Arrival is a Hillsong Music production (2017). Words and music are by Michael Guy Chislett, Matt Crocker, Benjamin Hastings and Dylan Thomas, from the album Christmas, The Peace Project.
The song celebrates the incarnation, which is here called ‘arrival’. The main thought is that the Creator became part of His creation. A fourfold repetition of the same metaphor is used to describe the miracle of incarnation. It is the notion of a producer who becomes part of his product. The bridge text functions as a personal application: the arrival of God in creation enables man to know Him (but see the editor’s comment on this concept below).
The song is a part of the album The Peace Project, which is a mixture of old and new Christmas songs. It is a collection rather than a series. Thus, the title of the song Arrival does not imply that the listener can expect a sequel, or that he has to wait until the next songs for the authors to make their point. The text stands on its own; indeed, the arrival, the birth of Jesus itself is hailed. There is no development of thought or climax within the song or between the songs.

Music
Reviewing the song as it is presented on social media, the first thing to notice is that the writers have succeeded in giving the song a worship character; it is not yet another ‘I-me-mine’-song, but it proclaims the greatness of God, especially as the Creator of the universe. The personal touch in the bridge text lets the I-voice – changed into first person plural at the end – represent mankind in general, so that the attention is kept on God, while it allows the listener/singer to easily identify himself with the text. The song does what the text implies, that is, to hail the ‘arrival’ of Jesus. In the YouTube-version the call to hail is emphasized by the swelling chant of a crowd at the end of the song, as if more and more people join in and are coming closer. It is as if the chant has gone through the ages and this is the moment for today’s generation to join in.
Musically the song contains melodic lines over a simple chord progression. It follows the modern tradition of including a bridge. However, there the song becomes less melodic. The YouTube-version reveals that at this point the song starts to depend on the arrangement for its strength. It needs an effect-based arrangement – including Christmassy bells – because the climax is not a real climax, neither textually, nor musically. The YouTube-performance becomes even theatrical at this point.
The chorus has a three-two-three (quavers) rhythm, which gives it elegance and cheerfulness.
The last stanza is meant to be chanted. This comes as a surprise and it works well. It is quite effective, especially when the accompaniment fades out. The response to the invitation to come and hail the arrival of Jesus is expressed musically.

Purpose
While the first impression of the song’s music is mainly positive, a more critical attitude must be adopted towards the lyrics. The reason for this is that the writers concentrate on the miracle of the incarnation itself, without dwelling on its implications. Although there is a mention of purpose – now I can know my God, and now we can see our God, the song seems to limit the meaning of the birth of Christ to an invisible God becoming visible. The consequence is, that the reason for the incarnation remains obscure for the uninformed listener. He may ask whether this act of God was a noble thing for Him to do and why He chose to do so. Apparently, the ‘frame’ and ‘fate’ of man are unhappy or unfortunate, and God becoming part of it must mean an improvement of his situation. God ‘embraces’ man’s situation with His love, say the song writers, and that is their reason for celebration. Jesus is the Saviour for my sins (a rather awkward wording, but that can happen in songwriting, albeit under the guise of poetic licence), which is, again supposedly, a good and happy thing, a reason why His arrival should be celebrated.

Metaphor
To express their admiration for the miracle of incarnation the writers use a metaphor of a person who makes something becoming part of what he has made. This metaphor is repeated four times in slightly different versions. However, because the reason why this producer does this is not given, the danger lies in wait that the incarnation is hailed as a mere spectacle: ah! the infinite God has become an infant, a little baby in a manger left to the care of his mother! How touching! This sentiment drives the content of the song rather than the spiritual truth and meaning of the incarnation. This is what happens when the act of the incarnation itself is taken as an isolated event – however wonderful it may be. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the incarnation as it is pictured in the song, is that it is quite pathetic. The authors have to be asked whether this is intentional or not.

