Photo by Vincent van Zalinge
Hillsong United’s song Good Grace is my first (and probably not last) Hillsong-only poll to artificially balance out the artists. This review is my seventeenth from this artist, joining some heavy-hitters that include Oceans, So Will I, and What a Beautiful Name.
Note to new users: This is a different kind of review site! Read About the Berean Test and Evaluation Criteria prior to reading this review. I strongly encourage you to consider the potential blessings and dangers of this artist‘s theology by visiting Resources.
1. What message does the song communicate?
It is a mix of encouraging chant and an elongated benediction for believers, asking us to do several things:
- Come together in unity as one body of Christ.
- Rather than fearing evil, focus on Christ’s love for us through His sacrifice.
- Cleanse ourselves in His redeeming blood.
- Praise God with clean hands and pure hearts.
I must address the word “madly” in Chorus. There are two ways that this could be interpreted. One way is that of a deeper level, much grander than infatuation. Another interpretation is a “head over heels” type of love, that actions are thoughtless, unplanned, and spontaneous. The former definition more aligns with God’s love for us; However, the latter is an unfortunate possibility.
There is a third possibility, that God is insane or crazy in love with us; However, this view seems more localized in British circles. Perhaps it would have been better to say “deeply”.
Side Note: To those who are sensitive to massive repetition, Bridge repeats itself four times.
Score: 8/10
2. How much of the lyrics line up with Scripture?
Most of it agrees with the Bible; However, there is an unfortunate logical issue for those of us who see English logically and the word “madly” that, as mentioned in section 1, has some unfortunate unintended consequences.
Lyrics posted with permission.*
[Verse 1]
People
Come together
Strange as neighbours
Our blood is one
Children of generations
Of every nation
Of kingdom come
In 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 and Ephesians 4:1–16, the Apostle Paul likens the fellowship of the Saints to a single human body with many parts that work together, granted gifts by the Holy Spirit to equip and minister to the world. This collective comes from multiple generations, cultures, languages, and life experiences. Some stranger than others.
[Chorus]
Don’t let your heart be troubled
Hold your head up high
The original context of this comes from John 14:1, where Jesus comforts His disciples after telling them (again) that “Where I am going, you cannot come” at the end of John 13, referencing His death. If we keep reading John 14:2-6, Jesus also speaks of a place to which He prepares for His followers, His coming again, and the way to the Father uniquely through Himself. We have the same hope.
Don’t fear no evil
Logically, this is a double negative, indicating that we should fear evil. An easy fix is to remove the word “don’t” or “no”. What Hillsong meant to say is that we shall not fear evil, with the implicit reason that God is with us, justified in the next two lines (Psalm 23:4). While I understand that some people use double negatives in their speech, it has this unfortunate, unintended consequence for those of us who do not.
Fix your eyes on this one truth
God is madly in love with you
God’s great love for us was demonstrated on the cross, that while we were sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:6-8); However, as mentioned in section 1, the word “madly” has the unfortunate possibly connotation that either He was insane or not in complete control of His emotions. A better alternative would have been “deeply”.
Take courage
Hold on
Be strong
Remember where our help comes from
It comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 121:1-4).
[Verse 2]
Jesus
There is power in the name of Jesus!
Our redemption
See John 3:16, Romans 5:6-8, 1 Corinthians 6:20, Hebrews 5:9, Hebrews 9:28, 1 Peter 1:18-19, 1 John 1:9, and 1 John 2:2.
Our salvation
Is in His blood
We are washed by His blood, receiving undeserved favor (Ephesians 1:7, Hebrews 9:22, 1 Peter 1:2, and 1 Peter 1:18-19).
Jesus
Repeats line 1.
Light of heaven
He is the light of hope for those who believe (Psalm 27:1, Psalm 119:105, Psalm 119:130, Matthew 4:16, John 1:1-8, John 8:12, Ephesians 5:14, James 1:17, 1 Peter 2:9, 1 John 1:5-7, and Revelation 21:23).
