In all, the Lord answered prayer and confirmed the work of our hands with 63 podcasts and 206 published articles. At the same time, the Lord raised up friends and supporters to help this ministry financially. When we celebrated our two year birthday, you gave and made it possible for us to enter the new year with fuel in the tank.

Indeed, as a ministry led by pastors and professors, we are grateful for partners who help us bring these resources to you and to equip the church with evergreen content that helps you engage culture today. Truly, as we look back at 2024, we praise God for his faithfulness, and we enter 2025 with prayerful excitement.

To that end, we invite you to join us for the journey. Over the next twelve months, as the Lord allows, we will take up these twelve themes.

• January 2025: The Image of God: In Scripture and Society
• February 2025: Whatever Happened to Sin?
• March 2025: The Ethics and Religious Liberties Conundrum
• April 2025: The Cross in the Old Testament
• May 2025: Speech: Sacred, Serrated, Simple, and Sanctified
• June 2025: The Paterfamilias: Making Fatherhood Great Again
• July 2025: The Nicene Creed: 1700 Years in the Making
• August 2025: The Gospels
• September 2025: The Doctrine of Vocation
• October 2025: Biblical Theology in the Balance
• November 2025: Do the Reading: Selections in Political Theology
• December 2025: Christmas Medley, Part 2

Already, we have authors and articles lined up for the first four months, along with scattered articles throughout the rest of the year. If you are interested in submitting something or if you have an article / podcast idea for a given month, let us know. We love getting feedback from our readers / listeners, and your comments help us gauge if, how, and where our work is hitting the mark.

In addition to online content, we have also enjoyed meeting many of you at various events throughout the last year. And in 2025, some of the Christ Over All team plans to be at the Founders National Conference (January in Florida), the Kings Domain Conference (May in Cincinnati), G3 National Conference (September in Atlanta), ETS (November in Boston), and one other soon-to-be announced pastor’s workshop at Occoquan Bible Church (in Northern Virginia in July). Long story short, as much we want to encourage you remotely, we are always delighted to meet like-minded brothers and sisters in person too. So, if you are at or near any of these events, please look us up.

Let me highlight what is coming next at Christ Over All, however, after tallying all pieces we published in December. Those articles on Handel’s Messiah are below (with the longform essays bolded).

Handel’s Messiah: Singing Scripture’s Hallelujah

• The Scriptures in Handel’s Messiah: An Overview by Esther R. Crookshank • Longform Essay • December 4 • Handel’s Messiah is the most famous oratorio ever written, and it tells a thrilling story.
• 3.62 “The Scriptures in Handel’s Messiah: An Overview” by Esther R. Crookshank • Longform Reading • December 5 • Handel’s Messiah is the most famous oratorio ever written, and it tells a thrilling story.
• Isaiah in Handel’s Messiah: A Desert Highway, a Contested Virgin, and a Zion-Sun Rising by Peter J. Gentry • Concise Article • December 6 • How do the selections of Isaiah in Messiah prophetically anticipate King Jesus?
• 3.63 “The Scriptures in Handel’s Messiah: An Overview” by Esther Crookshank, Stephen Wellum, David Schrock • Interview • December 9 • Listen in as David Schrock and Stephen Wellum interview Music professor Esther Crookshank on the circumstances surrounding this famous musical composition.
• But Who May Abide the Day of His Coming?: Handel’s Use of Haggai and Malachi in Messiah by Josh Philpot • Concise Article • December 9 •What will happen when the Messiah comes to earth?
• Setting our Affections on the Good News of Great Joy by Jim Knauss • Concise Article • December 12 • How can a familiar gospel passage bring us great joy this Christmas?
• 3.64 “Augustine’s The City of God and Why It Matters Today” by Brad Green, Stephen Wellum, David Schrock • Interview • December 9 • Listen in as David Schrock and Stephen Wellum interview Brad Green on his Christ Over All essay: “Augustine’s The City of God and Why It Matters Today.”
• An Interactive Edition of Handel’s Messiah by Chase Rea • Longform Essay • December 12 • Taste, see, and hear for yourself the glory of Christ in Handel’s Messiah.
• Psalm 22 in Handel’s Messiah by Jim Hamilton • Concise Article • December 13 • Charles Jennens, the text-selector of Handel’s Messiah, applied the agonies of Psalm 22 to Christ. Was he being sloppy with the Old Testament, or was he chasing down a thread of biblical theology?
• At Last, the King: Handel’s Messiah Sections 18–21 by Levi Secord • Concise Article • December 16 • There is an already, not-yet kingdom that will endure for eternity. Jesus Christ came as its king.
• The Servant of Servants: How All God’s Promises Will Be Yes by David Christensen • Concise Article • December 17 • Isaiah 53 describes the turning point of salvation history—and the turning point of Handel’s Messiah. How are all God’s promises guaranteed in Christ?
• My Whole Being Rejoices: The Resurrection in Handel’s Messiah by Godwin Sathianathan • Concise Article • December 18 • While we enjoy Handel’s Messiah at Christmastime, the Easter message of Christ’s resurrection is beautifully woven into its biblical selections.
• The Messiah and Psalm 22: A Carol of The King by Brad Baugham • Concise Article • December 19 • Do you hear that sound? It’s God’s Messiah King, screaming in the dark. Merry Christmas. It’s the carol of the King.
• Hell, Hallelujahs, and Beautiful Feet in Handel’s Messiah: Theological Reflections on Part II Scenes 2–7 by Toby Jennings • Concise Article • December 20 •Part II of Handel’s Messiah builds towards an exultant “Hallelujah!” What merits such praise?
• Profane Sacrilege or Redeemer’s Praise: John Newton on the Messiah and the 1784 Commemoration of Handel by Ben Purves • Longform Essay • December 23 • Find out why performances of Handel’s Messiah caused a stir of controversy in 1784.
• Handel’s Messiah: Worship, Worldliness, and the Way of True Praise by Bob Kauflin • Concise Article • December 23 •What happens when the Bible becomes mere entertainment? When non-Christians celebrate biblical music without any conviction or belief, how should Christians respond?
• 3.65 “Worship, Worldliness, and the Way of True Praise” and “Profane Sacrilege or Redeemer’s Praise” by Bob Kauflin, Ben Purves • Combined Reading • December 23 • Listen to a combined reading of Bob Kauflin and Ben Purves’ articles on the secular reception of Handel’s Messiah.
• Ascension in Messiah: Four Glorious Effects of Christ’s Heavenly Enthronement by David Schrock • Concise Article • December 24 •The ascension is a doctrine that should make our hearts sing and our souls pray. Consider its enormous theological implications with us in Messiah.
• Wedding Scripture and Song: Singing and Savoring Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” by Ardel Caneday • Concise Article • December 25 •The Hallelujah Chorus is the most famous section in the most famous oratorio . . . but what is it all about?
• The Triumph of the Messiah and the Hope of Resurrection: Handel’s Messiah, Part III by Alex Tibbott • Concise Article • December 27 •Why does the key of G-minor sorrow give way to D-major exultation? Because the divine Messiah, the Christ, has risen from Death’s hand victorious over sin and the grave!
• From Scripture to Song—A Guide for Musicians by Cody Curtis • Concise Article • December 30 • Handel’s Messiah is a beautiful example of setting the words of the Bible to music. How can Christian musicians today faithfully seek to do this well?
• 3.66 “Worship, Worldliness, and the Way of True Praise” by Bob Kauflin, Stephen Wellum, David Schrock • Interview • December 30 • Listen in as David Schrock and Stephen Wellum interview Bob Kauflin on his Christ Over All essay: “Worship, Worldliness, and the Way of True Praise.”
• Re-clothing Handel with the Truths of History In Order to Reclaim Him from the Hands of Queer Theory by Matt Wood • Concise Article • December 31 • Reality would like to have a word with those who seek to revise history by queering George Frideric Handel.

The Image of God in Scripture and Society

In January, we are kicking off the year by returning to one of the most basic and important concepts in the Bible—the Image of God. In Genesis 1:26 we read the words of God: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” And in next verse (Gen. 1:27), God says that he made them, male and female. Accordingly, in the first chapter of the Bible, we are presented with a fundamental truth about humanity—and one that undergirds everything else in Scripture and society.

Tragically, as our culture has abandoned its Christian heritage and denied God as creator of all things, the doctrine of humanity has suffered fiercely. Today, infants in the womb and octogenarians in the nursing home are equally in danger of being put to death through abortion and euthanasia, respectively. And in both cases the threat comes from not respecting the dignity of life conferred by being made in God’s image. If God is lost, so is the image of God, and when the image of God is lost in humanity, then the intrinsic value of humanity is lost too.

Countless ethical problems arise when the doctrine of humanity is discarded. And this month, it is our aim to stress humanity’s importance by way of rehabilitating the doctrine of the Imago Dei. Indeed, half of our articles will address doctrinal matters: What is the image of God? What does it mean to be embodied? How does Chalcedon’s Christology from 451 A.D. inform our theology of man? And how should we talk about human nature as male and female?

After establishing some theological foundations, we will tackle some of the thorny ethical issues of our day: What should Christians think about IVF (In Vitro Fertilization)? What is IVG (In Vitro Gametogenesis), and is it ethical? What about transhumanism or transgenderism? And should Christians be cremated, or only buried? And if buried, what role should churches play in providing cemeteries?

As you can see, the doctrine of humanity—along with its cornerstone, the imago Dei—touch every part of society. And in January, we are going to help Christians think more “Christianly” about these subjects. I hope you will join us for the journey.

Fuel For the Trip

Finally, if you have been helped by Christ Over All in 2024 and would like to help us continue to bring evergreen resources to the Church in 2025, consider giving a one-time gift as we start the new year. Consider it gas money. As we drive monthly conversations toward vital biblical, theological, and cultural themes, we are looking for cheerful givers to help put fuel in the tank.

Thus, if you like to help us make the journey in 2025, please consider giving a gift online or talking to us at Christ Over All to help us sustain and strengthen this ministry. As we increase our travels this year and look for ways to increase our offerings, we are in need of passengers and partners to help, so that we can continue to offer online resources for free.

Until next time, remember that Christ is over all, so in all things let us exalt Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria!

As historical revisionists live and breathe queer ideology, they attempt to read their radical ideas back in time. Seeking to find any trace of queer-ness, they insert their own presuppositions into their field of study, often overriding evidence to the contrary. This will then be taught to students who do not know any better. Even worse, under the gaze of their all-knowing professor, deconstruction becomes a pleasurable activity that applies to anyone and anything. To quote Thomas, “But if the romantic impulse to construct cultural heroes is human, the ironic counterimpulse to deconstruct them seems equally so . . . We thus get to enjoy our heroes twice, first in the putting on, then in the taking off of their clothes; if anything, the latter is more pleasurable.”^[1]

1. Gary C. Thomas, “Was George Frideric Handel Gay?”: On Closet Questions and Cultural Politics” in Queering the Pitch (Routledge, 2006), 155.

Thomas and others have become the unbelievers of Romans 1:32, “Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Or in this case, they “make up stories of those who do such shameful acts, and enjoy them.” In contrast to Thomas, I will argue that the assertion of Handel being a homosexual is based on evidence that is non-existent or speculative at most, and instead, Handel’s sexuality should be viewed in light of his Christian faith. In our day, modern day thinkers, historians, and even theologians have a way of casting former heroes of western civilization and biblical history in their own image to further their own agenda. Rather, being true to history means going where the evidence leads. As I will demonstrate, there is little to no evidence to support such a viewpoint that Handel was homosexual.

Responding to the Argument

In his chapter, Thomas attempts to peel back layer upon layer of an apocryphal conversation that supposedly took place to between King George II and Handel himself. King George II questioned Handel’s ‘love of women,’ to which Handel allegedly and evasively replied, “I have no time for anything but music.”^[2] Yet Handel’s reply does not seem so far-fetched. Sir John Hawkins, who knew Handel personally and is worth quoting at length here, writes of the unmarried Handel in his own A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, where quite clearly he says:

2. Joshua Kosman, “Was Handel Gay? / Musicologist’s provocative new book explains why it might matter.” SFGate, February 17, 2002,

The course of [Handel’s] life was regular and uniform. For some years after his arrival in England his time was divided between study and practice, that is to say, in composing for the opera, and in conducting concerts at the duke of Rutland’s, the earl of Burlington’s, and the houses of others of the nobility who were patrons of music, and his friends. There were also frequent concerts for the royal family at the queen’s library in the Green-Park, in which the princess royal, the Duke of Rutland, Lord Cowper and the other persons of distinction performed; of these Handel had the direction. As these connections dissolved, he gradually retreated into a state of privacy and retirement, and showed no solicitude to form new ones….

…His social affections were not very strong; and to this it may be imputed that he spent his whole life in a state of celibacy; that he had no female attachment of another kind may be ascribed to a better reason. His intimate friends were but few; those that seemed to possess most of his confidence were Goupy, the painter, and one Hunter, a scarlet dyer at Old Ford, near Bow, who pretended a taste for music, and at a great expense had copies made for him of all the music of Handel that he could procure. He had others in the city; but he seemed to think that the honour of his acquaintance was a reward sufficient for the kindness they expressed for him.

A temper and conduct like this, was in every view of it favourable to his pursuits; no impertinent visits, no idle engagements to card parties, or other expedients to kill time, were suffered to interrupt the course of his studies. His invention was for ever teeming with new ideas, and his impatience to be delivered of them kept him closely employed. He had a favourite Rucker harpsichord, the keys whereof, by incessant practice, were hollowed like the bowl of a spoon. He wrote very fast, but with a degree of impatience proportioned to the eagerness that possesses men of genius of seeing heir conceptions reduced into form.^[3]

3. John Hawkins, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music. Vol. 2 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 911–12.

From this testimony, it is very reasonable to conclude that Handel was too busy for any type of committed relationship. Thomas himself quotes Jonathan Keates who describes the vocation of musician as a vagabond lifestyle that was usually a hindrance to marriage.^[4] This is important, as many will try and use the context of the day and Handel’s own privacy to support a possible homosexual lifestyle for Handel.^[5] Thomas tries to argue Hawkins is saying something more with his language of “social affections” (i.e. “What does this really mean?”), but when read in context of the quote and the language of the time, one sees that it is social relationships in general that is meant, and not a hidden innuendo.^[6]

Additionally, Handel’s heterosexuality is seen in the fact that he may have gotten married to a woman if he had renounced his position as a musician. As William Coxe observes,

For when he was young, two of his scholars, ladies of considerable fortune, were so much enamoured of him, that each was desirous of a matrimonial alliance. The first is said to have fallen a victim to her attachment. Handel would have married her; but his pride was stung by the coarse declaration of her mother, that she never would consent to the marriage of her daughter with a fiddler; and indignant at the expression, he declined all further inter-course [discussion]. After the death of the mother, the father renewed the acquaintance, and informed him that all obstacles were removed; but he replied, that the time was now past; and the young lady fell into a decline, which soon terminated her existence. The second attachment, was a lady splendidly related, whose hand he might have obtained by renouncing his profession. That condition he resolutely refused, and laudably declined the connection which was to prove a restriction on the great faculties of his mind.^[7]

7. William Coxe, Anecdotes of George Frederick Handel and John Christopher Smith (London, 1799; New York: Da Capo Press, 1979), 28–29.

Though given the choice of a couple debutantes, Handel held a high standard for the arts, and if they did not understand his utmost priority to the music, he would not have them. Hawkins also states, “that he had no female attachment of another kind may be ascribed to a better reason.” Though Thomas is eager to seek a hidden, homosexual meaning in the words, “better reason,” Donald Burrows offers a better interpretation:

By “a better reason,” Hawkins almost certainly meant that the fact that Handel did not live with a woman who was not his wife could be ascribed to his blameless morals: I thank Anthony Hicks for pointing this out. It is in the highest degree unlikely that Hawkins intended to hint that Handel had homosexual orientation: eighteenth-century Britain, and that part of it that formed Hawkins’s readership, would not have been sympathetic to such a hint (they certainly might not have regarded it as compatible with ‘blameless morals’), and Hawkins would have undercut the personal lustre that he clearly hoped to gain by claiming close acquaintance with the ‘great and good’ (though eccentric) Mr. Handel. In the absence of adequate social records conclusions regarding Handel’s sexual orientation must remain speculative . . . It would certainly be wrong to read secular modern assumptions about social behavior into the life of someone who had probably received a fairly strict Lutheran upbringing in eighteenth-century Germany.^[8]

8. Donald Burrows, Handel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 374.

In making these comments, Burrows is rightly stating that reading the homosexual angle back into Handel’s societal context is anachronistic, and that, because of Handel’s desire to associate with a certain crowd, he would most likely would not have hinted at anything of the sort, especially with a Lutheran upbringing. As those who seek to read the Bible and history faithfully, we should be wary of this type of anachronistic interpretation. Just as we do not want God’s Word to be defiled by queer interpretations, so too Christians should seek the most faithful interpretation of those who followed Christ. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we should do them nothing but the highest honor, knowing that we will one day reign alongside them.

A Better Interpretation

When arriving at a faithful interpretation of Handel, therefore, Thomas fails to consider Handel’s religious devotion.

Comments and letters telling of Handel’s Christian devotion attest to his genuine love of his religion and God. Hawkins takes note in the second volume of his A General History of the Science and Practice of Music:

The loss of his sight, and the prospect of his approaching dissolution, wrought a great change in his temper and behavior. He was a man of blameless morals, and throughout his life manifested a deep sense of religion. In conversation he would frequently declare the pleasure he felt in setting the Scriptures to music; and how much the contemplating the many sublime passages in the Psalms had contributed to his edification; and now that he found himself near his end, these sentiments were improved into solid and rational piety, attended with a calm and even temper of mind. For the last two or three years of his life he was used to attend divine service in his own parish church of St. George, Hanover-square, where, during the prayers, the eyes that at this instant are employed in a faint portrait of his excellencies, have seen him on his knees, expressing by his looks and gesticulations the utmost fervor of devotion.^[9]

9. Hawkins, A General History, 910.

This is just one of many comments related to Handel’s piety. As it is well known, Handel signed off on his manuscripts, whether sacred or secular in content, with the abbreviation of ‘S.D.G.’, or ‘Soli Deo Gloria’ (Glory to God Alone). Though many musicians of his time and the classical eras did this, such as Bach and Haydn, one cannot think of it as an empty declaration. Better, one should ask, “Why promote a religion that at the time was so vehemently against such acts that he may have found pleasurable? How far does the facade go?” On this basis, there is good reason to reject Handel’s homosexuality, but there is also a positive argument, too.

Handel’s charitable behavior further demonstrates his Christian character. As William Coxe says in his Anecdotes of George Frederick Handel and John Christopher Smith:

Handel’s religious disposition was not a mere display, it was amply productive of religion’s best fruit, charity . . . He was no less bountiful to the Foundling Hospital; his early exertions in its favour were the principal support of that respectable establishment. He gave an organ to the chapel; and an annual benefit, by which seven thousand pounds was cleared in the course of a few years. He also presented the governors with the original score of the Messiah. His charity was by no means restricted to public donations, he was equally attentive to the claims of friendship, affection, and gratitude.^[10]

10. Coxe, Anecdotes, 29.

All these examples are not to paint Handel as a perfect Christian by any sense, nor to judge Handel by the characteristics of the pastoral qualifications of 1 Timothy 3 or Titus 1. He was not a clergyman. Rather he was devoted Christian, as all the evidence suggests. Even in admitting his vice of overeating to the point of gluttony, his faith remains genuine.

Clothing Handel with the Truth of History

In the end, while some in the academy believe Handel’s purported homosexuality would have no effect on how the general populace views his music; they are more than likely reading their own desires into this shallow interpretation. Historically, a “gay Handel” would have done massive damage to his Christian witness. It was publicly known that Handel was a devout Lutheran, and his faith clearly motivated Charles Jennens to work with him on projects such as Messiah. Moreover, in choosing to take subjects from the Bible, Handel became something of a religious icon—an eighteenth century Michael W. Smith, if you will.

Truly, the supposed scenario where a pious Handel pours his heart and soul into composing something such as the Messiah, and then lives a sinful lifestyle that Christianity clearly abominates is quite contradictory. If true, this would taint all of his musical output and make Handel a hypocrite and liar. In this way, Thomas may take pleasure in “taking off” Handel’s heroic clothing, but this only shows the depravity of his own heart—not Handel’s.

So clearly, we should come to a different conclusion than Gary C. Thomas about Handel. But more, we should expose—and yes, unclothe—the destructive forces of queering history. While college campuses are filled with such lies, wearing academic regalia doesn’t make them true. Rather, critical theory only strips bare the truths of history and replaces them with cheap postmodern imitations. And Christians who happen to find themselves in such spaces need to be on guard and ready to argue for the facts of history.

As a musician I often hear the phrase ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ but as a Christian I know this is false. Beauty is in the eye of the One who beholds all, the One from whom all beauty stems. Accordingly, we should seek to honor God’s creation and the story that he is telling throughout history. This means honoring the gifts of faithful Christians that God has given, and even defending their honor, when unbelievers seek to smear them with queerness.

Instead of putting our modern assumptions and contexts back onto history so that we can deconstruct and reform into our own image, we show honor to God when we tell his story in the most truthful way possible. As we do so, we don’t have to delight in taking off the clothes of our heroes, but instead we can delight in robing ourselves with the truth for God’s glory.

Handel’s Messiah, written in 1741, is notable for many reasons. From a purely musical perspective, it is a masterpiece in composition. For Christians, though, its significance lies beyond its musical craftsmanship. Handel’s ability to bring biblical theology to life is what has captivated the Church for centuries. The libretto, organized by Charles Jennens, is a patchwork of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament fulfillment detailing Christ’s coming. When you listen to each movement, you sense the richness of Scripture: its truth, its timelessness, its eternal weight. 

This is what music does when it is paired with God’s word. It enriches our experience with Scripture—not that the Bible is lacking anything or needs an external art form to accomplish its goal. Rather, because humans are stubborn and hardheaded (even we Christians who still battle with the flesh), God is pleased to magnify his truth to us through such avenues as communion, baptism, preaching, and singing, to bring the gospel more to bear on our hearts. The Holy Spirit is the primary agent facilitating change, and, in his infinite wisdom, he sees fit to use these mediums to that end. God, then, created music to glorify himself not only through its aesthetic beauty, but also through its capacity to convey his word in uniquely powerful ways.

But how does one do this? How does someone like Handel go about this task of weaving some of the highest narratives in Scripture into an exquisite tapestry of sound? Considering Handel’s incredible genius—he famously wrote and composed the nearly three hours of Messiah in only 24 days—he may not be the best reference point. So let me rephrase my question: how does a normal person go about setting Scripture to music?

Four Questions

I have been setting the Bible to song for the past ten years through a group I founded called Psallos. Our mission is to create artistically excellent and theologically rich music that leads people to better understand God’s word and his gospel. My primary means for accomplishing this is through musical adaptations of entire New Testament letters. So far, I have set to music Romans, Hebrews, Jude, and Philippians, and my plan is to tackle the remaining 17 letters in the future.

Throughout my time writing for Psallos, I have thought a great deal about how to compose Scripture songs. Setting God’s word to music is a difficult and heavy task. James’ warning that “not many of you should be teachers, my brothers, for those who teach will be judged with greater strictness (3:1)” constantly rings in the back of my mind. Writing songs for public or congregational consumption is undoubtedly a form of teaching. If the church sings something or if it is offered up to listeners, the song must be true to Scripture, and it must edify its recipients.

I’d like to offer some general remarks about the process, highlighting four questions that, I believe, help safeguard an accurate presentation of Scripture and cultivate creativity among composers and lyricists who seek to express its truths through song.

1. What does the text say? The starting point is exegesis, an exploration of finding the author’s original intent. All the skills of hermeneutics—studying grammar and syntax, looking at the original language, reading commentaries—are useful for identifying the main message. Before we imprint too much of ourselves onto the music, there needs to be a grounding in the text, with a prayerful posture for the Lord to open our eyes.

2. How does the author say it? The next stage is identifying the way in which the author communicates the content. This, of course, is part of biblical hermeneutics, but it is helpful here to bring certain questions to the fore, like “Are there any literary devices or forms being used?” or “What is the mood at this point in the passage?” Each book of the Bible possesses its own unique literary characteristics. Examining structure, plot, setting, recurring motifs, tone, and writing style not only gives you a fuller picture of the text’s meaning, but it also shapes its identity. To understand Jude, for instance, it is beneficial to engage with the literary particulars of the text, such as the author’s preference for organizing elements into groups of three, references to apocryphal literature, and a possible chiastic structure. All of these inform our understanding of the content and are especially helpful in translating Scripture into song. When you’re setting a text to music, preserving or utilizing these qualities to develop lyrics and music avoids genericism and brings focus and unity.

3. What do I want to say? The next two steps involve crafting the song. After an analysis of what the passage says and how the author says it, the songwriter decides what he or she wants to say. I am not here referring to eisegesis, in which a person reads into the Bible an external meaning. I’m referring to the inherent limitations involved in songwriting. If I am setting a passage to music verbatim, then this step is rather straightforward (apart from selecting which translation to use). It is possible in this case to cover the full scope of the text. If I choose, however, to render it in paraphrase form, I will inevitably have to be selective of what elements I cover and how deep I go. It is analogous to a pastor preaching through a passage, who, given a thirty-minute time constraint, is forced to draw out only three observations and four points of application. No preacher can exhaust a passage in one sermon, let alone an entire book. He must figure out what he believes is most important for his audience and appropriate for his medium. The same is true for setting Scripture to music.

4. How do I want to say it? Once you figure out what you intend to say, you need to figure out how you want to say it. Or, to put it differently: what type of experience do you want your listener to have? You may opt to stick closely to the text and follow its structure, tone, and contours (e.g. songs intended for Scripture memory). Or you may prefer to shape the passage into a song of praise or lament, in which you are offering more of a response to the passage rather than a walkthrough (e.g. hymns). Alternatively, you may take your listeners on an imaginative journey that causes them to engage with the text in a new way through juxtaposition, divergence, and various creative devices (e.g. oratorios, modern concept albums). I do believe that there is a certain amount of artistic liberty that can be taken with Scripture songs, if it is done in service to the passage. Artistic liberty need not suggest a looseness with interpretation and application of the text, as can sometimes happen. Instead, when proper hermeneutics combines with the expressive power of music, poetry, and imagination, the outcome can be compelling and formative.

“The Angels’ Moment in the Son”

To illustrate this process, I will use one my own compositions, a song that, like Handel’s Messiah, points to the incarnate Christ. “The Angels’ Moment in the Son” is the third track from my 2017 setting of the Book of Hebrews and is based on Hebrews 1:5–14. Through studying the passage and reading commentaries, I learned the author’s basic argument here is that Jesus is superior to the angels. This is the first of many lessons in which Christ is compared to other biblical figures to demonstrate unequivocally that his covenant, the new covenant, is better than the old covenant, just as Christ himself is better than the angels, Moses, Joshua, the Levitical priests, and the temple sacrifices.  

The manner in which he builds the argument is through a series of Old Testament quotations that compound with each addition. In total, he layers seven quotations from Deuteronomy, 2 Samuel, and the Book of Psalms to explain that the angels, though glorious in their own nature, are far inferior to the Son of God. Verses 5 and 14 frame the quotations and serve as brief commentary.

In setting this passage to music, I decided the best course of action was to paraphrase the text. Freedom with the lyrics would allow me to underscore the main message of the song and avoid a potentially irregular, episodic flow native to the text (“Or again…”, “And again,” etc.). This is not to say a verbatim approach would have been bad; it would merely have created some musical challenges for me to overcome, and their solutions may not have fit within my vision for the album or my limitations with time.

The next stage was identifying creative ideas to communicate this text musically that offered listeners an edifying experience. To give the song forward momentum, I structured it in a form that alternates between contrasting sections: verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus. The verses parse out aspects of Christ’s superiority (rank, eternality), as reflected in the Old Testament quotations, while the chorus provides a summarizing statement. For the bridge, I included a portion of the hymn “Angels We Have Heard on High” but rewrote it to suit the context of the song:

Angels, they may be on high,

Sweetly singing o’er the plains,

But the songs they sing are songs of Christ,

Praising him who reigns supreme.

Gloria in excelsis deo!

The purpose of this addition was two-fold. First, it utilized the device of quotation used by the author of Hebrews in this text. Second, by alluding to a Christmas hymn, it anticipates where the author goes next in chapter two: the incarnation.

