CCM Edition.

September 19, 2017. Today we’ll be taking a look at “Hard Love” by Need to Breathe (feat. Lauren Daigle) which currently sits at #6 on 20TheCountdownMagazine.

The version that is on the Top20 track isn’t the album version, it is the version done for the movie adaptation of the heresy-filled novel, “The Shack”. We’re not here to debate the book or the movie, but if this is news to you here is a good article that goes over the basic problems of the movie. For more on the book click here. Let’s give the song a listen and read through its lyric.

“The Shack” Version (Audio Only)

Lyrics

Trading punches with the heart of darkness
Going to blows with your fear incarnate
Never gone until it’s stripped away
A part of you has gotta die today

In the morning you gon’ need an answer
Ain’t nobody gonna change the standard
It’s not enough to just feel the flame
You’ve gotta burn your old self away

Hold on tight a little longer
What don’t kill ya, makes ya stronger
Get back up, ’cause it’s a hard love
You can’t change without a fallout
It’s gon’ hurt, but don’t you slow down
Get back up, ’cause it’s a hard love

You know the situation can’t be right
And all you ever do is fight
But there’s a reason that the road is long
It takes some time to make your courage strong

Hold on tight a little longer
What don’t kill ya, makes ya stronger
Get back up, ’cause it’s a hard love
You can’t change without a fallout
It’s gon’ hurt, but don’t you slow down
Get back up, ’cause it’s a hard love

When the wolves come and hunt me down
I will face them all and stand my ground
‘Cause there’s a fire burnin’ in me
They will see my strength in this love I found
Oh

Hold on tight a little longer
What don’t kill ya, makes ya stronger
Get back up, ’cause it’s a hard love
You can’t change without a fallout
It’s gon’ hurt, but don’t you slow down
Get back up, ’cause it’s a hard love

It’s a hard love, it’s a hard love, it’s a hard love, it’s a hard love
Oh, it’s a hard love, it’s a hard love, it’s a hard love, it’s a hard love
Oh, it’s a hard love, it’s a hard love, it’s a hard love, it’s a hard love

Hold on tight a little longer
What don’t kill ya, makes ya stronger
Get back up, ’cause it’s a hard love
You can’t change without a fallout
It’s gon’ hurt, but don’t you slow down
Get back up, ’cause it’s a hard love
‘Cause it’s a hard love

Songwriters: Nathaniel Rinehart / William Rinehart
Hard Love lyrics © Downtown Music Publishing

Discussion

Well, now… that’s an example of confusing Law and Gospel. The Law isn’t the Gospel, nor should it ever be presented as such. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, the Law kills. That’s what it does. Under the Law everything that isn’t Holy is destroyed. Only God is Holy; therefore, under the Law everything is destroyed. There is nothing you can do to avoid it, because there is nothing in ourselves that is Holy. The ONLY hope is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He’s the Only One (both fully God and fully Man) who fulfilled the whole Law in our place. Jesus paid the full price of sin in our place, as our substitute. He drank the full Wrath of God against all sin, and with His dying breath on that cross He declared tetelestai, “It is finished”.

John 19:28-30 (ESV)

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Colossians 1:13-23 (ESV)

[God the Father] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

2 Corinthians 5:20-21 (ESV)

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The second reason this confusion of Law and Gospel should be avoided is that it makes the person, the sinner, the star of his own salvation. This is the glaring problem of this song, it focuses entirely on the person enduring this “hard love” and makes the person the hero of his own journey. Whatever this is, it isn’t the Gospel. This falls right in line with the nonsense that is “the Shack”.

Ephesians 2:4-9 (ESV)

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The full work of salvation is the LORD’s, not ours. None of it is our own doing, and no one may boast in it.

Now, some might argue that this song isn’t about “getting saved” but about sanctification. To that I would like to say that the song isn’t overtly Christian. So, to try to rescue the song by claiming it to be an exhortation to sanctification is to ignore the primary fault in the lyric… it’s appealing to a sanctification that is focused on the sinner rather than the Savior. It’s generally assumed to be delivering a Christian message since it is being played on “christian” radio stations and was highlighted in a “christian” movie based on a “christian” book. In fact, the book was abysmally heretical (more), the movie is slightly toned down in its heresy, but it’s still there, and the song is theologically no better than Katy Perry’s Roar or David Guetta’s Titanium. That is to say that the song glorifies the singer and the listener. If we’re to make this “hard love” a stand-in for God’s love, we’ve completely and totally missed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Total confusion of Law and Gospel.

Conclusion

This song fails on every count. A complete confusion of Law and Gospel and its focus is on the sinner rather than the Savior. What’s worse, is that this particular version of the song serves to promote a heretical movie based on an even more heretical novel. Full disapproval in this DiM.

Jude 17-25 (ESV)

But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

In Christ Jesus,
Jorge