Image by Niels Smeets from Unsplash

“What I See” is an intense, energetic new song from Elevation Worship’s LION album. Written by Chris Brown, Jason Ingram, Pat Barrett, and Steven Furtick, “What I See” stirs up excitement and calls the church to awaken from slumber and live the resurrected life. I have to confess that my first impression of this song was that it was a lot of hype and lot a whole lot of substance, but the central line of the chorus, “He is risen // We are risen with Him,” is so strong that it has me reevaluating. If there’s a subject worthy of hype, it’s the resurrection of Jesus, so let’s dig into the lyrics and see if “What I See” is biblical, and if it’s suitable for congregational worship.

Let me know in the comments if you see what I see in “What I See.” 😆🤦‍♂️

Focus

This song is about resurrection. It points to Jesus’ resurrection (though he isn’t identified by name) but spends more time on the imminent resurrections of believers as they turn to him, quite possibly through baptism. There’s also an emphasis on experiential witness of God’s power. Lines like “do you see what I see?” and “I see lightning; I hear thunder,” insist that God is working powerfully here and now, and that we can see and experience it.

Lyric Analysis

INTRO
“Do you see what I see?”

I’m not sure yet, Chris. That’s what we’re trying to determine!

This line is a rhetorical question that introduces one of the song’s driving ideas. Its meaning isn’t clear at the outset, but as we develop the theme we’ll see that this is an invitation to see the power of God at work, especially through the resurrections of believers, but also through signs and wonders.

VERSE 1
Lightning and thunder are commonly used throughout Scripture to represent God’s power, often in battle or judgment, but sometimes just as an effect of his presence or his words. It also might be worth noting that at Jesus’ resurrection, there was a great earthquake (those can sound thunderous) and the angel who rolls the stone away and then sits on it is described as having an appearance like lightning (Matt 28:1-3). So the authors of this song could be obliquely referencing Jesus’ resurrection here.

“Six feet under” is a modern euphemism for dead, since that’s how deep we tend to bury people. Jesus was not buried in a coffin but in a Jewish tomb, so this line points to the song primarily discussing imminent resurrections/conversions rather than Jesus’ resurrection. He makes this clear by saying dead things are “coming back to life again” and “there’s about to be another resurrection.” We’ll discuss this idea more in the chorus.

The phrase “signs and wonders” appears throughout the Old and New Testaments. It describes the plagues God inflicted on Egypt, God’s deliverance of Daniel, the miracles of Jesus, and miracles performed through the Apostles and early Christians in Acts. But there are also some warnings attached to this phrase. Jesus rebukes those who go seeking signs and wonders in Matthew 12:38-41 and tells them the only sign they will receive is his death and resurrection. He also warns that false christs and false prophets will lead people astray with signs and wonders (Matt. 24:23-25). So, bearing witness to the signs and wonders of God is a good thing, especially in bearing witness to the primary wonder: Jesus’ resurrection. But we must be careful not to seek after them or be led astray by those who perform them but whose teachings do not align with Scripture.

Seeing “bursts of living color” is a metaphor for experiencing a vibrant, resurrected life. The authors may have had the vivid colors of the New Jerusalem, the home of God’s people after our final resurrection, in mind when they wrote this line (Rev. 21:10-14).

CHORUS
“Come alive // Wake up sleeper // He is risen // We are risen with Him”

The chorus is my favorite part of this song because it situates our hope for resurrection in the fact that Jesus has already risen. In Romans 6:2-4, Paul tells us that when we are baptized into Jesus, we are joining him in his death, and we are resurrected with his resurrection.

The call to the sleeper to wake up is found in Ephesians 5:14 (paraphrasing various Old Testament passages), where Paul is talking about what it means to walk in the light as opposed to the darkness, the new, resurrected life as opposed to the old dead one. As a consequence of our resurrection with Christ, we are called to wake up and live a new kind of life. This is the same thing point he’s making in Romans 6 as well.

Our resurrection with Jesus is one of those “now/not yet” concepts from the Bible, where in one sense we are already resurrected and we are called to live new lives of faith and love. In another sense, we still wait for the day when Jesus fully establishes his Kingdom and we are resurrected, transformed, and enter eternity with him (Phil. 3).

When we return to the chorus later in the song, we get one additional phrase: “paradise flung wide open.” I don’t find this exact statement anywhere in Scripture, but I think it fits with the idea of Jesus tearing the veil that separates us from God’s presence (Matt. 27:51). It also reminds me of passages like Romans 9:24, which emphasize that God’s family is now open to people of all nations, not just the people of Israel.

VERSE 2

Jesus said “it is finished” when he died on the cross (John 19:30), and Christians have long understood this as a declaration that the work of redemption is complete in him. Jesus has already done it; we don’t have to earn it (Eph. 2:8-9). The grave with no body in it (two words “no body,” not “nobody”) refers to Jesus’ empty tomb (John 20:1-10).

INTERLUDE

Chris invites the congregation to “hear the resurrection life in the room today.” The singing of God’s people is part of what happens when we’re filled with the Spirit, which is directly tied to experiencing the resurrected life (Eph. 5:18-19, Eph. 1:13-14).

BRIDGE

The bridge gives us a conditional statement: “If you see that [Jesus’] grave is empty, then you know that anything is possible.” Jesus himself tells us that all things are possible with God (Matt. 19:26). The rest of the bridge repeats words we’ve seen already, focusing on seeing and hearing signs, wonders, lightning, and thunder.

Nothing wrong here, we just need to remember that signs are just that: signs. They’re not the main point of our faith; they point to Jesus.

Accessibility

I think most people will understand that we are talking about how Jesus’ resurrection and how it makes it possible for us to be resurrected with him. The song doesn’t explain exactly what that means but paints the new, resurrected life with metaphors like lightning, living color, and waking from sleep. So someone untrained in Scripture is likely to come away from this song with an understanding of what the new life feels like, but not necessarily what it entails.

“What I See” also tells us anything is possible and creates an expectation for signs and wonders, which could be harmful depending on one’s understanding of the phrase, and whether it prompts people to seek contemporary signs and wonders or place too much trust in them (See analysis of verse 1).

The tune of this song is simple and the rhythms are repetitive so it should be very singable for the congregation.

Music

This song excels at building excitement through strategic application of drums and electric guitar. As such, dynamics are even more important than usual. “What I See” is never quiet, but there are several places where the instrumentation is sparse on purpose, featuring only the electric guitar, drums, or voices and clapping.

I’m not a drummer, but some of the drum rhythms in this song sound pretty difficult, and they’re integral to the energy of the song so they can’t just be skipped or replaced. The guitar rhythm patterns don’t sound as challenging, but they are very specific, and it will be important for the musicians on your team to mirror what Elevation plays as closely as possible. The chords are easy.

Conclusions

Will it worship? Maybe.

I don’t see much theological danger in “What I See,” except maybe an unhelpful emphasis on contemporary signs and wonders which is less of a concern if your church has an established and well-understood position on what those do and don’t entail. In fact, the central premise of the song, “He is risen; we are risen with him,” is a clear articulation of one of the very most important points of Christian faith. The rest of the song is focused on the feeling of excitement that naturally accompanies that kind of truth.

What makes this song hard to utilize in corporate worship is its very concrete and oft-repeated expectation that “there’s about to be another resurrection.” If you sing this song in worship, and it’s not followed by a baptism or some other visible sign of someone’s conversion to faith in Jesus, it will ultimately feel flat. It is absolutely right and good to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection and ours, but to sing a song so focused on seeing someone’s imminent salvation and then not connect that promise to a fulfillment seems wrong. So I would have a hard time using this song in a worship service if it wasn’t going to be followed up with a baptism, someone’s confession of faith, or maybe even a very focused evangelism effort.

To sum up! I’m a little concerned about the emphasis on signs and wonders, and it would be a minor wonder for an average church drummer to be able to play this song well. Apart from that, this is an exciting, celebratory song about the resurrection of believers that could be used effectively as part of a baptism service or revival, but probably not a typical Sunday morning.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.