Hark The Herald Angels Sing

Elevation Worship's recording keeps Charles Wesley's 1739 text unaltered across all three verses, including a line most modern carol arrangements quietly drop: "veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate Deity." The phrase reaches for John 1:14's claim that "the Word became flesh, and lived among us" — full divinity hidden inside an ordinary human body, the central claim of the incarnation stated almost clinically.

"Christ, by highest heaven adored... offspring of a virgin's womb" sits behind Luke 1:35's account of the angel Gabriel telling Mary the child would be called "the Son of God" precisely because of how he was conceived. The closing verse's promise, "born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth," reframes Christmas from a one-time historical event into something aimed at the listener directly — Wesley's carol was always making a claim about rebirth as much as recounting a birth.