This syrupy piece of marijuana-haze hymnody is found in the hymnals of churches that have substituted sentiment for orthodoxy and worship. Hence you don’t find it in older Presbyterian hymnals, but in the Trinity Hymnal. Nor do you find it in Episcopal and Lutheran hymnals until very recently in some Lutheran books.
The song would be much improved if the spacy refrain were omitted. I don’t know if Horatio Spafford actually wrote this refrain in his original poem or if it were added by Philip Bliss in his gooey music, but I do know that if I smoked marijuana I’d love it. It drifts along in a haze that is so far unlike anything God enjoys, as seen in the book of psalms, that is might as well be Hindu.
Happily, two of Spafford’s stanzas are usually omitted:
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
But, Lord, ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh trump of the angel! Oh voice of the Lord!
Blessèd hope, blessèd rest of my soul!
“No pang shall be mine”? How utterly unlike David in the psalms, who certainly feels pangs and cries out to God. “The sky, not the grave, is our goal”? This sound like “earth is not my home, I’m bound for heaven” nonsense. No, we are bound for resurrection, as Luther’s great hymns constantly remind us.
Still, the hymn might be salvaged, if it is worth salvaging given how many great hymns are unknown, if the refrain were omitted and the last stanza dropped. “And Lord, haste the day….” What? We want Jesus to FAIL? We want Him to come back soon, having failed to disciple all nations as He said He intended to do? Surely no Christian wants Jesus to fail and be humiliated having been defeated by sin and the devil. We don’t want Him to come back soon. We want Him to conquer the world and disciple all nations!
Now, it is normal and proper for Christians to hope and pray for a reversal of the curse. What the Bible teaches, however, is not that we should hope for history to end but for the kingdom of Jesus to become accepted and evermore manifest in history. It used to be that 1/2 of all children born died in their early years. That is no longer so. Our grief should not make us pray for Jesus to return soon, but to pray for men to repent and the blessings of His kingdom overcome the curses brought by Adam and sinful men. The sentiments in Joy Patterson’s hymn below are what we should pray.
My opinion? Follow the lead of those churches serious about worship hymnody and DROP THIS SONG! And substitute this fine alternative, which can be sung to Sursum Corda:
- When aimless violence takes those we love,
When random death strikes childhood’s promise down,
When wrenching loss becomes our daily bread,
We know, O God, You leave us not alone. - When passing years rob sight and strength and mind
Yet fail to still a strongly beating heart,
And grief becomes the fabric of our days,
Dear Lord, You do not stand from us apart. - Our faith may flicker low, and hope grow dim,
Yet You, O God, are with us in our pain;
You grieve with us and for us day by day,
And with us, sharing sorrow, will remain. - Because Your Son knew agony and loss,
Felt desolation, grief and scorn and shame,
We know You will be with us, come what may,
Your loving presence near, always the same. - Through long, grief-darkened days help us, dear Lord,
To trust Your grace for courage to endure,
To rest our souls in Your supporting love,
And find our hope within Your mercy sure.
Biblical Horizons 
Are you familiar with this excellent hymnal, from the author of See The Conqueror Mounts in Triumph?
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4xs3rot
Also, I’ve found George MacDonald’s translations of Luther’s hymns to be very good (they’re the ones in the Luther’s Works, Liturgy and Hymns) and you can find them free online here:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4ygne2n
Wow. Thanks for those. Those reading these blogs should check them out, especially since the hymnal is set up for the Sundays of the year. You may know that chorales were written for every gospel of the church year, and that it is those “chorales of the week” that become the bases of Bach’s cantatas.
[…] Hymn Bark #3, When Peace Like a River – I usually agree with Jim, after all he was my pianist for almost three years and has more than anyone shaped my liturgical theology. Here he gives an example of bad Presbyterian hymnody. […]
This raises another question: Can we use lyrics differently than the author meant them? For instance, may a reconstuctionist sing dispensationalist lyrics?
I suggest that if we replace the phony idea of an ‘imminent rapture’ with a Biblical and historical longing for the Day of the LORD, that is, local and temporal judgment upon rebels and vindication of submitters, we may sing them. From the Red Sea incident through the fall of Saddam Hussein—not excluding the fall of Jerusalem—history has seen many such temporal ‘comings.’ We’d like to see more. That’s what I mean, when I sing “Give His angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast.”
With some songs, it’s a stretch. “It May Be At Morn” has so much end-of-time language, I may sit silent with knitted brow.
But the final stanza of “When Peace Like a River” seems consistent with local, temporal judgment: the language is all from Matthew 24! The author thought it referred to the end of time, but we know better, so why not sing it?
And if you do sing it, you’ve got to have the refrain: Despite all this, it is well with my soul. Despite the delay of God’s recompense, and although we still cry “Vindicate me!” with the Psalmist, it is still well between me and God. I cry for deliverance, for myself and my people, my brothers throughout the world. But I trust God completely. It IS well with my soul.
It’s around #1250 on my list of favorites, but I wouldn’t forbid it.
I guess. For my money, given the hundreds of excellent eschatological hymns out there forgotten in old hymnals, and given the perspective of the psalter, songs with this kind of ambience seem very very far removed from the Bible. And if you have to introduce a song with a fairly tortured explanation of how we can actually sing it, despite appearances, then why not sing something else?
[…] got a nice tune, but is it a good hymn? James Jordan says no. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this […]
‘“No pang shall be mine”? How utterly unlike David in the psalms, who certainly feels pangs and cries out to God. “The sky, not the grave, is our goal”? This sound like “earth is not my home, I’m bound for heaven” nonsense.’
Ah, now here I cannot agree. On neither count.
1. ‘No pang shall be mine’ is surely proper aspiration. Paul viewed being with Christ as ‘very far better’. If he had a ‘pang’ it was only that he was still necessary for the well-being of the church. Our ‘pangs’ tend to be much more worldly. They may exist but I am not at all sure they are so praiseworthy.
Of course the bigger question raised is just how normative David’s understanding should be for new covenant believers. The answer to that seeps into your second concern.
2. “The sky, not the grave, is our goal”? Firstly, I think you are misreading the writer’s principal point. He is not contrasting a heavenly and earthly future but the coming of Christ for his people and death. He is saying our true desire is translation, not dissolution and the intermediate state. This seems to me to be a proper biblical hope (2 Cor 5:1-5).
But I guess Jim, your real concern is where this hope is set. I am inclined to agree that it is a hope that involves an earthly future though I am by no means as sure as you seem to be. For a number of reasons. a) the promise of Christ that he would take his own to his Father’s House where he was about to return to (Jn 14). b) that Christ, as a man, is perfectly happy there enthroned at his father’s side suggests to me we must not suggest glorified humanity is not fitted for a heavenly realm. c) the regular NT references to a heavenly destiny for the people of God (Phil 3:20; 1 Pet 1:4; Hebrews). Now I recognise that ‘heavenly’ may refer to character rather than location but I don’t think this is by any means certain and some references seem to be obviously location. d) the new Jerusalem is seen by John as ‘coming down out of heaven’. It is clearly heavenly in origin and character and that is probably John’s main point. However, the assumption is often made that it comes down to earth. It is however, no more than an assumption since John never so says. The New Jerusalem is always ‘coming down out of heaven’; John’s concern here is its origins and not its destiny.
I am more inclined to the view that we must see the new heavens and new earth as in some sense spacially one. To say ‘the dwelling of God is with men’ is to remove the distinction between heaven and earth in a real and profound sense. If this is so then it is as true to say ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’ as it is to say ‘great is your reward in heaven’.
Finally, and in addition, another factor that needs to enter the equation is the difference between OT and NT revelation. OT revelation did not rise above this present heavens and earth renewed and resurrection therein. Even here its vision was slight. The OT spoke essentially of ‘earthly things’. It took someone from heaven to reveal heavenly things (Jn 3). Thus the idea of man in union with Christ and seated in heavenly places is NT perspective and revelation.
You’re a reconstructionist, I know, and won’t concur with these observations, however, I feel them worth mentioning.
I will ignore the last two stanzas, which I think John deals with quite well. But looking at the hymn as a whole I don’t for a moment see how you can say this is for “churches that have substituted sentiment for orthodoxy and worship”. It is the total opposite. It is a hymn that talks about how whatever the circumstances, emotions and sentiments that life flings at us, we can stand firm in our Saviour and praise him. It is all about the triumph of sure and certain hope against transient circumstances, trials and temptations.
Surely this hymn stands as sharing the truth of Habakkuk 3:17-18:
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour.