“Same God” is the most popular track of Elevation Worship’s 2022 release LION. Its authors are songwriting veterans Brandon Lake, Chris Brown, Pat Barrett, and Steven Furtick. At a glance, this song is a plea for God to intervene in our lives as he did for biblical figures like Moses and Mary. It took me a while to figure out what drew me to the song initially, but I think it’s the way the lyrics lean into God’s faithfulness and our need for him. But is “Same God” Biblical, and should your band sing it this Sunday? Let’s take a closer look to make sure we’re leaning on the solid foundation of God’s character rather than just some catchy lyrics and imaginary promises.

Focus

This song is a declaration of our need for God. It’s also a celebration of his faithfulness to his people throughout Scripture. Nearly every set of three lines in the song consists of a plea for God’s help in our lives coupled with a foundation for that plea in an element of God’s character or something specific that he did in the Bible. The bedrock of this song is the promise that he is the same God, yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8).

This song is directed at God using a lot of “you” language. We address him most often as “God” and “Rock of Ages,” and we also call him a healer, a savior, and the God of Mary, Moses, Jacob, and David.

Lyric Analysis

VERSES
Both verses of “Same God” are split into two groups of three lines each. In the first line of each group, the authors call on the God of [insert Biblical figure’s name]. In the second line, they reference something that God did or a characteristic that he demonstrated in that character’s story. The third line is a request (sometimes implied) that he will continue to act that way on behalf of the singer.

Songs like this can easily fall into the trap of assuming that God will perform the same miracles for us that he did in the past (e.g. God is going to slay my “giants” because he slayed David’s), but I think “Same God” takes a more nuanced approach.

The first character referenced is Jacob, and the authors identify that God’s love endures through generations. Based on this characteristic, we express trust that he will keep his covenant. This reflects how God renews the covenant he made with Abraham with his grandson Jacob in Genesis 28:13-15. Notably, God highlights his own faithfulness in this passage, saying “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” When we sing this line as Christians in the 21st Century, we know that we have a new, better covenant with God through the blood of Jesus, and that he will never break it (2 Cor. 3:6).

Next we look at God’s work during the time of Moses. The authors say that God “opened up the ocean,” referring to the parting of the Red Sea (Ex. 14:29-30). (Yes, I know the Red Sea isn’t an ocean, but it’s technically an inlet of the Indian Ocean, so we can let it slide 😆.) God used this miracle to bring Israel out of slavery, so when we ask him to do the same thing for us, I think we need to consider it in that light. We’re asking him to bring us out of our own slavery to sin and death. In Christ, we are no longer slaves, but sons and daughters (Gal. 4:1-7).

In Verse 2, the authors reference Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55. Three times in her short song of praise, she acknowledges God’s goodness for those of humble estate. The statement that nothing is impossible with God comes from the same chapter, when the angel Gabriel is foretelling the miraculous births of Jesus and John the Baptist (Luke 1:37).

Finally, we mention David and how God gave him courage to face Goliath. We see this courage clearly in David’s words to Saul, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” (1 Sam. 17:37) To be honest, seeing David and Goliath pop up in a worship song is usually a red flag for me. This story is one that we love to misapply. We love to see ourselves as David and our problems—physical or spiritual—as Goliath. The issue is that God doesn’t promise to smack all of our problems in the head with a rock. David went out to face God’s enemy, not the other way around. So while I don’t love the line “I’ve got my own giants,” I do love that the answer the song offers isn’t to ask God to kill all my giants, but to give me courage when I face them. When we look at David’s words, we see that his courage comes from total trust in God.

I’m not a huge fan of the bonus verse in the extended version of the song. I think it puts too much emphasis on the subjective experience of worship and insists that God make himself perceptible to us on our timetable, particularly with lines like “I feel your touch right now.” That’s one of the reasons I usually end the song after the two post-bridge choruses.

