Photo by Crawford Ifland
Since this is my sixth Elevation Worship review, I’ll keep the introduction short this time. This is a review of Hallelujah Here Below. To read other songs I reviewed from this artist, select Jesus I Come, Do It Again, Here Again, Yours (Glory and Praise), or O Come to the Altar. All of them received mid to highly favorable scores.
Note to new users: This is a different kind of review site! Read About the Berean Test and Evaluation Criteria prior to reading this review. I strongly encourage you to consider the potential blessings and dangers of this artist‘s theology by visiting Resources.
1. What message does the song communicate?
The overarching theme of this song is earthly worship as God’s kingdom on earth. It calls us to remember Christ’s sacrifice for our brokenness as the reason why we worship, declaring Him king. However, it also contains two statements that are not supported by Scripture, negatively impacting the integrity of their message. These include:
- Heavens are God’s home (it is the singular heaven)
- God prefers earthly worship of humans over heavenly worship of angels
Score: 7/10
2. How much of the lyrics line up with Scripture?
Some of it agrees with the Bible; However, I have some disagreements and concerns with some of Verse 1 and 2.
Lyrics posted with permission.*
[Verse 1]
We are an altar of broken stones
That is, we are a broken people, living broken lives, in broken relationships, marred by sin (Psalm 14:1-3, Psalm 51:17, Psalm 53:1-3, Proverbs 21:16, Luke 15:11-24, Romans 3:10, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:1, Colossians 2:13, and 1 Timothy 5:6).
But You delight in the offering
This could be biblical or unbiblical, depending on the one who brings an offering before God. Isaiah 1:10-15 offers a vivid description of God rejecting sacrifice due to unrepentant sin. Hosea 6:6 and Matthew 9:13 teach that God desires mercy and not sacrifice. That is, what God wants from us is our hearts, not mere offerings. A broken and contrite heart is the sacrifice God will not dispise (Psalm 51:17). The latter is the more likely scenario.
You have the heavens to call Your home
The three heavens, as I understand it, are Earth’s atmosphere, the universe outside our planet, and God’s “dwelling place” (if you can call it a place). Only the third is His home (Genesis 28:12, Deuteronomy 10:14, 1 Kings 8:27, Matthew 6:9, John 3:13, 2 Corinthians 12:2-4, Hebrews 9:24).
Though He also dwelt on earth, in too many forms to list, the most prominent are:
- The tent of meeting (Exodus 40:35),
- Within the “Holy of Holies” in the temple of God (Leviticus 16:2 and Numbers 7:89), and
- Under the New Covenant, within the hearts of believers through the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:5, Romans 8:9-11, 1 Corinthians 3:16, 1 Corinthians 6:16-19, Galatians 4:6, Ephesians 5:18, and 2 Timothy 1:14).
What I do not see in the Scriptures are the other two heavens as God’s home.
But You abide in the song we sing
References Psalm 22:3, depending in which translation used. Some state “You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel” while others say “O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel”.
[Verse 2]
Ten thousand angels surround Your throne
Probably not a literal number, but meant to signify an uncountable host of angelic beings that worship God (Hebrews 12:22 and Revelation 5:11).
To bring You praise that will never cease
As referenced in Revelation 4:6-11.
But hallelujah from here below
Is still Your favourite melody
Favorite is a strong word, indicating preference of our praise over that of the angels. This is not a concept supported by Scripture.
[Chorus]
We sing
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
The word ‘Hallelujah” is a compound Hebrew phrase, with “hallelu” meaning “a joyous praise in song” and “jah” or “yah”, which refers to the Tetragrammaton YHWH. Put together, we are singing “we joyfully praise God in song”.
We sing
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Lines 4-6: Repeats lines 1-3.
[Verse 3]
And should the fire that once burned bright
Become an ember my eyes can’t see
I will remember Your sacrifice
I will abide in Your love for me
A desire to abide in God, regardless of circumstances (John 15:1-11). Communion is God’s commandment for remembering His paying for our sins and proclaiming it until He comes (Luke 22:18-20 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26).
[Bridge]
Jesus Christ our King enthroned
See Isaiah 9:6, Isaiah 11:10, John 12:15, 1 Timothy 6:13-16, Revelation 17:14, and Revelation 19:11-16.
All the praise is Yours forevermore
That is, eternal praise (Nehemiah 9:5, Psalm 30:12, Psalm 52:9, Psalm 86:12, Psalm 89:1, Psalm 115:18, Psalm 145:1-2, Psalm 145:21, and Revelation 5:9-13).
Hallelujah here below
That is, here on earth.
All the praise is Yours forevermore
Repeats line 2.
Jesus Christ our King enthroned
All the praise is Yours forevermore
Hallelujah here below
All the praise is Yours forevermore
Repeats lines 1-4.
[Verse 4]
Oh, what a wonderful day to come
When every knee bows before Your name
It certainly is! (Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11, and Philippians 2:10-11).
But we will not wait until it does
For here and now shall Your Kingdom reign
An excellent statement that fights against the mentality to only be heavenly minded, forgetting that God’s Kingdom is here on earth as it is in the third heaven (Matthew 6:10).
[Interlude]
Oh! Oh, the broken people sing
Yes we do! We sing hallelujah.
Score: 7/10
3. How would an outsider interpret the song?
They should easily see this as a worship song to the Christian God. The more estute will pick up on some (or all) the issues I laid out earlier, especially the bit about favoring our worship to angelic adoration.
Score: 7/10
4. What does this song glorify?
It glorifies God and worship of Him; However, the problems described in sections 1 and 2 blunt it.
Score: 7/10
Closing Comments
Elevation Worship’s Hallelujah Here Below is not their finest work, but also not terrible. Some of of it agrees with Scripture, containing an excellent message regarding our obligation to worship God on earth that all may recognize; However, the minor issues regarding God’s dwelling in multiple heavens and major issue describing God’s preference for our adoration to angelic worship taints their message and inherent glorification of God.
This makes it difficult for me to recommend for congregational worship.
Final Score: 7/10
Artist Info
Track: Hallelujah Here Below (listen to the song)
Artist: Elevation Worship
Album: Hallelujah Here Below
Genre: Rock
Release Year: 2018
Duration: 7:03
Agree? Disagree? Don’t be shy or have a cow! Calmly and politely state your case in a comment, below.
*Copyright ©2018 Music by Elevation Worship Publishing (BMI) (admin at EssentialMusicPublishing.com). All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Updates:
09/14/2021 – Per Artist Theology announcement, I expanded the red text to encourage others to study Elevation Worship’s theology.
03/24/2021 – Updated per repetition announcement.
08/21/2019 – Commenter pathosbill provided Psalm 22:3 to Bibically support the phrase “But You abide in the song we sing” that I previously stated did not contain Scriptral evidence. Therefore, I slightly altered the score from 6.5/10 to 7/10.
Comments
pathosbill
I think “But You abide in the song we sing” is a reference to Psalm 22:3: “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” (KJV) Other translations say that God is enthroned on the praise of His people. Psalm 115:3 uses the plural when it says “But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.”
Perhaps the verse you referred to, Psalm 51:17 (“a broken and contrite heart”), is intended in “We are an altar of broken stones”, solidifying God’s delight in that offering. Just a thought.
I appreciate your thought provoking reviews!
Vince Wright
pathosbill,
Thank you for your correction! I added both references in my review update.
-Vince Wright
Marsha Lovan
Hi,
First of all, I want to THANK YOU for this website and for all you do for the Body of Christ. It’s so important that we sing truth and the ONLY truth is God’s Word. As a worship leader, I’m so glad I found this site and subscribed!!
I would like to comment on:
“But You abide in the song we sing
I do not see this in Scripture. As mentioned previously, God dwells in temples and humans, but not songs. He inspires music, but He does not abide in them.”
Could possibly the intent come from Psalm 22:3 which reads, “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.”
I’m a stickler for the original meaning, so the NASB Lexicon reads, “Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.”
“O You who are enthroned,” is Strong’s 3427.yashab which means, “to sit, remain, dwell.”
Just a thought, sir..
Thank you again, I truly appreciate the time and effort you put into the reviews.
With respect,
Marsha Lovan
Vince Wright
Marsha,
Thank you for your thoughts! I appreciate your warm and humbling comments.
Unfortunately, user pathosbill beat you to the punch, so they will get credit for changing my mind. You analysis solidifies my decision to include this passage.
-Vince Wright
Johnathan Richmond
Depending on interpretation of the trinity, the Holy Spirit lives within us on earth… now the rest of the universe his presence is there, but I’d agree on the not living there part.. in the song they may also have worded it as “heavens” because of the flow of the music…any feedback or corrections on my comments are welcome.
Vince Wright
Jonathan,
Thank you for your comment; however, I am confused. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me? If disagreeing, can you show me where in the song my comments disagree with yours?
-Vince Wright
Tabatha Strickland
I remember reading scripture in a recent Bible study that may semi-allude to these lines, tho I’m not sure how solid you’ll find them.
“But hallelujah from here below
Is still Your favourite melody”
The first is 1Peter 1:12, where we read that the angels, who are pure and sinless, still look at us humans in awe and are mesmerized by the potential we have, even tho we’re naturally sinful beings. They are incapable of fully understanding human nature, flesh and blood, with its temptations and pains, its need of a Saviour. 1 Peter 1:12 shows that we are in a better position to understand the mysteries of redemption, not only than prophets, but also than angels; and they covet to stoop from their own point of view to ours. Wow, right!?
Tho they are powerful, fierce creatures, they don’t get to understand what it’s like to be children of God. Hebrews 1:5, 13. God sought a familial relationship with us. He created us in His image.
And also, in Hebrews 2:5 (actually, alot of this chapter is relevant), we see that it wasn’t angels that God subjected the world to come, but to us. (verse 8)
I can’t attest that God would rather hear us over angels, (who knows the mind of God, after all) but scripture elevates us above them more than once. And practically speaking, hearing praises from the ones He created, the ones who choose to shout Hallelujah in spite of our filthiness, just seems like it would mean more than it would from beings who have never known suffering, sin, death.
