“What great thing do you know?” That’s the question at the head of Johann Schwedler’s 1741 hymn, “Ask Ye What Great Thing I Know.” Each stanza proposes possible answers to that question. “What great thing do you know?” Is it the good numbers from your latest lab blood work? Is it the most recent accomplishment of a favorite grandchild? Is it the ranking of your favorite sports team?
Schwedler’s hymn narrows down the categories. What most delights your soul? Where is there a message that will console your saddest woes? Who will deliver you from the grave? The resounding answer at the end of each stanza of his hymn is, “Jesus Christ, the crucified!” The wondrous cross is more than a sentimental symbol of Christianity. What was accomplished on the cross is the most valuable thing we could ever hope for. It must always be the greatest thing we know!
The cross of “Jesus Christ, the crucified,” is not incidental to Christianity; it is absolutely essential! Because without that wondrous cross, we would have what Richard Niebuhr famously warned about in 1937 concerning the social gospel. We would be left with this hopelessness creed: “a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” And that kind of Christ cannot save us.
We see crosses in church buildings, and on necklaces, and perhaps even on tattoos. But we’ve come a long way from Calvary, haven’t we? Jesus’ cross wasn’t like any of those crosses we see every day. It was ugly … and brutal … full of splinters … and stained with blood. And yet it remains as the symbol that to believers is more precious and sacred and thrilling than any other. For the Christian, what Jesus’ cross stands for is indescribably wondrous. In Numbers 21, when thousands were dying in the wilderness under God’s heavy hand of judgment, it was the sight of a serpent lifted up on a cross that brought them healing. Paul expressed that sentiment when he wrote in Galatians 6:14, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ Jesus my Lord.” It is no surprise that believers love that verse!
How many hymns can we think of that give us the words to do just that?
- “In the Cross of Christ I Glory”
- “Lift High the Cross”
- “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”
- “Beneath the Cross of Jesus”
- “The Old Rugged Cross”
Add to those, hymns that speak of the blood of Christ.
- “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood”
- “There Is Power in the Blood”
- “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed”
- “Redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb”
And always we must remember that “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.” (Leviticus 17:11 and Hebrews 9:22)
How can we proclaim the cross to be “the greatest thing we know?” Why would we call this horrible principle of torture “wondrous?” To people who know they’re dying in their sin, there’s nothing more beautiful than His cross. It’s like the vial with the antidote … to someone who’s been poisoned. Like the rescue helicopter overhead … to someone adrift in a raft at sea. Like the sight of a park ranger … to someone hopelessly lost in the mountains.
In Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan gave us a great description of what the cross does. Christian had fled from the City of Destruction, now awakened to the impending judgment. The burden of sin on his back almost pulled him under in the Slough of Despond. When he came to Mount Sinai, the demands of the law gave him no relief. It was after he passed through the strait gate that he found deliverance.
Now, I saw in my dream that the highway up which Christian was to go was fenced on either side with a wall that was called Salvation. Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back.
He ran thus till he came to a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.
Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, “He hath given me rest by His sorrow, and life by His Death.” Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked, therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the water down his cheeks.
The cross stands at the center of the Bible’s message. Everything in the Old Testament pointed ahead to it. Everything in the New Testament looks back at it. So, “Ask ye what great thing I know? Jesus Christ, the crucified.”
Johann Christoph Schwedler (1672-1730), the author of this hymn, the son of a German Silesian farmer and rural magistrate, studied at the University of Leipzig, graduating with his M.A. in 1697. The next year he was appointed as assistant minister at Niederwiese, and when the pastor died that year, Schwedler became diaconus there, and then in 1701 became pastor. He continued in that position for decades, until he died suddenly during the night of January 12, 1730.
Schwedler was a powerful and popular preacher, and peculiarly gifted in prayer. It is said that sometimes, beginning a service at 5 or 6 a.m., he would continue the service to relays who in succession filled the church, till 2 or 3 p.m. He also founded an orphanage at Niederwiese. He was a near neighbor and great friend of Johann Mentzer and Nicholas von Zinzendorf of the Moravian pietist movement. As a hymnwriter he was useful and popular. The principal theme of his 462 hymns was the Grace of God through Christ, and the joyful confidence imparted to the soul that experienced it.
