In the midst of the creeping coldness and lifelessness of what has sometimes been called “dead orthodoxy” in the centuries following the 16th century Reformation in Germany, the light of the gospel was once again seen in its freshness and life in the various forms of revival and Pietism in the 18th century. In the English-speaking world, this fire of passion for Christ and the cross was rekindled in the Great Awakening through such preachers as the Wesleys and George Whitefield. In Germany, which was the source of the deadening effects of rationalism which spread across Europe and to America, the Moravians were among those who not only brought fresh zeal for the cross but also launched the modern missions movement that continues to this day.
One of the leading figures in the Moravian influence was a young German aristocrat named Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760), the author of some 2000 hymns, including “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness.” The Moravians trace their spiritual lineage to John Hus, the 15th century reformer from Bohemia (Czechoslovakia) who was burned to death at the stake as a heretic by Roman Catholic authorities in 1415. Zinzendorf trained for the life of a lawyer and diplomat, but joined others who saw the need for the revival of religion in Germany, where they lamented that the Lutheran Church was sterile and languishing.
The real birth-moment of Zinzendorf’s religious life is said to have been simultaneous with his study of “Ecce Homo” in the Dusseldorf Gallery, a wonderful painting of Jesus crowned with thorns. Visiting the gallery one day when a young man, he gazed on the sacred face and read the legend superscribed, “All this I have done for Thee; What doest thou for Me?” Ever afterwards his motto was “I have but one passion, and that is He, and only He.” It is to the praise of God that throughout his life Count Zinzendorf continued to focus not on what he was doing for Christ, but on the sole and complete sufficiency of what Christ had done for him. “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness” is an outstanding expression of that focus.
Philip Jakob Spener, the father of Pietism, was Zinzendorf’s godfather; and August Hermann Francke, the founder of the famous Orphan House, in Halle, was for several years his tutor. Zinzendorf offered his estate as an asylum for persecuted Moravian Brethren and served as pastor for this religious community, “Herrnhut” (“the Lord’s watch”). By May 1725, ninety Moravians were gathered at Herrnhut. Because of the spirited preaching at the Berthelsdorf parish church, the population of this “small city” had reached three hundred by 1726.
In 1731 Zinzendorf resigned all public duties and devoted himself to missionary work. He traveled extensively on the Continent, in Great Britain, and in America, preaching “Christ, and Him crucified,” and organizing societies of Moravian brethren. Visiting Copenhagen in 1731 to attend the coronation of King Christian VI, Zinzendorf met a converted slave from the West Indies, Anthony Ulrich. The man was looking for someone to go back to his homeland to preach the gospel to black slaves, including his sister and brother. Zinzendorf raced back to Herrnhut to find men to go; two immediately volunteered, becoming the first Moravian missionaries, and the first Protestant missionaries of the modern era, antedating William Carey (often called “the father of modern missions”) by 60-some years.
Within two decades, Zinzendorf had sent missionaries around the globe: to Greenland, Lapland, Georgia, Surinam, Africa’s Guinea Coast, South Africa, Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter, Algeria, the native North Americans, Ceylon, Romania, and Constantinople. In short order, more than 70 missionaries from a community of fewer than six hundred answered the call. By the time Zinzendorf died in 1760 in Herrnhut, the Moravians had sent out at least two hundred twenty-six missionaries. John Wesley’s conversion came after he had seen the extraordinary security of Moravian missionaries on ship during a hurricane. Wesley would go on later to translate some of the Moravian hymns, including this one in 1739, a year after Zinzendorf had written it..
The Moravian communities Zinzendorf help propagate placed great emphasis on the relationship of believers to one another as family. Their spiritual life was centered around Jesus’ passion, sometimes with an unhealthy obsession over Jesus’ wounds. Their reaction against the lifeless doctrinal stance of the 18th century churches led them not only into an imbalanced attention to the emotional life involved in Christian life, but also resulted in carelessness in theology, sometimes even into doctrinal errors that would prove harmful to maintaining biblical orthodoxy.
Zinzendorf is said to have written more than 2,000 hymns. Moravians today are still known for their enthusiastic hymn-singing. A student of his life noted, “For Zinzendorf . . . the truths of the Christian religion are best communicated in poetry and song, not in systematic theology and polemics.” A characteristic worship service of the Moravians, encouraged by Zinzendorf, is the “Singstunde,” consisting almost completely of hymns, in which stanzas from various hymns are woven together to develop a particular theme.
“Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness” is Zinzendorf’s best-known hymn, and the German original contained 33 stanzas. It speaks of what theologians call the “active righteousness” of Christ, by which is meant His life in which He kept perfectly the law of God, and the “passive righteousness” of Christ, by which is meant His death which substituted for the death sinners deserve. Christ’s passive righteousness involves our sins being credited to His account where He suffered passively in our place, and His active righteousness involves His righteousness, where He actively kept the law in our place, being credited to our account. The two are referenced in the phrase “blood and righteousness” and “Jesus hath lived, hath died for me.”
Stanza 1 sets the doctrine of double imputation in beautiful poetic expression and does so in the image of the attire we are privileged to wear as we stand before a holy God. Jesus’ righteous life and bloody sacrifice are the basis of our justification. The two are the “glorious dress” in which we are arrayed, and which enable us to lift up our heads with joy and confidence, knowing that we have been accepted because of what Jesus did for us. Isaiah 64:6 states that “…all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags…” How gracious, then, of God the Father to provide us instead with Jesus’ righteousness as “our glorious dress.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 assures us, “for He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress;
‘Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed With joy shall I lift up my head.
Stanza 2 adds to the image further consideration of what will transpire in the moment when we are brought into court before God’s throne of justice. As Hebrews 4:16 tells us, we can boldly approach the mercy seat, God’s throne, knowing that we have been “fully absolved” from all sin. Romans 8:33 asks the question, “Who can bring any charge against God’s elect?” Not even Satan, since Jesus has paid for my sin by His blood and given me His spotless righteousness. I can stand before God without “sin and fear,” and without “guilt and shame.”
Bold shall I stand in Thy great day, For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am, From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.
Stanza 3 directs our attention to that future day when I will rise “from the dust of death.” I will be able to “claim my mansion in the skies” (John 14:2, KJV). And how is it that I can have this assurance of such a glorious future? It will not be because of anything I have done. Once again we find reference to the active (“Jesus hath lived”) and passive (“Jesus … hath died”) obedience of Christ, having done both “for me.”
When from the dust of death I rise to claim my mansion in the skies,
Ev’n then this shall be all my plea, Jesus hath lived, hath died for me.
Stanza 4 turns this doctrine to praise, and not just momentarily. This shall be endless praise, as it will continue to be the theme of our songs in glory into eternity. Such “boundless mercy” is worthy of such endless praise, since His substitutionary life and substitutionary death have made “full atonement” (“It is finished,” John 19:30), and have paid the full cost to ransom us from death (Mark 10:45).
Jesus, be endless praise to Thee, whose boundless mercy hath for me –
For me a full atonement made, an everlasting ransom paid.
Stanza 5 brings these same themes back into focus, but in an evangelistic plea. Our passion for Christ should also include a passion for the lost who have not yet believed in Him. Apart from Christ they remain “banished” from God’s presence and unable to rejoice. They are yet dead in their sins (Ephesians 2:1) and so we pray that the Holy Spirit would cause them to be born again to new life (1 Peter1:3-4) so that they, too, might be clothed in this “glorious dress” of Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
O let the dead now hear Thy voice; now bid Thy banished ones rejoice;
Their beauty this, their glorious dress, Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness.
These two additional stanzas are frequently found in hymnals today, in place of stanzas 3, 4, and 5 above. The second of them has probably been rejected by some for its suggestion of universal atonement (ransom and atonement made – not just offered – “for all”).
Lord, I believe Thy precious blood, Which, at the mercy seat of God,
Forever doth for sinners plead, For me, ev’n for my soul was shed.
Lord, I believe were sinners more Than sands upon the ocean shore,
Thou hast for all a ransom paid, For all a full atonement made.
No tunes were included in the Herrnhut hymnal, so the original setting or settings for this hymn are uncertain. More recent hymnals have set the lyrics to various tunes, but the most common one in use today is GERMANY. This comes from a collection by William Gardiner (1770-1853), the son of an English hosiery manufacturer. He took up his father’s trade in addition to writing about music, composing, and editing. Having met Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven on his business travels, Gardiner then proceeded to help popularize their compositions. He took some of their melodies and turned them into hymn tunes in an attempt to rejuvenate the singing of psalms. His work became an important model for American editors like Lowell Mason, and later hymnbook editors often turned to Gardiner as a source of tunes derived from classical music. Little is known about the original source of the tune GERMANY, but it is generally assumed that Gardiner adapted this from a piece of folk music of unknown origin.
Here you can hear the congregation of Grace Community Church (John MacArthur, Pastor) singing the hymn to the tune GERMANY with the final two stanzas being the ones most often found in hymnals today.