Jenn Johnson sat at the piano with a room full of friends waiting on her. Chris Tomlin, Phil Wickham, and her husband Brian contributed parts of a song, and they needed a chorus to hold those parts together. Jenn sang an idea, and later described the moment this way: “I feel like that melody and that chord progression came down from heaven.” If that is true, then the chorus did not travel far, for its central word is one heaven has never stopped singing.
In the Hebrew tongue, repetition is used for emphasis. A word repeated twice carries great weight; a word repeated three times carries the greatest weight of all. Of all God’s attributes, only one is repeated three times in Scripture, and it is sung before His throne day and night without rest.
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.” – Revelation 4:8
Holy Forever was written by five worshippers who wanted the church on earth to join that song already in progress.
Chris Tomlin and the Songwriters Behind Holy Forever
Chris Tomlin was born in Grand Saline, Texas, 1972. He picked up the guitar as a boy, and music soon became his way of leading others toward God. As a young man, Chris became a worship leader with the Passion movement, leading college students in worship by the thousands. From there came a steady stream of songs that congregations took to heart: How Great Is Our God, Our God, Good Good Father, and many a song besides. In time, Chris became one of the most sung songwriters in churches across the world.
Holy Forever was not Chris’s work alone. Brian and Jenn Johnson of Bethel Music, Jason Ingram, and Phil Wickham all share the writing credit. Worship leader, songwriter, producer; each had a long history of serving the church through song. Where many hymns were born from a single pen in a quiet study, this one was born from friends in the same room.
Songs of Transcendence: The Spiritual Setting of the Always Album
Chris has explained that worship songs tend to fall into two kinds. The first are songs of deliverance, which cry out with human need and celebrate God’s rescue. The second are songs of transcendence, which lift the eyes away from ourselves and fix them upon God’s glory. Holy Forever belongs to the second kind. Speaking of the song, Chris said simply, “I just tried to capture a piece of Heaven.”
The years leading to the song had drawn Chris back to that simple purpose. When churches could not gather during the pandemic, his family held church at home, and singing Keith Green’s O Lord, You’re Beautiful with his daughters reminded him of what worship is truly about. That season shaped the album Holy Forever would anchor, Always, and it shaped a conviction Chris would often repeat: worship is more about seeing God than it is about singing.
How Holy Forever Was Written: A Chorus at the Piano
The song did not arrive all at once. According to Chris, the writing session brought together separate song and melody ideas that had been waiting to be finished, and he was surprised to see how well they fit together. Brian had a collection of voice memos filled with unfinished material, and among them was an idea for a prechorus. Chris and Phil had pieces of their own. All that remained was a chorus.
So it was, the writers turned to Jenn, and she sang out the idea at the piano. From there, the five worked together until the song was complete, and the chorus became the heart of it all:
And the angels cry, “Holy”
All Creation cries, “Holy”
You are lifted high, holy
Holy forever
It is fitting that a song about countless voices joining in praise was itself made by many voices; no single writer can claim a line of it alone.
A Thousand Generations: The Scripture Behind Holy Forever
Holy Forever opens with a vast picture of worshippers across the ages bowing before God:
A thousand generations falling down in worship
To sing the song of ages to the Lamb
Brian has explained that the number is poetic rather than literal, an image of generations stretching on into eternity. Chris sees in it each generation receiving the call to worship from those who came before, and passing it on to those who will come after.
The rest of the song draws deeply from Scripture. The worship around the throne comes from Revelation 4 and Isaiah 6, where heavenly beings declare God’s holiness without ceasing. Revelation 5 adds the Lamb, the angels, and the redeemed joining in one great chorus. Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1 supply the song’s proclamation that every throne, power, and name is subject to Christ.
Verse by verse, the song first shows heaven at worship, then turns to the church on earth. The second verse invites those who have been forgiven and redeemed to lift their voices too.
By the final refrain, everyone in heaven and on earth has been gathered into the same two words: holy forever.
Why Holy Forever Sounds Like a Hymn
I will step out of the story for a moment, as this is one of my favorite worship songs, and the reason is simple: it is so hymn-like!
Most of the great hymns share a few traits. They are sung to God and about God rather than about the singer’s feelings. They are filled with Scripture and theology. Their verses build on one another and tell a story, rather than repeating a single phrase.
Holy Forever does all of this. Its focus is God’s holiness, start to finish. It stands on the same passages from Revelation and Isaiah that Reginald Heber drew from when he wrote Holy, Holy, Holy two centuries ago. Its verses move with purpose, from the worship of heaven to the response of the redeemed, and its refrain works the way a hymn’s refrain should, as the anchor every verse returns to. Even its tempo is stately, slow enough for a whole congregation to sing together rather than be performed to by a worship band.
Songs like this are the reason I believe the best of modern worship will one day sit comfortably beside the hymns we cherish.
From Release to the Redwoods: Holy Forever Reaches the Church
Holy Forever was first released on July 15, 2022, ahead of the album Always, which followed that September. Early reviewers took notice. One critic who found the album uneven still named Holy Forever his favorite Tomlin ballad in years. That October, Chris sang it on national television, and within weeks, the song earned a Grammy nomination.
In early 2023, the song found a second home. Bethel Music recorded it with Jenn leading, among the redwoods on her family’s property in Northern California. Rain made the setup difficult, but the team pressed on, and the forest proved a fitting setting for a song about all of creation worshipping its Maker. With two major recordings behind it, the song began spreading from church to church.
Holy Forever in Nashville: Worship Amid Tragedy
Holy Forever was written as a song of praise, not a song of grief. Yet God often uses songs in ways their writers never imagined.
In March of 2023, a shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville took the lives of three children and three adults, and the whole city was stricken with grief. Only weeks later, on Good Friday, Chris was joined by Brian and Jenn at Bridgestone Arena, with the concert’s proceeds given to the school and the Metro Police Department. There, a grieving city lifted its voice to declare that God is holy, and that His holiness has not changed.
Jenn later said that leading the song “in the midst of a city in tragedy, was deeply moving.” On a day that remembers the darkest hour of Christ’s suffering, a song about the eternal worship of the Lamb gave a hurting people somewhere to fix their eyes.
The Longest Climb to No. 1 in Christian Radio
Most popular songs rise quickly and fade just as quickly. Holy Forever did neither. It spread slowly and steadily, carried by congregations as much as by radio, and on the chart dated October 7, 2023, it finally reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs after 59 weeks, the longest climb to the top in the chart’s history at that time. It also spent six weeks at No. 1 on Christian Airplay.
So great was the song’s reach that Chris named his next tour after it. In 2024, the Holy Forever World Tour carried the song across the globe, and that October, it was named Song of the Year at the GMA Dove Awards.
Holy Forever Around the World: Every Tongue and Tribe
A song about a thousand generations could not stay in one language for long. In 2023, Chris released Spanish and Portuguese versions with Miel San Marcos and Gabriel Guedes. At the 2024 Dove Awards, the song was sung in several languages at once, a small picture of the multitude John saw in Revelation. CeCe Winans recorded it, first on her own and later alongside Jenn Johnson, a version that earned a second Grammy nomination. A Christmas adaptation followed, and in 2026, Southern Gospel artist Joseph Habedank added it to his own worship album.
Churches of many traditions have taken it up. United Methodist worship leaders recommended it after careful theological review, a Presbyterian congregation in North Carolina added it to the songs it has learned, and CCLI included it among songs suggested for Catholic Adoration. What began as unfinished ideas on a songwriter’s phone became a song the whole church sings together.
Holy Forever invites us to remember that every time we gather to worship, we are not starting a song. We are joining one. The generations before us sang it, the generations after us will sing it, and heaven has never stopped.
“And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.” – Revelation 5:13
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