18b Rejoice the Lord Is King

Hymns of the Faith

“Rejoice, the Lord Is King”

Philippians 4; Psalm 97

A Presentation of First Presbyterian Church

Jackson, Mississippi

With

Dr. Ligon Duncan, Dr. Derek Thomas, and Dr. Bill Wymond

Dr. Wymond: Good morning! This is “Hymns of the Faith,” brought to you by Jackson’s First Presbyterian Church. The minister of the First Presbyterian Church is Dr. Ligon Duncan. Stay tuned for “Hymns of the Faith.” ….and here with “Hymns of the Faith” is Dr. Ligon Duncan.

Dr. Duncan: Thank you, Bill Wymond. This is Ligon Duncan, along with Derek Thomas, and the three of us are here today to talk about hymns of the faith, these great treasures of Christian devotion that have been handed down to the church over the last two millennia, and which now we enjoy singing Lord’s Day after Lord’s Day. Today we’re looking at a great Charles Wesley hymn, Rejoice, the Lord Is King.

Now for some of you, to hear that title announced will bring to mind both the text and the song. This is, for us in our congregation, almost always sung to DARWALL, a tune which is named after the author. To get it into your head before we begin talking about it, let me ask Bill Wymond if he would play DARWALL for us. [Dr. Wymond plays.] It’s a sturdy, durable, and flexible tune. We use it for a number of different things, and we’ll talk about the tune itself in a few moments, and its composer.

Derek, I want to note right off the top of the program that this text zeroes in on the ascension and the heavenly session, the reigning of Jesus Christ at God’s right hand of God, and works out all manner of implications for us as believers, based on that particular truth. Remind us a little bit about this remarkable hymn composer, Charles Wesley, and a little bit about the background to this hymn.

Dr. Thomas: Well, Wesley of course, and his brother John, are the founders, I suppose we would say, of Methodism, in the eighteenth century – Charles, by far and away being more well known for his composition of some of the best hymns in our hymnic repertoire, I suppose.

Dr. Duncan: We were saying off air that Charles Wesley, the composer of this hymn, himself was responsible for about fifty volumes of hymns, and in one of my background pieces here (I’m not sure whether it’s Julian or if this is in another item) it shows 63 volumes of poetical works by John and Charles Wesley.

I know that the number of hymns that’s attributed to Charles is in the range of – what? Five thousand or more? He was incredibly prolific in terms of his hymn writing.

Dr. Thomas: And Can It Be That I Should Gain; Christ, the Lord, Is Risen Today; Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus; Jesus, Lover of My Soul; Love Divine, All Loves Excelling; O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing; Soldiers of Christ, Arise…and on and on.

Dr. Duncan: So it’s not just that he wrote a lot of hymns; it’s that he wrote a lot of hymns that are in sort of your “Top 100 List for All Time in English Hymnody,” which is remarkable. There are very few people that were able to produce so much that was of such consistently high quality.

Dr. Thomas: And I wonder if the experience of the Great Awakening and its aftermath…the way in which John and Charles (one thinks of the great event in London where, in John’s language, his “soul was strangely warmed”)…where if there’s to be a good hymn, there has to be a wedding of great theology, but also deep experiential value.

Dr. Duncan: Right. Bill, you were commenting on this off the air before we came on. I don’t know whether it was Julian or someone else commenting on how the Methodist corporate experience of singing was wedded to their passion for holiness and for Christ.

Dr. Wymond: It was interesting. When the Methodists in college (or in university) first formed and they were using a method of devotion and lifestyle, it says when they “declined” – and the implication was when there was a decline spiritually – their singing went away. And then after their conversions – the Wesley brothers and so on – and the formation of the Methodists, they started singing, and singing became an important part of their experience.

The same thing sort of happened in the Scottish church, too. Their Psalm-singing declined as they had controversies over how they ought to be doing the Psalms and so on like that, so they got to a point at one time where they were not even singing in the Scots church in the eighteenth century. So it’s interesting how singing wells out of one’s own devotional life; and when that declines, perhaps our interest in singing declines.

Dr. Duncan: The composer of this tune, Bill is John Darwall, and he was writing in the eighteenth century, a little bit after the time that John and Charles Wesley were around. Tell us a little bit about the tune itself and about the author, or the composer.

