To me this will always be the hymn for a bright and sunny morning–All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name. May the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord blaze forth this day in glory, He whose right it is to rule Creation. May that day come soon when every knee shall bow to Him, and every tongue confess Him Lord. The sooner, the better, O God! Amen.
This is the hymn I had in me this morning: All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, by Edward Perronet in 1780. This hymn was sung, I remember vividly, at our open-air hilltop chapel at Y camp, one Sunday morning; and the counselors’ choir sang it with a will. I will never forget what a beautiful day that was, with fields and woodlands spread out below us in every direction. How wonderful are the works of your hands, O Lord!
This isn’t the All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name that I grew up with: totally different melody, that I’ve never heard before. But it’s still beautiful.
I’m unable to identify the congregation singing it. I can only say they’re somewhere in England. A man in the pews is wearing a gold chain of office, so that’s the giveaway.
The congregation and choir at Temple Baptist Church, Powell, Tennessee, will never let you down when you want a hymn belted out with joy and panache, as it should be belted out. Start your day with All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name. Ought to be blue sky, forested hills, and fertile farmlands in the background–a church without walls–but Temple Baptist will do.
How I longed for this hymn this morning! I don’t know why: I just had to hear it–All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name. The lyrics were published in 1770, and thre are several melodies that go with it. This is the one I grew up with.
I can never hear this hymn without remembering an outdoor chapel service one Sunday morning at the Y camp, in the summer, under a perfect azure sky, overlooking a quiltwork of cultivated fields and rolling, wooded hills. This is what they sang: and I’m willing to bet God heard it.
This hymn popped into my mind this morning when my Bible reading brought me to I Corinthians 1:30, “But of him [God] are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”
This is All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, sung by the congregation of the First Plymouth Church in Lincoln, Nebraska. You might want to turn up the volume!
It’s getting to be that what I’ve stated in the headline is almost as controversial a claim today as it was in the First Century. I don’t think the rulers and big shots of our world like to hear it any more than the Roman Caesars did.
So let’s pump up the volume and say it again! Jesus Christ is Lord of all!
From time to time we have all encountered empty barrels making a loud noise about this being “a post-Christian age, you might as well get used to it” and learn to love pseudomarriage, abortion, transgenderism, and all the rest of it.
But actually we have yet to have our Christian Age. That can only come when Christ reigns in Heaven and on Earth; and it will last forever. So this can’t really be a post-Christian age. It’s just a lousy one.
Why does the Bible, especially in the Book of Revelation, depict Christ as it were joining in marriage to His church? Why do we speak of the marriage supper of the Lamb?
Because the world–and His church will eventually embrace the whole world, and the world His church–is not complete without Him! Creation, all Creation, will not be its true self until Christ Himself reigns over it!
That’s why God’s word speaks of it as marriage. Because in marriage two are joined into one flesh, one spirit: and each becomes more than it ever would have been, if left alone. Not that Christ needs anything from the world: except that we know God loves the world, loves us: otherwise the Father would not have sent the Son into the world, and the Son would not have spent His precious blood, His very life, for us.
These are high and holy things, difficult to grasp. So we keep trying.
In the meantime, we proclaim the Lordship of Christ and the truth of Christ: that He shall come again, He shall conquer, and He shall reign forever and ever.
Anybody mind if I post another hymn today? This is one of my all-time favorites–All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, sung here by Chris Tomlin.
Hey, everybody, the hymn shop’s always open! Only a few of you regularly ask me to post your favorite hymns, and I’d really like to hear from more of you. This is an evil age–and that means we’ve got to sing louder.
Turn the volume way up–here’s a hymn to blow out the cobwebs… and get rid of the bad taste left by the preceding news story.
All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, an 18th-century hymn, is sung to several different melodies. This is one I haven’t posted before.
Do you see the difference? False gods demand human sacrifices. Our God sacrified Himself for us, in the person of His only begotten Son, Jesus.
False gods enslave. Jesus Christ sets free.
Let every kindred, every tribe, on this terrestrial ball
to Him all majesty ascribe, and crown Him Lord of all…
Here is a melody for this hymn completely different from the melody I grew up with: nevertheless, a soul-reviving rendition by the Duke University Chapel choir.
Personally, I don’t often seek the Son of Man in grand circumstances: but we must never forget that He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and worthy of pomp and grandeur beyond our power to conceive. He is, after all, the King of Glory.