Hymn of the Week: June 12, 2023
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty
Glory to God: 1
Part 2
Text Reginald Heber 1826
Music: The United States Sacred Harmony 1799
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee,
casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
which wert and art and evermore shalt be.
Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide thee,
though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name in earth, and sky and sea.
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Todays Devotion
Part two of Holy, Holy, Holy is adapted from Eric Routley’s wonderful book, Hymns and the Faith, 1956.
The Blessed Trinity
The doctrine of the Trinity, and the doctrine that classically embodies it (the Nicene creed) is the tour de force of intellectual achievement. But – here is the vital truth without which the whole picture will be thrown out of the drawing – it is also the tour de force of intellectual renunciation.
Tour de Force
We mentioned last week how the Old Testament has a great paradox in its use of the word Holy. God is all-powerful but lets Abraham’s prayers persuade a certain outcome. God cannot be drawn or sculpted but words are used to describe God throughout the Bible. This titanic paradox is what sets the entire Old Testament in action.
The leaders of the early church were bold to ask: Dare we try to state all that in language which will convey the truth to somebody who is not yet morally or emotionally committed to it? Can we put it in such a way that the mind of man can accept this reality? When one sings Holy, Holy, Holy, one must have a need for the doctrine of the Trinity.
The codification and clarification of doctrine is entirely necessary to human life. When one talks of creeds and doctrines, there lies in the background a truth that is moral and emotional as well as intellectual. The truth is that it is the duty of every person to thrust out with their mind to its utmost limit. They must find for themselves by experimentation, where that limit is. To abandon intellectual sovereignty too early will be credulity; to abandon it too late will be arrogance.
The Christian must find the frontier, and when found, behave on this side of it with intellectual prudence and responsibility, and on the other with intellectual submission. It is our duty to grow up in the Faith, and this is how we do it. The mark of the mature Christian is the combination of real skill and clarity of mind mingled with submission of mind and humility before the holiness of God.
Dr. Routley concludes with the following: All this is a mystery. The fruitful attitude towards it is not analytical and explanatory, but the reverent and expectant. The author of our hymn, which is so magnificently incoherent reflects that necessity found in the hymn. The very shakiness and disjointedness of the hymn are a kind of humility. What we think is of less importance than what God is.
It is enough that the author of the hymn clothes the whole in the mysterious shot-silk colors of the book of Revelation, and that the musician has set the whole to a tune that strikes the homely and traditional note. Reverence and joy, on this scale, are a sufficient sacrifice of praise.