Perhaps the songwriters have insufficiently taken into account the risks of a fourfold repetition of a metaphor, especially when there is no development of thought or climax, as is the case in Arrival. Metaphors are symbols that should capture a realm of thought in a few words. The image they evoke is meant to vividly, indeed graphically, sometimes informatively, sometimes shockingly express truth, reality or emotions. In the case of Arrival however, the metaphor stands on its own and does not add to the greatness of the truth. It does not give a better understanding of the truth, but seems to be poetry for the sake of poetry only. The Creator steps into His creation – this is an awesome, unfathomable event. It is like an author climbing inside a page, says the songwriter. This is indeed wonderful. But why would the Author do that, what is the play about that the Playwright has come to perform? When the song is compared with Scripture, it can be observed that the gospel writers Matthew and Luke paint this great contrast of God becoming a baby in a striking way, but with rather different purposes than to evoke pathetic emotions or even admiration. For them it was, in the first place, the beginning of the final fulfilment of prophecy. It remains unclear what the writers of Arrival seek to achieve with their metaphor. How does it help to understand the incarnation and thus encourage to hail it? Because there is no further explanation, the sentiment dominates, which does not go beyond admiration and something like sympathy. The intention might be that the listener/singer should be moved by the fact that the great eternal God ‘became confined’. However, this would give the incarnation a twist that is not supported by Scripture. In the gospels the first encounters with the grown-up Jesus show that this ‘confinement’ is actually very powerful. His disciples exclaim, ‘What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey Him?’ It seems that the songwriters chose to limit themselves to the very event of the birth of Jesus and to echo the traditional Christmas sentiment. Is the listener/singer supposed to consider the incarnation to be a kind gesture of the invisible God to make Himself visible – for a while, up to the point that man completely rejects Him and kills Jesus? That would be a very poor imitation of the gospel indeed. Not everything can be said in the limited space of a song, but any misrepresentation of the gospel should be avoided.

Another consequence of the repetition of the metaphor is that by its third instance it has lost much of its expressiveness and at the fourth time it has completely worn out, especially because there is no sequence or development of the content.

Dualism
To make the sentiment of the incarnation central or to let the sentiment dominate, may bring along with it the undesirable side-effect that the gospel is changed into a philosophy of dualism between ‘the divine’ and ‘matter’ – the latter regarded as of a lower order than the former. Whether the writers are influenced by this philosophy cannot be said with certainty, but reflecting on the text, the danger is very real that the song creates the same sentiment that is expressed in, Lo, He abhors not the virgin’s womb. In other words, the text, or at least the atmosphere of the text supports the notion that for God to enter creation must be something loathsome and therefore the fact that He nevertheless did it, is to be praised. But this is an approach that is foreign to the gospel and to Scripture in general – even inimical. The fact that Jesus, being equal with God, humbled Himself in taking the form of a man (Phil. 2) has nothing to do with dualism of divinity and matter. He ‘emptied Himself’, that is, Jesus poured out His life, or, as the KJV has it, He made Himself of no reputation. Rightly so, the lyrics of the song do not suggest that He emptied Himself of His divinity, but the sentiment the song evokes gives the impression that we should sympathize with God (which is not necessary). Now that He has become a man, He will experience all the physical inconveniences, like hunger and fatigue and is even – as Michael Card suggests in his album The Promise – prone to belly aches. Royalty robed in the flesh He created suggests, maybe unintentionally, that ‘the flesh He created’ is by definition unfit for the Lord’s royalty. However, this thought denies the heart of the gospel and is contradictory to the Creator’s aim with His creation, of which He said, ‘It is very good.’ In spite of the fact that creation is suffering from the corruption of sin, God’s ‘invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made’ (Rom. 1:20). The Messiah came in order that ‘the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God’ (Rom. 8). In other words, for the Creator, becoming a baby is – isolated from its purpose – not humiliating or an act of kindness or love. Of course it is an act of ‘stooping down’: the great God becomes very small. He did so to show mercy and compassion to the human race that is plagued by the consequences of sin. But as soon as that fact is stated, the purpose of the incarnation has come into view already and this is what the song leaves aside or presupposes, intentionally or not. The depth of Jesus’ incarnation can only be understood in the light of Him calling His crucifixion His exaltation (John 12:32), not in the pathetic smallness, poverty and dependency of His babyhood. There is nothing wrong in singing about the latter and celebrating it, but it should be placed in its proper context of God’s plan of redemption and His eternal Kingdom. Who is God, that He would take our frame, is the opening line of the song. The amazement it expresses is fully justified, but any pathetic sentiment that it may evoke is inappropriate – taking our frame was a masterstroke. The Word becoming flesh is not to be regarded as humiliation in itself (in the Bible, the word ‘flesh’ does not always have a negative connotation). It is God’s unfathomable wisdom.

Afterthought
Furthermore, the dominance of the sentiment, combined with the absence of purpose gives the impression that God sending His Messiah is an afterthought. However, it is said about the Messiah that He was ‘foreknown before the foundation of the world’ (1 Pet. 1:20). Jesus said, ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad’ (John 8:56). Centuries before the coming of the Messiah, Isaiah announced both His birth and His suffering, not to stir up sympathy or pitiful emotions, but to call for repentance¹, because His coming would mean either hope or judgment.

