resurrection

Exploring ‘Long Live the King’: A Worship Analysis

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

“Long Live the King,” written by Gabriel Wilson, Matt Gilman, and Nate Lapeer, seized my attention when it came out two years ago. Its vivid and theological description of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and exaltation brought me to tears in my car. It impressed the majesty and glory of Christ on my heart and imagination in a way that few songs have.

I learned it, practiced it, and was all geared up to use it for Easter 2023! Unfortunately, the third verse weirded me out. My church doesn’t really teach that Jesus descended into hell while he was in the grave, and I thought that event, the Harrowing of Hell, is what this verse was referring to. I chickened out, and we haven’t used it for church. But now I’m ready to give “Long Live the King” another look! What is that funky third verse about, is it biblical, and will it worship? Let’s check it out!

Focus

“Long Live the King” is an acclamation of Christ. It explores his suffering, death, resurrection, and glorification and hails him as king in each context.

It calls Jesus by name and uses lots of titles for him including Anointed One, Emmanuel, and Perfect Lamb. It also refers to the Holy Spirit’s role in Jesus’ resurrection. The language in “Long Live the King” is both personal and corporate; each chorus talks about lifting my hands, but the verses speak of our Messiah, our Redeemer, our victory.

Lyric Analysis

VERSES 1 & 2
These verses are sung back-to-back and recount the same events from two different perspectives.

Verse 1 is about the physical events of Jesus’ suffering, death, and burial. It picks out several significant events from John 19, so we’ll start with the crown of thorns. The writers do something really cool here by saying, “There in crown of thorn and thistle.” At first, I thought this was just a poetic liberty. After all, the crown in the Gospels only had thorns. No thistles to be seen. But where do we find thorns and thistles together in the Bible? Genesis 3:18 says of the ground, “thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.” Adam’s work is made painful and dangerous because of sin. In his death, Jesus is taking Adam’s curse upon his own head. This is something verse 2 makes explicit.

The rest of the verse recounts more familiar details: the sign reading “King of the Jews,” Jesus’ blood shed on the cross, the crimson river flowing from his pierced side, darkness falling at his death, the burial clothes, and Jesus’ interment in a tomb. This verse invites us to contemplate Christ’s suffering and humiliation. When we do, we find both grief and gratitude welling up within us.

Verse 2 deals with the spiritual realities of Christ’s work on the cross. The first line echoes the metaphor of Adam’s thorns and thistles: every curse is laid upon Christ. He bears the burden for us. He wears our sin like the robe of shame the soldiers placed on him.

Calling Jesus the “perfect Lamb led to the slaughter” recalls the words of Isaiah 53:7, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.” It also looks forward to Revelation 5:5-6, where John is told to look for the Lion, but instead finds the slain Lamb standing. This song will show us both Jesus’ humble sacrifice as a lamb and his triumphant power as a lion.

In the Old Testament, a ransom was the price paid to save someone’s life, either from slavery or from the just punishment for a crime they had committed. This is what Christ has done for us. At the moment of his death, Jesus tore the temple veil in two (Lk 23:44-46). This was the curtain that sealed off the Holy of Holies, the place where God’s presence rested. It represented the great divide between God and man, the rift between our sinfulness and his holiness. Christ’s death was a great victory because he accomplished all this, defeating sin and darkness, freeing us from our enslavement to death, and bringing us safely into God’s holy presence. Revelation 12:11 teaches us that the victory of the saints is in the blood of the Lamb.

LONG LIVE THE KING
There is no single chorus in this song. Instead, each chorus has its own words that develop what was discussed in the preceding verse. The one commonality is the repeated titular phrase: “Long live the King!”

People have been wishing long life to their rulers for millennia. “Long live the king” was the shout of the people when Samuel anointed Saul and proclaimed him king (1 Sam 10:24). Daniel even addresses King Darius, a pagan ruler, this way (Dan 6:21). To say “long live the king” is to express loyalty and submission to a ruler. It’s a statement of belief that they are the rightful and beneficial sovereign. It is an endorsement of their justice and righteousness.

In Western culture, “long live the king” is often part of the longer phrase “The king is dead, long live the king!” Traditionally, this is the announcement of the death of the former ruler and the succession of the new one. In the context of Jesus’ death, it means something completely different! It is in his dying that he is crowned and exalted.

