Song: “Reborn”
Artist: Stryper
Album: Reborn
(2001)
Track: 2
The first track of this album is a call for the lost to
“open your eyes,” but it doesn’t give a lot of information as to what they are
opening their eyes to. “Reborn” in an
important track to follow that song, because it is here that we get down to it
– a call to faith. And not just generic faith,
but faith in a specific Man.
If you believe . . .
One thing we must note right away is what this call is
to. Without saying so, the narrator is
clearly Jesus in this song, and the focus is fully on Him. The constant refrain is that, if you believe,
you will be freed.
But in what are we believing? Here the song is very interesting. So many people use the word “faith” as some
sort of power of its own, but the power is actually in the object of our
faith. The band does quite well in
describing that Object, and in the meanwhile they allude to quite a bit of deep
theology here, and we should note that and appreciate it. This Jesus is no fluffy-haired hippie Jesus
who is a kind teacher who doesn’t judge people.
He’s not merely the humiliated Jesus upon the cross. Nor is He seen only in His power and
exaltation.
Believe, the song tells us, in the love, pain, jealousy,
faith, hope, misery, way, word, honesty, life, death, memory, grace, peace,
nobility, power, and strength of Christ.
There is a lot here, referring to the perfection of Christ, the
humiliation of Christ (starting from the incarnation, through His life, His
death, and burial) and the exaltation of Christ (from His resurrection, His
ascension, His position at the right hand of the Father, and His future
return).
There is even a line on how we should believe, in humility. Stryper is calling us to come empty-handed to
the Lord of all Creation, and I applaud them for that.
. . . then He will
Then what happens?
Again, Stryper focuses on Christ here, letting Him do the freeing. “I’ll crush the chains that bind / And make
you feel you’re born again / Your freed heart, soul and mind / Will make you
feel you’re born again.”
Christ is the one who saves here, and what He expects from
us is faith. That is what we are called
to. We are saved by faith, not by works
of the Law, because we have already failed there (see track 1).
Overall
This album is shaping up quite nicely, this song being a
great follow up to the previous one.
Between the two, we get the state of sinful man, the solution, and the
promise of what will happen next.