Vince Wright
Tabatha,
Thank you for your comments! I’ll address both passages in question.
1. Let’s take a look at 1 Peter 1:12 in context. It says:
“It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look.” (NASB, emphasis mine)
Who is the “them”? According to Verse 10, it is the prophets. In other words, the prophets were not serving themselves, but to those in Peter’s audience. Of course, they are serving us too because we are reading about it!
What is “in these things”? This also goes back to Verse 10, which talks about “this salvation” and “the grace that would come to you” that the prophets spoke. If we keep reading Verse 12, it explicitly states that this Gospel of old was “announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven”.
This brings us to our last question. What are these “things” that the angels long to look? It is the same as my answer to the second question, namely, the Gospel that the prophets prophecied and the Holy Spirit revealed through “those who preached the Gospel” to the audience that Peter wrote this letter. It is not about our ability to understand but the fullness of the Gospel that came to fruition. It was revealed to men but not angels! How wonderful a privilege to receive this wonderful message! Although at this point, I think the angels know all about it. I’m not convinced that this connects with our praising God as His favorite melody.
2. Despite the capitalization in the NASB, I think that Him who is “subject to the world to come” is Jesus, not men. My evidence is the parallel between verses 7 and 9. Verse 9 tells us who is “for a little while lower than the angels”. It is Jesus! It also makes sense since the antecedent of “Him” in verses 7 and 8 is the “Son of Man” at the end of Verse 6. I initially thought that Verses 7 and 8 were an elongated dangling modifier to Verse 6, but the parallel mentioned in my opening statement settled the debate in my mind.
-Vince Wright
Haley Patillo
Thank you for your analysis! I am a musician. After discovering this song, I became curious as to how others dealt with the “favorite melody” line. I googled “theology hallelujah here below” and found this page. I will likely be back!
Vince Wright
Haley,
Thank you for your comment! I am glad to give you a reason to come back.
-Vince Wright
Timothée Bateman
Hi and thank you for your analysis as well as the many others. What a wonderful resource for the Church to have. God bless you.
I was curious about line 1, I thought Elevation had made it clear the context of the song and the first line is based off of Exodus 20:25 If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.
In other words God delights in the altar we are making when we come as we are, not trying to perfect ourselves before coming to God but allowing each broken stone to become perfected as an altar in Christ.
I definitely agree about Psalm 22:3 for “you abide in the song we sing” since the song is praise the Name of the LORD–even if it’s inhibits, dwells, enthroned or seated.
About the heavens I think they meant “heaven” and it poetically fit the song better “the heavens” as another commenter noted, but for the sake of clarity I understand where you are coming from. Personally, I didn’t realize there was such a diversification of heavens.
About “hallelujah here below is still your favorite melody” the way I interpret this is God had the angels praising him in eternity and still made a decision that he wanted to create humanity to worship him. Yes “favorite” can be a stretch, but why were the angels not enough? I wouldn’t have necessarily said it myself which is probably why you must state that it isn’t biblically founded, but I understand the statement and can agree with it from how I see the purpose of creation, humanity and our place as beings created to worship God.
My two cents – I appreciate you!
Vince Wright
Timothée,
Thank you for your comments and compliments!
Exodus 20:25 doesn’t make sense in the context of this song. The first line of the song is about our brokenness. In Exodus 20:22-26, God is speaking to Moses, who God instructs Israel to make an altar for burnt and peace offerings and avoid idolatry. Any other alter must be made with uncut stones. I can see how you’ve made the connection between us as an alter and I think you got there using the Scripture I cited in my commentary.
I’m not sure if “heaven” would have been better given the three “heaven’s” that exist; However, usually, most people think of the “third heaven” when they interpret that word, so perhaps it would. If that’s what they meant, then the preceding “the” would require removal. “The heaven” sounds like a foreigner attempting to speak English!
I see where you’re coming from on the word “favorite”, but as you said, it’s not a statement I would prefer to say/sing, especially when I worship God. Yet, the word “favorite” implies preferences, at least, to me it does.
-Vince Wright
Timothée Bateman
Hey thanks for the reply! I understand what you mean on Exodus 20:25. However, exodus 20:25 is the reference they use for the song as well as the sermon that they had with the song not only as it’s context but for the whole album as well. Thanks again!
Viv
Interested in any comments about the album art, don’t understand the symbolism of the stair case above what looks like the representations of the Trinity. Don’t want to read anything into it since I haven’t found any reference to what it means, only found the printer’s notes about making the art work. Any knowledge and thoughts about what it means?
Curtis H
The Hebrew word for the heavens is shamayim (H8064) and is always plural, never singular. The “im” on the end of the word designates the plural form.
It’s kind of like the English word, “pants”, which is plural even though the concept is singular. No one wears a pant. They wear pants.
So, regardless of how many ways there are to categorize realms, it is not wrong to say “heavens” in reference to the concept that originated from the Hebrew language.
Vince Wright
Curtis H,
Thank you for your comments!
Can you show me a few Scripture where this word is used in the context of God’s “dwelling place” as His home?
-Vince Wright