Friend forever
As indicated in John 15:13-15, Jesus laid down His life for His friends.
His kingdom come
Directly from the Lord’s Prayer, recorded in Matthew 6:9–13 and Luke 11:2-4. Matthew 6:10 and Luke 11:2 are the quoted portions.
[Bridge]
Swing wide
All you heavens
References the wide-open heavenly doors in Psalm 24:7-9 and Psalm 118:19.
Let the praise go up
A request to the Body of Christ to offer praises to God with all of our hearts (Psalms 86:12).
As the walls come down
References the conquest of Jericho in Joshua 5:13-6:27, where the Israelite army marched around the city as God commanded, shouting at the conclusion of their patrol. In a similar way, praising God can also tear down the strongholds in our life.
All creation
Everything with breath
Repeat the sound
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord (Psalm 150:1-6).
All His children
Clean hands
Pure hearts
Those with clean hands and pure hearts shall receive a blessing from God (Psalm 24:1-6). King David, upon his adultery with Uriah’s wife Bathsheba, asked for cleansing and purification (Psalm 51:10-12). The blood of Jesus is our cleansing (see Verse 2, line 4).
Good grace
Good God
God is good (Psalm 27:13, Psalm 31:19, Psalm 34:8, Psalm 107:1, Psalm 119:68, Psalm 145:9, Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19, Romans 2:4, and James 1:17) and so is His Amazing Grace.
His name is Jesus
Indeed!
Score: 8/10
3. How would an outsider interpret the song?
This song is probably not intended for outsiders to Christianity. Having said that, some of my interpretations will be understandable to them; However, phrases like “Remember where our help comes from” and “All His children | Clean hands | Pure hearts” will not be understood without a basic understanding of Christianity.
Score: 6/10
4. What does this song glorify?
It glorifies Jesus; However, describing His love as “madly” veils it.
Score: 8/10
Closing Comments
Hillsong United’s Good Grace is a decent song. Mostly Biblical, it asks Christ-followers to remember Christ’s sacrifice, God’s goodness, and unite together as a fortified whole, praising God and bringing Him glory.
Seeker-sensitive churches may want to avoid this song given its probable intention for believers only. For everyone else, consider opening your worship set with this song if you replace “madly” with “deeply”; However, there might be better alternatives.
Final Score: 7.5/10
Artist Info
Track: Good Grace (listen to the song)
Artist: Hillsong United
Album: People (Live)
Genre: Contemporary Christian Music (CCM)
Release Year: 2019
Duration: 5:53
Agree? Disagree? Don’t be shy or have a cow! Calmly and politely state your case in a comment, below.
*Copyright © 2018 Hillsong Music Publishing (BMI) (adm. in the US and Canada at CapitolCMGPublishing.com) All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Updates:
05/07/2021 – Per Artist Theology announcement, I expanded the red text to encourage others to study Hillsong’s theology.
03/24/2021 – Updated per repetition announcement. I moved my commentary as a side note and chose not to increase section 1’s score.
01/01/2021 – Thank you Brock Jackson for providing better Scripture for “swing wide all you heavens”! I updated it.
07/20/2020 – Thank you Devin for pointing out that I did not comment on “swing wide all you heavens”! I corrected this.
04/13/2020 – After prayerfully considering commenter John’s thoughts, I clarified my thoughts about the double-negative and added criticism to the word “madly”, downgrading its rating from 8.5/10 to 7.5/10.
Comments
thoughtsmeander
I’d really like to introduce this song to our church, but the one line that holds me back is “God is madly in love with you.” Not sure if it’s a cultural thing, but in our country “in love” is generally used in a romantic context. I’m also uncertain how some would take the adverb “madly”.
Vince Wright
thoughtsmeander.
Thanks for your comment! I can understand your reservations and sensitivity. That might be a good reason to at least consider a different song.
