Theological Song Review: What a Beautiful Name

David Morrill

What a Beautiful Name was released by Hillsong Worship on January 6th, 2017, and won two dove awards in 2017 and the 2018 Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song.

Note: For a full explanation of the rubric and a primer on our scoring methodology, click here.

Doctrinal Fidelity and Clarity: The song opens up with truth about Christ – that He has eternally existed as God. The next line states, “Your hidden glory in creation, now revealed in you our Christ.” Songwriter Ben Fielding explained that the line took its inspiration from Colossians 1:26, writing, “The mysteries of our infinitely beautiful and glorious God, once hidden for generations, have now been revealed through Jesus.” Yet in 1:26 of his letter to the Colossians, Paul does not describe a “hidden glory in creation,” but once-mysterious doctrines about Christ now given to the church, especially the mystery of Christ in us (verse 27), the incarnation of Christ (Col. 2:2), and the unity in Christ between Jew and Gentile (Eph 3:4-5). So while mysterious doctrines are now understood and brought to completion in Christ, there is no indication that God hid His glory in creation. Rather, Romans 1:20 teaches that God’s power and divinity are known through creation even by the lost: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” This modification may seem like an inconsequential change except that it lines up with Hillsong’s Pentecostal belief that special, hidden mysteries can be revealed to us through the practice of sign gifts like speaking in tongues or divine healing, and that baptism of the Holy Spirit happens after and apart from salvation. Many will likely dismiss my taking issue here, but it is a doctrinal error nonetheless.

The line in the song that created the most controversy follows: “You didn’t want heaven without us, so Jesus you brought heaven down.” While it is true that God’s dispositional will is that none perish (2 Peter 3:9), it is biblically clear that in His sovereignty God indeed does want heaven without some people (Matthew 7:13, Jude 1:4). This verse implies that God’s will in salvation is somehow related to how wonderful we are, but the Bible teaches the wretched and undeserving truth about mankind. Again, songwriter Ben Fielding makes this error worse by adding context about the second verse from his friend Glenn Packiam, who stated, “Heaven– God’s space– and earth– human space– were one. But sin fractured the union of heaven and earth. The beauty of the Gospel is that God’s solution was not to come down from heaven to airlift us out of earth, but rather to bring heaven down to earth in such a way that it would renew everything.” The Bible teaches nowhere that heaven and earth were ever one, nor that Christ’s first coming and salvific work on the cross “renewed everything.” These ideas betray the prosperity gospel taught by the Hillsong movement.

After one of the most repetitive choruses to make it into a modern praise song (which will be addressed shortly), the song’s bridge is largely straight Bible truth and I find myself wishing its lyrics had found their way into the chorus in some fashion. 17/25.

Doctrinal Specificity: It is clear from the lyrics that the song is addressing the Jesus of scripture, and verses refer specifically to attributes of Jesus including his bodily resurrection and preexistence. This would make it difficult to sing for those not claiming Jesus.

It is good that the song refers to the sin of the worshipper (“My sin was great”), although sin is not fully characterized as something that is the fault of the sinner. The chorus’ line “nothing compares to this” is weirdly emotional and non-specific. Nothing compares to what? 12/20.

Focus: The song remains focused on Jesus, or at least on the name of Jesus. The worshiper is not the validator of anything claimed about God, except for the self-focused line about God’s apparent heavenly loneliness. 16/20.

Association: The list of unbiblical beliefs and practices by Hillsong Church is a mile long. They embrace Word of Faith heresy, prosperity gospel, relative silence on LGBTQ sin, and violate the Bible by ordaining women to the pastorate. More recently, Hillsong has found itself embroiled in scandal as Hillsong New York pastor Carl Lentz was found to be a rampant sexual abuser and adulterer and “Global Senior Pastor” Brian Houston is about to be put on trial for concealing his father’s reported sexual abuse of children. 5 points because apparently neither Lentz nor Houston helped write the song. 5/20.

Musical Value: There is nothing special about the music underpinning this song, but the composition works the standard verse-chorus-building bridge-big chorus formula to capable effect. The chorus is quite repetitive and offers very little in the way of meaning beyond “Jesus is good” (as true as this is). 12/15.

Total score: 62/100. Not only are there better songs out there in terms of doctrine, the Hillsong label has become indefensible for even those willing to ignore their aberrant doctrine. The 5/20 association score disqualifies this song for recommendation.