This marvelous German language hymn was translated into English at least twice before the lasting 1863 translation we know today, which was done by Benjamin Hall Kennedy (1804-1889), born in Birmingham, England. The son of an Anglican clergyman, he graduated from St. John’s College, Cambridge with his B.A. in 1827. He was Fellow of his College in classics 1828-36; Head Master of Shrewsbury School, 1836-66; and Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge and Canon of Ely, 1867. Dr. Kennedy took Holy Orders in 1829, and was for some time Prebendary in Lichfield Cathedral and Rector of West Felton, Salop. He was elected Honorable Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1880. He is remembered especially for his labors in teaching Latin. He wrote a number of classical and theological works, including his famous book on Latin grammar.
The hymn, “Ask Ye What Great Thing I Know,” deserves to be found in many more hymnals than we see today. Sadly, most of those which have included it, fail to include all six stanzas. We notice immediately how, until the final stanza, each begins and continues with a series of questions, probing the heart of the singer. And each gives the answer, “Jesus Christ, the crucified!” Then in the final stanza, there are no more questions. There is the powerful affirmation of what it is that “delights and stirs me so.” It is, and always will be, “Jesus Christ, the crucified.”
Stanza 1 focuses on the inquiry for what has the greatest effect on me, to delight and stir me, to bring me the highest reward, and the name I glory in. All of us have things in our life that bring us great joy, but there must be one that is the greatest. The answer, obviously, is “Jesus Christ, the crucified,” since He does all these things for me.
Ask ye what great thing I know, That delights and stirs me so?
What the high reward I win? Whose the name I glory in?
Jesus Christ, the Crucified.
Stanza 2 focuses more on the inquiry for what will have the greatest spiritual and theological benefit to me. What is the foundation for my faith? What will awaken my heart to sing? And then, even more importantly, who has borne my sinful load and purchased peace for me with God? Only “Jesus Christ, the crucified.”
What is faith’s foundation strong? What awakes my heart to song?
He who bore my sinful load, Purchased for me peace with God,
Jesus Christ, the Crucified.
Stanza 3 begins to focus more on the dimensions of my life experience. I need wisdom and discernment in choices I must make. Who will be the best to provide that? I need strength to perform my duty once I have discerned it. Who can I trust to best give me that discernment and self-discipline? None other than “Jesus Christ, the crucified.”
Who is He that makes me wise To discern where duty lies?
Who is He that makes me true Duty, when discerned to do,
Jesus Christ, the Crucified.
Stanza 4 then focuses on the things that make life so hard. I face enemies to my soul. Who can defeat them? I often experience terrible sadness. Who can console me in those woes. My heart will frequently faint and be severely wounded. Who can heal those inner injuries deep within? I will only find that help in “Jesus Christ, the crucified.”
Who defeats my fiercest foes? Who consoles my saddest woes?
Who revives my fainting heart, Healing all its hidden smart?
Jesus Christ, the Crucified.
Stanza 5 focuses on the ultimate need I have, a right standing with God for the joy of this day and the deliverance from death at my final hour. What wonderful phrases that point me to Jesus, the one whose life will give me eternal life, and whose death will put death to death for me. He alone “will place me on His right” on that day of judgment, joining “all the countless hosts of light.”
Who is life in life to me? Who the death of death will be?
Who will place me on His right, With the countless hosts of light?
Jesus Christ, the Crucified.
Stanza 6 concludes by returning to the opening questions, what is “that great thing I know?” What “delights and stirs me so?” It’s “Jesus Christ, the crucified,” who is given to me that I might receive and trust in Him by faith. The greatest thing for every one of God’s elect is that Jesus, our Savior, has “triumphed over the grave.” There are no more questions in the hymn, only the powerful confidence that I have found the greatest thing one can knowhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcQHq5GJa6M, “Jesus Christ, the crucified.”
