Image by Jennifer Griffin on Unsplash

“Things of Heaven” is the title track from Red Rocks Worship’s newest EP. It grabbed my attention with its impassioned cry of “Here! Now!” and energized my spirit with its eager invitation for God to work in and through us to transform us into his Kingdom on earth.

Focus

This is a song about pursuing God’s presence and reign. We also envision ourselves on the brink of a new revival by the work of God’s Spirit.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
We anticipate…something! Wind is an allusion to the work of the Holy Spirit, and also fits nicely with the other nature images of dawn and tides in this verse. References to mystery and “things unseen” (Heb. 11:1) remind us of our limited perspective. We don’t know exactly what God is going to do or how he is going to do it, but we trust that he is going to do some imminent work of revival. This verse places us right at the brink of something new happening.

PRE-CHORUS
“Holy Spirit, come // Hover over us”
Pretty standard invitation to the Spirit. The reference to hovering is a callback to Genesis 1:2 when the Spirit is hovering over the pre-creation waters. In my mind, this means acknowledging that I am not fully formed yet and asking the Spirit to continue creating me as he wills.
There is potential for confusion here. What good is it to ask an omnipresent God to come or go anywhere? Furthermore, the Holy Spirit already indwells every Christian. This kind of invitation is a poetic way of asking God to make the presence of his Spirit evident and to increase our awareness of it.

CHORUS
“Open the Heavens, fling wide the gates // Unleash Your presence, pour out Your grace // Show me Your glory, the power of Your love // Cause even a glimpse is more than enough for me“
Here we make several requests of God that amount to different poetic pleas to experience his presence.
The heavens open in a couple different ways in the Bible. In the Old Testament, it often means rain and, by extension, God’s blessings (Mal 3:10). In the New Testament, it’s usually a special glimpse of God himself, specifically in the glorified Jesus (Matt. 3:16, Acts 7:56, Rev 19:11). The lyrics here could be taken both ways, but I lean toward the second.
Opening gates to invite in the King of Glory comes from Psalm 24.
“Unleash your presence” clarifies the pre-chorus; we’re not just asking God to be present, which he already is, but for his presence to be unleashed, that is powerfully active, overwhelming, doing stuff. Exactly what stuff you expect him to do will vary widely by denomination.
We also ask to see and experience God’s grace, glory, and the power of his love. These pleas remind me of Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:16-19, and I think they fit in the same vein.
Like the woman in Matthew 9:21, we long so deeply to experience God, that even a tiny fraction of his glory, power, love, and grace is more than sufficient for our joy and restoration.

VERSE 2
“You’re willing and able, You’re making a table // In front of me, before my enemies”
I’m very comfortable saying God is able to do anything he wants. I’m very cautious to assume his willingness to do a given thing unless he’s made it clear in Scripture. Applied only to this line, I think God is absolutely willing to prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies (Psalm 23:5). He will always provide for his sheep, no matter what frightening circumstances we face. The potential for error comes in the last line, where we say that he’s going to “do so much more than we’ve known before.” This idea is repeated throughout the whole song, so it’s important that we have the right idea about what it means for God to do something new.

BRIDGE
“We’re gonna see the things of Heaven // Here! Now!”
Dry bones are from Ezekiel 37 where the dead osseous matter represents the exiled people of Israel. God breathes his Spirit into them (with lots of wind imagery), and they are restored to life and given a land of their own. This is a classic image of revival that pops up in lots of worship songs. They don’t dance in Ezekiel, but it’s a reasonable poetic addition since dancing is all over the Old Testament as an expression of joyful worship. And what greater cause can there be for dancing than being resurrected from death?
The strongholds we fight against and which must bow in the face of God’s presence are “arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5).
The climax of this song is the last line of the bridge, and it’s also the line that takes the most unraveling. What are the “things of heaven,” and can we really expect/demand them here and now? This phrase appears to be absent from Scripture (“heavenly things” appears a few times, but I don’t think this song is talking about the tabernacle furnishings from Hebrews 9:23, or the concepts that Nicodemus isn’t ready for in John 3:12)
My best understanding is that this is a declaration of trust based on the Lord’s Prayer. The lyric, “we’re gonna see your kingdom power” seems to support this. It’s saying that when we pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10), we can absolutely trust God to bring that about right here and right now. To what extent is an open question, and I don’t think the song is demanding all the things of heaven to be brought about immediately, but it is definitely only focused on the “already” aspect of “already/not yet.”

OUTRO
No new ideas here, just a couple lines about pouring out the Spirit and God doing something new. Some more wind. I wouldn’t include these lines when leading the song, since they’re more of a spontaneous coda. I might say my own prayer during the outro.

Accessibility

This song contains some Scriptural deep cuts that most people will miss (and that I didn’t even think about until I really dug in). That doesn’t bother me, as I believe new believers and non-believers will have no trouble grasping the main points of the song. I do think there are some lines that people could get hung up on, like the mysterious wind blowing in verse 1, or trying to figure out what the “things of heaven” are in the bridge. To alleviate this, I would definitely try to shed some light on one or two of these potentially confusing lines in my introduction to the song at church.
My main concern with this song is that people may not understand what is meant by “something new,” “new revival,” the changing tides, the breaking dawn, and “so much more than we’ve known before.” These lines allude to and emphasize a major, imminent change for the church, the exact nature of which is left open to interpretation. Some negative consequences of this could be an over-emphasis on end-times speculation, an inflated view of one’s own ministry, or even an expectation of a major change in doctrine. On the other, safer end of the spectrum, these lines could be understood to refer only to personal revival and a new level of intimacy and obedience between God and the individual worshiper. I think the authorial intent, and the clearest meaning of the words is between those two extremes. I think the lyrics anticipate at least a local revival, but possibly a regional or even global revival of the Church in which hearts are turned toward Jesus by the power and presence of his Spirit and God builds his Kingdom through his Church on earth. If that’s something you believe God is promising to your church, community, or planet, great! If not, this likely isn’t the song for you.

Music

The dynamic arc of this song is very standard for worship music. I can’t get enough of the drop at the end of the bridge! The iii chord at the end of the verse lines is a nice touch. I don’t think any of the instrumental parts of this song would be too difficult for volunteers to learn
The melody of the chorus is super easy to learn; the verses are a little trickier because of the skips, and the bridge might throw your congregation the first couple times.

Conclusions

I like the song, and I think it’s a good expression of faith in the Holy Spirit’s reviving work in our hearts and churches, and his kingdom-building work through us. I am a little uncomfortable with claiming that God is about to do something “new” when it seems to me that the thrust of Scripture on this topic is that sending his Son, and then his Spirit, was the “new” thing, and we’re still living in that reality, not doing another new thing.
Will it worship? Possibly, but I still need to work through whether the emphasis on a big change/new work of God is going to be helpful or unhelpful to my congregation.