One of the best words to capture the essential message of Easter is “Victory!” By His death and resurrection, Jesus has been victorious over sin. He has conquered Satan, He has conquered the fall, and that will lead to His return when He will have conquered the world! That’s when these biblical promises will be fulfilled: when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14), and as every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). The Puritan pastor/theological John Owen articulated this in his classic book on the atonement, with the eye-catching title, “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ.” J. I. Packer has expanded on that in his eloquent introduction to the reprint of Owen’s book.
When this victory has been applied to our hearts by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, that glorious victory becomes ours, as we are raised from spiritual death to spiritual life, and assured of eternal life. At Easter, we sing of Jesus’ victory over the grave, and at the same time we sing about the victory that is ours by being united to Him by faith. As Jesus said to Lazarus’s sisters in John 11:25-26, “Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.”
The historical facts of Jesus’ resurrection are actual historical facts. In the past, liberal theologians have tried to explain away the biblical accounts with many ridiculous and totally implausible arguments, like the supposition that it was a mass hallucination that convinced the disciples that they had actually seen Jesus, that Jesus’ body was stolen and hidden by His followers in a “Passover Plot,” or that Jesus didn’t die on the cross (despite the spear into His heart!) but merely fainted until the coolness of the tomb revived Him. More recently, the liberal approach is often to suggest that it doesn’t matter whether or not Jesus rose from the dead physically; what matters is the idea of new life that can give us hope in our sorrow and troubles.
Paul got it right in 1 Corinthians 15 where he not only wrote about eye-witness accounts of the resurrected Jesus (including 500 at one time, and his own experience on the Damascus road). He also wrote that if Jesus was not raised from the dead, then He is useless to us now, our faith is in vain. We won’t be raised from the dead, either. And that leaves us not only without hope, but also the people most to be pitied for pinning our hopes on a myth. But Jesus has been raised from the dead and is alive right now, seated at the right hand of the Father, ruling in our hearts, preparing a place for us as the time approaches for our joining the saints in glory, and anticipating the day when He will inaugurate the new heavens and the new earth.
And so the glad Easter theme we shout is “Victory!” Our Easter worship services are a celebration of that. And we are blessed with hymns that re-tell the story with exuberance. A good example is the hymn “The Strife Is O’er, the Battle Done.” It is found in almost every hymnal today. Our modern text was first published in 1861, a product that was the work of Francis Pott (1832-1909).
Born in Southwark, London, the grandson of the surgeon Percivall Pott. His father was the proprietor of the family business, the Potts Vinegar factory. Francis studied classical languages at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1854, and M.A. in 1857. He was ordained Deacon in 1856, and Priest in 1857. He was Curate of Bishopsworth, Bristol, 1856; of Ardingly, Sussex, 1858; was appointed to Ticehurst in 1861; and then became incumbent of Northill, Bedfordshire in 1866, where he served for 25 years.
This hymn is based on Revelation 1:18, “I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore…”(KJV). The source of the text is an anonymous seventeenth century Latin hymn, “Finita jam sunt praelia” which may actually date back to the twelfth century, taken from the 1695 “Koln Symphonia Sirenum Selectorium”of Cologne, Germany. Pott is remembered for serving as a member of the original committee for “Hymns Ancient and Modern”in 1861. That same year, he published his own “Hymns Fitted to the Order of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the Church of England, To which are added Hymns for Certain Local Festivals,” which included this translation. Forced to retire from the ministry in 1891 because of deafness, he became active in research and writing, editing “The Free Rhythm Psalter”in 1898. Pott died on Oct. 26, 1909, at Speldhurst in Kent, England. (Since there is no picture of Francis Pott, here is a picture of the church yard where he is buried.)
“The Strife Is O’er, the Battle Done” sings of an Easter far removed from the secular spring time emotions and images of bunnies and eggs and bonnets. It is the biblical image of a great battle being fought and won. It was a cosmic spiritual battle with between Jesus as the champion of God and Satan, the terrible adversary. What was at stake was not merely Jesus’ survival and success but the survival and success of all those whom He represented. Jesus went to the cross as our covenant head. That means that for all of who are “in Him,” we were in Him when He fought that great battle. His victory has become our victory.
But it was truly a ferocious battle. The outcome was never in doubt, since God had predicted this in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:15, as Moses wrote about the seed of the serpent who would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman, and the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the seed of the serpent. On the cross, Jesus’ heel was bruised. But on Easter morning, Satan’s head was crushed. That’s why we sing songs of victory at Easter!
But how can we sing of victory, that the battle is “done” when we each continue to do battle with the world, the flesh, and the devil every day? About the only indication of the battle being “done” is in 2 Timothy 4:7 where Paul wrote from death row in a Roman prison, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” But we can still sing of this Easter victory as the battle that has been successfully won, guaranteeing our final victory into the presence of God. In earthly battles, it’s not uncommon for there to have been a major battle that guaranteed ultimate victory, where the enemy’s forces were so devastatingly defeated, that there was no possibility of their recovering to be able to win. There were still battles to be fought before all conflict came to an end but final victory was certain at that point, and the battle was “done” in that sense.
In its present form, the hymn begins and ends with a three-fold “Alleluia!” This introduction and coda wrap the hymn in joyful praise, by highlighting the Hebrew expression for “Praise Yahweh”
which comes repeatedly at the conclusion of each individual stanza. In each stanza, indeed in each phrase, we can recognize allusions to specific Scripture passages.
Stanza 1 says that Christ won the victory. As noted above, the song pictures the crucifixion as a contest between Christ and the devil (Matthew 12:29). Christ won the victory of life for us and proved who He was by the resurrection (Romans 1:3-4). Therefore, we can join the song of triumph which has already begun (Revelation 5:8-10).
The strife is o’er, the battle done;
the victory of life is won;
the song of triumph has begun.
Alleluia!
Stanza 2 says that Christ dispersed the powers of death. The powers of death, or gates of Hades, sought to keep Christ from His mission (Matthew 16:18). However, Christ dispersed their legions (Colossians 2:15). Therefore, we can “let shouts of holy joy outburst” (Philippians 4:4).
The powers of death have done their worst,
but Christ their legions has dispersed.
Let shouts of holy joy outburst.
Alleluia!
Stanza 3 says that Christ rose from the dead. Jesus predicted that He would be in the tomb three days (Matthew 20:12-19). Those must have been incredibly sad days for the disciples who could not yet understand what was happening. However, after that time He rose gloriously from the dead (Mark 16:1-9). Therefore, we should give “all glory to our risen Head” (Luke 24:26).
The three sad days are quickly sped;
He rises glorious from the dead.
All glory to our risen Head.
Alleluia!
Stanza 4 says that Christ closed hell and opened heaven. He closed the gates of yawning hell in that He made it possible for us not to perish (John 3:16). He opened the gates of heaven in that He made it possible for those who would be barred from heaven by sin to be forgiven and have the hope of going there (Hebrews 6:19-20). Therefore, we should let hymns of praise tell His triumph so that we might be released from the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15).
He closed the yawning gates of hell;
the bars from heaven’s high portals fell.
Let hymns of praise His triumph tell.
Alleluia!
Stanza 5 says that Christ makes us free. The Lord was wounded by stripes for us (Isaiah 53:4-5). However, it was by those stripes that He has set us free from death’s sting (1 Corinthians 15:54-57). Therefore, as we live, we can sing to Him “Alleluia” (Revelation 19:6).
Lord, by the stripes which wounded Thee,
from death’s dread sting Thy servants free,
that we may live and sing to Thee.
Alleluia!
The most common tune (VICTORY or PALESTRINA) used with the hymn is an arrangement of a melody by the Renaissance Italian church composer Giovanni Perluigi di Palestrina (1525-1594), considered the leading composer of late 16th century Europe. Born in the town of Palestrina in the Papal States, Palestrina moved to Rome as a child and underwent musical studies there. In 1551, Pope Julius III appointed him “maestro di cappella” of the Cappella Giulia at St. Peter’s Basilica. He left the post four years later, unable to continue as a layman under the papacy of Paul IV, and held similar positions at St. John Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore in the following decade. Palestrina returned to the Cappella Giulia in 1571 and remained at St Peter’s until his death in 1594.
Primarily known for his masses and motets, which number over 105 and 250 respectively, Palestrina had a long-lasting influence on the development of church and secular music in Europe, especially on the development of counterpoint. In music theory, counterpoint is the relationship of two or more simultaneous musical lines (also called voices) that are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. The term originates from the Latin“punctus contra punctum” meaning “point against point,” i.e. “note against note.” Bach and his predecessors in the 17th century were masters at compositions in contrapuntal style.
However, some books use another tune (GELOBT SEI GOTT) attributed to Melchior Vulpius, who was born around 1560 at Wasungen in Thuringia and was a Lutheran musician at Weimar, Germany for approximately fourteen years. Producing many chorale melodies which were published in “Cantiones Sacrae” from 1602 to 1604, he is best remembered for his contrapuntal settings of established tunes published in the “Kirchengesange und geistliche Lieder”of 1604, as well as in “Canticum beatissimae” in 1605 and “Ein schon geistlich Gesangbuch” in 1609, the last of which included this tune, possibly of folk origin, set to the chorale GELOBT SEI GOTT. Also, he produced a setting for the “Passion According to St. Matthew” from 1612 to 1614. He died at Weimar around Aug. 7, 1615. This tune was introduced into English hymnody with “Good Christian Men, Rejoice and Sing” by Cyril Ailington in the 1931 “Songs of Praise.”
The modern harmonization of the melody was made by Henry George Lay, who was born on December 30, 1887, at Chagford in Devonshire, England. Trained as a chorister at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor, he studied music at Uppingham, the Royal College of Music, and Keble College. During his life, he served as Precentor at Radley College, music director at Christ Church Cathedral from 1909 to 1926, Choragus of the University at Oxford, professor of organ at the Royal College of Music in 1919, and organist at Eton College. He died on August 24, 1962, near Ottery in Devonshire, England. Among hymnbooks published by members of the Lord’s church during the twentieth century for use in churches of Christ, the text appeared with the Palestrina tune in the 1921 “Great Songs of the Church” (No. 1) edited by E. L. Jorgenson, and with the Vulpius tune in the 1963 “Christian Hymnal”edited by J. Nelson Slater. Today, the text is found with the Palestrina tune in the 1986 “Great Songs Revised” edited by Forrest M. McCann.
From time to time, portions of a pre-existing musical composition are altered for the sake of a hymn tune. In this case British composer William Henry Monk (1823-1889), the composer of many hymn tunes, borrowed the first two phrases from Palestrina’s “Tone 3 Magnificat” (1591) and, with a slight adaptation, set this music to the opening and closing “alleluias.” Monk, who was born and died in London, is best known for his music editing of “Hymns Ancient and Modern” (1861, 1868; 1875, and 1889 editions). He also adapted music from plainsong and added accompaniments for “Introits for Use Throughout the Year,” a book issued as a companion to that famous hymnal. Beginning in his teenage years, Monk held a number of musical positions. He became choirmaster at King’s College in London in 1847 and was organist and choirmaster at St. Matthias, Stoke Newington, from 1852 to 1889, where he was influenced by the Oxford Movement. At St. Matthias, Monk also began daily choral services with the choir leading the congregation in music chosen according to the church year, including psalms chanted to plainsong. He composed over fifty hymn tunes and edited “The Scottish Hymnal” (1872 edition) and “Wordsworth’s Hymns for the Holy Year” (1862) as well as the periodical “Parish Choir” (1840-1851).
Here is a link to the glorious singing of this paean of praise from Washington National Cathedral.