CHORUS
“Oh Rock, oh Rock of Ages
I’m standing on Your faithfulness”

The first three lines of the bridge are just expressing our need for God. Jesus understands our need and provides mercy and grace for us when we draw near to him and ask (Heb. 4:15-16). In the second half, we call him the Rock of Ages (Isaiah 26:3-4) because he is steady, trustworthy, and eternal.

To stand on God’s faithfulness is to believe and live as though his word and his promises are really true. Jesus tells us that part of this is doing his word, not just agreeing with it (Luke 6:47-49). So, if we really trust God’s faithfulness, we will obey his commands.

BRIDGE
The bridge of this song is more declarative than the verses. Instead of asking God for things, we are declaring that because he did a thing in the Bible, he continues doing that thing now. That’s not universally true. To prove this point, I will now make up some of my own bridge lines to see how quickly I can get myself in trouble:

“You cursed the fig tree then; you’re cursing fig trees now // You are the same God…”
“You mauled youths with bears back then; you’re mauling us right now // You are the same God…”

Jason Henry

Yikes! So just because God does something in the Bible, that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily still acting in the same way now. His character never changes, but some acts of God are limited to a certain time and place. So let’s look at each of these claims individually and see how they hold up.

He hears and answers prayer. This one is easy. God always watches his children and listens to our prayers (1 Pet. 3:12). Further, Jesus tells us in John 16:23-24 that whatever we ask for in his name, we will receive. There’s more that needs to be said about what it means to ask for something in the name of Jesus, but for the purposes of this song, we can clearly see that God hears and answers prayer.

He provides. Paul promises the Philippians that God will provide for all their needs (Phil. 4:19). Jesus also promises that when we fix our eyes on his Kingdom rather than earthly things, we can trust God to provide for our physical needs like food and clothing (Mt. 6:31-33).

He moves in power. I’m not sure if this phrase has a specific meaning in different church traditions, but I think anything God does is an exercise of his power. So this phrase just means that God still does powerful things today, whether you’re talking about obvious, physical miracles or the miracle of regeneration that God works in every believer when they turn to him.

He heals. Healing comes in many different forms, so calling God a healer isn’t the same as promising that he’s going to fix your broken tooth or heal your cancer. There are many miraculous healings throughout the Old and New Testaments, and churches believe differently about whether God still performs miraculous healings today. But even if you go to the most cessationist church ever would agree that we’re spiritually healed when we turn to Jesus (1 Pet. 2:24), all of our sicknesses, injuries, and griefs will be finally healed at the resurrection (Rev. 21:4), and God will ultimately bring peace and healing to the nations (Rev. 22:2).

He saves. God has always been and will always be a savior. This title occurs throughout the Old Testament, but becomes even more prominent when Jesus’ birth is announced (Lk. 1:46-48), and several of the Epistles use it in their benedictions (Jude 1:25). He is the only savior (Isa. 43:11). God’s salvation is the victory cry of heaven. (Rev. 19:1)

So, far from blindly assuming that because God did something once, we can expect him to do the same thing over and over again, “Same God” roots our expectations in God’s character, and we know that God’s character stays the same (Heb. 13:8). Every declaration we see here in the bridge is demonstrably and eternally true and based upon the Bible, even if some of them are a little vague and open to interpretation.

BRIDGE 2/SPONTANEOUS/OUTRO
This part of the song isn’t my favorite. It gets kinda long, so we usually quit at about 5:40. Lyrically, most of it is just spontaneous repetition of ideas we’ve already discussed, but there are a couple of new lines that I want to look at.

I like the line “You freed the captives then // You’re freeing hearts right now” because it links dramatic Bible stories of liberation like the Exodus to our present reality of being freed from sin and death through Jesus (Rom. 8:2).

I don’t love the line “You touched the lepers then // I feel Your touch right now” because I think it implies two promises that I don’t see in Scripture and that aren’t always true.* First, we don’t always feel God’s touch. We believe that he is always present with us (Mt. 28:20), but if Jesus and David experienced feeling forsaken and abandoned by God (Ps. 22:1, Mt. 27:46), why should we expect to feel his touch every time we gather to worship? Second, when Jesus touched the lepers, he healed them of their leprosy (Mt. 8:3), so I feel like this line implies immediate physical healing. There is no universal promise of immediate physical healing in the Bible, and not everyone who sings this song in worship will be healed of their physical ailments.

