Vertical Worship – Lamb of God

Contemporary Christian band Vertical Worship began in 2012 as a music collective born out of Harvest Bible Chapel in Chicago, Illinois.  Formerly known as Vertical Church Band, they released eight albums and four EP’s, including:

• Live Worship from Vertical Church (2012)
• The Rock Won’t Move (2013)
• Vertical EP (2013)
• White EP (2014)
• Church Songs (2015)
• Frontiers (2016)
• Vertical Worship (2017)
• Bright Faith Bold Future (2018)
• Planetarium EP (2018)
• Yes I Will – EP (2019)
• Yes I Will: Songs from Vertical Worship (2020)
• Grace Is On Our Side (2020)

Also, check out my reviews of Worthy, Worthy, Faithful Now, Yes I Will, 1000 Tongues, Do What You Want To , Found in You, and Spirit of the Living God.

Lyrics can be found at https://genius.com/Vertical-worship-lamb-of-god-live-lyrics.

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.

1. What message does the song communicate?

Jesus, the Lamb of God who descended from heaven above, showed His greatest act of love by trading Vertical Worship’s lawbreaking for His righteousness through His death and resurrection.

Score: 10/10

2. How much of the lyrics line up with Scripture?

This song is completely Biblical.

[Verse 1]

Line 1: Jesus descended from His throne in heaven to the earth (Philippians 2:5-7).

Lines 2-4: Jesus, who did not know sin, became the payment for our lawbreaking as though He broke God’s laws (Isaiah 53:1-12, Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45, John 1:29, John 3:16, John 19:30, Acts 4:12, Acts 20:28, Romans 5:6-10, Romans 6:23, 1 Corinthians 1:30, 1 Corinthians 6:20, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Galatians 1:3-4, Galatians 3:13, Ephesians 1:7, Colossians 2:14, 1 Timothy 2:6, Titus 2:14, Hebrews 9:12, Hebrews 9:15-26, 1 Peter 1:17-21, 1 Peter 2:24, 1 John 1:7, 1 John 2:1-2, and Revelation 5:9).

[Chorus]

Line 1: Scripture attributes the titles “lamb” or “Lamb of God” to Jesus in Isaiah 53:7, John 1:29, John 1:36, Acts 8:32, 1 Peter 1:19, Revelation 5:6-8, Revelation 5:12-13, Revelation 6:1, Revelation 7:9-17, Revelation 12:11, Revelation 13:8, Revelation 14:1-10, Revelation 15:3, Revelation 17:14, Revelation 19:7-9, and Revelation 21:9.

Line 2: See Verse 1, lines 2-4.

Line 3: Describes Vertical Worship’s transformation from deadness in sin to alive in Christ (Romans 6:1-11, Romans 7:4-6, Galatians 2:19-20, 2 Timothy 2:11, and 1 Peter 2:24).

Line 4: The word ‘Hallelujah” is a compound Hebrew phrase, with “hallelu” meaning “a joyous praise in song” and “jah” or “yah”, which refers to the Tetragrammaton YHWH. Put together, we are singing “we joyfully praise God in song” when we use this word.

Also, see line 1.

[Verse 2]

Line 1: That is, Vertical Worship is known by God by name.  This describes God’s intimate, personal, relational knowledge with Vertical Worship (John 15:1-11, Acts 17:27, Romans 8:15, Romans 11:16-24, and Philippians 3:8-10).

Line 2-4: See Verse 1, lines 2-4.

[Bridge]

Line 1: What is the greatest love that exists?  According to Vertical Worship in line 3, it is Jesus raising from the dead.  While vitally important for our salvation, I don’t see any Scriptural language that suggests that His resurrection is a greater act of love than His death.  According to Jesus in John 15:13, laying down one’s life for your friends is the greater act of love.  However, Jesus takes it a step further than that.  According to Romans 5:6-8, He died for His enemies; sinners who rebelled against Him.  This includes Vertical Worship.  However, His death is meaningless apart from His resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:12-19).  Thus, his “greatest love” of dying for Vertical Worship, mentioned in previous lyrics throughout this song, is completed when He rose again.

Line 2: Repeats line 1.

Line 3: That is, Jesus rose from the dead (Matthew 28:1-20, Mark 16:1-20, Luke 24:1-12, John 20:1-29, Acts 1:3, Acts 3:15, Acts 4:33, and 1 Corinthians 15:3-8).

Line 4: Repeats line 1.

Lines 5-8: Repeats lines 1-4.

Score: 10/10

3. How would an outsider interpret the song?

This song contains a healthy mix of Christianese and everyday language, with words and terms such as “Lamb of God”, “cross”, “salvation”, and “hallelujah” as obvious pointers to the Christian faith.  The word “sin”, often misunderstood by unbelievers as mere error, is called “debt”, giving those outside Christianity a working definition to understand what we mean by this term.  Their interpretation should mirror my single-sentence description provided in section 1.

Score: 10/10

4. What does this song glorify?

It glorifies Jesus as the One who died a rose again, showing how much He loves us by paying for sin.

Score: 10/10

Closing Comments

Vertical Worship’s Lamb of God is Christ-centric.  It provides the basic elements of the Gospel message.  Chiefly, that He came down to earth to become one of us, died for our sins, and rose again, showing how much He loves us.  This glorifies God.  Unbelievers should have little to no problems interpreting similarly.

I highly recommend this song for corporate worship.

Final Score: 10/10

Artist Info

Track: Lamb of God (Live) (listen to the song)

Artist: Vertical Worship

Album: Church Songs

Genre: Rock

Release Year: 2015

Duration: 4:11

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