Elevation

Should You Sing ‘Hard Fought Hallelujah’ at Church? A Worship Song Analysis

/ Jason Henry / 3 Comments

We don’t see many lament songs in the church these days, particular not in the CCM worship genre. I think the problem is that we are (mostly) comfortable in our lives, and we don’t like to think about suffering or hardship. We do sometimes acknowledge pain or difficult circumstances in our worship songs, but we can’t resist turning that mourning into dancing. We know Easter is coming, so why linger on Good Friday?

There’s some wisdom in this tendency. We do know how the story ends, and that ending is Christ victorious, death and darkness defeated, the church united with God forever in the new creation. We need to remind each other that this future is coming. But sometimes, we can’t or shouldn’t move on from our grief so quickly. I think what’s special about “Hard Fought Hallelujah” is that when it praises God, it does so from the depths of the struggle rather than from a safe, happy vantage point on the other side.

“Hard Fought Hallelujah” is the work of Ben Hastings, Brandon Lake, and Steven Furtick, all veteran songwriters. Lake and Furtick are both associated with Elevation Church, and Hastings is a longtime Hillsong Worship musician. Together, they craft a song that is poignant, honest, and still manages to get stuck in your head.

But is “Hard Fought Hallelujah” biblical, and will it worship? Let’s take a look!

Focus

This song expresses the experience of bringing praise to God in the midst of suffering and struggle.

God’s character is secondary in this song. He’s only addressed in the chorus by the word “hallelujah” and in the line: “God, You’ve been patient/gracious.”

For some, the fact that this song is primarily about the human experience of praise in suffering means that it is too self-centered to be appropriate for corporate worship. I wouldn’t disqualify it on that basis alone, but it’s something to be aware of when you’re planning your worship set.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
This is a common sentiment in worship songs. We don’t always feel like praising God, and that’s when we especially need to. This feels like the attitude of the Sons of Korah in Psalm 42. From the depths of despair and discouragement, the author sings to his own soul, reminding himself of God’s salvation.

PRE-CHORUS 1
There are times when praise, as expressed through the raising of hands, is a natural outpouring of our hearts’ delight in God, and there are times when it takes a great deal of effort, and when we have to discipline ourselves to worship despite not wanting to.

Lake observes, “there are times that it costs,” and he’s right. Romans 12:1 teaches us that true worship is offering our bodies as living sacrifices to God. Rather than just giving a little bit of time or a little bit of money to the Lord, we are called to offer our whole selves. We feel this cost keenly when we are invited to worship but feel pain, resentment, or anxiety preventing us from coming to God in gratitude and love. Worshiping in the midst of struggle is a hard sacrifice, and one that God cherishes.

Of course, in any congregation, there are many who never sing, and many more whose hands would never go up freely. This song provides a teaching opportunity to encourage people who don’t like participating in music to consider lifting their voices and hands to God despite the discomfort. Participating in this way also shows solidarity with those who are struggling like this song describes.

CHORUS
“I’ll bring my…” The chorus expresses a commitment to praise God no matter the circumstance and no matter the cost. We’re determined to bring praise to God, even though that hallelujah has been beaten up, knocked around, and somehow refined and strengthened by our struggles. This part of the song reminds me of Lake’s “Gratitude,” because it uses the word “hallelujah” to represent not just a song of praise, but a heart that chooses to worship God no matter what.

Hard-fought: This line represents the core idea of the song: sometimes we have to fight to praise God. But is this true, and is it in the Bible? I think it is. There are numerous examples in Scripture of God’s people fighting to praise him. Moses fought Pharaoh to allow the Israelites to go worship God in the wilderness. Paul and Silas praised God in prison, and their chains fell off. Daniel prayed to God daily even though it would land him in a deadly lion’s den. Ephesians 6 teaches us that we are always embroiled in a spiritual struggle against the forces of evil, and praise is a weapon in that fight.

Heart-felt: Jesus taught that worship is in spirit and in truth (Jn 4:23-24). Paul tells us that we ought to sing to God in our hearts (Eph 5:19). While worship is not about feelings, true worship will produce an emotional response in the worshiper. God is good, and he has done great things, and that ought to do something to our hearts.

Been-through-hell: The songwriters are using a loose definition of the word “hell” here. I don’t think any of them would claim to have literally visited the lake of fire. Instead, they’re using it as a description of serious suffering in this life. When you’re in severe emotional or physical pain, you’re all alone, and it feels like God is distant, that’s a picture of hell. This is relative, and we could quibble over what level of suffering really counts as having been through hell.

For many churches, this line will immediately rule out this song for congregational worship. “Hell” is a common profanity in our culture, and this line comes uncomfortably close to casual use of the word. Many Christians have the conviction that the word hell should only be used to describe eternal separation from God.

I also think using “hell” to describe our suffering muddies the waters regarding the nature of our suffering. When Christians experience suffering, we do so with God near at hand, not distant. Later in the song, the authors allude to suffering as a refining fire that improves our faith. This only happens through the presence and work of the Holy Spirit. Hell has connotations of finality, wrath, and damnation that I don’t think are appropriate to the kind of pain the authors of this song are describing.

Storm-tossed: I like this image better. The disciples and the apostle Paul experienced perilous storms on the sea. For the disciples, the Lord himself was with them, and he calmed the storm with a word (Mt 8:23-27). When Paul was on the way to Rome, his ship was destroyed in a storm, but God’s hand protected every living soul onboard (Ac 27:13-44). Storms may be terrifying, but our God is greater than the wind and waves, and he is always in control.

Torn-sail: A natural consequence of the storm-tossing. But this line focuses on how our experiences may have beaten us up and left wounds, either emotional or physical.

Story-to-tell: This is great. Praise isn’t just singing hallelujah in church. It’s being willing to tell others what God has done for us and how he’s brought us through our hardships.

Patient/gracious: In the midst of this description of everything our hallelujah has been through, we take a moment to pause and dwell on God’s character. He is patient, perhaps most so when we get angry at him during our suffering. And he is gracious toward us, extending his love and salvation to us no matter our circumstances or emotions, even if we have brought them on ourselves.

It is well: Because of God’s character, we can have the incomprehensible peace that comes from his Spirit, even in the midst of trials (Phil 4:7).

VERSE 2
The words here are poetically vague. Struggling with darkness might describe a battle with temptation, depression, illness, persecution, or almost anything else. In any case, the authors acknowledge that the struggle helps to cultivate humility. Paul makes this same connection in 2 Corinthians 12:7.

PRE-CHORUS 2
The image of a fire that refines gold comes from Malachi 3:1-4. This passage is about the Messiah, and it predicts that he will burn away all the impurities of Judah, her priests, and her worship. What comes out the other side will be pure like gold, though the process will be very painful. When we submit to the Lord in our suffering, it can have this same refining effect on us. James says as much when he tells us to rejoice when we face trials, because God will use them to cultivate perseverance in us and to perfect and complete our faith (Jam 1:2-4).

BRIDGE
Oh, oh, oh. Whoa. Oh, oh, oh. Whoa.

Accessibility

One of the strengths of this song is that it expresses deep experiences of suffering coupled with praise without getting lost in churchy language or hard-to-follow biblical references. I think most people would be able to understand the lyrics even with limited church background. The exception might be the word “hallelujah.” I think it’s become a generic word of celebration in our culture, divorced from its original meaning of “praise the Lord.”

I don’t think unchurched people will mind the metaphorical use of the word “hell.” In our culture, hell just means suffering. It’s only church people who will be bothered by that line.

The melody is kind of hard to follow, and the rhythms are a little tricky. The range is an octave plus a fifth, which isn’t unusual for a worship song, but it’s also pretty wide. Overall, I think this feels more like a blues solo type of song than a congregational worship song.

Music

The rough blues feel of this song is a perfect match for its lyric content. It expresses the pain as well as the resolve to keep fighting to praise God in every circumstance. This song uses contrast and dropouts exceptionally well to really dig into the words on the chorus.

Most of the song is reasonably playable for a church worship team except for the crazy instrumental bridge. I would probably skip that part.

Conclusions

This is tough. There is so much good about this song. I love that it captures the spirit of lament in a way that we often overlook in contemporary music. The blues style is also largely missing from our (white) churches. This song has a lot to teach about the complex relationship between praise and suffering. It is a valuable song that Christians should definitely listen to and meditate on.

No judgment to churches who continue to sing this song, but I think I have to regretfully land on a soft no. Here are my three reasons:
1. This song is more about the experience of praise than about the object of our praise. It’s about the hallelujah more than it is about God.
2. It’s going to be hard for the congregation to sing along. There’s only so much time on Sunday morning, and I want people to participate in as much of it as they can.
3. I just don’t like the “hell” line. I think it will offend/distract people. I also think it causes confusion about whether our suffering is wrathful hellfire or the merciful fire of God that refines us.

Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading, and thanks for thinking about what you sing! Until next time.

Image by Torsten Dederichs on 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.

PRAISE – Elevation Worship, Brandon Lake, Chris Brown, Chandler Moore

/ Jason Henry / 3 Comments

The songwriting credits on this one feel like a who’s who of the worship recording world in 2024: Brandon Lake, Chandler Moore, Chris Brown, Cody Carnes, Pat Barrett & Steven Furtick. It’s hard to imagine these guys getting together and writing a flop! To be honest, I avoided this song for a while because it came out around the same time as “Praise You Anywhere” and I felt like it would be a little redundant to have them both in active rotation. A year later, we’ve slowed down on “Praise You Anywhere,” and “Praise” is hanging out comfortably at #4 on CCLI, so it seemed like a good time to introduce it to the congregation.

“Praise” is fun, catchy, and uplifting, but is it biblical? Let’s check it out.

Focus

“Praise” is a song about praise. The worshiper encourages their own soul to praise God in every circumstance, and in the process we encourage one another to the same. The main reasons given for this praise are God’s power, his faithfulness, and Christ’s resurrection.

Lyric Analysis

INTRO (& OUTRO)
The intro makes clear the corporate nature of this worship song. While much of the rest of “Praise” uses “I” language, it really is aimed at the whole congregation, and the intro makes this clear. The words here are a direct quotation of Psalm 150:6, the last verse in the Book of Psalms.

The intro and outro are in a very different musical style from the rest of the song, and our congregation is unused to call-and-response chanting, so we typically skip this part.

VERSES
The verses are mostly a series of commitments to praise in any and every circumstance. They are often set in positive/negative pairs: mountain/valley, sure/doubting, when I feel it/when I don’t. This is an outworking of the attitude David expresses in Psalm 34. The first verse of the Psalm says, “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” The psalmist goes on to encourage listeners that the Lord hears and delivers his people when they suffer trials, and so he can be praised in the midst of plenty or affliction.

Verse 1 has stirred up a wee bit of controversy with the line “praise is the water my enemies drown in.” Yikes! Should we really be singing about drowning our enemies in church? Like many references in contemporary worship songs, this one is anchored in the Exodus. Hebrews 11:24 says, “By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.” That’s the image this line should conjure in our minds, not the waterboarding of our workplace rivals or the cop who wrote us an unnecessary ticket, but the utter destruction of the forces of evil that enslave and oppress God’s people. Verse 2 uses a parallel image: the shouting of the Israelites that God commanded to bring down the walls of Jericho (Jos 6).

Jesus tells us to love our human enemies (Mt 5:43-48), and Paul tells us that the real fight is against the spiritual forces of evil and darkness, not against flesh and blood (Eph 6:12). Praise is an expression of faith, and faith in Jesus is our weapon in the fight against sin and death.

So, the question about drowning our enemies with praise is not whether it is biblical or true, but whether it is likely to be misapplied, and whether it is appropriate for a given congregation. Regarding misapplication, I don’t see much danger. The most likely misreading of this line is still going to come off as something close to Proverbs 25:21-22; no reasonable person is going to think this song condones murdering people while singing to Jesus. The other concern is whether the brief mention of violence in this song is going to be so distracting to people that it sidetracks them from worship. There may be some congregations where this is the case, but I think the imagery of warfare is so pervasive in Scripture that we serve our people better by equipping them to understand and contextualize it rather than try to avoid it.

PRE-CHORUS
See Psalms 35 and 150 again.

