In Matt Redman’s song,Lord, Let Your Glory Fall, there is this lyric:
“Your anger lasts a moment, but your favor lasts a lifetime”
Someone approached me after church today and thought that particular lyric was peculiar in the middle of the song. Kinda like a cop out. As if to say “Hey hey – sin’s no big deal, God will forgive us anyway”. They where concerned this could be the misunderstanding of it. I don’t see it that way and wanted to substantiate its place in the song.
Here’s what I know about the song. It was inspired 2 Chronicles chapters 5 through 7 (the title of this blog is linked to these chapters). The song is written in the same sequence as the Biblical account. The lyric in question is right before the last verse in the song where God sends fire down and it consumes the burnt offering. This event begins chapter seven.
So I back tracked and focused on the verses of Solomon’s prayer in chapter six. Really, almost all of chapter six is Solomon’s prayer of dedication of the Temple. I believe Matt was summarizing chapter six in one line. This is my opinion as I don’t have Matt Redman’s e-mail address, yet! If you look at verse 36 through 42 of chapter 6, you see Solomon petitioning God for His favor when repentance is found in the hearts of a potentially captive Israel: captivity due to their sin against God and His resulting anger.
So that’s it. Make sense?
This statement is a great theological of Jewish people in Old Testament. In saying, “you’re anger lasts a moment, but your favor lasts a lifetime” is a way to express I am wrong, but you are right and the “rightness” of your character will rescue me since I have a covenant relationship with you. It was an expressing of hope not a literal expression of how God should treat us. The Children of Israel had a hope that did last a lifetime – it was ratified in Genesis 15 with Abram.
This is a good time to remember, God’s word was not written to us, but it was written for us. When a worship song is written based on a passage of Scripture we must remember this interpretive truth.
When I first saw the words, they struck me like this…
It’s nice to see that he had a deeper meaning, but kinda sad to see my own Bililcal illiteracy. 🙁
So Dan, what’s the source for your comment? Did you find this statement elsewhere in the OT? How did you arrive at the expressed meaning of the lyric?
I’m not trying to support lack of citations, but I think that the Old Testament as a whole supports what Dan is saying. A good way to look at it would be to start with the fall and see where God says he will send one that will crush the serpents head, also the wilderness experience, then the prophets, and then jump to the NT and look at the emergence of Jesus. It’s like God continually sees our failings and gives us consequences, but doesn’t fail to offer hope and redemption to His chosen people.
If it is alright I would like to use this blog as a message board. I don’t know if any of you like Bob Dylan, but I think his work is amazing. Anyway, there is a very cool website located at http://www.rightwingbob.com. It takes a more conservative look at his work. One link in particular that is vey cool is the link for the song “With God on Our Side.” If any of you truly enjoy poetry in music and wonderful chord and melodic structures then you should check at the song, form your opinion of it, and then read the link. I hope that someone at there could find this as interesting as I do.
I guess you did. In like fashion, how come you will blog but not return my phone calls?
sorry bout that. I actually e-mailed John about what you called me for, and school has been very busy. But, your right, expect a call today.