Not long ago a radio speaker declared that a good Bible hour is better than a dozen sermons. One may be justified in saying also that a good evangelical hymn is better than much of the preaching one hears these days. People soon forget a sermon, but a good hymn is sung again and again, and its words become fixed in one’s memory, even to the point of shaping religious opinions. A devout Christian knows that men are sinful creatures in need of a Saviour. His Bible tells him that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that the wages of sin is death, and that the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. But even a less ardent Christian, careless in his Bible study, may nevertheless be aware of his sinful nature, for from childhood onward he has sung, “Chief of Sinners Though I Be” and “I Lay My Sin son Jesus.” Both are hymns in the evangelical tradition.

One may spend a few months overseas attending church services every Sunday and hear very little definite evangelical preaching. At the same time one may find among the lowly classes a simple, devout Christian faith that puts the American visitor to shame. When he considers the noncommittal type of preaching in many of these churches and chapels, neither marred by false doctrines nor noteworthy because of its clear teaching of sin and salvation, he may wonder from whence comes the simple faith of the humbler people. It may well be due to the fact that in the Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, English, German, and Dutch churches the people sing the truths of God’s Word into their hearts by means of their rich evangelical hymns. Furthermore, they recite in their congregational prayers: “We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against Thy holy laws;” or “We poor sinners confess unto Thee that we are by nature sinful and unclean and that we have sinned against Thee by thought, word, and deed.” Then, of course, they hear two Scripture lessons at every service.

INDOCTRINATION THROUGH HYMNS

Church people the world over love their old hymns, and these doubtless keep alive in them an awareness of their sin and the saving merit of the Lord Jesus. This is true even in the case of the man who judges a hymn by its tune rather than its words. Religious journals now and then ask readers to submit a list of their favorite hymns. In such public opinion polls it is evident that the musical setting is the thing by which many people do judge a hymn. While popular hymn tunes come and go, hymns that proclaim definite Bible truths have a way of surviving. “Come, Thou Almighty King” is sung as fervently today as it was 200 years ago; and “Holy, Holy, Holy,” stirs a congregation today no less than it did our forefathers 130 years ago. Both hymns are soundly evangelical.

Article continues below

A good hymn is Trinitarian. As Christians we worship not merely a Supreme Being, but the Triune God. Vague, deistic hymns do not satisfy the true Christian. “Come, Thou Almighty King” is a sturdy hymn of four stanzas, the first addressed to the Father, the second to the Son, the third to the Holy Ghost, and the fourth to the Holy Trinity. Charles Wesley’s “Father, in Whom We Live” follows exactly the same pattern, and is even more definite, for the Father’s work of creation, the Son’s work of redeeming grace, and the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification are specifically mentioned. “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” is a fine, stirring hymn that deserves a place in all our hymnals. It is a metrical version of the ancient Te Deum, and it is Trinitarian. Unfortunately most people know its fine melody in an abridged form with its solid harmonies thinned down, and the tune adapted to “Sun of my Soul,” a good devotional piece.

A good evangelical hymn is definitely Christian. This is a truism, and yet the fact remains that some hymns rated high in popularity contests are not especially Christian. “Lead Kindly Light,” for instance, is popular but vague. It speaks of gloom, night, a distant scene, a garish day, fears, past years, moor, fen, crag, and torrent, but there is no specific mention of the Saviour, nor of sin, repentance and the saving grace of Jesus Christ. It is rather a wealth of hazy imagery. “Jesus, Lover of my Soul” also has its imagery, but it is much more definite. Waters, tempests, and havens are mentioned incidentally, whereas the Lord Jesus is mentioned repeatedly, sin is confessed, the sinner’s inability to save himself is acknowledged, and God’s grace in Jesus Christ is proclaimed as the sinner’s only hope. These truths are more definitely Christian in their content than “Nearer my God to Thee” with its sketchy references to a song, a wanderer, the sun, darkness, a stone, dreams, steps and angels, but no mention of the Son of God.

An evangelical hymn will be Christ-centered and Redemption-centered. Hymns of praise to God the Father are excellent, but they do not go far enough. Those that speak only of rosy dawns, rising suns, hills tipped with gold and singing birds, may contain the element of joy, but they are secular songs, not evangelical hymns. The same is true of the type of evening hymn that goes no farther than setting suns and deepening shadows. Thomas Ken was aware of this, and in his excellent evening hymn, “All Praise to Thee, my God this Night,” he thanked the Lord for the blessings of the day, prayed for forgiveness of his sins, and asked for the Lord’s protection during the night. It is more than likely that Ken’s original hymn contained a stanza thanking the Lord for the gift of Redemption. In its closing stanza, his hymn has given to Christendom the words so familiar to believers everywhere: “Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow.” Matthew Bridges’ “Crown Him with Many Crowns” sets forth the truth of Redemption. Lenten hymns are especially Christ-centered and Redemption-centered. “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “Glory Be to Jesus,” “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” “Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted,” “Alas! and Did my Saviour Bleed” and “O Dearest Jesus, What Law Hast Thou Broken” are but a few of a long list of treasures of Christian hymnody. “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” violates almost every canon of the hymnologist and the church musician. Such men tell us that it is superficial, yet most church people place it at the head of the list of favorite hymns. Its Christ-centered character outweighs whatever technical defects it may contain, although it is not a Redemption hymn. The gifts for which it asks are largely those of the peace-of-mind kind.

Article continues below
UNWORTHINESS OF TRIVIALITY

An evangelical hymn will not be trivial. Sixty years ago a noted hymn writer gave us the following: “A downy little duckling went waddling off one day; He didn’t like the other ducks; With them he wouldn’t play,” etc. The fourth stanza begins, “He caught a great big June bug, As fat as fat could be.” The same hymn writer composed another hymn which begins: “Once a trap was baited with a dainty piece of cheese; It tickled so a little mouse it almost made him sneeze.” These two nonsensical things were included in a hymnal that was a best seller in its day. It was hymns of the trivial type that led Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein, in his Patterns of God’s Truth (1954), to say that much evangelical music is cheap, vulgar, and false. He asks whether the time has not come to admit that such things are nothing but ear-tickling devices, unworthy of association with the grand truths of our Redemption.

Article continues below

A good Christian hymn will contain teachings and imagery that are in accord with the Bible. Some hymns include false ideas. They give the impression that when a Christian dies he becomes an angel and plays upon a harp. Angels are created beings, and not redeemed men, women, and children. They are of a fixed number, and their glorious company is never increased by the birth of infant angels nor by the constant arrival of redeemed Christians who have been transformed at death from human beings to angels. They are sinless, sexless, and they never die. It was the painter, the designer of stained glass, the maker of cemetery memorials, and the hymn writer who created the pictures of beautiful young ladies with long golden hair, white feathery wings, and harps of gold. Four such celestial beings, in stone, used to stand guard on a church tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue, and another has stood for several decades on the apse of one of our most famous American cathedrals.

Incorrect teachings concerning death and the future life are often to be found in hymns. “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere” and “Somewhere a Voice Is Calling” are bewildered laments of uncertainty. “I Know that my Redeemer Lives” is a hymn of positive assurance. “The Strife is O’er” has been sung for 850 years, and it is the joyous hymn of the Christian who has no fear of death and no misgivings with regard to future life. “Jerusalem the Golden” was written some 820 years ago, and is still a favorite hymn of assurance.

Isaac Watts’ “The Law Commands and Makes Us Know” is a remarkable hymn. It is a metrical summary of the uses of Law and Gospel. This is a subject upon which much confusion exists, not only in hymn writing but often in preaching. An American hymn writer, Matthias Loy, wrote two hymns, “The Law of God Is Good and Wise” and “The Gospel Shows the Father’s Grace.” Each of these hymns contains six L.M. stanzas in which the distinction between Law and Gospel is stated much more fully than in Isaac Watts’ brief summary.

Many soundly evangelical hymns are colorless today because of unpardonable alterations. Why must our hymn committees persist in mutilating Williams of Pant-y-celyn’s excellent “Guide me, O Thou Great Redeemer,” and making of it a deistic thing? Baring Gould protested emphatically because his hymns were not only set to music that irritated him, but because their words were altered so as to “wash all the color and the definiteness out of them.” Modernists at civic functions have gone so far as to change the closing words of Ken’s famous Doxology to “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, for all that’s good: Praise Him for human brotherhood.” Other Modernists, rejecting the Virgin Birth, have not hesitated to tamper with the beloved “Silent Night,” and at public functions have actually caused it to be sung: “Silent night! Holy Night! All is calm, all is bright, Round you valleys and hillsides afar, Shines the light of many a star,” and so forth. At the recent funeral of a famous man, the words “through our Lord Jesus Christ” were deleted from 1 Corinthians 15:57. Men who intentionally omit the Saviour’s name from hymns, Scripture verses, and prayers would do well to read carefully the words of the old hymn, “Jesus, and Shall It Ever Be, A Mortal Man Ashamed of Thee.”

Article continues below

In such a brief discussion, only a few representative hymns have been mentioned, and they have been considered from the standpoint of text, rather than music. Hundreds of good hymns might be mentioned: morning hymns, evening hymns, opening hymns, closing hymns, Advent hymns, Christmas hymns, Easter hymns, hymns in praise of God’s Word, metrical Psalmody, revival hymns, and many others. The subject is controversial. A noted Scotsman who occupied a prominent New York pulpit for many years used to tell of a village overseas where controversy over burgher’s oaths, hymns, Psalmody, and musical instruments became so strong that there was left only one half dozen churches of the same denomination in the small village, and one of those reported having two members. Unanimity can never be achieved in this world, but at least one may be careful to select hymns that contain definite evangelical truth.

A Sound of Weeping

“… he beheld the city, and wept over it …”

His agony of weeping

Reverberates

Through long, spent centuries;

Reiterates

Afresh the tragedy of human waste.

He scanned the age, the heart

And wept to see

The things that make for Peace

Denied; for He

Knew unrequited love, saw hope debased.

He wept …

And surely weeps!

MILDRED R. BENSMILLER

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.

Our digital archives are a work in progress. Let us know if corrections need to be made.

Tags:
Issue: