One of the sources of theological reflection that I believe is neglected today is hymnody. We are inclined to look to sermons, books, videos or podcasts because the sources of theological teaching and yet don’t listen to what we will learn from hymns. However, I believe we might profit if we did and in this text I illustrate why I believe that is the case by considering what we will learn if we use two verses from the hymn Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken by the Anglican hymnwriter John Newton as a place to begin.
Newton wrote this hymn in 1799 while he was Vicar in Olney in Buckinghamshire. He based it on two Old Testament passages, Psalm 87:3 and Isaiah 33:20-21 and its first two verses run as follows:
‘Glorious things of thee are spoken,
 Zion, city of our God.
 He whose Word can’t be broken
 formed thee for His own abode.
 On the Rock of Ages founded,
 what can shake thy sure repose?
 With salvation’s partitions surrounded,
 thou may’st smile in any respect thy foes.
 See, the streams of living waters,
 springing from everlasting love,
 well supply thy little children
 and all fear of want remove.
 Who can faint while such a river
 ever flows their thirst to assuage?
 Grace, which just like the Lord, the Giver,
 never fails from age to age.’
In Psalm 87 and Isaiah 33, ‘Zion’ is an alternate name for town of Jerusalem, but within the New Testament, in addition to referring to this earthly city, ‘Jerusalem’ can also be used to consult with the heavenly city of which God’s latest covenant individuals are residents. Thus, in Galatians 4:26 Paul contrasts the earthly Jerusalem with ‘the Jerusalem above’ who’s ‘our mother,’ and in Revelation 21:2 John refers to ‘the holy city, latest Jerusalem, coming out of heaven from God.’
In the sunshine of this New Testament usage, subsequent Christian tradition has understood the references to Jerusalem/Zion within the Old Testament as having dual significance, referring each to the earthly city and to the heavenly city referred to within the New Testament. This is the tradition through which Newton stands and what he’s saying is that the guarantees of God’s protection of Jerusalem present in the Old Testament are to be understood as referring also to the protection that God offers to all who belong today to the heavenly Jerusalem.
If we ask what is supposed by the heavenly Jerusalem, a standard answer is that it refers back to the Church. The Church is the heavenly Jerusalem. However, the true answer is more complex than that. This is since the term ‘the Church’ has two meanings.
As Archbishop Thomas Cranmer noted within the sixteenth century:
‘In the Scriptures, the word church has two foremost meanings … one among which suggests the congregation of all of the Saints and true believers, who really imagine in Christ the pinnacle and are sanctified by his Spirit. This is the living and truly holy mystical body of Christ, but known only to God, who alone understands the hearts of men. The second meaning is that of the congregation of all who’re baptized in Christ who haven’t openly denied him nor been lawfully and by his Word excommunicated. This meaning of church corresponds to its status on this life in that in it the nice are mixed with the evil.’
To put it one other way, there may be the invisible Church, which is the paranormal body of Christ and which consists of all true believers (no matter their denomination) and there may be the visible Church, the human institution, divided into various denominations, through which those that are true believers and people who are usually not remain mixed together just like the wheat and tares in Jesus’ parable (Matthew 13:24-30) until the ultimate judgement.
Newton is referring to the invisible church, since God’s guarantees of protection don’t apply to those that don’t truly belong to his people. This then raises the query of who belongs to the invisible church. The basic answer to this query is provided by Augustine in his book The City of God, through which he declares that there are ‘two sorts of cities created by two kinds of affection.’ There is the ‘earthly city’ marked by ‘self-love reaching the purpose of contempt for God’ and there may be the ‘Heavenly City’ created by ‘the love of God carried so far as contempt of self.’ The earthly city ‘looks for glory from men’ while ‘the Heavenly City glories within the Lord.’ The invisible Church is Augustine’s Heavenly City, the body consisting of those individuals who lives are marked by love of God relatively than love of self, and who seek glory from God relatively than from other people.
At this point someone might ask where the grace referred to by Newton comes into the image. Is Augustine saying that it’s our self-generated decision to like God that makes us a part of the Heavenly City? The answer is ‘No.’ For Augustine, as for the New Testament and the orthodox Christian tradition as an entire, we’re enabled to like God to the purpose of contempt of self because in his love for us God gives us latest life through Christ and the Spirit through faith and baptism, delivering us from sin and making it possible for us to like him in return. In the words of 1 John 4:19, ‘We love, because he first loved us.’ It is that this gracious, life changing, divine love given to us through the Spirit to which Newton refers when he writes about ‘the streams of living water flowing from everlasting love’ (see John 7:38-39).
An extra query which someone may also ask is what it means in practice to live as a part of the Heavenly City? If I’m a citizen of Zion, what difference should it make? A classic answer to this query is given by one other author from the Early Church, the anonymous writer of the second century apologetic work generally known as the Epistle to Diognetus. He explains that:
‘Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their very own, nor employ a peculiar type of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek in addition to barbarian cities, according because the lot of every of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the remaining of their odd conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking approach to life. They dwell in their very own countries, but simply as sojourners.
‘As residents, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and each land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they don’t destroy their offspring. They have a standard table, but not a standard bed. They are within the flesh, but they don’t live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they’re residents of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the identical time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they’re put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many wealthy; they’re in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they’re dishonoured, and yet of their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they’re reviled, and bless; they’re insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life.’
This quotation highlights the strikingly paradoxical character of being a citizen of Zion. Those who belong to it live on the planet and yet they live in it as resident aliens whose true citizenship lies elsewhere. They conform to the customs and laws of the places through which they live, and yet also live highly distinctive lives in obedience to the laws of God. They do good and yet get insults, persecution and punishment in return, and when this happens, they respond with rejoicing, blessing, honour and love. They die and yet they still live.
In summary, what Newton’s hymn is about is the lifetime of the people of God. It is about receiving God’s grace, becoming a part of his people in consequence, and being protected by God as we live as a part of his people.
This protection doesn’t mean that nothing bad will occur to us. As the Epistle to Diognetus makes clear (and as many Christians world wide today can testify) bad things may occur to us precisely because we belong to God and live in obedience to his will. Rather, ‘salvations’ partitions’ referred to by Newton protect as and when bad things occur to us. They protect us from giving up. They enable us to remain the course as we travel through this world as God’s resident aliens. They keep us a part of God’s people until we reach our final home on the planet to return.
Newton’s words, and the classical Christian theology underlying them thus provide us with an important promise. However, additionally they provide an important challenge to us and to other people known to us. The challenge is whether or not we actually are members of town of God. As we’ve got seen, the problem shouldn’t be whether we attend a church (since one can attend a church and still not be a part of the Heavenly City). The issue is whether or not we’ve got put our faith in Christ, received his Spirit in baptism, and allowed him to alter our lives in order that we’ve got begun to develop into someone who puts God before self and seeks glory from God relatively than from our fellow human beings.
If we cannot truthfully say that that is the case then we want to alter the situation while there continues to be time. Likewise, if we all know others who haven’t yet put their faith in Christ, received the Spirit in baptism and allowed God to alter their lives, then the identical applies to them. To quote Isaiah, the message is ‘Seek the Lord while he could also be found, call upon him while he’s near’ (Isaiah 55:6).