CHORUS
“Praise the Lord, O my soul…how can I keep it inside?”

Some people find it awkward to sing to their own souls in worship, but that’s exactly what we do in the chorus of “Praise.” Some songs written for worship can be self-centered rather than Christ-centered, and I can see why singing to oneself might raise red flags. But, in Psalm 103, David says “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!” So the Psalmist is singing to his own heart, exhorting himself to praise God for saving him, blessing him, keeping his covenant, and showing compassion. When we encourage ourselves toward praise in this way, we also encourage all the gathered believers to praise God as well.

Indeed, the latter half of the chorus makes it clear that we are only speaking inward in order to express outward. If our souls learn to truly praise the Lord, we can’t keep it shut up inside but must express our love for him in our speech, attitudes, and actions. The resurrection of Christ (“my God is alive”) must be shared continually with our fellow believers and those who do not yet know Jesus’ love and power.

BRIDGE
The bridge is pretty straightforward. It’s directed toward God rather than inward, and it gives four excellent reasons that God deserves our praise. First, his reign is sovereign. God is in control, and the universe is his dominion and will be forever. Nothing and no one can contest his rule (Dan 7:13-14).

Second, he rose and defeated death. Having joined Christ in his death through baptism, we also join in his eternal resurrection. In dying and rising, Jesus disarmed, defeated, and triumphed over our spiritual enemies of death, sin, and darkness (Col 2:12-15).

Third, God is faithful and true. God keeps his covenant promises to his people perfectly, even when we are unfaithful to him. Jesus is the perfect and final fulfillment of all God’s promises (2 Cor 1:20)

Fourth, their is no one greater than our God. All strength ultimately comes from him, and the greatness and glory and victory always belong to him. He is exalted above all (1 Ch 29:10-11). Every knee in all creation must bow at the name of Jesus (Php 2:10).

Accessibility

The choruses and bridge are easy to understand, even with little Bible knowledge. There are a couple lines in the verses that only make sense if you know the stories of the crossing of the Red Sea and the fall of Jericho, and it takes some context to understand what it means to conceive of praise as a weapon for spiritual battle. So while there are a couple lines that might spark some questions or confusion, I think these are important questions that bear thinking about, and it’s healthy to prompt people to wrestle through them. I don’t see much danger of harmful theology due to misinterpretation.

Regarding singability, the entire melody of this song is within an octave, so that’s a plus! The refrain of “pra-a-a-a-aise the Lord, oh my soul,” is repeated often and is easy to pick up. The verses and bridge have a repetitive rhythmic structure that is easy to learn. And this one is super catchy! Very singable.

Music

We usually usually skip that call-and-response chant at the beginning of this song since it would be a little outside our congregation’s musical comfort zone (though maybe that’s a reason to do it 🤷). It did work really well at camp this summer; it’s easier to get middle and high school students to buy into different kinds of participation.

The verses and pre-choruses do a fantastic job building energy and excitement as they establish when and why the Lord deserves our praise. The choruses absolutely explode with joy and celebration.

Nothing crazy in the chord progression. The changing chords over the stagnant bass in the bridge and less so on the verses are a neat change of pace and contribute towards the effect of building energy.

One strength of this song is that the difficulty is adjustable to some extent. The drummer can play a pretty basic beat and still accomplish the dynamic goals of each section of the song. Guitars can play simple strum patterns or get really into it and go crazy. This song is all about joy, so it’s hard to do too much!

Conclusions

Will “Praise” worship? (😂) It sure will!

This is one of the most joyful, energizing celebrations of God that I know. It’s a great song for stirring up our hearts to offer him the praise he so fully deserves. The simple and repetitive choruses are supported by the reasons for praise offered in the bridge, and this song provides opportunity to encourage ourselves and one another towards praise of the God who conquers death. I definitely recommend this one as an opening song to call the congregation to worship.

Image by Lou Lou B Photo on 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.

LION – Elevation Worship, Chris Brown, Brandon Lake

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

“Lion,” the title track of Elevation Worship’s 2022 album, is a joint effort by well-known songwriters Chris Brown and Brandon Lake and pastor/author Steven Furtick. It evokes mystery, majesty, and power with its words and instrumentation, and it has captured the attention of Christian listeners, accumulating over 22 million streams on Spotify.

