The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir - What A Beautiful Name It is Lyrics

Video

What A Beautiful Name | The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

Meaning & Inspiration

The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir’s rendition of this song forces a particular confrontation with the Christological opening: "You were the Word at the beginning / One with God the Lord Most High."

We often treat the name of Jesus as a linguistic handle—a way to address the divine—but these lines demand we treat it as an ontological reality. John 1:1 isn’t just a prologue; it is an assertion of status that survives the indignity of the manger and the Cross. If He were not "One with God" before the world began, His death would be a tragedy, not a propitiation. When the choir swells, there is a risk of losing the weight of the pre-existent Logos in the sheer volume of the sound. Yet, the lyrics keep pulling the focus back to the necessity of His divinity. Without that "Word" status, the beauty referenced in the chorus is merely aesthetic, a preference rather than a dogmatic necessity.

Then, there is the line: "You didn't want heaven without us."

I find this phrasing provocative—perhaps even reckless. From a strictly systematic view, God does not "want" in the sense of lacking, nor is He incomplete without the human race. He exists in the eternal, self-sufficient delight of the Trinity. If we interpret this as God being needy, we fall into a pathetic fallacy that undermines His sovereignty. However, if we interpret it through the lens of the Imago Dei, it hits differently. It suggests that because we were designed to reflect His image, the wreckage of our sin created a disruption that He chose to rectify. He did not "need" us, but He loved the world in such a way that He bridged the infinite gap between Creator and creature.

When I hear the choir sing about the veil tearing, I’m reminded that the tearing was not just a symbol of access; it was an act of violence against the barrier of our corruption. It wasn’t a gentle curtain-pulling. It was a brutal rending that allowed the holy to move into the profane.

The song settles into a repetitive affirmation of His name. I wonder, though, if we say "the Name of Jesus" so often that we forget the terrifying exclusivity of it. We talk about it being "beautiful" and "powerful," but in the early church, identifying Jesus as Kyrios—as Lord—was a death sentence. It meant denying the state, the emperor, and every other claim on the soul.

When the music hits its final crescendo, I am left wondering if we are actually prepared for the reality of a King who has no rivals. It’s easy to sing about no equals when we are safely within the confines of a sanctuary. It’s quite another to maintain that doctrine when the world demands we place Him alongside other gods of comfort and convenience. The song is a solid creedal starting point, but the work of actually submitting to that "Name above all names" remains a daily, often agonizing, unfinished business.