the church

WHOSOEVER – Rend Collective

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

Image by Helena Lopes from Unsplash

I’ve loved Rend Collective since they were still an Experiment, and I still have their signed poster in my office from a concert my wife and I attended when we were in college. They have so much fun while genuinely worshiping God, and their joy is infectious. I’ve found that congregations respond really well to songs like “Build Your Kingdom Here” and “My Lighthouse.” “Whosoever” is the title track from their 2022 album, and it’s written by Chris Llewellyn, Gareth Gilkeson, and Matt Maher. Chris and Gareth are both Rend Collective members, and Matt Maher is a solo artist and legendary worship songwriter. This song is a bit of a departure from the type of lyric content I usually include in worship services, so let’s see if the lyrics of “Whosoever” are biblical and if they will worship!

Focus

The main theme of “Whosoever” is God’s love and its expression in his Church. The whole song is an invitation to join the loving community of God’s people. Usually when we say “you” in worship songs, we’re talking to God. But in this one, we are singing to the outsider who needs to be invited into the circle of love and safety described in the lyrics.

God is discussed in the third person, and he is identified as God, a savior, a man on a cross, and a Father. We don’t really distinguish between the Father and the Son in this song, but that’s because we’re focusing on God’s love, not the minutiae of the Trinity.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
“There’s no audition for true love // No matter what, you don’t have to earn it”

The first two lines of “Whosoever” establish that God loves us first. We don’t and can’t do anything to earn his love; it was the disposition of his heart toward us even before he made us, even before he made anything! In Ephesians 1:4-5, Paul explains that before the foundation of the world, God set us apart for adoption as his children through Jesus. Why? Because of his love.

The next two lines offer good news to anyone who has ever felt excluded. What is that good news? Let’s ask the pre-chorus.

PRE-CHORUS
Here’s the good news: “God so loved the world, he never left you out of it.”

This is an odd turn of phrase. At first blush, it seems to say “God loves the world (including me) so much that he’ll never exclude me.” The song moves so quickly that I think people will take roughly this meaning from these words and move on.

John 3:16 is a probably the most well-known verse in the Bible, so many people will likely catch the allusion here and finish the line in their heads: “that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” So I think the bridge is using the first few words of John 3:16 as a shorthand for the whole verse. I also think death, in the ultimate sense, is permanent exclusion from God’s presence, and eternal life is being forever included in his family, so “he never left you out” isn’t a bad summary of the second half of this Scripture.

CHORUS
“Every outsider // you are safe here // Whosoever”

While modern translations of John 3:16 say “whoever believes,” many of us memorized it in the KJV and still remember “whosoever believeth.” That’s where the song title comes from, and the chorus is an invitation addressed directly to “whosoever.” We further identify “whosoever” as outsiders and people who are wandering. Zacchaeus is an excellent example of this kind of person in Scripture (Lk. 19:1-10). He was likely hated and excluded by the Jewish community because he was a dishonest tax collector for Rome, and Jesus describes him as lost. Jesus doesn’t push this thief away, but invites himself over to Zacchaeus’ home. Zacchaeus responds in faith and repentance and finds his salvation.

The chorus paints Jesus as a savior and a shelter, and that’s exactly what outsiders and lost people are looking for. But the shelter isn’t just Jesus. It’s also his church. We can learn what kind of shelter God’s people are supposed to be from God’s stern rebuke to Israel’s leaders in Ezekiel 34:4. We’re supposed to strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, bring back the strayed, seek the lost, and lead with gentleness. In Acts 2:44-47, we see how deeply and sacrificially the early church cared for one another. This is the kind of people we are called to be.

So the chorus is an invitation to outsiders, but it’s also a call to the Church to become the kind of place that shelters people, makes them feel safe, and brings them near to Jesus the Savior.

VERSE 2
Being put on the sidelines is another way of being left out. God doesn’t want to bench you; you’re a work of art made by his hand, and he has good works prepared for you to do! (Eph. 2:10)

The rest of this verse is about welcoming people into community. Open doors, joining in song, and raising glasses evoke a party atmosphere, maybe in someone’s home or even a pub, but it’s also a cheerful and poetic description of what we do in church. We welcome people in, we sing together, and we partake of the cup that Jesus gave us at Communion, our deepest and most meaningful symbol of our unity in Christ.

BRIDGE
Here we give two scriptural examples of God’s love. First, the father of the prodigal son. When the son who has dishonored and abandoned him comes back home, the father can’t wait for him to reach the door. He is so overcome with love for his son that he runs out to meet him on the road and captures him in a big hug (Lk. 15:11-22).

The second image is a man (Jesus) on a cross. The songwriters see Jesus’ outstretched arms on the cross as the same welcoming arms of the Father. He sacrifices himself in order to embrace and welcome us into his family.

Accessibility

I don’t see any potential for misleading or unsound teaching in this song. I think the overall message of invitation into a loving community is abundantly clear.

“God so loved the world he never left you out of it,” is a little confusing grammatically, but the sense of what’s being said is apparent. People unfamiliar with Scripture may not understand the lyrics of the song as references to John 3:16, but the song’s imagery communicate its message clearly. People who have qualms about alcohol may be bothered by the line about raising glasses in verse 2, but I would just remind them that we often raise non-alcoholic beverages in toast at weddings, and that we metaphorically raise the cup of Christ’s blood together every time we celebrate Communion.

The melody of this song is really high, but I was surprised to discover that this song actually only has a vocal range of an octave +1 (as long as you exclude the optional high note in the 2nd to last chorus). Most songs I review end up being more like an octave +4 or 5, so this one should be even more singable than average. Just transpose it lower if it doesn’t suit your voice or your congregation. We sing it in A, but G would be even easier to play and sing. If you go all the way down to F, it even fits the oft-repeated “C to shining C” rule.

Music

I sure hope your acoustic guitar player doesn’t mind his or her strumming hand falling off by the end of this song! A good portion of this song’s high-energy, Rend Collective, Irish folk-rock vibe comes from the constant 16th note strum pattern. It’s also a great song to utilize a mandolin and/or banjo player.

This upbeat song’s dynamics jump back and forth between medium-loud, loud, and louder. The key to nailing the dynamic arc is getting all your dropouts synced up, especially on the pre-choruses and the bridge. Speaking of the bridge, I love how this song deviates a little from the typical worship song format here. Instead of a decrescendo into a quiet bridge, we have a total dropout for the first half of each line and then three smash hits on the last word of each. It’s punchy, exciting, and breaks up the song so that we don’t ever get bored for lack of dynamic interest.

Conclusions

I mentioned already that “Whosoever” is different from most of the songs I choose for worship services. Usually I limit myself to songs that are to God or about God. This one is about God in a sense, but it’s more about his Church. I also tend to avoid songs that have such a strong element of invitation because they can often feel heavy-handed. But “Whosoever” is more than an invitation; it’s a description of what Jesus’ Church should look like. When we sing these words, we have the opportunity to make them a prayer that our church would be like this, a place where outcasts can find a home and feel loved and safe.

So, will it worship? Yes. I think this song will be a powerful tool for transformation and I look forward to seeing our congregation grow in love for the outcast, one another, and Christ as we sing it!

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.

HYMN OF HEAVEN – Phil Wickham, Bethel Music, Brian Johnson, Zahriya Zachary

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment
crowd with raised hands

Image by Edwin Andrade from Unsplash

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

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

Focus

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

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

Lyric Analysis

THE TITLE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VERSE 2

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

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

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

VERSE 3

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

CHORUS 2

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

Accessibility

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

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

Music

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

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

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

Conclusions

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

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

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

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.