Singing Lutheran Theology from a Presbyterian Hymnal

Published on by D. G. Hart

I myself have never been impressed by the adage that ordinary believers learn more theology from hymns than from sermons or teaching. But recent frequent singing of “The Law of God Is Good and Wise” (1863) has led me to hope that the adage is true. Here is the text:

The law of God is good and wise,
And sets His will before our eyes,
Shows us the way of righteousness,
And dooms to death when we transgress.

Its light of holiness imparts
The knowledge of our sinful hearts,
That we may see our lost estate
And seek deliverance ere too late.

To those who help in Christ have found
And would in works of love abound
It shows what deeds are His delight
And should be done as good and right.

When men the offered help disdain
And willfully in sin remain,
Its terror in their ear resounds
And keeps their wickedness in bounds.

The law is good, but since the fall
Its holiness condemns us all;
It dooms us for our sin to die
And has no power to justify.

To Jesus we for refuge flee,
Who from the curse has set us free,
And humbly worship at His throne,
Saved by His grace through faith alone.

The OPC’s Trinity Hymnal (no. 449) sets this text to the tune of Erhaul Uns Herr. The name of that tune gives away the hymn’s author’s background. Matthias Loy (1828-1915), a German-American Lutheran pastor, born in the vicinity of Harrisburg, Pa., ministered in Delaware, Ohio for much of his career. Although a minister of the Joint Synod of Ohio, over which he presided for two long stints, Loy was indebted to the confessional Lutheran theology of the Missouri Synod.

The inclusion of this hymn in the OPC’s hymnal may not only indicate that Lutherans and Reformed Protestants are not as far apart on matters of law and gospel as some argue these days. The hymn itself is also an indication that Lutherans are not nearly as opposed to the law as their (false) antinomian reputation suggests.

42 thoughts on “Singing Lutheran Theology from a Presbyterian Hymnal”

  2. I like this hymn (and tune) a lot—I didn’t know the author was Lutheran, and I also didn’t know the hymn could be found in the red Trinity. It’s been marked in my old blue copy for years.

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  4. You might be interested as well that Loy wrote a companion hymn —

    The Gospel Shows the Father’s Grace
    By: Matthias Loy

    The Gospel shows the Father’s grace,
    Who sent his Son to save our race,
    Proclaims how Jesus lived and died
    That man might thus be justified.

    It sets the Lamb before our eyes,
    Who made atoning sacrifice,
    And calls the souls with guilt opprest
    To come and find eternal rest.

    It brings the Savior’s righteousness
    Our souls to robe in royal dress;
    From all our guilt it brings release
    And gives the troubled conscience peace.

    It is the power of God to save
    From sin and Satan and the grave;
    It works the faith, which firmly clings
    To all the treasures which it brings.

    It bears to all the tidings glad
    And bids their hearts no more be sad;
    The heavy-laden souls it cheers
    And banishes their guilty fears.

    May we in faith its tidings learn
    Nor thanklessly its blessings spurn;
    May we in faith its truth confess
    And praise the Lord our Righteousness.

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  8. Re: What’s up with that?

    My best guess is that the exquisitely well-developed taste-buds of a true curmudgeon are at work? 😉

    In case you don’t have them – the scriptures for the hymn are: Psalm 19:7-8; Galatians 3:10-11; Galatians 2:15-16; Romans 5:6-11

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  9. This is one of the hymns T David Gordon refers to as unsuitable for corporate worship due to consisting largely of a lecture in musical form.

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  11. I’m sure it wouldn’t be a truely Lutheran hymn without a (heavy) emphasis on the last two verses – or with a putative seventh verse on the third use of the law.

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  12. So, can we come to any firm conclusions on percentages of how much the Law and how much the Gospel is to be emphasized? I don’t think Lutherans and Calvinists ever settled that question to the satisfaction of each other.