Dr. Wymond: Well, first something about John Darwall, the composer. The thing that is remarkable about him is that he was really not remarkable! And I don’t mean that as any kind of slur upon him. He was born in Staffordshire, England, and he served his whole life as a minister in a parish in the Midlands called Walsall. I think that’s interesting, how this man went to this one church and served all of his life there. Actually, that speaks well of him, that he could endure. We had a minister in our own church here who was here for 44 years, Dr. Hutton, and long pastors can bear certain fruit because ministers know families through various generations and have a great impact on families, I think.

So he was at St. Matthew’s Parish in Walsall, and he was also an amateur musician and enjoyed especially setting the Psalms to new tunes. There’s a very famous version, an early version of the Psalter by Tate and Brady – Nathan Tate and Nicolas Brady – and the tunes for those were considered sort of old fashioned by the nineteenth century. And so Darwall proposed writing new tunes for these versions of the Psalter, and did so. And he said that the tunes ought to be more lively. He said you could sing six verses in a more lively way to four verses of the old tunes that were used from Tate and Brady. So when there was an interest in putting out a new version of Tate and Brady, he wrote tunes that were used.

And “lively” is a good word to use for the kinds of tunes that he did, because this tune, Rejoice, the Lord Is King, is both lively and energetic to me. It’s one of the most energetic tunes I know. We’ve actually talked about this tune before, but I love the ascending line of this as it refers back to the fundamental note, which is this note [plays], and it jumps up by thirds [plays], then fifths [plays], then by octaves. To me that’s a very strong way for the tune to progress: “Rejoice, the Lord is King…” and so for such an elevated thought it has great strength.

And then as it comes to sing what we should do in our rejoicing, it says “Your Lord and King adore.” [Plays.] A lot of times hymn tunes have to…when it makes an initial statement and wants to explain why…will have a descending passage. And then it goes back up again [plays]. Those are kind of big jumps for hymn tunes, and the words are big in their scope, too: “Rejoice, give thanks, and sing and triumph evermore.” And then when it says “lift up your voice” it lifts up the tune [plays]. “Lift up your voice, rejoice again…” It goes right up more than an octave…”I say, rejoice!” To me, this is one of the strongest and most inspiring tunes that I know, because of those musical features.

Dr. Duncan: It’s bright. The tune is very bright. And I think it has the effect of producing what the words are asking you to do – to lift up your heart. The very tune helps you, it seems, to do what the words are asking you to do.

Dr. Wymond: The way it’s put together just affects us emotionally in a really strong way, and in a cheerful way. You can’t hear this or sing this tune without having that effect upon you.

Dr. Duncan: Right. Derek, there are a lot of features to this song that you brought to my attention that I had not thought about that I want to talk with you about. But I do want to say one more word about Wesley. You know, there are hymnologists, and those that love to study hymns and the history of hymns argue about was Wesley better or was Watts better? You know, who was sort of the front rank of the hymn writers of this period of time? And there’s a very interesting statement here that comes from a famous hymnologist named Dr. David Breed, and he says this:

“Watts is more reverential; Wesley, more loving. Watts is stronger; Wesley, sweeter. Watts appeals profoundly to the intellect; Wesley takes hold of the heart. Watts will continue to sing for the Paul’s and Peter’s of the church; Wesley for the Thomas’s and the John’s. Where both are so great, it would be idle to attempt to settle their priority. Let us only be grateful that God in His gracious providence has given both to the church to voice the praises of the various classes.”

That’s a beautiful way of describing the relative emphases and strengths of these wonderful hymn writers.

But one thing that you drew attention to, and I think it’s appropriate and want to get you to talk about, is how the song helps us do what the text asks us to do. You had mentioned, Derek, that in the refrain, each time we sing it – five times in our hymnal, to five stanzas – there is an English version of a very ancient Latin Christian word of worship instruction called the circum corda. Tell us just a little bit about that, because that factors into Calvin’s worship and into continental Reformed worship as well.

Dr. Thomas: Just circum corda in Latin of course means lift up your hearts. I was reading recently in a fairly dense and difficult book by Aaron Milavec, it was actually his doctoral dissertation on the The Didache¹, which is one of the earliest manuscripts known to us…

Dr. Duncan: Which, roughly translated, means the teaching…the teaching of the Apostles.

Dr. Thomas: And it used to be thought that The Didache came from the middle of the second century, but Aaron Milavec has argued strongly that it’s actually from the sixties of the first century, so within the lifetime of the Apostles – though he is not actually suggesting that it was put together by the Apostles. But in any case, the circum corda occurs in the liturgy of the earliest church outside of The Acts of the Apostles that we know of. And Calvin, of course, whose great concern was to take worship back to the early church and was a wonderful scholar of the church fathers, introduced or re-introduced…well, I suppose the circum corda was part of the Latin mass liturgy, so Calvin retained the circum corda, but actually moved it from where it was in the Latin mass to the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper.

Dr. Duncan: And it fits in with his doctrine of what is going on when the believer communes in the Lord’s Supper.

Dr. Thomas: Right; to lift up our hearts, contrary to all the stuff that goes about concerning the Lord’s Supper these days. But Calvin is saying we are communing with Christ physically, who is at the right hand of God. So it would be appropriate to lift up one’s heart. So this very well known part of liturgy, Lift up your heart… “lift up your voice”… of course it would have been antiphonal, so the minister would say, “Lift up your hearts,” and the congregation would respond, “We lift them up unto the Lord,” which is still part of the …well, I’m not sure the latest Anglican liturgy, but certainly was part of the Cranmer liturgy of 1559-1562, that first liturgy.

Dr. Wymond: Well, I wanted to ask you, but I don’t want to divert your thought here, so go ahead if you’d like.

Dr. Thomas: My thoughts had expired!

Dr. Wymond: Well, good! Now, Derek, you often tell us that you sing these things to different tunes over in Great Britain. Is this the tune…?

Dr. Thomas: No.

Dr. Wymond: OK. It couldn’t happen to be this one…? [Plays.] It’s called ARTHUR’S SEAT.

Dr. Thomas: Oh, right! In Anglican circles I think it’s sung to GOPSELL…not “gospel” but “Gopsell,” which is the home of the man called Jenners or Jennings…the man who wrote the text to Handel’s Messiah.

Dr. Wymond: Yes, Charles Jennings. Well, I ask you about this tune because we had talked about Sir John Goss, who wrote that wonderful Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven. Well, he wrote this tune for this hymn.

Dr. Thomas: ARTHUR’S SEAT?

Dr. Wymond: Yes, ARTHUR’S SEAT – [plays tune]…just going to do a little bit more…perfectly Victorian and not anything as good as DARWALL.

Dr. Duncan: I wonder if it’s named after Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh. For those of you who have visited Edinburgh, Scotland, Arthur’s Seat is the massive volcanic formation which is on the east, and slightly to the south of a volcanic ridge that runs up to the castle in Edinburgh, which is called The Royal Mile, from Holyrood Palace up to the castle, and Arthur’s Seat is…if you saw the movie Chariots of Fire, it’s in the background as Jennie and Eric are having their famous argument (that never happened in real history, but adds a little poetic dramatic scene to the movie).

Dr. Thomas: Well, the original tune was RESURRECTION, correct? There was a tune written by Samuel Wesley called RESURRECTION.

Dr. Wymond: Well, it’s interesting how sometimes these tunes and words are immediately wedded to the best, and in this instance there were several attempts before…and I think that this tune that I did by Goss is so Victorian, and not in a particularly good way. It’s a little flighty for me, but…

Dr. Duncan: I think the progressions in DARWALL would be hard to beat for this hymn because it’s so much focusing on ascension and reign. I think it would be hard to come up with a better tune.

Dr. Wymond: Well, that’s a bit of likeness there, but we should go to more important things which concern the text.

Dr. Duncan: Well, just looking at the text itself, Derek, in our hymnal it suggests for reflection Hebrews 1:3.

Dr. Thomas: Well, probably the opening allusion is Psalm 97, don’t you think? “Rejoice, the Lord is King…let all creation” …however Psalm 97 begins.

Dr. Duncan: Yes, and you also mentioned that perhaps in the repetition of “Rejoice, again I say, rejoice” is pointing us to the Pauline exhortation that comes in Philippians 4 and points, as that whole book does, to the significance of the believer rejoicing in God in the Christian life.

Dr. Thomas: Some reference to the Creed may well be here in Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension, sitting at God’s right hand in glory, and so on.