-Vince Wright
Abraham
Just a thought, a lot of churches frequently change certain phrases in songs to line up better with where they are & what is popular slang around them, for instance you could say “for God so deeply loves you” or “for God will never forsake you” or instead of forsake… “our God will always be there for you” this song in its entirety to ME makes perfect sense and the phrase doesn’t confuse me personally at all but I understand if there are people who will take it too literally you may just need to change that part to make it work.
Sc
Totally agree with thoughtsmeander. Being “madly in love” portrays a romantic picture, very weird and creepy (and, I would argue, unbiblical) when applied to God’s love for us. The Romans passage given as a Scriptural defense of this lyric actually demonstrates God’s “Agape” love for us: his sacrificial, selfless love; the type of love C.S. Lewis deemed the greatest of the four loves. In my opinion, this lyric reflects the tendency to sissify God, seemingly so prevalent in modern praise and worship songs, and it’s why, during this particular line of the song, I keep my lips shut.
Steve Barhydt
thoughtsmeander and Sc,
The word “madly” has more than one definition.
From the Cambridge Online Dictionary…
1) “(of performing an activity) in a wild, fast, or excited and not controlled way” – definitely does NOT describe God’s love for us.
2) “enthusiastically and with great interest” – DOES describe God’s love for us even while we were sinners. The Cambridge dictionary actually uses the following example for this definition “She says she’s madly in love with him.”
Which definition does the songwriter have in mind? Context is the key!!!
Since there is no absolutely no hint of a romantic context anywhere else in the song and if we substitute the second definition for “madly” into the lyrics, we have “God is enthusiastically and with great interest in love with you”, that doesn’t seem to me to be “very weird and creepy” and loses all of the “romantic picture” that you seems to be concerned with. However, it makes it much harder to sing 🙂
Since Sc brought up C.S. Lewis, I believe that it is important to quote him in context as well.
He referred to agape love as the ‘highest level of love known to humanity – a selfless love, a love that was passionately committed to the well-being of the other’
Had he penned these words in 2020 instead of 1960, his use of the word “passionately” would have no doubt been condemned by many critics because of the modern “hyper” association between “passion” and “sex/romance.”
Again, within the context of the lyrics, there is no “sissification” (not sure if that’s a word but it should be) of God’s love but the exact opposite. These are words to give us strength!
“Don’t let your heart be troubled
Hold your head up high
Don’t fear no evil
Fix your eyes on this one truth
God is madly in love with you
Take courage
Hold on
Be strong
Remember where our help comes from.”
I, for one, refuse to allow our modern culture to dictate the true meaning of love.
I also refuse not to sing a song because a phrase can be misinterpreted. Nearly every verse in the Bible has been misused and misinterpreted by someone throughout the centuries yet I (and hopefully we) still believe and use every word in the Bible.
When there is a misunderstanding (or even the possibility of such) don’t “eliminate” but rather “educate”!
Rob H.
Well said, Steve B.
James Kuhl
Question: is the second line, “strangers, neighbors” or as so many write “strange as neighbors”? If the former, it makes sense to me. If it’s the latter, what does “strange as neighbors” mean? Thanks!
Vince Wright
James,
Great question! It is the latter.
It’s not something that is noteworthy to me, so I hadn’t thought about it that much. Joel Houston answered this on twitter with the following:
“Glad u asked! Literally means “strange as neighbors”, (albeit intentionally playin on strangers/neighbors). Callin us 2 “come together” as people; no longer estranged one-from-another—thanks to the strangeness of a gospel that now means; stranger or neighbor, “our blood is ONE””
Admittedly, this response is convoluted and doesn’t make sense to me. I just thought that some Christ-followers were strange…
-Vince Wright
racefanegurl
On strange Christians, the world may perceive you that way, strange and peculiar. On the madly, as Hillsong’s based in Australia, they may mean it the British way. They use British spelling, like Saviour, honour and neighbour. Australia’s a little bit British, I guess, based on these spellings.
john
Hi, thank you for your interpretation of this song.
I don’t agree with your assessment that the double negative “don’t fear no evil” is a grammatical error. There is no way such a basic error would slip past the song writer. This is an intentional move. The idea that double negatives in English are “wrong” is only a relatively recent development (English after the 18th century was changed to become more logical and double negatives became seen as canceling each other as in mathematics. The use of double negatives became associated with being uneducated and illogical. – Wikipedia).
The use of a double negative here may be to speak to people who talk like that, to make the lyrics seem less “proper” and formal and distant from the audience.
I don’t feel that the double negative detracts from the song, but I’m not at all a fan of the “madly” in love reference, because “mad” is associated with “insane” or at the very least, a person who is being controlled by their emotions. I don’t think that is ever an appropriate description for God and I certainly haven’t read that in the Bible.
Vince Wright
John,
Thank you for your feedback!
Regarding the “don’t fear no evil”, I can see your point. There ARE people who talk that way and it does pander to that group of individuals, so they will likely take exception with my criticism. As a logically-minded individual, I can be forgiven for criticizing it!
Regarding “Madly”, I’ve noticed that the word used to describe “insane” is culture-specific; However, I see your point about uncontrollable emotions.
I’ll pray on these to consider a review update.
-Vince Wright
Jeffrey A Potter
I just heard this song and know the difference between the Love that God is and the love that Jesus displayed on the cross for us. He loves us yes…and yes did give up the throne in heaven to be with us on earth (as it was the ONLY Way for man to be redeemed.) Sacrificial love to redeem the lost is different than turning JESUS into a lost puppy just looking to find someone to love “unconditionally”…or as a romance novel hero that is the “perfect boyfriend” forgets the Creator and worships the creation… In essense it makes Jesus guilty of idolatry…and makes the gospel centered around how “worthy” we are to be loved by a God that does not make mistakes.
My Bible states that we are all fallen short of the glory of God….
My $.02.
😇😎
Vince Wright
Jeffrey,
Thank you for your thoughts!
-Vince Wright
Jeffrey A Potter
I appreciate your willingness to share your thoughts as well as what Scripture teaches to those that may just not know.😇😎
Devin Ward
I just found your website and enjoyed this article. What do you think heavens refers to in “swing wide all you heavens”. You weren’t very clear in who “heavens” refer to.
Bethels new song come out of that grave, I’m trying to convince leadership it’s not the most congregational appropriate song choice. Especially since it’s a result of the wake up Olive tragedy in December. As a worship leader, what advice do you have discussing this song with leadership? It may be a good one to review as it gains current popularity. Definitely will keep up with this site! Great work on content.
Vince Wright
Devin,
I am glad you found my work enjoyable and am grateful for pointing out my error. I added commentary to “swing wide all you heavens”. I thought that it might be the gates of heaven, but the lyrics say “you heavens”, so I thought it was consistent with the heavens declaring God’s glory. This is found in Psalm 19:1, especially since the Verse here is about praising God.
As for discussing music, there are a variety of considerations. I only cover a few of them that are relevant to worship: message and Biblical accuracy. Unbeliever interpretation depends on if your church is seeker-sensitive or not. It should be obvious if the song glorifies God or not based on the other three.
As for out of that grave, take a look at my review of Breakthrough, found at https://www.thebereantest.com/red-rocks-worship-breakthrough. I bore into Word of Faith on this one, which would likely have similar commentary in this song had I reviewed it. Hopefully, it will give you some ammunition to make your case with your leaders.
-Vince Wright
dwmusiceducation
Thank you for your input! I lead worship for a church with anywhere from 3000+ members per week and then a smaller Hispanic church ever few weeks with attendance of about 200. They are pretty seeker sensitive and having left the Word faith movement couple years ago and having to relearn theology against my former biases, sometimes it is difficult to talk to pastors who I know have been greatly influenced by that movement and explain how unbiblical their interpretation is. Luckily that teaching isn’t prevalent in my church and I only know their influences from being friends with leadership. But definitely bias is hard to break through.
Larry
My initial concern with this song was the chant of whoa whoa… It confused me because I think of woe as a cry of desperation or whoa as do not proceed. I never even considered the ‘madly’ phrase, thanks for the enlightenment.
Andrea
I struggle with this song when we sing it at church. The “madly in love” lyric is problematic. As previous commenters have noted, there’s a difference between “___ loves me” and “___ is in love with me” and I don’t see anywhere in Scripture where we are told that God is “in love” with us. I’m also not a fan of the word madly, and I think “madly in love” implies the head over heels sort of definition.
My other issue with this song is that it seems all over the place. It’s hard to nail down what the central idea is supposed to be. My first thought when we sang it at church the first time is that it was written by AI. The statements are all true (ignoring the questionable madly in love line), but the parts don’t seem to connect.
Brock Jackson
Swing wide you heavens
Ps 118:19
Ps 24:7-9 (lift your heads up high)
Vince Wright
Brock,
Thanks! I updated my review.
-Vince Wright
Jedidiah Cheng
Thanks so much for this breakdown and the thoughts about the Biblical references and accuracy as well as possible confusions. I do agree with what everyone and what has been written about this confusion about the word “madly” and how God is madly in love with us. Without the right understanding and definition, I definitely agree that this could turn out really badly. But I also wanted to add another perspective based on few verses from 2 Corinthians which might speak to this, or it might not be relevant. But I just wanted to share it and see what you might think:
2 Corinthians 5:11-15: Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
I think, in this passage, Paul mentions his experience with the love of Christ in regards to the church which comes from him knowing the fear of God and having the love of Christ control him. He mentions that there is something akin to being “beside ourselves” in the apostles’ experiences in regards to serving the church and leading others to see that they should love their life for the sake of Christ. This probably also connects to his earlier letters in 1 Corinthians where he speaks of how the world considers them to be foolish, but God’s foolishness is wiser than men. There is a madness and foolishness to how the world views God’s work, but, like you said, that madness is not out of a thoughtless, unplanned, or spontaneous thing, but it just in light of the magnificence of God and His work that seems foolish to everyone else. However, like mentioned, this could possibly be misinterpreted in the lyrics. But, I think this reference from Paul concerning the love of Christ and how, because of this, he and Timothy are “beside themselves” for the Church (they are so in love with God’s people and God Himself that they are so devoted to His work to a point that seems like madness) might shed some light on this idea of God being madly in love with us, His Church.
Jedidiah Cheng
I realized I had a typo: “live their life for the sake of Christ” not “love their life.”
Vince Wright
Jedidiah,
Thank you for your comments!
I believe that what you presented is Hillsong’s aim; However, as you agreed, there is also much room for misinterpretation.
-Vince Wright
kathryn
Thank you for this. i was researching on this song because it has been a blessing to me.
My thoughts on the “madly in love” part is quite different though. I think that it’s human’s adulterated thoughts that make it weird or not fitting. The Father is the perfect picture of what love is and i think that using these lyrics for the sole meaning of it is very powerful. I think that being “in love” doesn’t necessarily have a romantic connotation. It’s similar to the scriptures. There are a lot of scriptures that when you take it as they are or how they are ‘usually’ interpreted as, they are quite odd. But since we know that this is about the Father, it means something else.
However, thank you so much for this.
Michael Ramsey
Honestly, Reading your review I didn’t expect the closing comment’s and score to be as negative. I like singing this song with its more upbeat reprise (Echoes[Till we see the other side])
Tee
“God is madly in love with you” makes it sound like God is beholden to you. It lacks a certain reverence to a holy God.
Do not recommend for impressionable Christians.
Brett Michael Rocker
I introduced this song to my congregation because the first verse tied well with a sermon series we were doing, but couldn’t stand that “madly in love with you” line for the same issues you mentioned. So here’s what I changed it to: “Fix you eyes on this one truth: [That God deeply loves you]” and just held out the word “loves” a bit longer to make it fit, haha.