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  13. Hmm… John, do you suppose they forgot to read the fine print at the bottom of our job description in God’s kingdom? 😉

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  14. Sounds like a good way of Lutherans and Presbyterians coalescing for the sake of the local church and the gospel.

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  15. John, how does that work since Lutherans are in their congregations and Presbyterians are in theirs. Neither are at a conference listening to “Christian” hip hop.

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  16. Dr Hart,

    Re: Neither are at a conference listening to “Christian” hip hop.

    Agreement is 100% on that nonsense and being in our own congregations.

    How far apart are we on the satire test?

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  17. Chris E.,

    The 3rd use verse is in v. 3, the tipoff being “and would in works of love abound.” Since this is also in the Formula of Concord (VI), I don’t know why we Lutherans have an antinomian reputation. I don’t coalesce much, but I am glad that our antinomianism is being spread elsewhere.

    Adam
    Concordia Theological Seminary

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  18. I’m happy to hear Presbyterians are singing Lutheran hymns.
    It’s a pity ‘The Gospel Shows…’ didn’t make it into the hymnal as well…the two hymns are a matching pair in our Lutheran Church of Australia hymnal,a nd I sometimes choose to sing them consecutively before and after the sermon (is that called a sermon sandwich?:0) ).
    There’s an essay on Matthias Loy available on-line here:

    Click to access frymatthiasloytheologian.pdf

    I find your blog very interesting reading, Darryl

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  19. We got Lutherans coming out of the woodwork here. And why does it seem that there are so many Lutherans in Australia? Is it because Australia was started as a penitentiary institutional colony. Did the Calvinists flee to New Zealand or were there never many Calvinists in Australia in the first place? Perhaps Lutheran missionaries were well received in Australia and Calvinist missionaries were not. I’m probably caricaturing in a ignorant manner.

    Enjoyed that satire test Lily. There is a huge disconnect between the evangelical/charismatic/anabaptist world and the confessional world. They do not talk the same language.

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  20. I spent 3 and half weeks traveling around Australia and New Zealand about 10 years ago visiting the accounts we had for our family business (funeral and cemetery industry) It was an interesting experience to say the least.

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  21. That was an interesting article on Loy, Pr Mark Henderson- thanks for posting that. So where in Australia do you reside? I’ve benefited greatly from the writing of some Lutherans from Australia- John Kleinig in particular. And Lily sent me some introductory material on Herman Sasse whom, I believe, was an Aussie too. Do you know much of the history of why Lutheranism seemed to have an appeal in Australia?

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  22. Darryl,

    Did you mention Loy in your book The Lost Soul of American Protestantism in the sections on Lutheranism? I remember you talking about Krauth but do not remember Loy.

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  24. Hi Adam –

    Yes, I realised it was in verse 3 – the point was that the emphasis and finale of the hymn is still the Gospel, rather than a return to the law.

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  25. John,

    Thanks for your interest. Lutherans arrived in Australia quite early in our history, in 1838 (remembering the first colony was established in 1788). The main group were refugees from a forced union with Calvinists in Prussia, as it happens, the same origins as the Missouri Synod in the US. From that point we “went forth and multiplied”, aided by immigration from Denmark in the late 19th C. and Germany again after WWII. While always a confessional church, since the 1970s the LCA has become less defined by ethnicity – we even have Chinese missions directed towards immigration from SE Asia. I have a weblog devoted to Hermann Sasse, which you should be able to access via my avatar link. Glad to hear you enjoyed the essay on Loy; he was much more than just a hymn writer, but after all, all theology leads to doxology!

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  26. Oh, sorry, I’m in Toowoomba, a city of 100 000 in Queensland, sitting on top of the eastern continental divide. Brisbane is the capital city iof this state. We have Presbyterians here too, and Dutch Reformed as well!

