“Anything Is Possible” is from Bethel Music’s 2020 album Revival’s in the Air. Dante Bowe delivers a powerful lead vocal on this track, and he is one of its writers along with Brandon Lake, Hannah McClure, and Michaela Gentile. I usually focus on reviewing brand new songs, but this one came to my attention because of a post in a Facebook group for worship leaders. The comments were divided; some people loved the song’s celebration of God’s power while others thought a particular line verged on heresy! Let’s take a look at this popular, divisive church tune and ask if “Anything is Possible” is biblical, and if it should worship.

Focus

This song celebrates God’s indomitable power. He can do anything, and nothing has any chance of stopping him. We also celebrate the breakthrough and victory that we experience through his victory.

The verses and bridge are sung directly to God (2nd person) while the chorus is sung to the congregation about him (3rd person). We mostly call him “you,” but in the chorus he is identified as “God.”

The chorus mentions “me” a lot, but only in a figure of speech: “show me one thing he can’t do.” The bridge uses a lot of “I” to describe the victory celebration of the worshipers and their leaving behind of negative emotions.

Lyric Analysis

VERSES 1 & 2
The first two verses follow the same pattern: they list powerful, bad things and declare that they are powerless before God. This is a great way to celebrate God’s power! When we list things that we are afraid of and then remind ourselves that God is greater, we mute the power of fear in our lives and redirect it as awe to the God who deserves it (Matt. 10:28). Regarding armies lacking the power to conquer truth, Church history has demonstrated that while persecution and violence may threaten or even decimate a Christian population, they can never fully stamp out the truth of the Gospel.

At the end of each verse, we remind ourselves that God has always been with us (John 14:16-17, Josh. 1:8-9), and then we say that we’ve already won every battle because God has already won every battle. This is true in a now/not yet kind of way. We’ve already won every battle because Jesus has already defeated sin and death on the cross. But we also haven’t already won every battle, because he hasn’t returned and ushered in the perfect new creation yet. We know the outcome will be victory, but we can’t pretend that we’re not still in the battle here and now.

My first problem with this song is the major Christological heresy in verse 2 (I don’t get to use the H word very often!). The song states (talking to God) that “there is no weapon that has ever left a mark on You.” That statement is true of God the Father and God the Spirit, but it is untrue of God the Son. Jesus was crucified, a spear pierced his side, and he still bears those wounds (John 19:18, 34, 20:27, Rev. 5:6). This isn’t a minor, obscure point of theology; this is at the very core of who Jesus is and how he saves us! The invincible God took on human flesh and allowed himself to be killed for us (Phil. 2:7-9).

Are there some ways to wiggle around this error? Sure. You could say that this song is addressed to the Father, not the Son. Or you could say that since the spear doesn’t exist anymore, the line is technically correct. Those arguments don’t hold up. We serve and sing to a triune God, and the emphasis of this line is on God’s inability to be wounded, not on the survival of the Spear of Destiny (which, incidentally, four different churches claim to possess). Pedantry notwithstanding, I’m not going to sing a lyric that contradicts the essential Gospel truth of Jesus’ wounds and scars.

CHORUS
The chorus uses rhetorical challenges to invite the listener to name anything that is impossible for God. Is anything too hard for him? Any mountain too high or waters too deep for him (Ex. 14, Matt. 17:20)? Of course not! We should face life with the knowledge that “with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26).

I’m not quite sure what “God of the breakthrough” means because “breakthrough” has several different meanings. For most people, a breakthrough is a sudden leap forward in technology or understanding, or maybe the first hit single of a previously unknown music artist. In the context of this song, I think it means overcoming some sort of obstacle or defeating an enemy, like breaking through enemy lines in a battle. The main point of the song is that anything is possible for God, so I think the anticipated breakthrough could be any obstacle in the life of the worshiper.

VERSE 3
There is, in fact, a Kingdom, and it is, in fact advancing (Matt. 10:7, Matt. 16:18)! Saying it’s at the speed of light is an exciting line, but I’m not sure it really means anything. Certainly there have been times when the Kingdom has exploded in growth and influence, but there have also been lots of periods of regression and stagnation in Church history.

The line “every dead thing is bound to rise” could be misunderstood as teaching universalism, the idea that everyone will be saved, regardless of their belief in Jesus. The preceding phrase “and in his Kingdom…” mitigates this somewhat.

God is certainly our Redeemer (Gal. 3:13), and he is faithful, reviving our dead hearts in Christ, and one day he will fully resurrect those who believe in Jesus in a resurrection like his (Rom. 6:5). Hallelujah!

BRIDGE
The bridge celebrates a great reversal of fortune in the spirit of Psalm 30:11-12, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing…that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!” A small but important difference is that in the Psalm, it is God who turns the mourning into dancing, while in this song, tho one crushing disappointment and turning fear into praise is “I.” It’s odd that the rest of the song is focused on God bringing breakthrough, but this part seems to present a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality. We can’t just shake off fear and despair and break chains on our own; we need God for that. I think that’s actually the truth this song is trying to present, but the first-person wording on the bridge confuses the issue.

Accessibility

“Anything Is Possible” is 95% easy to understand. The song uses plain, everyday language except for the churchy word “breakthrough.”

The bridge might be misunderstood. Based on the lyrics alone, it is the worshiper who is shaking off their own negative emotions. I think the author probably means that God is helping them do this, that just isn’t clear from the words.

The range is an octave plus a fifth, which is pretty wide for a congregation but not uncommon in worship songs. The rhythmic monotone singing of the bridge and chorus makes them more like a victory chant than a melody; they’re very easy to learn. The verses are easy to pick up too. This song is infectious and very congregational.

Music

This is an exciting, upbeat, celebratory song. It’s pretty easy to play, and it carries an almost irresistible impetus to get up and dance and clap. The music effectively supports the themes of the lyrics.

Conclusions

Will it worship? Nope.

Verse 1 was good, but I felt like this song’s theology went downhill from there. Even ignoring verse 2’s Christological heresy, the overall thrust of this song is triumphalistic. It hypes up the idea of living in Christ’s victory and having him break down all our obstacles without acknowledging that we don’t get to fully experience that victory this side of heaven. Jesus promises that we will face trouble in this world (John 16:33), and for anyone in the midst of suffering, I worry that this song extends toxic positivity rather than the peace of Jesus’ completed work on the cross.

Image by Ambreen Hasan 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.