The last thing I’ll mention about my approach to this song is the melodic language. I wrote the music using the pentatonic scale, a five-note scale that has a pleasing, open sound due to its construction of only major seconds and minor thirds. But my motivation was not purely aesthetic—it was also theological. For my adaptation of Hebrews, I created two distinct harmonic languages to reflect the progression of Christ’s descent from and ascent to heaven. In chapters 1 and 2, Jesus is seated in glory, with chapter 2 serving as the transition to earth. Chapters 3 through 7 describe Jesus’ activity on earth as he is appointed a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. In chapter 8, Jesus reenters heaven to offer himself as the atoning sacrifice, once for all, in the true heavenly tabernacle. This is where the author’s focus remains for the rest of the book. To capture this progression, I drew from pentatonicism for whenever Christ is in heaven and octatonicism for those chapters in which he is on earth. The octatonic scale is an eight-note scale consisting of alternating minor seconds and major seconds, giving it an unstable, unpredictable character. Thus, for this passage in chapter 1, the pentatonic scale anchors us firmly in the heavenly realm, with Christ exalted in glory high above the angels.

What About Handel?

Did Handel and his librettist use this four-step approach when writing Messiah? Maybe. Maybe not. Composition is not always this linear, and every songwriter approaches the subtleties of his or her craft differently. From the humble hymns and metrical psalms we sing in our services to the towering oratorios and cantatas we hear performed in concert halls, we find a rich diversity of Scripture songs, and this variety is healthy for the Church. But no matter the forms or styles used, no matter the period in which they were written, the goal must always be the same. We must seek to honor God’s word and bring people to a better understanding of its truth. God’s worship and glory must be our ultimate aim.

1. Gregory S. Athnos, Handel’s Messiah: A New View of Its Musical and Spiritual Architecture–Study Guide for Listeners and Performers (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023), 11. I am deeply indebted to Athnos for the insights in this article, and I commend his accessible work for those who are interested in learning more about Handel’s Messiah.

In such a short amount of time, Handel set texts compiled by Charles Jennens to a majestic musical score designed to lift the affections of the audience as they consider the glory of God’s redeeming work through the divine Messiah. As Christ Over All considers all parts of this Messiah this month, I will examine the beginning of Part III, which focuses on the triumph of Christ and the hope of resurrection. Throughout this section, Handel draws deep connections with Parts I and II demonstrating the fulfillment of the biblical hope in not only the resurrection of Christ, but the promise of the resurrection for believers. To truly participate in the Messiah, the listener must be truly participating in the Messiah, Jesus Christ, by faith. Handel’s aim throughout Part III is to demonstrate the implications of the Messiah’s work for the believer and to listener on to hope and trust Jesus Christ as he portrays the glorious promises found only through Jesus Christ. But to understand Part III, we must set the context moving through Parts I and II.

Setting the Context: Seeing All Three Parts

Throughout Parts I and II, Handel chronicled the coming of the Messiah. Part I enumerated various prophecies pointing to the plans and purposes of God in bringing forth the Messiah, his miraculous birth, and his glorious life. Then, Part II meditated on the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of our glorious Lord, which culminated in the majestic “Hallelujah Chorus.” Following the glory of the “Hallelujah Chorus,” many have been spurred to ask, why include a third part? What more remains?

Calvin Stapert helpfully responds, “The answer is this: although the victory has been won and its results are certain, the results have not yet been fully realized.”[2] Part III, then, shifts to the glorious hope that Christians have because of the triumph of the Messiah. The Messiah’s work is glorious because, we, his people are included in that work. To listen to the Messiah is to participate in the glorious composition, but the Messiah was not created as a mere musical score. The Messiah invites the listener to participate in the glorious Christian hope by actively attempting to shape the affections of the listener. This is nowhere more obvious than the believers’ participation in the hope for the return of Jesus Christ and the glory of the resurrection.

2. Calvin R. Stapert, Handel’s Messiah: Comfort for God’s People (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 142.

The Enduring Effects of Christ’s Resurrection

Part III follows the resurrection of Jesus Christ with the citation of Job 19:25–26, which begins section 45: “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” The triumph of the Messiah through the resurrection is the ground of the Christians hope! Handel frames this biblical citation in the key of E major, which was last heard at the beginning of the Oratorio (#2 and #3) with the declaration: “Comfort ye, my people.”[3] Through the work of the Messiah, the crooked paths have been made straight, and the rough places have been made smooth (#3). Now, in the promise of resurrection, the Lord’s people find comfort knowing that our redeemer lives and that no matter what comes, we will behold the Lord. Handel’s connection of comfort and hope, therefore, are wedded in the fact that “Christ is risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep” (1 Cor. 15:20).

3. For further insight into the Baroque doctrine of affections and Handel’s employment throughout the Messiah, see Athnos, Handel’s Messiah, 1–5.

The citation of 1 Corinthians 15 continues into the chorus (#46). Handel begins, “Since by man came death” (1 Cor. 15:21a) framed in the key of A minor, which mirrors the tenor Air (#43), “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps. 2:9). Handel connects the destruction of God’s enemies with the defeat of the final foe, death. The ominous gives way to the glorious, as Handel switches to C major and the grand declaration “by man also came the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:21b). This affect is mirrored with the final text of this section: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). “For as in Adam all die,” composed in G minor, evokes discontentment and uneasiness in the listener, which gives way to the hope that in Christ all will be made alive.

Handel resolves G minor into A minor as he concludes this chorus connecting the defeat of God’s enemy death with the death of the Messiah. The tension in the holy war of the Messiah finds resolution in the embrace and defeat of that enemy, death. In the work of Christ, the disharmony of the universe is resolved into God’s redemptive purposes. The grand problem of sin and death came into the world by the first Adam, and this problem has been resolved in the last Adam, Jesus Christ.

Continuing to reflect on 1 Corinthians 15 and the effect of the resurrection, Handel opens Section 47 with a lone bass voice declaring the glorious mystery that “we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet” (1 Cor. 15:51–52). This declaration is fortified with a sweeping trumpet solo to begin the Air (#48), which gives way to the soaring bass voice declaring the promise of God: the transformation of mortality into immortality. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was the culmination of the ages, but it was not the end of history. Time marches on, and the people of God are faced with wars, famine, tribulation, and ultimately death.

It is precisely here that the victory of Christ provides sweet hope for the believer in Jesus. One day the trumpet will sound, and the sweeping victorying of Jesus Christ will be brought to its full and final conclusion. Mortality will be swallowed up by immortality; the profane swallowed up by glory. This sin-cursed world will give way to the glorious righteousness of the eternal kingdom of God where death and sin are no more. Just as Jesus Christ triumphed over his enemies, the everlasting hope for the believer is that we will have victory in our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the theme that Handel picks up (#49–#51).

Handel’s meditation on victory begins with an alto recitative (#49), which is intended to fill the listeners with hope and aspiration as they are led to further consider the glorious implications of Christ’s victory. Handel builds upon this meditation with the inclusion of a tenor voice (#50) and further strengthens the annunciation in doxology with the addition of the choir (#51). This layering effect strengthens the pronouncements and is designed to increase the passionate hope of the listeners as they are led to consider (#49) the swallowing up of death (1 Cor. 15:54) and (#50) the removal of death’s sting (1 Cor. 15:55–56), which gives way to praise for the work of the every glorious Messiah (#51): “But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57).

When listening Messiah, the listener is not merely consuming the beautiful melodies and complex harmonies. The listeners are invited to participate with their hearts and minds as they are led by the music to set their hope on Jesus Christ and rejoice with whole-souled gratitude for his glorious triumph over sin, Satan and death. True participation with the Messiah requires that the listener is participating in the true Messiah by faith.

Handel has beautifully expounded the glorious hope of resurrection, but even in the midst of this glorious hope, the Christian continues life in the midst of a fallen world assailed by suffering, persecution, and sin. How are Christians to handle this inter-advental pilgrimage to Celestial City? Handel moves from triumphant victory (#49–#51) to a hauntingly beautiful section set in G minor(#52).

The key of G minor is meant to evoke uneasiness in the listener,[4] as life in this sin-cursed world causes feelings of uneasiness in those who long for Christ’s kingdom. Indeed, the uneasiness of G minor is set over and against the declaration that all things have been made harmonious in Jesus Christ, evidenced by the citation of Romans 8:31 and 33–34: “If God be for us, who can be against us? . . . Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is at the right hand of God, who makes intercession for us.”

4. Athnos, Handel’s Messiah, 127.

Even as Christians are led as sheep to slaughter (Rom. 8:36) and as the world groans around us (Rom. 8:22), we find hope and comfort in the fact that we are justified, our sins are forgiven, and our blessed savior continues his work in interceding on our behalf as we walk through the dissonance of this world awaiting his glorious second coming, which is where Handel concludes the Messiah.

The final chorus of the Messiah is a glorious meditation on Revelation 5:12–14: “Worthy is the lamb that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by His blood, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. Blessing and honour, glory and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen.” Handel moves from the uneasiness of this world with a pronounced shift to D major, the same key as the “Hallelujah Chorus.” With this shift, the listener leaves this world and is transported to the throne of God where the angels and all creatures are declaring the glory and worth of the Lamb of God, and the culmination of all of history in his glorious redemption. As Christians, our hope is not that we will be observants to this glory, but that through the work of Jesus Christ, we will participants in God’s glory. When Christ returns in glory, we will be made like him (1 Jn. 3:2).

Don’t Just Listen to the Music, Live It

Handel’s Messiah is a glorious meditation on the redemptive plans and purposes of God, but more than that, Handel’s Messiah is our invitation to participate in those plans and purposes by entrusting ourselves to the divine Messiah, who is victorious over death. Furthermore, the Messiah reminds us that Christ’s death and ascension is not the end, but it is the beginning of the end. Christians journey on in this life entrusting ourselves to the blessed savior knowing that in him we have the forgiveness of sins and a hope that transcends the grave.

In this brief account concerning the “Hallelujah Chorus,” I explore how Handel masterfully weaves together Jennens’ selected verses from Revelation with his musical composition, bequeathing to us his “Hallelujah Chorus” that evokes profound emotional and spiritual responses, intensifying our yearning for the full realization of Messiah’s dominion over all creation. These reflections accent how the majestic setting of Scripture to musical harmony and polyphony beckon us to raise our voices in worship of our sovereign God, King Jesus, and invigorate our hope for the fullness of his eternal reign.

Reflections on the Hallelujah Chorus: Word and Music Effectively Unified

The “Hallelujah Chorus,” the most universally memorable anthem from Handel’s Messiah, the closing chorus of Part II of the oratorio’s three parts, is regularly mistaken as the grand finale of the entire oratorio. This is because most contemporary performances of Messiah do not feature the entire oratorio but a pared-down version that includes most of Part I with the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Part II added as the grand finale.^[1]

1. Hence, the practice of standing for the “Hallelujah Chorus” is understandable and proper though the origin of this custom has been fictionalized. No evidence exists King George II attended the oratorio’s performance. More likely, standing was a common practice after sitting through a long musical performance for the audience to change their posture by standing through all the choruses when the entire choir and orchestra performed with grand effect.

The chorus features resounding portions of three passages from the Apostle John’s Apocalypse in this order:

“Hallelujah: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth” (Revelation 19:6).

“The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15).^[2]

“King of kings, and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16)

2. Those familiar with the King James Version should observe how Charles Jennens, Handel’s librettist, does not follow the plural “kingdoms” of the KJV in Rev. 11:15. Rather, Jennens correctly represents the biblical text as “The kingdom [singular] of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ.” It seems he realized that the KJV’s plural “kingdoms” (ai basileiai), present in two late Greek manuscripts, should be rejected in favor of the singular, ā basileia.

Handel’s Section 44, known as the “Hallelujah Chorus,” begins with the familiar brief introductory sounds of orchestral strings, immediately followed by voices singing “Hallelujah” in two sequences of five.^[3] This repetition of “Hallelujah” resembles the unified “voice of a great multitude” John heard, reminiscent of “the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings” (19:6). The music swells with intensity as voices strive to express Messiah’s majesty. The interplay between harmony and polyphony reflects the richness and complexity of the biblical text. Accompanied by the orchestra, female and male voices alternately sing “Hallelujah” and “For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.”

3. Before reading further, listen here to the Hallelujah Chorus.

The fifth round is punctuated with all the voices harmonizing a somewhat prolonged “Hal-le-lu-jah!” The orchestra echoes the voices, transitioning to the midportion of the chorus, “The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and of his Christ, and of his Christ,” followed by “and he shall reign for ever and ever” four times. The music begins to crescendo with interspersing repetitions of “King of kings” “and Lord of lords,” each followed by reprisals of “for ever and ever” and “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Three “Hallelujahs!” crescendo to the climactic fourth, when the tempo slows to draw out the final “Hallelujah!” to close out Part 2 of Handel’s Messiah.

Despite Jennens’ initial misgivings concerning the speed with which Handel composed the oratorio, the composer’s genius remains undisputed.^[4] Jennens’ lyrical prodigy greatly enhanced Handel’s musical brilliance. A staunch Anglican with a profound interest in Shakespeare’s works, music, and the Scriptures, Jennens arranged the scriptures of Messiah with a remarkable understanding of the biblical storyline.

4. On the composition of Messiah, see Esther Crookshank, “The Scriptures in Handel’s Messiah: An Overview” Christ Over All, Dec 4, 2024.

Indeed, the words of each text are by themselves splendid, but Jennens’ genius is evident in how he arranges their order. Consider the placement and ordering of Revelation 19:6, 11:15, and 19:16, which constitute the “Hallelujah Chorus.” Many mistakenly suppose the “Hallelujah Chorus,” derived from John’s Apocalypse, concludes the entire oratorio. It does not. Jennens placed the crescendoing “Hallelujah Chorus” at the close of Part 2, climaxing the meditation on the Lord Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. What could possibly follow such a climactic marriage of sacred lyrics and glorious musical scores commemorating Messiah’s exaltation? Calvin Stapert correctly observes, “The answer is this: although the victory has been won and its results are certain, the results have not yet been fully realized.”^[5] For this reason, the three passages from Revelation do not end Jennens’ libretto. Instead, Part III follows, featuring the Christian’s assured hope of being raised from death to stand justified on the Last Day, resting fully in Messiah’s own vindication by triumphing over death and the grave. Stated simply, Jennens and Handel have bequeathed to us a biblical theology set to music that tracks the Bible’s narrative arc concerning the already and not yet dimensions of Messiah’s regal triumph. His sacrificial death, burial, resurrection, and ascension already accomplished salvation for all his people who eagerly yearn for his not-yet-but-coming full royal dominion.

5. Calvin R. Stapert, Handel’s Messiah: Comfort for God’s People (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 142.

Thus, with appreciation for that overarching biblical theology, let’s look at each Scripture text.

1. Revelation 19:6: The Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth

The first Scripture in the “Hallelujah Chorus” is Revelation 19:6—“And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” This verse exalts God’s omnipotence, declaring his reign over all creation. That the chorus begins with this triumphant proclamation sets the tone for the entire piece. The repeated use of “Hallelujah” reflects the multitude’s collective praise for God’s supreme authority and power.

With its rising crescendos and forceful rhythms, Handel’s music mirrors the awe-inspiring scene described in Revelation. The swell of the choir, representing the multitude, rises like “many waters” and “mighty thunderings.” As the voices rise and fall, the listener is drawn into the scene, almost hearing the heavenly host proclaiming God’s reign.

For Christians, hearing this verse sung with such power evokes a deep sense of reverence for the sovereign rule of God. The omnipotence of God, which may seem distant, is brought near through Handel’s music. Our hearts swell with love and awe as we reflect on the Messiah who reigns over all creation, holding the universe in his hands, and is worthy of universal praise. The music reinforces the truth of the words—“the Lord God omnipotent reigneth”—lifting our spirits to sing along, longing for the day when every knee should bow before him in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess, “Jesus Messiah is Lord,” to God the Father’s glory.

2. Revelation 11:15: The Kingdom of Our Lord and of His Christ

The second passage of the “Hallelujah Chorus” is the latter half of Revelation 11:15. “And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever.’” The Apostle John’s vision portrays the ultimate triumph of Christ and the establishment of his eternal kingdom. It proclaims Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the powers of darkness.

Handel’s musical treatment of this verse is profound. The melody and harmony build with increasing intensity, reflecting the unassailable progression of Christ’s kingdom. As the choir sings, “and He shall reign forever and ever,” the repetition signifies the eternal nature of Christ’s rule, assuring believers that Messiah’s reign has no termination date.

In a world where earthly kingdoms rise and fall, where human leaders are flawed and prone to failure, the promise that “the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord” fills Christians with hope. It assures us that our prayers—“Let your Kingdom come; let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”—will reach fulfillment in the kingdom ruled by the impartial, righteous, and loving King. Christ’s reign is not temporary or subject to the whims and corruption of politicians. Messiah’s reign is just, unshakable, and eternal.

This truth stirs the believer’s deep longing for Christ’s return to complete the extent of his dominion. As the music soars with the repeated “forever and ever,” our hearts soar, filled with joyful anticipation. Our Christian hope is kindled as we look longingly to the day Christ will reign fully and visibly over all creation.

3. Revelation 19:16: King of Kings and Lord of Lords

The final words Handel weaves into his Hallelujah Chorus derive from the latter portion of Revelation 19:16—“And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords.” The acclamation powerfully underscores Christ’s supreme authority. He is not just a king among many but “the King of kings and Lord of lords.” His authority infinitely surpasses all others.

Handel gives this verse special prominence in the chorus, repeating the title, “King of kings, and Lord of lords,” multiple times. The repetition and the music’s grandeur highlight Christ’s majesty and supremacy. The choir’s voices reach their highest peaks as they proclaim these words, capturing the glory and honor due the Messiah. The words conveyed through majestic and royal musical tones evoke a profound sense of awe and reverence. It lifts our hearts to worship the One who is over all powers and authorities, holding all things together, and reigning in glory. As we listen to this part of the chorus, how can our hearts not be drawn into deeper communion with Christ to acknowledge his rightful place as King over us and the whole of creation? Truly, our affections are stirred to worship the Messiah, bowing before him in humble adoration as our lips repeat, “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

Conclusion

Handel’s Messiah is more than exceptional music thanks to the selected Scriptures arranged by Charles Jennens. The marriage of the Bible’s arc of Messiah’s storyline and musical scores worthy of such a narrative sweeps us up to exalt our sovereign God who triumphs through Christ Jesus to reign eternally over all. The profound worship of the Lord Christ, spanning nearly three hours, is an extraordinary experience. Yet, the most memorable portion of the oratorio is not the climax at the end, with “Amen” repeated numerous times, but at the close of Part II, the “Hallelujah Chorus,” four minutes of the sublime exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Five years ago this month, following dinner with our younger son’s family, my wife and I last attended a performance of selected portions of Handel’s Messiah by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestras and Minnesota Choral Artists. During dinner and following the concert, we discussed the suitability of attending what is generally accepted as a sacred oratorio performed by instrumentalists and singers who do not confess Messiah as Lord on whom every word they sing focuses. It is understandable that some, such as John Newton (Rector of St. Mary in London) in 1784, the centenary of Handel’s birth, took issue with the Messiah’s performance at Westminster Abbey.^[6]

6. Newton’s opposition prompted him to preach a series of fifty sermons. Bob Kauflin and Ben Purves comment on Newton’s approach. Here, I offer my own take.

The course of our conversation prompted me to raise several questions. Why would we presume that our Lord Jesus Christ does not receive praise from choirs and orchestras when they perform Handel’s Messiah, the words of which are entirely derived from God’s Holy Word, the Scriptures, even if those singers and instrumentalists have not yet entered God’s Kingdom? Did not the Word, the Creator of all things, bequeath to singers their talented voices and to instrumentalists their skilled fingers and lips to present the Messiah’s story so exquisitely, yes, despite their unbelief and misunderstanding? Though they know not God’s redemption in the Messiah of whom they sing, do they not bear testimony to themselves, to one another, and to every attendee concerning the advent of the King who now reigns and shall have full dominion over his entire creation? As their voices sing the words of Scripture and their fingers play harmonizing instruments, unwittingly and without constraint, do they not testify concerning the gospel of our Lord?^[7] My response to these questions is to quote the Apostle Paul, who encountered similar questions concerning some who preached the gospel with evil motives. Paul responds: “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice” (Philippians 1:18).

7. Concerning the “Hallelujah Chorus” being sung, Newton correctly notes the impotence of the music to transform hard hearts. “The impression which the performance of this passage in the oratorio usually makes upon the audience is well known. But however great the power of music may be it cannot soften and change the hard heart, it cannot bend the obdurate will of man. If all the people who successively hear the Messiah, who are struck and astonished for the moment by this chorus in particular, were to bring away with them an abiding sense of the importance of the sentiment it contains, the nation would soon wear a new face. But do the professed lovers of sacred music in this enlightened age live as if they really believed that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth? I appeal to conscience; I appeal to fact” (John M. Brentnall, “John Newton on Handel’s Messiah,” Banner of Truth (November 1, 2000). The impotence of which Newton speaks is also true concerning his and our preaching of God’s Word. However eloquently and loftily we may preach, the power is in the gospel message, the words preached or sung.

