"The Writing on the Wall" Iron Maiden and Faith

When Iron Maiden released The Writing on the Wall in 2021 as the lead single from Senjutsu, it was striking that after four decades the band was still drawing directly on biblical imagery. The title itself comes from Daniel 5, where the mysterious hand of God pronounces judgment on King Belshazzar: “You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.” In the Bible, that night ended with the fall of Babylon. In Maiden’s song, the phrase becomes a metaphor for a world heading toward collapse.

Lyrically, The Writing on the Wall is an apocalyptic vision. The narrator surveys a society marked by corruption, arrogance, and decay. There are echoes of Revelation as images of beasts, wastelands, and judgment fill the verses. Yet unlike a horror-movie style fright, the tone here is prophetic, almost sermonic. It is not that evil looks enticing. It is that evil is consuming the world and bringing it to ruin. The “writing on the wall” is a warning that the time of reckoning is near.

From a Christian perspective, this theme resonates deeply. Scripture often uses the image of handwriting or seals to mark God’s decrees (Daniel 5; Revelation 5). The message is always the same: God is sovereign over history, and human kingdoms, however mighty, stand under His judgment. Belshazzar thought his empire was secure until God declared otherwise. Revelation portrays the same pattern on a cosmic scale: every empire that opposes God’s kingdom will fall.

What is striking in Maiden’s song is not just the sense of doom but the longing for something beyond it. The music video reinforces this by showing a weary traveler seeking deliverance as destruction closes in. But the resolution offered is not Christian hope. At the end, a new couple freed into a paradise-like world are offered an apple by Eddie. The symbolism is unmistakable: humanity’s “new beginning” is framed as a replay of Eden’s fall. Rather than salvation through Christ, Maiden’s vision proposes freedom from the very faith that once shaped the West. Christianity is subtly cast as the problem, the system of control to be left behind in the quest for renewal.

This is where Christians must respond critically. The narrative that Christianity is the cause of human oppression or civilizational collapse is increasingly shown to be hollow. As historian Tom Holland and others have argued, the values we cherish: human dignity, compassion, justice, are in fact the fruit of Christianity, not its negation. The malaise of modernity is not the result of too much Christianity, but of forgetting or rejecting it. Where the song’s video imagines redemption through repeating the Fall, the gospel proclaims redemption through the undoing of the Fall by Christ. The better way forward is not to cast off our Christian heritage but to return to it.

The Writing on the Wall demonstrates that Iron Maiden is still unafraid to wrestle with ultimate questions. By borrowing biblical imagery, they invite listeners to feel the urgency of prophecy and the terror of judgment. But the false hope offered in the video underscores the need for discernment: not every vision of salvation leads to life. For Christians, the true “writing on the wall” is that history belongs to Christ, and only in Him do we find the new creation we long for.