I recently started reading through Our Own Hymnbook, the hymnal compiled by Charles Spurgeon for use in the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Despite my Reformed Baptist convictions and love of hymnody, I had overlooked what has since become one of my favorite hymnals. Yet as I read, I found myself asking, Do our churches still need new hymns?
The people of God are a people who sing. Our Own Hymnbook contains 1,130 hymns. If a congregation were to sing eight to ten songs a week, it could sing through the book for more than two years without ever repeating a song. And that would be without singing the divinely inspired Psalms or anything written since 1868.
Considering this rich treasury passed down to us, do we need more songs?
Hymns from Our History
As a hymn writer, I might be expected to say a resounding yes. But that would overstate the case.
Strictly speaking, we don’t need more hymns. The Psalms alone are sufficient for an eternity of worship. Were we to add the hymns of Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, and others to their number, we would be more than amply supplied. Our Own Hymnbook contains many great hymns that have stood the test of time.
In fact, these and other old hymns are part of what C.S. Lewis called the “clean breeze of the centuries.” Just like old books, old hymns correct our blind spots and deliver time-tested truths to our souls. We would do well to make hymns like these — along with the Psalms — a significant part of our worship.
Nevertheless, new hymns have a place in our worship as well. Songs can be written that speak to our people, in our time, in our language.
As hymn writers, we pen lyrics for our worship, for our congregations, for the people we know and love. We write to help “the word of Christ dwell in [them] richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16). As the preacher prepares his sermon with the gathered congregation in mind, so the poets prepare their songs.
Hymns for His People
Some months ago, an older member of our congregation stopped me in the aisle after the service. “I was reading The Olney Hymnbook this week, and it made me think of you,” he said. I was feeling rather flattered until he added, “It struck me that most of Newton’s hymns weren’t very good.”
Ouch. Thankfully, it wasn’t the poor quality of the hymns that reminded him of mine. He only meant to encourage me to keep writing, because although many of Newton’s hymns were written for a specific occasion and rightfully passed into obscurity, in the process he penned some truly great ones.
Our world would certainly be poorer if John Newton had cast his eye over a hymnbook in 1772 and thought No, we have enough. Can you imagine a hymnbook without “Amazing Grace” or “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken”? Of course, most of us won’t write hymns as powerful and lasting as those. But as my friend pointed out, neither did Newton most of the time. He wrote hymns to help his congregation understand the truths of the text he was preaching that Sunday.
Many of our songs will last only for the moment. Like the grass and flowers of the field, our words and songs will fade — and some more quickly than others. Only the word of our Lord stands forever (Isaiah 40:6–8). But new hymns can still do the people of God much good. Should Jesus tarry, perhaps some hymns written today will form the first breath of the clean breeze for centuries to come.
Hymns for His Glory
Most importantly, both poet and preacher prepare their words with the same ultimate audience in mind. The best reason to write new hymns is to express anew our wonder, love, and praise of our good God.
Over 150 years have passed since Spurgeon compiled his hymnbook. Yet the God we serve remains the same. Sin and salvation remain the same. Humanity remains the same. His mercies remain the same, and we experience them new every morning. Our songs, as with our sermons, should contain not “new” truths but old truths expressed in a new way. As the title to one of my favorite albums of Psalms puts it, these are “old paths, new feet.”
So has it always been. The psalmist writes, “Sing to the Lord a new song” (Psalm 96:1), but the song he sings contains nothing that is not found in the 95 psalms before it. He sings of the salvation of God (see Psalms 3, 9, 13, 18, 68), declares his glory to the nations (see Psalms 9, 68), praises God for the work of creation (see Psalm 8), ascribes to God strength and glory (see Psalms 8, 24, 29), and joins all creation in giving praise to God (see Psalms 89, 93). Generations before us have seen God’s glory and raised their Ebenezers in song to say, “Hither by thy help I’m come.” So should we.
So, poets, pick up your pen and praise your God, whose mercies are new every morning. Write for God and for us a new song. Tell us the old, old story in a new way. Write the very best song you can, and be prepared for it to be forgotten. Whatever happens to your new song, God has heard it, and that is enough.
Desiring God