[*Update 4/16/25: I no longer think this line refers primarily to physical healing. Lepers in ancient Israel were considered unclean, and observant Jews were not supposed to touch them. If they did, the uncleanness would pass from the leper to the healthy person (possibly the disease too!). When Jesus touched the lepers, the opposite happened: holiness and life flowed out from him, healing disease and removing all the uncleanness. So this line in the song is primarily about God reaching out to touch us even in the midst of our sin, shame, weakness, and uncleanness, and imparting his holiness to us.]

Finally, we call on the Holy Spirit (bonus points for naming all three persons of the Trinity) and refer to him as an almighty river, asking him to fill us again. The river of life is a nice scriptural image that I think we can apply fairly to the Holy Spirit (Rev. 22:1, Jn. 7:38). Paul links being filled with the Spirit and singing together in Ephesians 5:18-19. In my mind, asking the Holy Spirit to fill me again is another way of surrendering again to the his influence and asking Him to work in and through my life. (Some churches will love or hate this line because of specific doctrines regarding being filled by the Spirit, so be aware of what your church teaches before you sing this part of the song.)

Accessibility

I think the words of this song are clear and direct. People who aren’t very familiar with the Bible will miss some or all of the references, but they explain themselves as they come up in the song, so I don’t think this is a problem for comprehension.

The only risk I can see here is that it’s easy to over-apply the promises and attributes of God listed in this song. The lyrics are sound (with the exception, in my opinion, of the bonus verse in the outro), but it is easy to see God’s identity as a healer and take that as a promise that my sickness or injury will be healed right now, or that the “giant” in my life will be shoved aside if I trust God hard enough. Again, I don’t think this is a weakness in the lyrics, just something to be aware of when we teach it to our congregations.

This song’s range of an octave and a fourth is a little wide for the average person, but that’s par for the course in contemporary worship.

Where “Same God” really excels is its easy-to-learn melody. The verses, the chorus, and the bridge each have a single line of melody that repeats over and over again with only small variations at the end of every third line. This makes it a super easy song for the congregation to sing along with, even on a first hearing. The verse has a lot of skips while the chorus and bridge are mostly stepwise, so the repetition doesn’t become boring. A+!

Music

Love the chill opening and the intimate first chorus. The toms really drive the pulse of this song in verse 2 and the second chorus, and the cymbal swell and dropout on the line “I’ve got my own giants” launches us musically and emotionally into our cry of need for God in the chorus. We drop back down for a quiet bridge that builds up. The classic worship leader strategy of singing the bridge down an octave and then jumping up as it gets louder is often maligned, but I think its an effective tool to build energy without confusing the congregation with an alternate melody, and congregants don’t have to jump octaves if they can’t or don’t want to. Like I mentioned earlier, I like to end the song after the bridge and two loud choruses so that it’s not eight minutes long. Additionally, if your worship team isn’t skilled at spontaneous singing, the closing instrumental will likely feel empty and awkward.

Nothing super difficult for the band here, just a few quick chord changes to keep an eye on. This is one song where I never have to remind the band about dynamics, because they are so natural that it’s difficult not to crescendo in the right places. If you’re not using a click, you’ll want to watch the tempo on some of those builds, since your drummer might get excited and speed up.

Conclusion

Will “Same God” worship? Definitely. My only concern with this song is the potential to misuse the scriptural promises in it, but that’s a problem to be addressed through sound theology and robust teaching on prayer, miracles, the Gospel, and the Holy Spirit, not something you can *fix* in a single song. This is an exciting anthem of the faithfulness of our God and I still get excited every time it’s on our setlist. If you’re not singing it yet, give it a shot!

Image by Zoltan Tasi from Unsplash

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.