The Christ made manifest
What should have been the climax in the song, namely that Jesus the Maker has made Himself known, is a reference to a statement in John’s gospel, that unfortunately distorts it. John writes that no one has ever seen God, but that the Son has made Him known². It does not say that He made Himself known. In fact, it is strange to say that Jesus made Himself known. Of course He did. Everybody does, except the eccentric. ‘Yet the world did not know Him,’ says John. The purpose of incarnation is not for the invisible God to become visible, so that, at last, we can see and know Him³ – as Arrival suggests – but rather the other way around, that human flesh might enter into the glorious presence of the invisible God (see John 17). It is the glorification of ‘the body’, that is, the resurrection. And Jesus, as the Son of God, is the only one who could accomplish this mission; by His death and resurrection He became our ‘forerunner’ (Heb. 6:20). His blood and His flesh are the way to enter into God’s presence (Heb. 10:19-20). He referred to His body as ‘the temple’ and said to Philip, ‘Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”?’
Jesus did not entrust Himself to the people (John 2:24); He restricted Himself in revealing His identity, knowing that the people would impose on Him their wrong expectations of a hero-messiah and wanted to use Him for their own cause. When they wanted to make Him king, ‘He withdrew again to the mountain by himself’ (John 6:15). When He revealed more of the true nature of His mission, the majority of His followers left Him (vs. 66). Moreover, on a deeper level Jesus said to Peter that it is God the Father who revealed to him that He is the Christ. Indeed, the Maker has made Himself known, through Jesus, but unfortunately the lyrics’ rendering miss the spiritual point of it altogether, which is ‘grace and truth’. The Christ ‘was made manifest’ (1 Pet. 1:20), which cannot be understood without His death and resurrection. In His days on earth people were constantly wondering who Jesus was. In this context the event can be remembered that two Greek men wanted to see Jesus. His reaction – and the Father’s – says it all (see John 12).

Obscure phrases
Another weakness of the song is that the meaning of some phrases is obscure, like The One who knows what lies where space has run its course and The holy Word of God defined by name. It is difficult to see how space can run its course. Maybe the song writer refers to planetary and solar systems, but the question remains why he uses the present perfect tense. To which historical event does he refer? And did space run its course at a certain place? And apparently something interesting lies at that place, of which man does not know anything. And what does the author mean by ‘defined by name’? These are sentences the reader/listener/singer stumbles over and may leave him with the feeling that he does not belong to the happy few who do understand it. It makes the song pretentious.

Infinite infant
Last but not least, the phrase Infinite infant God is nice poetry, but from a Scriptural point of view it is, to put it mildly, nonsense, and it cannot be justified by poetic licence. Maybe the original thought was Infant – infinite God, but that would have caused an awkward stress error. Unfortunately, it now sounds as if the four songwriters must have agreed on it reluctantly, hoping that the listener/singer will forgive them. The phrase Infinite infant God may even be seen as leaning towards the practice of the Cult of the Infant Jesus, or a celebration of the claims of mystical appearances of ‘the Holy Child’, although it is unlikely that this was in the authors’ mind when they wrote the song. Because this rather inappropriate phrase is part of the chorus, the listener may hear it to the point of irritation.

In summary, to describe Jesus’ birth as ‘the Maker has made Himself known’ is tricky. The ‘seeing’ in the phrase ‘we have seen His glory’ in John 1:14 does not refer to seeing somebody who was invisible at first. Jesus is not a theophany. The ‘seeing’ here means getting to know and understand, learning, meeting in person. And it is not the seeing itself that is emphasized, but the object, His glory. The joyful thing about Jesus’ birth is not that we can now see the God who was invisible before. In fact, Thomas wanted to be sure that his friends had not experienced a theophany or a phantom. Jesus’ reaction on Thomas’ unbelief is legendary. In other words, the isolated fact that the invisible God was born as a baby does not change anything. We still cannot know our Maker, unless we accept His cross as our verdict. His coming is indeed ‘joy to the world’, but at the same time it is the beginning of the end of the existing cosmic order and the inauguration of God’s eternal Kingdom. And that is something humanity does not want.

1) The editor’s viewpoint is that in Isaiah ‘the redeemed of the LORD’, ‘the remnant’ or ‘the preserved of Israel’ are not a particular group of people, but that every one has the opportunity to become part of them by turning to God.
2) In this passage (John 1:18) there are differences between the Greek manuscripts (probably due to controversies concerning the teachings of Arius), but the point is clear, that Jesus, who is now at the Father’s side, manifested (literally: declared or unfolded) the Father.
3) That was the original purpose of creation, not of the incarnation (Rom. 1:20); the incarnation was necessary to restore God’s original, eternal purpose.