Names They Call Me

Track ten is the most defiant song on the record, and it is the one that got most personal. It is a list of labels - hyper, antinomian, gnostic, neonomian, soft, easy-believism, no-lordship. Every accusation a sovereign-grace man collects when his framework will not sit still inside a tribe. I'm whatever fits the sermon that the pulpit needs to brew.

The second verse stops being general. It names the specific slander I have actually carried - the lie that I believe that Christ is a sinner, that my imputational language made the Savior unclean, and the man who got his grandson carrying the rumor like it's gospel. I will not name him in a song or in a note; that is not how I work. But I will say the accusation is false, it has followed me for years, and this song is the sound of a man who has stopped flinching about it.

And the reason he can stop flinching is the turn in verse three. I read the gospels with my ears open, and the names started lighting up like a runway. They called Christ a glutton, a winebibber, a friend of sinners, a sabbath-breaker, a blasphemer, a Samaritan, a demoniac. Every single name they ever called Him was a name they called me. So the labels stop being a verdict and become a map. Wisdom is justified of her children. Throw another label, throw another stone - every name you call me was a name they called Him first. And He carried every one. I will wear them like a uniform.