How appropriate, then, to proclaim “long live the king” of Christ Jesus, of whom Isaiah says, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore!” (Is 9:7)

CHORUS 1
The first line of this chorus says, “the wrath of God and man now satisfied.” Many people are uncomfortable with songs that mention God’s wrath, or the idea that Jesus satisfies it. They object to the idea that a loving God should have any wrath toward his children and therefore the idea that he should send his Son to absorb such wrath on our behalf. I sympathize with their concerns, but we need to take the problem of human evil seriously if we are going to discuss God’s wrath. How can we look at genocides, murders, rapes, systemic racism, oppression of the poor, and casual acts of violence and not cry out for justice? How can we not cry out for God’s wrath to wash away the wicked? We must also remember that Jesus is not a separate entity from God; he is not merely human. He is God himself. So if one seek to blame God for creating man with our capacity for wickedness or if you think God is unjust to punish evil, remember that he stepped into our suffering and pain and took his own wrath upon himself. (Rom 2:8, Rom 3:23, 2 Cor 5:21, Gal 3:10-13, Isa 53:4-11) I think this is an excellent line because it shows that while God’s wrath is just, it is no longer directed toward us us because of Christ’s atonement. I also love that it draws the wrath of man into the equation. We humans so easily become wroth with one another, but Jesus’ death disarms our anger and violence. Ephesians 2:14 teaches that Christ broke down the dividing walls between people as well as the wall between us and God. In the shadow of the cross, how can we raise a hand against our brother or sister?

The phrase “he paid the price” echoes the early church’s understanding of atonement, called “ransom theory.” (Think Aslan dying to ransom Edmund in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.) In the Old Testament, atonement for all the people was made with continual sacrifices. Jesus has made perfect and final atonement once and for all by the sacrifice of his own body and blood (Heb 10:10).

Even sin and sickness must obey Jesus. He healed countless people during his ministry, including casting out demons (Mt 8:16-17). In the story of the paralyzed man in Matthew 9:1-8, he demonstrates his lordship over both. Not only does he forgive all the man’s sins, but he heals his body as evidence of his authority. It is important that we remember that while every sin and sickness must submit to Jesus’ authority, we are not guaranteed individual victory over each sin and sickness in our lifetime. There are sins that will continue to tempt us until we die, and each of us will eventually succumb to sickness. Even the Apostle Paul dealt with his famous “thorn in the flesh,” a persistent ailment of some kind (2 Cor 12:7). We must not take someone’s continued illness or struggle with temptation as evidence of lack of faith or evidence that God is absent.

VERSE 3
This verse is a little confusing because it could refer to a couple different things. It references several Scriptures, but the verses in question are famously hard to understand. We could be talking about the Harrowing of Hell, or we could be speaking more generally about Jesus defeating death.

In ancient Greek thought, Hades was where all the dead went, not only the wicked. It doesn’t carry the same connotations of evil and punishment as the Christian idea of hell. (Side note: Can we all agree to sing “depths of Hades” instead of “bowels of Hades?” I would really rather not say “bowels” in a worship song. 🤢) The trembling in Hades could refer to the twin earthquakes at Christ’s death and resurrection (Mt 27:54, Mt 28:2), or it could refer to death and hell themselves quaking in fear at Christ’s victory. The breath of God descending could refer to the Holy Spirit entering Christ’s tomb to bring him back to life (Rom 8:10-11), or to Jesus entering the realm of the dead to proclaim his Gospel to all the dead (1 Pet 3:18-20).

The triumphal parade seems to be a reference to Ephesians 4:8-9, which says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. (In saying, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?).” Rather than a parade of captured enemies, as commonly seen in a Roman triumph or even in Psalm 68:8, Jesus is leading a procession of liberated captives. This procession consists of everyone who will believe in him, past, present, and future.

Either way you interpret it, this verse uses poetic and scriptural language to show the triumph of Jesus over death.

CHORUS 2
Now, instead of a the mockery and pain of a crown of thorns, Jesus, the Son of God, is crowned with many crowns. This line comes from Revelation 19:12 and also the famous hymn “Crown Him with Many Crowns.”

Jesus is the light of the world who dispels darkness and defeats death (Jn 8:12, 1 Cor 15:22-26). We would be lost in darkness on our own, but instead we are found in his light.

Another potential source of controversy in this song is the line “the souls of every sinner now redeemed.” The question here is whether this line suggests Christian universalism or universal reconciliation, the belief that all people will be saved, not only those who come to believe in Jesus during their earthly lives. I don’t think this line necessarily teaches that. The line says every sinner is redeemed, not that every sinner is saved. To redeem or ransom someone (see verse 2) means to pay a price for that person’s rescue or liberation. Jesus has paid the price for the redemption of every human being. Some may reject him and flee from him, like Hosea’s redeemed wife left him, but this does not lessen the scope of Christ’s great redemption.

VERSE 4
The Bible doesn’t give us much information about what happened inside Jesus’ tomb. We don’t know all the ins and outs of the trinitarian relationship, but it seems evident that the Holy Spirit played a major role in the Resurrection. Romans 8:10-12 says, “if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” Genesis 2:7 says that when God was making the world, Adam became a living creature when the breath of life entered nostrils. So Christ’s resurrection, the breath of life reentering his lifeless body, is the moment when the New Adam inaugurates the New Creation.

The dual image of Christ as Lion and Lamb is found throughout Scripture, but especially Revelation 5:5-6. Jesus has given his life as the sacrificial Lamb and he has triumphed over death as the glorious Lion of Judah. He is alive and glorified!

CHORUS 3
The name Emmanuel means “God with us,” so it’s interesting that the songwriters use this title here, at the height of Jesus’ glorification in heaven. Even when he is so very far above us, so enthroned that the very stars worship him, he is still near to us.

Much as he has exchanged a crown of thorns for many crowns of glory, Jesus has exchanged the mocking robe of the soldiers for one of true rulership. In Revelation 19:11-16, Jesus rides at the head of the armies of heaven wearing a robe dipped in blood and bearing the name “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” His reign and victory are just, faithful, and true. None is more worthy, none is more powerful. This enthronement of the Lion/Lamb King is the event for which all of creation has been longing (Rom 8:18-22). The stars and all of creation erupt in worship, and when we sing this song, we join in with them (Ps 148), declaring “long live the King!”

Accessibility

This song has a lot of words and Scripture references, but it also paints really clear and beautiful mental images that anyone can latch onto. For instance, the final chorus references Revelation 19, Romans 8, and Psalm 148, but you don’t have to know those passages to be able to picture the resurrected King Jesus filling heaven with his presence and taking his rightful place on the throne.

The main concern I have for misinterpretation is that some people might take the line, “every sinner now redeemed” as a statement of universal reconciliation, which most Christian churches do not teach. It’s also possible for people to get hung up on the intricacies of verse 3, but I’m confident that is a tangle that only experienced church people will stumble into, and if anything it will lead them into deeper study of God’s word.

The constant refrain, “Long live the King!” is easy to pick up (though the melody gets kinda funky in the second half of the song). The verses repeat the same melodic material over and over, so I think it will be easy for a congregation to learn and sing. The choruses are a little trickier, but well within the bounds of what is congregational. The melody jumps around quite a bit (slightly more than two octaves 😬), so range may be a concern. Still, the majority of it stays within an octave+2, so I don’t think you’ll lose people except on the very highest and lowest notes.

Music

The music of this song matches the words perfectly. The beginning is somber, then becomes hopeful, driving, and finally triumphant. And man is that ending triumphant! This is one of my very favorite expressions of the glory of the ascended Son of Man, and it has brought me to tears more than once. Having said all that, dynamics are super important in this song. It’s got to start quiet, it’s got to drive hard through the middle build, and it’s got to have a big ending.

The chord structure is another one of my favorite features of this song. It largely uses the chords you expect in worship songs and pop music, but it also throws in a couple minor 5s and flat 6s that somehow open up the tonality to invoke a level of majesty that you just don’t get in your typical G D Em C worship progression.

With those funky chords, the crazy dynamics, and the wide vocal range, this song demands a lot of a worship band, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

Function

Gathering | Word | Table | Sending

I would use this song anywhere in a worship service except for the very end. It unites God’s people with a shared acclamation, it declares the story of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and glorification, and it provides us with an opportunity to respond to that story from our hearts with love, devotion, and awe. So it works well as an opening song, a song of the Word, or a Communion/response song. The tricky part is fitting it into the dynamic or energy level flow of a service, since it starts so quietly and ends huge.

I would resist the temptation to use this one as a closer. The ending is big and powerful and exciting, but it lacks the kind of call-to-action that makes for an effective sending song.

Conclusions

Will it worship? You bet!

I started writing this post several months ago, before schoolwork and life circumstances necessitated taking a break from blogging. Since then we have sung “Long Live the King” a few times in church, beginning on Easter. I found that people were profoundly moved by the song, though it was more difficult than average for a congregant to learn and be able to sing along.

So, if your band is up for a challenge and you don’t mind some challenging lyrics about Jesus defeating hell, go for it! I am confident this song will bless your congregation and facilitate their heartfelt response to the gospel and the glory of Jesus.

Image by Tom Gainor 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.

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.