I have to confess some skepticism toward “Lion.” My initial impression was that somebody had strung together a bunch of random words and titles from the Bible to create a strong, manly worship song. As I’ve examined the words, I’ve come to see the unity of this song’s themes and the skillful way that the authors use music to paint the lyrics with emotional weight and meaning.

My dad likes to joke about “7-Eleven songs,” which are worship songs with 7 words that you repeat 11 times. This song comes pretty close to meeting that definition; the chorus has nine words, and we sing them ten times. Repetition can be great if the words we’re repeating speak the truth of Scripture, so let’s look at what these lyrics say!

Focus

The main theme of this song is the power and glory of Jesus, especially in the sound of his voice. The song portrays him as a roaring lion, unmatched and victorious. The music and words work together create a secondary theme of the mysterious nature of God.

This song may not address Jesus by name, per se, but it does call him by a lot of very specific titles that can refer to no one else, including the main one: Lion of Judah.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
We begin by listing several names and attributes of God that evoke his power and authority. The God of Jacob is one who wrestles and gives us new names (Gen. 32:22-32). The Great I Am stands alone, uncreated, strong enough to bring his people out of Egypt (Ex. 3:14-15). “King of Angels” is self-explanatory. “Son of Man” is what Jesus often called himself (Matt. 9:6), and it’s a reference to a prophesied figure from the book of Daniel who appears riding on storm clouds to receive a kingdom along with eternal glory and dominion (Dan. 7:13-14).

The second half of this verse focuses on the power inherent to Jesus’ voice. The description of his voice being like “many waters” comes from Revelation 1:14-16. I take it to be a poetic way of saying that something is really loud and awesome like a thunderous waterfall, and the sounds of multitudes are often described this way in Scripture. Jesus is certainly the focus of the song around the throne in heaven in Revelation 5:9-14, a passage we’ll revisit throughout this song. God sometimes speaks in thunder throughout the Bible, and it is often representative of his power and victory over his enemies (2 Sam. 22:13-15, Job 40:9, Ex. 19:19).

The last line introduces the chorus by asking God to make his glory known.

CHORUS
“Hail, hail Lion of Judah // Let the Lion roar”

Now we arrive at the central image of the song: a conquering Lion who is also a Lamb. This idea is also represented in the album art: an image of a lamb on a record called LION. This picture is found in Revelation 5, a chapter that we’ve referenced already.

“And one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’ And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.”

Revelation 5:5-6

The lion represents Jesus’ identity as a victorious warrior. The phrase “of Judah” refers to his ancestry as a descendent of David and connects him to prophecies throughout the Old Testament like Genesis 49:10, which says “the scepter shall not depart from Judah.”

What does it mean to ask the Lion to roar? This question really puzzled me at first, but I think the last line of verse 1 gives an answer: we’re asking him to make his glory known. A roar is a display of power. It imparts courage to allies and makes enemies flee. When we roar with the Lion of Judah, we join with Jesus in declaring his victory—past, present, and future—over sin and death.

VERSE 2
I’m not sure where “Pride of Zion” comes from. Zion is a poetic name for the city of God, or Jerusalem. The pride of a city is the person or thing from that city that is most famous or honored, so it makes sense to call Jesus this name. It’s also a clever choice since a pride is a group of lions. The Bible usually give the word “pride” a negative connotation, so I might have chosen a different word here, but it’s not wrong.

The next couple lines declare that Jesus is the Messiah foretold by the Old Testament prophets (1 Peter:10-12). They also make the point that he came into our world as a real, flesh-and-blood human, not merely a spirit (John 20:26-28).

We return to Revelation 5 to look at the image of only Jesus being worthy to open the scroll. This scroll represents God’s final answer to all the evil in the world. John weeps because no one is able to open this scroll, but the the Lion/Lamb Jesus appears and he is worthy to open it, setting in motion the events of the end of the age, the end of sin and death, and the consummation of the Kingdom of God.