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  27. Pastor Henderson,

    Many thanks for the link to Loy – it is fascinating reading and so very relevant to age we live in. More thanks for your blog link – I’m one of your readers on your other blog, What Sasse Said, but somehow missed that you had more than one. Natch – I now have an RSS for Glosses, too. 😉

    John,

    Hermann Sasse emigrated to Australia after WWII and had a great influence there. If I have the story right, it was his efforts that united the 2 Lutheran synods there into 1 synod in Australia. Sasse’s life and his work are fabulously interesting and timeless, IMO.

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  28. P.S. John, glad you enjoyed the link – some of the Lutheransatire videos are even funnier, but I think one may need to be Lutheran to enjoy them since they are specific to our distinctives.

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  29. Neither are at a conference listening to “Christian” hip hop.

    Darryl, what? You mean you never get Christian hip hop as special music during Sunday worship? You need to check out a Sovereign Grace sometime.

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  31. Larry Wilson,

    Are you the same Larry who frequents the Gene Veith blog? If you are I noticed that Gene had to scold you guys the other day and warned you not to argue so rambunctiously at his site. You guys really know how to go at it with each other. It even took me aback. I have always thought that American Lutherans and Calvinists are tame compared to what took place during the reformation. Those boys had hipo skin.

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  34. I’m a big fan of this hymn, and its always a great post when you highlight one of these classics. Somehow it has slipped off our play list. We’ll sing it on Sunday in DC.

    Should make this a regular feature.

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  35. Hi John Yeazel,

    I have commented on a few occasions at the Veith site, but not for quite a while now. There’s more than one “Larry” who frequents that site. So I suspect you’re confusing me with a different fellow.

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  36. Larry Wilson,

    The Larry that I am thinking of has comments almost everytime I check in there. And he is quite forceful in his comments. I do not go there that often but find some interesting discussions from time to time. Thanks for commenting back.

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  37. Lily,
    Hi!
    You’re correct about Sasse’s part in uniting the two Australian Lutheran Synods.

    Darryl,
    Since you’re interested in The Ohio Synod, you may be interested to know they even had an outpost here in Australia in the late 19th & early 20th Cs, though this is about as far from Ohio as you can possibly go! In fact, each of the three big mid-western Lutheran US synods of the time – Iowa, Missouria and Ohio all had fellowship and close links with Australian synods, making a lot of Australian Lutheran history an extension of American Lutheran history. Sorry, but I get excited about this stuff!

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  39. Darryl,
    Well, I would say we’ve managed to politely ignore one another for much of the last 180 years. Of course, for the Lutherans here, the memory of the Prussian Union has somewhat tainted relations with any Reformed Church, even a Scottish one, while the Presbyterians here have a great regard for Luther but seem to look upon Lutherans as “insufficiently reformed” and too liturgical. We have had official dialogues with the Dutch, but they have now ceased. Personally, I’d like to see more cordial relations, perhaps after the manner of a ‘free conference’ with no particular expectations beyond enjoying good whisky/beer/wine and fruitful theological discussion (since the “Pressies”, as we call them here, are “dry” I think that’s unlikely to happen!). I have a high regard for the original Scots Confession of Faith of 1560, and wonder if it couldn’t serve as a good, mutually beneficial study in such a setting?
    Ending, if I may, on a personal note – in my previous call, in a beautiful German-settled village named ‘Hochkirche’ (until the Great War necessitated a change) I – a Henderson – did manage quite friendly relations with the Prebyterian minister in the close-by, Scottish-founded town, whose surname was Schultz!

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  40. I just read that Loy article again that Pastor Henderson linked. That should be must reading for all who frequent oldlife. It looks like Machen preserved the Gospel for the Calvinists and Loy, Krauth and Walter for the Lutherans. They all were battling theological liberalism (the social Gospel) and revivalism at the same time. We would not be reading oldlife today if it was not for those Pastors who continued to feed the sheep with the pure Gospel and fought the false Gospels that theological liberalism and revivalism spun off.

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  41. Pastor Henderson, I am married to a Henderson — a Baptist by birth. Family names are deceptive.

    If you ever have that conference, I’ll be glad to be a speaker. Sounds like a coalition I could join.

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