One of John Piper’s first books (The Supremacy of God in Preaching) has this memorable line: “Every sermon should be about God.” If that is true of preaching, it ought also to be true of the hymns we sing. That seems so obvious, but how tragic that it is too often not the case in either. We have all heard sermons that were entirely man-centered in their focus, giving inspirational advice about how to experience more joy or fulfillment or peace or success (or as one popular preacher promoted in his best-selling book, how to have “Your Best Life Now”). In such books and preaching, God is incidental, if even mentioned at all. And we’ve all sung hymns that were similarly focused on our feelings, even when these are feelings of joy in praise. But we need to be singing about the God whose character and work are the reason for that joy.
That is certainly true of the Psalms, which should be the best model for our hymnody. Many are intensely personal, both of joy in praise and of sorrow in suffering. But whatever the “mood” of the Psalms or its reason for composition, the Psalms are consistently God-centered. If joyful praise dominates the text, we sing of the reasons for that praise in words that articulate who God is and how what He has done gives us reason for joy. If sad lament dominates the text, we sing of the hope we have in the God who heals and sustains.
For example, instead of merely singing, “O how wonderful it is to sing and rejoice and I’m so happy as I fill my heart with joy,” the Psalms teach us to sing, “The LORD reigns; He is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed, He has put on strength as His belt” (Psalm 93); or “I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD forever; with my mouth I will make known Your faithfulness to all generations” (Psalm 89). And instead of merely singing, “O how my heart grieves over all the terrible things I see around me and within me,” the Psalms teach us to sing, “Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51); or “O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with Him is plenteous redemption” (Psalm 130).
That brings us to this week’s hymn study, “Immortal, Invisible,” a great example of a God-centered hymn. The words were written in 1867 by Walter Chalmers Smith (1824-1908), a Scottish Free Church minister who gained considerable reputation in his day for his collections of poetry. This is the only hymn that remains from his work. He studied at the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh with the intention of a career in law. But the great Scottish preacher Thomas Chalmers influenced him to enter pastoral ministry. Chalmers has been described as the greatest Scottish churchman of the nineteenth century. In additional to serving as preacher at Glasgow’s Tron Church, he was also a highly distinguished theologian, teaching at the University of Edinburgh. He was the leader of the evangelical party when one-third of the ministers left the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church in 1843. Smith served churches in London, Glasgow (the Tron Church), and Edinburgh (the High Kirk), and was honored by being chosen as General Assembly Moderator in 1893-94 for the church’s 50th anniversary Jubilee Celebration, the year before his retirement.
“Immortal, Invisible” is a fine model of God-centered hymnody. Like John Piper’s challenge for preachers (“Every sermon should be about God”), Smith’s hymn follows that counsel as “a hymn that is about God.” It certainly connects with our hearts’ emotions as it thrills us about God’s glorious majesty, but the focus is not on our feelings but on His greatness. The hymn begins with the obvious scriptural foundation in 1 Timothy 1:17: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (KJV)
In stanza 1, we have ten things said of God. Try to list them yourself. The attributes of His infinite majesty pile up, one on top of another. What a challenge to put into human language the attributes of “The Great I AM!” How can we express what is inexpressible in speaking of the one whose very name was unutterable in the Hebrew language of Old Testament saints. A good expositor could easily preach an entire sermon on each of these attributes. Taken together, we sing of the one who is so far above us, and yet has come near in the person of the Son, no longer hidden from our eyes.
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessèd, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, thy great Name we praise.
In stanza 2, we have another eleven things said of God. Once again, the emphasis is on the ways He is so different from us. He never rests and yet is never in a hurry, silent yet with a voice powerful enough to create with a spoken word, lacking nothing but using everything, ruling with justice that is higher than Mount Everest, seated in glory in clouds that are not threatening as storms that will drench the earth with floods, but rather that will pour out copious fountains of goodness and love.
Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light, Nor wanting,
nor wasting, thou rulest in might;
Thy justice like mountains high soaring above
Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love.
In stanza 3, we have only two things said of God, but both are wondrous, since they are sung in contrast to ourselves. Since He is life itself, He is the source of all life, from the tiniest insect and microscopic amoeba to the most enormous redwood tree or huge blue whale. In another set of attributes, we are constantly changing – blossoming and flourishing in the prime of our lives, and then withering and perishing because of age and disease, like the leaves of summer falling to the ground before winter snows – but nothing changes the unchanging God, in His being and in His faithfulness.
To all life thou givest—to both great and small;
In all life thou livest, the true life of all;
We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,
And wither and perish—but nought changeth thee.
In stanza 4, we have five things said of God, as our gaze is directed to Him on His throne. His dazzling glory stuns angelic eyes, those heavenly beings who must veil their sight in His presence even as they sing “Holy, holy, holy!” And yet this one who is so high and exalted above us has made us His children by adoption and made Himself known to us as our Heavenly Father, a term of sweet endearment that stuns us even more than the angels who are merely His servants. We can see Him only with the eyes of faith, but beyond that splendor of light is one who is love itself.
Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;
All laud we would render: O help us to see
’Tis only the splendour of light hideth thee.
The name of the tune to which we sing this hymn is ST. DENIO. It is also known by the Welsh tune name JOANNA. It is based on a traditional Welsh ballad about a cuckoo that was popular in the early 19th century. The hymn tune title refers to St. Denis, the patron saint of France. It was arranged by John Roberts in his 1839 collection. It was first used as a hymn in The English Hymnal (1906). Roberts (1807-1876) was born near Aberystwyth in Wales. He began conducting choirs at the age of fourteen and was a schoolteacher at sixteen. He was ordained to the (Calvinist) Methodist ministry in 1859. He founded the famous Welsh singing festival “Gymanfa ganu” and compiled an important Calvinist Methodist hymnal.
Here is a recording of the singing of the hymn in London’s Westminster Abbey: