This hymn study is not about a single hymn, but rather a wonderful collection of hymns. These were written by James Montgomery Boice in the last months before his sudden and unexpected death from liver cancer. I am writing this study (and borrowing from the article published by “This Day in Presbyterian History”) on the weekend on which we remember this man and his enormous contributions to the cause of biblical fidelity. This is the twentieth anniversary of his death.
Upon hearing of the sudden death of James Montgomery Boice on June 15, 2000, another pastor prayed in his pastoral prayer the following week in his congregation that he wished the Lord had called him home instead. That stark comment illustrates the appreciation which his fellow pastors and Reformed people everywhere had for the man and ministry.
Dr. James Boice was first and foremost a pastor-teacher. For 32 years, he had fed the people of God at the historic Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When countless churches were moving out of the inner city for the suburbs, Dr. Boice and his congregation stayed right where they were to be a witness to downtown Philadelphia. Far from the congregation dwindling, it grew from 350 people in regular attendance to more than 1200 persons in three services. Under his spiritual leadership, and the local Session of Elders, the light of the gospel was extended beyond the congregation, to international students, women with crisis pregnancies, homosexual and HIV positive clients, and the homeless.
His ministry also went beyond the four walls of the church. For a decade, he served as Chairman of the International Council of Biblical Inerrancy. He founded the Alliance of Confession Evangelicals in 1994, calling for a new Reformation among American churches, its pastors and people. He was a very close friend to R. C. Sproul, and a favorite speaker at the annual Ligonier Conferences. He accepted my invitation to preach for the 300th anniversary service of the church I was pastoring in 1980 in south Jersey.
America was not alone in benefiting from his gifts of teaching, either. More than thirty countries of the world had his teaching ministry delivered to them. Yet for many of us, it was his forty books on both Bible books as well as biblical themes which brought the gifts of this man to us. We who were pastors had the privilege of using his biblical commentaries as core books for pulpit series. We knew that there would not be doctrines or practices which would be contrary to either our biblical faith or for that matter, our creedal summaries of doctrine. We could quote from his many pages with complete confidence. Lay people could read for their devotions or for Christian sabbath reading his books for their edification. That reading would supplement what their pastors said to them from the pulpit. It was thus a memorable ministry to the people of God in this generation.
Hymns were very important to Jim Boice. He frequently quoted them in his sermons and seldom needed a hymnal to sing the words in worship, since he knew so many by heart. His hymn-writing ability did not appear until July 4 of 1999 when Tenth Church’s organist/music director, Dr. Paul Jones, asked him to write something to celebrate the 50th anniversary of “The Bible Study Hour,” a radio program begun years earlier by the then-pastor Donald Gray Barnhouse. Jim wrote Give Praise to God, based on Romans 11:36.
Jones composed the music for the hymn, and suggested that they continue writing hymns, one each week. Boice was surprised and delighted by how well the first hymn turned out. He told Paul, “This is exciting.” The second hymn, Heaven’s Gift, came on August 4. By the end that month, there were three more, some written while jogging early in the morning along the Schuylkill River. Boice wrote to Jones, “I am thinking that if we are going to have a modern reformation, we are going to need new reformation music. Bible doctrines have always gotten a hold on people this way.” The Boice-Jones collaboration of great texts and great music continued until the very end. Jim composed his last hymn, Christ Alone, within his last two months, as his cancer brought ever-increasing fatigue.
It was just before Good Friday in 2000 that Jim was diagnosed with the liver cancer that would take his life just two months later. Here are his final words to his congregation.
If I were to reflect on what goes on theologically here, there are two things I would stress. One is the sovereignty of God. That’s not novel. We have talked about the sovereignty of God here forever. God is in charge. When things like this come into our lives, they are not accidental. It’s not as if God somehow forgot what was going on, and something bad slipped by. It’s not the answer that Harold Kushner gave in his book, “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People”. God does everything according to His will. We’ve always said that.
But what I’ve been impressed with mostly is something in addition to that. It’s possible, isn’t it, to conceive of God as sovereign and yet indifferent? God’s in charge, but He doesn’t care. But it’s not that. God is not only the one who is in charge; God is also good. Everything He does is good. And what Romans 12, verses 1 and 2 says is that we have the opportunity by the renewal of our minds—that is, how we think about these things—actually to prove what God’s will is.
And then it says, “His good, pleasing, and perfect will.” Is that good, pleasing, and perfect to God? Yes, of course, but the point of it is that it’s good, pleasing, and perfect to us. If God does something in your life, would you change it? If you’d change it, you’d make it worse. It wouldn’t be as good. So that’s the way we want to accept it and move forward, and who knows what God will do?
What a testimony! Since God is good in His sovereignty, Jim testified that even if he could change his diagnosis, he would not do it. That would have made things worse. After his death, the Boice hymns were published as “Hymns for a Modern Reformation.” The collection includes wonderful notes about each hymn, both music and words, from Paul Jones. In those you will find great expositions of the Scripture upon which each hymn is based, along with Paul’s notes about how he developed the music. Copies can be ordered from the offices at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. The collection has one for each of the five Solas of the Reformation, and these are often sung in annual Reformation Sunday services today.
- Sola Scriptura … God’s Amazing Word (2 Timothy 3:15)
- Sola Fide … Heaven’s Gift (Romans 3:22)
- Sola Gratia … Alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:4-5)
- Solus Christus … Christ Alone (1 Corinthians 1:30)
- Soli Deo Gloria … Give Praise to God (Romans 11:36)
Here is a sample, Come to the Waters, the text of one of the final hymns Jim wrote before his death. It is based on Revelation 22:17.
- Come to the waters, whoever is thirsty;
drink from the Fountain that never runs dry.
Jesus, the Living One, offers you mercy,
life more abundant in boundless supply. - Come to the River that flows through the city,
forth from the throne of the Father and Son
Jesus the Savior says, “Come and drink deeply,”
drink from the pure, inexhaustible One. - Come to the Fountain without any money;
buy what is given without any cost.
Jesus, the gracious One, welcomes the weary;
Jesus, the selfless One, died for the lost. - Come to the Well of unmerited favor;
stretch out your hand; fill your cup to the brim.
Jesus is such a compassionate Savior.
Draw from the grace that flows freely from Him. - Come to the Savior, the God of salvation.
God has provided an end to sin’s strife.
Why will you suffer the Law’s condemnation?
Take the free gift of the water of life.
And here is a recording made by Paul Jones at Tenth, along with the Westminster Brass, church choir, and soloists: