Image by Edwin Andrade from Unsplash

What will heaven be like? Many songs attempt to answer that question, and it’s a hard one! One of my favorite N.T. Wright quotes is a reminder that all the clues we have about our eternal state are “signposts pointing into a fog.” We know some vague outlines about what heaven is, and what the new earth will be like, but we don’t have a lot of specifics. “Hymn of Heaven” focuses on the one activity we know is central to heavenly life: worship.

“Hymn of Heaven,” written by Bill Johnson, Brian Johnson, Chris Davenport, and Phil Wickham, was released in 2021 on Phil Wickham’s album of the same title and Bethel’s Homecoming. (The title track of that record is also about heaven, and I reviewed it here.) So what is the hymn of heaven mentioned in the song’s title? What does heavenly worship look like? Is this song based on Scripture? Will it worship? Answers to all these questions and more! Just keep on reading.

Focus

This song eagerly anticipates worshiping God in heaven. Accordingly, the focus is on glorifying God by singing of his holiness both in eternity and in the present. The other main theme is imagining what heaven will be like, and the emphasis here is still on all the angels and saints praising God together. The song also directly links our future in heaven with Jesus’ death and resurrection.

This song uses third person language to refer to God, calling him the Lord, the Lamb, and God. The first verse uses “I/me” language, but the rest of the song is all “we/us,” emphasizing the unity of believers in worshiping God.

Lyric Analysis

THE TITLE

Christians and non-Christians alike tend to have a lot of misconceptions about heaven. Perhaps the biggest one is that heaven is where we will spend eternity. This is not what the Bible teaches! Heaven is where believers who have died are joyfully present with God now, but they will not be there forever (Phil. 1:23, Luke 23:43). At the end of this age, we are going to dwell with God forever on a renewed earth, not float with him in the clouds (Rev. 21:1-4). Randy Alcorn has written a great article on this subject that was helpful in my research, and I encourage you to read it for more information!

I think preachers and songwriters often use the word “heaven” as a shorthand for dwelling-with-God-and-all-believers-from-all-time-in-the-New-Jerusalem-on-the-new-earth. It’s not my favorite practice because I think it contributes to confusion and misconceptions about our eternal state, but I understand why we do it. In fact, I’ll probably do it in this blog without realizing it. 🤦‍♂️

So, next time you hear someone use the word “heaven,” ask yourself if they’re really referring to heaven, where God is now, or the new earth, where we will spend eternity with him.

Having said all of that, the hymn of heaven referenced in the title seems to refer to three lines in the song. “Holy, holy is the Lord” occurs at the end of each chorus and is a shortened version of what the four living creatures are constantly saying around God’s throne in heaven (Rev. 4:8). The other two lines occur at the end of verse 3—”worthy is the Lamb who was slain” and “forever he shall reign”—and both are quotes of heavenly worship from the book of Revelation. So the title “Hymn of Heaven” is spot on. Good job, Phil & Friends!

VERSE 1
In this verse, the singer imagines his or her personal experience of being in heaven (technically probably the New Jerusalem, especially since the rest of the song is very focused on the final resurrection, but we talked about that already). He imagines breathing the air, feeling no pain, seeing Jesus in person, and walking with him. He refers to Jesus as “the One who bled to save me,” (1 Pet. 2:24) which I appreciate, because it links our presence in heaven with Jesus’ redeeming work on the cross.

CHORUS 1
One day, every knee will bow at the name of Jesus (Phil. 2:9-11). One day, death itself will die (Rev. 20:14, see also “Death, be not proud” by John Donne). One day, we’ll stand face to face with Jesus and worship him (1 Cor. 13:12, Rev. 7:9-12). But what day are we talking about? We’ve already probably got a good idea, but let’s wait for the verses to let us know for sure.

*Pedantic grammatical side-note: I’m 96% sure it should be “with him who died” rather than “with he who died” since “he/him who died and rose again” is a noun phrase that serves as the object of the preposition “with.” But it’s fine. My eye’s not twitching; what are you talking about? Moving on.*

VERSE 2

This verse is one long thought, not three complete sentences. So the first line is not saying that every prayer is desperate, but rather that every desperate prayer will be worth it in the end. The same with line 2: it’s worth it to sing songs of faith in the midst of hardship. The last line describes Jesus wiping away our tears (Rev. 21:4). I find great comfort in knowing that human suffering matters to God, that it isn’t wasted. In Psalm 56:8, David says that God keeps his tears in a bottle, and Psalm 116:15 even calls the deaths of the saints precious to the Lord. This does not mean that God enjoys our suffering, but that he is with us in it, and that it matters to him.

The final line also makes explicit what day this song is talking about: the day of Jesus’ glorious return when he will wipe away all our tears (Matt. 25:31-32, Rev. 21:4).

*Tired eschatological side-note: I’m not going to wander off into the weeds of end-times interpretation here. In some views, the day of Jesus’ return and the day of the final judgment might be separated by a thousand years, while others place them in rapid succession. Whether or not the Day of the Lord is in fact a literal 24-hour day is irrelevant to this song’s message.*

VERSE 3

Now “that day” is identified with the final resurrection of all the dead (Rev. 20:12-13), when we will stand before God’s throne and join either the sheep—those who obey God and love one another, the heroes of our faith—or the goats who do not (Heb. 11:39-12:2, Matt. 25:31-46). In Revelation 5, John sees larger and larger groups joining in the praise of Jesus. The line “worthy is the Lamb who was slain” is part of what he hears hundreds of millions of angels singing around God’s throne. Later in the book, loud voices in heaven also declare that Jesus will reign forever and ever (Rev. 11:15).

CHORUS 2

With the second chorus, the author encourages us not to wait until we die to sing Jesus’ praise. Heaven is praising God right now, and we have the opportunity to join in the song the angels and saints are already singing around his throne. We’re firmly in “now/not yet” territory here, recognizing that God has already given us eternal, resurrected life, and even though we can’t fully experience it yet, we can begin to live it out by singing the songs of heaven and living to glorify God here and now.

Accessibility

I think most people will be able to understand this song. The imagery of heaven and Jesus’ return are clear in use plain language. People who are unfamiliar with Scripture may not understand that Jesus is the “Lamb who was slain,” but most Christians will. The transition from “there will be a day” to “let it be today” might also confuse some people, but I think the song explains itself well enough that a little reflection will clear up the confusion. I don’t think anything in this song requires explanation beforehand.

The melody stays within an octave for the majority of the song, which is ideal for congregational singing. It increases to an octave+3 during the triumphant line “forever he shall reign” and the end of verse 3, and chorus 2 has an alternate melody that falls in that same range. That’s a larger range, but pretty normal for worship songs. Just keep those high notes in mind when choosing what key to set the song in.

Music

This song has a standard worship song dynamic arc. There’s no bridge, but verse 3 serves a similar musical function, bringing the volume down for a minute before building back up for some big closing choruses.

I’m partial to the Bethel version featuring Brian Johnson and Zahriya Zachary rather than the Phil Wickham studio version. I think the live worship environment makes such a difference with a song like this where the whole point is that God’s people are singing to him together.

If you’re a worship leader, make sure you have played through this song and double-checked your chord sheet before distributing it in practice. There is nothing super difficult, but the third line of each verse and chorus has some quick, extra chords with alternate bass notes, and the chord sheet I downloaded from Worship Together did not have them labeled correctly.

Conclusions

There are lots of songs that eagerly anticipate heaven. What I like about this one is that it does so by focusing on the real point of heaven: all of God’s people from all time, united with all creation in worshiping him forever. Instead of talking about golden streets, mansions, or even being reunited with lost loved ones, this song has its eyes fixed on Christ and his Bride the Church.

I also love that the three lines referred to as the hymn of heaven within the song all come from the Book of Revelation. So Phil & Co. aren’t just guessing at what kinds of praise we will give to God, they’re drawing the exact words from the praise God receives in heaven even now.

Will it worship? Yes! And in “Hymn of Heaven,” that’s the whole point.

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.