Hymns of Grace

Spirit-filled Christians sing. In fact, nothing is more indicative of a fulfilled spiritual life, a forgiven and contented soul, and a joyful heart than the expression of song. Scripture declares the first consequence of the Spirit-filled life is a heart that sings (Ephesians 5:19).

 

Believers experience an internal joy that manifests itself in music. It is God himself who puts that music in the souls and then on the lips of those who love Him. It is because we have been declared righteous, have been purified from sin, and have become partakers of God’s own holiness that we sing. Christians alone have eternal reasons to sing. God himself puts a song in our mouths, “a song of praise to our God” (Psalm 40:3). Because we are saved, we sing songs of salvation.

 

The music that God gives His people is not the music of the world. God’s new song is the song of redemption. “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless His name; proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day” (Psalm 96:1–2). The word new is used more frequently in Scripture in relation to song than to any other feature of salvation. God gives His new creatures a new song, a different song, a distinctive song, a purer song, and a more beautiful song than anything the world can produce.

 

When God delivered Israel out of Egypt, all the people came together and sang a song to the Lord (Exodus 15:1–18). After they finished, Moses’ sister, Miriam, led the women in further singing. After Israel was delivered from the Canaanites, they “sang on that day” (Judges 5:1). Of the 38,000 people who ministered at the Temple in Jerusalem, 4,000 were musicians; and in Nehemiah we read of antiphonal choirs (Nehemiah 12:31, 38).

 

The last thing Jesus and His disciples did following communion in the upper room was to sing a hymn before they went out to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was arrested (Matthew 26:30). While they were imprisoned in Philippi, “about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” (Acts 16:25). On the heavenly Mount Zion the 144,000 who will have been purchased from the earth will sing “a new song before the throne” of Christ (Revelation 14:3).

 

In heaven the four living creatures and the twenty four elders fall down before Jesus Christ, the Lamb, and sing “they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,’ ” (Revelation 5:8–9). 

 

Believers have sung their way through history, and in the process have accumulated a body of hymns that express divine truth. This volume is the latest collection of hymns the church has come to love. It is my prayer that these treasures will continue to strengthen and bless our worship.