This is that great thing I know; This delights and stirs me so;
Faith in Him who died to save, Him who triumphed over the grave:
Jesus Christ, the Crucified.
The tune we use, HENDON (sometimes named MALAN), was written in 1827 by Henri Abraham César Malan (1787-1864). He was born in Geneva, Switzerland, into a bourgeois family that had moved there from France to escape religious persecution following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, settling in Geneva in 1722. He had studied business in the university in Marseilles, intending to pursue a business career. Having received Christian teaching from his mother, he decided to prepare for the ministry by attending the Academy in Geneva, which Calvin had founded. He was ordained in 1810 after serving as a college instructor in Latin. In 1811 he married (his wife’s name is not known), and they had two children, one named Solomon, who became a gifted linguist and theologian, and Vicar of Broadwindsor.
He initially affiliated with the works-oriented unitarian church in Geneva, but after 1813 he gradually began to embrace evangelical doctrine, trusting in faith rather than works for right standing with God. Having been genuinely saved, he was so transformed that he burned his prize collection of classical authors and manuscripts. He sought to reform the national church from within, following the strong Calvinism of the reform movement, led by such men as Merle d’Aubigné. One sermon he preached in Geneva in 1817, “Man only justified by faith alone,” caused such a firestorm with regional religious authorities that he was barred from pulpits and dismissed from his instructor position at the college.
With the support of champions of the faith like Charles Spurgeon and Robert Haldane, he built a chapel in his garden and obtained a license for it to function as a separatist place of worship. He preached there for 43 years, having been formally deprived of his status as a minister in the national church in 1823. Various events caused his congregation to diminish over the next few years, and he began long tours of evangelization, subsidized by religious friends in his land, Belgium, France, England and Scotland. He often preached to large congregations. Malan also authorized a hymn book, “Chants de Sion” (1841). A strong Calvinist, Malan lost no opportunity to evangelize. On one occasion an old man he visited pulled Malan’s hymnal out and told him he had prayed to see the author of it before he died. On a visit to England Malan also inspired author, Charlotte Elliott, to write the hymn lyrics for “Just As I Am”, when struggling with a sense of uselessness as an invalid, she asked him for counsel and he advised her to come to Christ “just as she was.”
Malan published a score of books and also produced many religious tracts and pamphlets largely on questions in dispute between the National and evangelical churches of Rome. He also wrote articles in the “Record” and in American reviews. His hymns were set to his own melodies. He was an artist, a mechanic, a carpenter, a metal forger, and a printer. He had his own workshop, forge, and printing press. One of his greatest joys was the meeting of the evangelical alliance at Geneva in 1861 which helped change church views. He retired to his home, Vandoeuvres, in the countryside near Geneva in 1857, dying there seven years later. He was honored by a visit from the Queen of Holland two years before his death. He is mainly remembered as a hymn writer, having written more than a thousand hymn lyrics and tunes. To the end of his life his strong Calvinism, and his dread of mere external union in church government, kept him distinct from all movements where he saw biblical faith being compromised, though freely joining in communion with all the sections of Evangelical thought in Geneva and Scotland.
In his 1909 “Dictionary of Hymnody,” John Julian wrote that “it is as the originator of the modern hymn movement in the French Reformed Church that Malan’s fame cannot perish. The spirit of his hymns is perpetuated in the analysis of Christian experience, the never-wearied delineation of the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of the believer’s soul, which are still the staple of French Protestant hymns. To this he added a strong didactic tone and an empathic Calvinism in the spirit of Newton and Cowper, and with a strong sense of personal assurance, peace, and gladness.”
The HENDON tune is frequently used with other texts, like “Take My Life and Let It Be” and “Come, My Soul, Thy Suit Prepare.” The modern version of this music has been harmonized by the famed 19th century American musician Lowell Mason, whose hymns are found in every hymnal today.
Here you can hear and sing along with four of the stanzas.