’s no shadow You won’t light up, mountain You won’t climb up, coming after me! There’s no wall You won’t kick down, Lie You won’t tear down, coming after me!” The worshipper sings this four times, building in intensity with each “coming after me”. By this point in the song, the singer is convinced of his worthiness. After all, would God do all this “coming after me” for someone who wasn’t worth it?

My biggest concern in Reckless Love is the way God’s love is presented. The Reckless Love herein presented is not the atoning love of Christ that we find at the center of the gospel. There is no mention of man’s sin or God’s forgiveness in the cross of Christ the Messiah. The nearest the song comes to addressing atonement, Christ’s payment for the sins of His people, are the words, “When I was Your foe, still Your love fought for me.” Note, we are not told the reason “I was Your foe”, nor are we told why “His love fought for me”, nor are we told what method was used by God to accomplish this fighting on our behalf.

The lyrics continue, “You have been so, so good to me.” This seems to be the mantra of many contemporary worship songs, but here we are not told how God has been “so, so good” to the singer. This next line seems to be the only reason given for the worshipper becoming the recipient of God’s love, “When I felt no worth, You paid it all for me. You have been so, so kind to me.” At best, these lyrics are juvenile, muddled and nondescript, lacking the clarity and weight one might expect when addressing the Almighty. Whether this is intentional or not, I cannot say. However, this does not change my observation that, given the danger presented by this lack of poetical literacy and musicianship, the words say very little no matter how many times they are repeated. The worshipper must unconsciously supply the Gospel at this point, which I have no doubt some actually do. But I also have no doubt that most do not.

What we sing forms our understanding of who or what we worship. No words are used to describe the worshipper in an objectively negative way (sinner, unrighteous, etc.). In Reckless Love, the worshipper, at some point in his life, for reasons left unaddressed, “felt no worth”. This is pure subjectivism. The need of the worshipper, according to this song, is to be valued, to feel worth, to know that someone loves him. He is not said to be a sinner who has offended a holy God and is incapable of atoning for that offense, but instead he is someone who apparently has low esteem of self. Enter God’s Reckless Love, “Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.”  

God’s love finds its origin, its genesis (beginning) in Him, in His character and nature. God’s love stands firm in the person of the Christ. God is faithful to His covenant promises. But never is God’s love associated with recklessness, thoughtlessness, lawlessness. Now before you decide that I am being a little too hard on this simple song and its humble writers, let’s find out what reckless actually means. Dictionary.com defines reckless as, “Utterly unconcerned about the consequences of some action; without caution; careless”. The second definition says, “Characterized by, or proceeding from such carelessness.” Do we really believe that God was “utterly unconcerned” about the consequences of sending His Son to atone for the sin of His people? On the contrary. Or, as Paul might say, “May it never be!”

The truth is, there is nothing uniquely Christian about such songs that many professing believers participate in each week. This is song is not Trinitarian in its theology. It has a sub-biblical view of man’s problem (sin) and therefore it “heals man’s wounds lightly” (i.e., it does not require the gospel), because it has a terribly inadequate Christology.

There is a bigger problem here than this one song that the Western Evangelical Church must begin to address. Does the content of what we sing still matter? Should Christian worship follow the example worldly entertainment? It is time for some deep thinking on this issue. We must begin to ask ourselves some hard questions. Just because a song can and may be played on Christian radio does that mean it should be sung during the Sunday liturgy? Is a believer qualified to write songs for the Church to use in worship simply because he is a gifted guitar or piano player? Who is the actual worship leader on Sundays, the pastor or the guy with the guitar? If he is not the worship leader, why are pastors completely giving over the responsibility of choosing the music to someone with little if any theological training? Does anyone care about the theology of the songs we sing anymore, or is it all about the tune and the intent of the writer? I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Let’s be honest, the fact that this biblically vacuous song (and many like it) is being used in church worship services is because pastors have bought the lie that they are only responsible for the sermon on Sundays. Meanwhile, our people are singing, at best, questionable lyrics with all their heart soul and strength. This song is not even Christian, as defined by the Creeds. There is no doctrine of the Trinity, no biblical anthropology, no biblical soteriology, no Christology, and on and on. I would settle for one such doctrine. Go back and look at the lyrics of Reckless Love again and give me one biblical reason, not the supposed intent of the writers, but one biblical reason why God would be pleased to hear His children singing such words to Him on Sunday morning.

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