The end of the verse contains the clearest statement of of Jesus’ Lion/Lamb identity in this song. It also succinctly explains the two animals; the Lion is the mighty victor, the Lamb suffered for us. I dislike that it places the two identities consecutively, as if Jesus was a Lamb but became a Lion at his resurrection, when in fact he was both the entire time. God presents himself as presented as a lion sometimes in the Old Testament (Hosea 5:14), and when Jesus appears in Revelation 5, it’s actually in the form of a slain lamb (Rev. 5:6). The one does not replace the other.

One more thing: call me a grammar snob if you need to, but the last line should be “the Lion has arisen,” not “the Lion has arose.” I get that it doesn’t fit the meter, and prosody is important, but grammar is important too! 😆

BRIDGE
I love how half of the singers are saying “prepare the way of the Lord” while the other half sing “O valley be raised up, O mountain be made low.” I haven’t heard a polyphonic worship song this good since Marc Imboden’s “You Are Holy!” This tool works especially well here because the lyrics explain each other to some extent.

The leveling of the mountains and valleys is for the purpose of making a flat road for the coming of the Lord in his glory. These words come directly from Isaiah 40:3-5, and they’re quoted in all four Gospels to describe John the Baptist’s work in preparing Israel for Jesus’ ministry (John 1:23). John the Baptist introduces Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” (John 1:29), so his ministry is also the link between the bridge and the rest of the song and Christ’s Lion/Lamb identity.

I haven’t been able to figure out if this is part of Isaiah’s meaning, but I can’t sing about mountains being made low and valleys being lifted up without thinking about God’s love for those who are humble and his anger towards those who are arrogant. I think this bridge is at least in part a plea for justice, for God to exalt those who are lowly and to bring down the proud (James 1:9-10, 1 Peter 5:5).

Accessibility

This song’s meaning is cloaked in deep scriptural allusions. Without doing some serious research, most people will not understand the majority of the lyrics or how they connect to one another. The average worshiper will come away with a vague sense of having been impressed by God’s mystery and power, but I am concerned that not enough of that feeling will be from a real understanding of who God is. When we pray and sing to God, we should do so with our minds, not just our spirits (1 Cor. 14:15).

The extensive repetition in this song makes its melody and lyrics easy to learn. It’s a bit rangy, but only because the chorus jumps up an octave. Basses can just keep singing in the lower register. The “roar” parts also make excellent use of antiphony, so the congregation can jump in easily by repeating after the leader.

Music

This song has the drama! Mysterious synth drones. Minor tonality. Rumbly bass and drums. Powerful chorus. Sick-nasty guitar licks. Abrupt dynamic changes. The outcry on “roaaaaar!” The almost eerie, chant-like “prepare the way” bridge gives me chills. As mentioned above, I love the use of polyphony here.

The chord progression is also really cool. The song goes back and forth between melodic minor and harmonic minor, so the IV chord goes back and forth between major and minor, creating a really cool effect.

I think this one is going to be really challenging for the band to play. Part of that is the timing and the unusual chord progression, but most of the challenge comes from the fact that to make this song work, you really have to nail the dynamics. If you don’t layer in correctly and create some of those cool effects, this song loses the musical texture of mystery and power that underlines the words.

Depending on how many singers are leading worship, you can decide how much of the crazy multi-part vocal stuff to add at the end of the song.

Conclusions

I came into this review expecting to give “Lion” a firm no. Now I’m on the fence between yes and maybe. This is one of the most epic worship songs I’ve heard in a long time. It masterfully expresses the power of Jesus’ voice and the majesty and mystery of his identity as the Lion of Judah and the Lamb Who Was Slain. It’s also very deep, a little hard to figure out, and challenging to play.

Will it worship? Maybe. I feel the same about this song as I do about Honey in the Rock. I love it now, even though I didn’t when I first heard it, and I would sing my heart out in a worship service that included “Lion.” But I can’t discount the high barrier to entry represented by the rapid-fire Bible deep cuts and the difficulty of playing this song well.

Image by Glen Carrie 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.

SAME GOD – Elevation Worship

/ Jason Henry / 1 Comment

“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.

WHAT I SEE – Elevation Worship, Chris Brown

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

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.