Every year, this is one of the traditional Christmas carols that thrills our soul. It’s hard to imagine a Christmas without music, isn’t it? Even in a pandemic year when choirs and congregational gatherings are rare, we still search out recordings of the music that celebrates the incarnation. Check out your hymnal, and it’s likely that one of the larger topical sections will be of songs honoring the birth of the Savior. “O Come, All Ye Faithful” will inevitably be one of them.
The origins of this deeply loved and widely used carol are not clear. John Francis Wade (1711-1786) is the name most often associated with this English setting of what was clearly originally the 1650 Latin hymn, “Adeste Fidelis,” though it probably first dates at least a few years before that. It was originally called the “Portugese Hymn,” since it was sung regularly in the Chapel of the Portugese Embassy in London. It has been suggested that it was written by King John IV of Portugal (1640-1656), remembered as “the Musician King.” He was a composer and patron of music and collected one of the largest musical libraries in the world, which was tragically destroyed in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. He is also remembered for having waged a major struggle to get instrumental music approved for worship by the Vatican.
Very little is known of Wade’s actual biography. This Englishman may have been from York, and is known to have studied at a Dominican College in Flanders. After returning to London where he championed the Jacobite case and hoped for a renewal of the Roman Catholic Stuart line. He popularized hymns and Catholic plainchant, and corresponded with Samuel Wesley. The Latin text of the hymn exists in an 18th century manuscript in the College at Douai (founded in 1561) in northern France. It’s likely that this explains how Wade discovered “Adeste Fidelis” in France. As he brought the Latin text to England, sometime between 1740 and 1743, he also composed the music universally used ever since.
Frederick Oakley (1802-1880) and William Brooke translated the Latin text into English by 1841, and added additional stanzas to the original four. Even today, the Latin original is known and sung by many.
Adeste, fidelis, laeti triumphantes; venite, venite in Bethlehem.
Natum videte Regem angelorum. Venite adoremus, Dominum.
Oakley became a Roman Catholic and translated a number of Latin hymns during the Oxford Movement, working closely with Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890). Our hymnals today have a number of hymns that have come to us from their Latin origins as a result of the translations and musical influences of the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement.
As we turn our attention to the text, we note that we sing as a herald extending invitations and commands to all to join in lauding the Savior’s nativity. We might imagine ourselves among the shepherds rushing out from the manger scene to spread the good news that the angels had just announced to them and which they had now seen with their own eyes!
There is a marvelous progression through the stanzas toward a glorious conclusion in the last one. We first address fellow believers all around us in stanza one. Then in stanza two, we address the entire world to tell them who this Babe is. In stanza three, we address angels in heaven to join us in song. And then in stanza four, we address the Lord Himself.
In stanza 1, we invite those who see what we see, and love what we love, to join us. We address them as faithful, literally meaning that like us, they are full of saving faith. When we understand the magnitude of this birth, it produces not only “joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8), but also exuberance in the realization that Jesus’ birth means that God has triumphed over the Devil’s failed attempts (think of Herod and the slaughter of the children in Bethlehem!) to prevent the fulfillment of this prophesied event. And all of this took place in little Bethlehem. In that manger lay the one who was King of earthly kings and also King of heaven’s angel host. What an amazing thing that He not only came, but welcomes us to “come and behold Him,” to gaze on Him in his incarnate humility.
O come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold Him, Born the King of angels;
O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
In stanza 2, we use the language of the Nicene Creed, written in 325 by that Ecumenical Council. Those representatives had gathered to deal with the Arian heresy that denied the full deity of Jesus, teaching instead that He was a created being, more than man but less than God. The words of the Creed elaborate on the eternal deity of Jesus as “God of God, Light of Light … begotten, not created.” In the carol we remind the entire world that this glorious second person of the Trinity amazingly humbled Himself so greatly that He abhors not the Virgin’s womb. We are reminded of Luci Shaw’s poem, “Mary’s Song,” in which He is described in these words. “He is curtailed who overwhelmed all skies. … blind in my womb to know my darkness ended.”
God of God, Light of Light;
Lo, He abhors not the Virgin’s womb:
Very God, Begotten, not created;
O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
In stanza 3, we are actually put in the position of issuing orders to the angels of heaven! That’s astonishing to think that we have the privilege of commanding these glorious beings to sing, but that they are happy to receive such a command from us and are full of joy to do as we have bid them! And it’s not only the angels in heaven, but also the citizens of those celestial courts to whom we speak. While the Bible gives us the words to call on the heavenly host, it may be stretching it to have us do the same with believers who have been transferred to the church triumphant above. But we need not command them, since Revelation 4 and 5 assure us that they are already doing so. And so will we, when we’re called home to be in the presence of the King and to join our voices with that cosmic chorus.
Sing, choirs of angels; Sing in exultation,
Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above;
Glory to God in the highest;
O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
In stanza 4, we lift our eyes and our voices to welcome the arrival of the long-awaited Redeemer Himself. In our nativity visualizations, we see not only angels but also shepherds and Magi bending their knees to bow before this divine child in the manger. Philippians 2 tells us that a day is coming when every knee will bow before Him and every tongue will confess that He is Lord. We rightly ascribe all glory to Him now and into eternity. In the phrase “late in flesh appearing,” this stanza also connects with the reference in Galatians 4:4 that God’s plan would be fulfilled “in the fullness of time.”
Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, Born this happy morning:
Jesus, to Thee be glory given;
Word of the Father, Late in flesh appearing;
O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
The refrain highlights by repetition the call to come and adore Him. Too many in our world are content to admire Him, if even that. But there is a vast difference between admiration and adoration. The musical pattern has a fugal feel with the staggered entry of voices until all four parts join in the imperative: “O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.”
The best-known arrangement of this carol for congregational singing is this one by Sir David Willcocks, including the gorgeous descant for the boys in the choir on the third stanza. Here it is from Christmas time at the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge. It was for the sight and sound of this very room and organ that Sir David composed this piece.