1 Corinthians 15:3-4 vs. “O Praise the Name (Anástasis)”

Hillsong Worship · checked 2026-08-01

This song is checked more than once. Each proof takes it against one passage, so the findings differ. Also checked against Acts 2:24.

What we checked

Passage1 Corinthians 15:3-4 chapter ↗ 3 more proofs on 1 Corinthians 15 →

Translation shownBSB (Berean Standard Bible)

Presents itself asinspired-by

Categorynot a quote

AlbumOpen Heaven / River Wild · 2015

Words addressed tovaries by section

Teaching or experienceteaching (states truths)

Graded against the standard

Quotation criteria not graded: this song never presents its words as scripture

Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard

✓Reverent treatment

✓ What's good

Walks the creed's own sequence, death for sins, burial, rising on the third day, each event in its place
Gives the burial a full verse. That is the creed's middle clause, and it is the one most retellings skip
Keeps the third day, the only time-stamp the two verses contain
The chorus is praise addressed to God, and Christ is the subject of nearly every line in the verses
Carries the chapter forward honestly: the closing verse looks to His return, which is where 1 Corinthians 15 itself goes next

⚠ Cautions

Paul says according to the Scriptures twice in two verses. The song sings the events without singing that they were foretold, and repetition will plant the story without the promise
No reference is cited, so a listener has nothing to check the sequence against except memory
The subtitle Anástasis is never explained. On a track list it is just a foreign word; see the analysis for what it means
The final verse's imagery of the return draws on other passages, so the song's arc is wider than the two verses it tracks most closely

Verse Proof

1 Corinthians 15:3-4

The text in BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,”

Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, where some were saying there is no resurrection of the dead (verse 12). Before he argues, he restates the gospel he first preached there, and he frames it as handed-down material: what I received I passed on to you. These two verses are a summary the church already held before this letter was written. Its shape is three clauses, died for our sins, buried, raised on the third day, and twice Paul adds the same phrase: according to the Scriptures. The claim is not only that these things happened but that they happened as the Scriptures said they would.

What the song says, described not quoted

The song walks the creed's sequence in four verses. The first turns the singer's mind to Calvary and Christ's death, borne for the singer. The second stays in the burial: the body laid in Joseph's tomb, the stone sealing the entrance, the stillness. The third is resurrection morning, the rising on the third day at dawn and death defeated. The fourth looks forward to His return in glory and the singer rising among the saints to see His face. The chorus is direct praise of the name of the Lord our God, promised for endless days. No chapter or verse is cited anywhere, and nothing is introduced as a quotation. The address shifts across the song: the verses narrate about Christ in the third person, and the chorus calls the hearers to praise before turning to speak to the Lord directly.

Nothing is attributed because nothing is quoted. The overlap is the creed's own outline: death for sins, burial, rising on the third day, each given its own verse and in the creed's order. The song even keeps the third day, which is the only time-stamp these two verses contain, and most retellings keep the cross and the empty tomb while skipping the burial; this one gives the tomb a full verse. What the song does not carry is the phrase Paul repeats twice in two verses: according to the Scriptures. The events are sung as things that happened, not as things that happened as promised. The fourth verse, the return, goes beyond verses 3 and 4, though not beyond the chapter, which reaches His coming by verse 23.

· Not a quote: The song never says it is quoting and cites no reference. It narrates the creed's sequence, died for our sins, buried, raised on the third day, and adds the return; the one element of the passage it does not carry is the twice-repeated claim that these things happened according to the Scriptures.

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The creed's one repeated phrase is according to the Scriptures. That is the phrase the song does not sing.

Why it matters

These two verses are the gospel at its most compressed, and Paul says he is handing them on rather than composing them. In that summary one phrase is repeated, and it is not the cross or the tomb. It is according to the Scriptures, said of the death and again of the rising. Paul's point is that the gospel was foretold, not sprung. A song can tell the story truly, in the right order, and still leave a singer with events but no promise behind them, which is a thinner gospel than the two verses it matches so closely.

Is it safe to dwell on?

Sung on repeat, this song fixes your attention on God.

What repetition plants here is the creed's sequence with a forward edge: cross, tomb, rising, return. That is a rare and healthy thing to have by heart, and the dwelling tag is God because the singer appears mainly as witness and beneficiary, casting the mind back and looking ahead. Notice what a year of singing it will not plant: that any of this was promised beforehand. The events will sit in the memory as history, which they are, but not as fulfilment, which is the part Paul refuses to leave out. The remedy is not a different song. It is reading the chapter, where the story you have memorised turns out to be the opening move of an argument that your own resurrection hangs on His.

Helpful comparison

The subtitle is worth a minute, because a listener seeing it on a track list has no way to know what it says. Anástasis is Greek, ἀνάστασις, literally a standing up again, and it is the New Testament's ordinary word for resurrection, appearing forty-two times. Verse 4 of the passage uses the verb, He was raised. The noun arrives eight verses later, in verse 12, in the phrase the whole chapter defends: the resurrection of the dead. So the song's subtitle is not decoration. It is the very word at stake in the chapter its verses walk through, and the writers put the chapter's argument on the cover, untranslated.

Sources

Hillsong Worship — O Praise The Name (Anástasis) Lyric Video · (the recording checked for this proof; the upload's oEmbed returns the official Hillsong Worship channel)
Wikipedia — Open Heaven / River Wild · (writers Benjamin Hastings, Dean Ussher and Marty Sampson; released as a free Easter single in March 2015; album released 16 October 2015; David Ware on the vocal)
The Berean Test — O Praise the Name (Anástasis) · (line-by-line mapping of each verse to passages; confirms the song cites no scripture reference; identifies Anástasis as Strong's G386)
Bible Hub — Strong's Greek 386, anastasis · (the word's meaning, a standing up again, and its forty-two New Testament occurrences)
Bible Hub — 1 Corinthians 15:12 interlinear · (the noun anastasis in verse 12, in the phrase "resurrection of the dead")
GodSongs.net — O Praise The Name (Anástasis) · (the song's verse-by-verse content, the third-day and dawn placement, and the subtitle's meaning)

Corrections

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