The original first verse is different from what we have here. Our text here reads:

“Rejoice, the Lord is King: your Lord and King adore!

Rejoice, give thanks, and sing, and triumph evermore.”

But the original said,

“Rejoice, the Lord is King: your Lord and King adore!

Mortals give thanks and sing and triumph evermore.”

Dr. Duncan: And Wesley was trying to pair that with what, Derek? At the end of this hymn?

Dr. Thomas: Well, the final stanza is of

“Rejoice in glorious hope! Our Lord, the Judge, shall come,

And take His servants up to their eternal home.”

So there’s a contrast between mortality and eternal life.

Dr. Duncan: So in the language of Paul, when the mortal puts on immortality…and so he’s trying to draw attention to that glorious Pauline theme.

Dr. Thomas: And I think…I sort of regret that that change has been made, because I think a reminder of our mortality is a good thing: that we are mortal, that it is appointed unto man once to die.

Dr. Duncan: And at the same time a reminder of our embodied existence in the world to come; that we’re not sort of airy-fairy spirits flying around, but there is this embodied reality that is awaiting when the Judge comes and takes us to our eternal home. We’re not floating around on the clouds, but we have real bodies—glorious bodies, but real bodies.

Dr. Thomas: In theology we talk about “the session of Christ.” And it used to be part of vocabulary that would have been fairly commonly understood. But what does that mean, Ligon, in verse four: “He sits at God’s right hand, till all His foes submit”? What is the significance?

Dr. Duncan: Well, one thing – to go back to a point that you’ve already made, but which I want to emphasize because someone may have missed, is that there is definitely The Apostles’ Creed in the background here. Even if a person doesn’t know what we are talking about when we talk about the heavenly session of Christ, if they are Christians and they say The Apostles’ Creed, they confess that they believe in the heavenly session of Christ every time they repeat The Apostles’ Creed and use the words that “He sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.”

The heavenly session is the enthronement of Jesus Christ over all things, whereby He rules this world by His word and Spirit from the right hand of the heavenly Father. And this song wants to apply to the believer and to the believer’s joy and rejoicing numerous aspects of what it means for us that Jesus is reigning at the right hand of God.

So for instance, the first stanza reminds us that this means that Jesus triumphs. The world may have had on its vision the crucifixion of Jesus and the burial of Jesus, but for the believer he cannot but think of both the resurrection and of the ascension of Jesus, so that Jesus’ session at the right hand is a constant reminder to the believer that Jesus has triumphed. He’s triumphed over death, and that means what for us? We are going to triumph over death one day.

And then in the second stanza, He “…reigns, the God of truth and love.” And His reign means what? He has purged our stains. Seeing Him on the seat…. You know, it seems to me that a friend of mine wrote a book about this. Let me see…his name was Derek Thomas! And it’s a book called Taken Up to Heaven, ² isn’t it?

Dr. Thomas: It is.

Dr. Duncan: And it’s all about this! So why are you asking me the questions about it? I should be asking you the questions about it—you wrote the book!

Dr. Thomas: I’ve always loved that allusion. Of course there are several allusions in Hebrews that Jesus is sitting, and what a perfect picture that is of somebody who has triumphed, when the King comes and sits on His throne. But when Stephen is being killed, he sees Jesus standing. What’s going on? Why is He standing?

Dr. Duncan: Well, there are a lot of ways you can go there, and that’s where our background folks like to duke it out, over the symbolism of that. Some people will indicate that the standing is an expression of the acceptance and vindication of Stephen as his Master, Lord and King stands to receive him into His presence in the mode of a Roman emperor delivering a positive judgment and verdict – maybe on a victorious General who has come into his presence to announce to the emperor that a great battle has been won. But it’s a beautiful, beautiful symbolism that the Lord Jesus Christ is there receiving His servant who has just died for Him. Bill?

Dr. Wymond: Just one thing before we hear the tune sung. That last line: “Our Lord, the Judge….” That’s always struck me: He’s our Savior and our Judge “…shall come to take His servants up to their eternal home.”

Let’s listen to this hymn. The singing will be by the Choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, with John Scott conducting.

“Rejoice, the Lord is King: your Lord and King adore!

Rejoice, give thanks, and sing, and triumph evermore.

“Lift up your heart,

Lift up your voice!