To attend such a performance of Handel’s Messiah beckons us to acknowledge the already and not yet aspects of Christ’s reign over God’s Kingdom. It is to witness and enjoy an earthly foreshadowing of what the Apostle Paul speaks of with these words: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9–11).

We must not underestimate the power of God’s gospel, which is being sung by vocalists and supported by instrumentalists who have not yet submitted to the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe the occasion calls for us to pray, not oppose performances of Messiah. We should receive the occasion for what it is: a welcomed incursion of the good news of God’s Kingdom into enemy territory. Thank the Lord for the event. Pray and revel in this wonder of the Advent season as a foreshadowing of that Day when every voice will acknowledge Christ Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords. May this tradition of the Christmas Season become heartfelt worship and adoration of the King of kings. Pray that our God will bring about a grand revival of the gospel’s powerful work to attend every performance of the Messiah.

When I teach eschatology, I spend most of my time outlining the ascension—its Old Testament expectation, its New Testament fulfillment, and its eschatological implications. Along the way, this biblical theological entry into the ascension leads me to consider passages like Psalm 2, Psalm 68, Psalm 110, and Daniel 7, all of which play a crucial role in developing a doctrine of the ascension in places like Ephesians 4, Hebrews 1, and the whole book of Revelation.

In studying Handel’s Messiah, I have been pleasantly surprised and encouraged that this biblical-theological reflection on Jesus Christ does much of the same. In fact, what I argue in class is that if twenty-first century evangelicals built their eschatology on the ascension, it would resolve—or begin to resolve—a host of eschatological errors. Or at least, it would put them on the right path to understanding the inauguration of Christ’s kingdom. Such is the polemical argument that I make in class with respect to the ascension and eschatology.

Yet, polemics aside, the ascension is a doctrine that should make our hearts sing and our souls pray. Because Christ ascended to heaven, the believer has confidence to enter the spiritual battlefields of earth. Indeed, as Psalm 110 suggests, with Christ enthroned in glory, he now sends forth his Spirit to save and his armies to march. Jesus is bringing salvation and judgment upon the world, and ardent Christians should not only argue this point theologically, we should sing about it doxologically. And singing about the ascension of Christ is what we have in Handel’s Messiah, as we come to Sections 34–43. In what follows, I want to meditate on these sections and the biblical texts they recite.

While other contributors to this month’s theme have engaged the music of Handel, and the way Handel connected Jennens’ lyrics to song, my contribution will be more canonical. I will attempt to stay in my lane and focus on the biblical theological connections I see in the given texts, and how their arrangement produces a theological message. And specifically, as it comes to the ascension of Christ, we will consider four results from Christ’s exaltation:

1. The angels worship the Messiah (Sections 34–35)
2. The church is being built by the Messiah (Sections 36–37)
3. The message of salvation in the Messiah is going throughout the earth (Sections 38–39)
4. The judgment of nations by the Messiah has commenced (Sections 40–43)

Following the ascension of Christ in Section 33, which cites Psalm 24:7–10, these sections outline the effect of Christ’s exaltation to heaven. This impact begins in heaven, but flows downhill, if you will, to impact all creation. On earth, the Messiah is bringing his kingdom by way of his Spirit and his Word through the instrumentality of his body, the Church. And thus, we who are the body of Christ should give praise to our head for the work he is doing. And wonderfully, Handel’s Messiah gives us a soundtrack to do that.[1] Still, that soundtrack is only as good as our understanding of the verses in view (cf. 1 Cor. 14:15). And so as we come to the highpoint of Handel’s Messiah, the Hallelujah Chorus, in Section 44, we need to understand the effect of the ascension that leads to that glorious doxology.[2]

The Worship of Angels (Sections 34–35)

In Hebrews 1:5–6 we have the exaltation of Christ over and above the angels starting off section 34. Citing Psalm 2:7 and Deuteronomy 32:43 (LXX),[3] respectively, the author of Hebrews begins his exaltation of the Son with a comparison between the Son and the angels, who are called “sons of God” in places like Genesis 6:2, 4; Deuteronomy 32:8, and Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7, as well as the aforementioned Deuteronomy 32:43.[4] While debate exists over the term “sons of God,” there is no debate as to what “angels” mean in Hebrews or Handel’s Messiah. It is plain: the risen and exalted Christ receives the worship of angels, when he enters into realms of glory.  

A George Guthrie frames it, “The chain quotation at [Hebrews] 1:5–14 builds overwhelming biblical support for the superiority of the Son of God to the angels.”^[5] In Messiah, we find the something similar. With the preceding choral arrangement of Psalm 24:7–10, a text which the early church regularly interpreted with respect to the ascension, we are ready to see the effect of Christ’s ascension.[6] And the first effect of Christ’s ascension is that the angel’s worship the exalted Son.

In a style that would impress (or inspire) Charles Jennens, the author of Hebrews arranges seven Old Testament citations that serve to identify the glory of the ascended Christ. Indeed, while Hebrews 1–2 stress Christ’s humanity, it is not Christ’s state of humiliation that is in view. Rather, it is the enthroned Son who is on display. In Hebrews 1:3–4, the text alludes to Psalm 2:8 in verse 3 (“whom he appointed the heir of all things^”) and Psalm 110:1 in verse 4 (“he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high^”). And with Christological skill, the next ten verses (Heb. 1:5–14) proceed from Psalm 2:7 to Psalm 110:1.[7]

In context, the chiastic argument looks something like this:[8]

[A] The Son is greater than angels (Heb. 1:5) – Ps. 2:7 and 2 Sam. 7:14

[B] The Son receives praise from angels (Heb. 1:6) – Deut. 32:43 or Ps. 97:7

[C] The Son is served by heavenly angels (Heb. 1:7) – Ps. 104:4

[C1] The Son receives his earthly throne (Heb. 1:8­–9) – Ps. 45:6–7

[B1] The Son renews creation (Heb. 1:10–12) – Ps. 102:25–27

[A1] The Son is greater than angels (Heb. 1:13–14) – Ps. 110:1

In reading these verses, we don’t know if Hebrews 1:5–14 was sung by the speaker, but we have good reason to believe it was preached.[9] And drawn from the Psalms, there is a rich lyrical quality to these selected verses. Together, they make a simple point: The Son who was made a little lower than the angels (Ps. 8:5 cited in Heb. 2:7), has now been exalted to the right hand of God (Heb. 1:3, 7). Accordingly, all creation, angels included, have been put under his feet (cf. Eph. 1:22–23). And for those elect angels who abide in God’s heavenly temple, they offer the Son ceaseless praise. As Athanasius puts it in a sermon on Psalm 24.

9. Dennis Johnson, Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures (Phillipsburg, NJ: 2007), 171–78.

The angels of the Lord who followed Him upon earth, seeing Him arise, announced His coming to the Virtues of heaven, so that they might open their gates. The Powers were filled with amazement at seeing Him in the flesh. That is why they cried, ‘Who is this?’ astounded by this mysterious order of salvation. And the Angels rising with Christ answered them, ‘The Lord of Powers, He is the King of Glory who teaches the great mystery to those who are in heaven: that the King of Glory has won the victory over the spiritual enemy?[10]

10. Quoted in Danielou, The Angels, 39–40.

Glory, hallelujah! The ascension is truly worth singing loud for all to hear, as Messiah does. Yet, if there is occasional singing on earth—in the church or the choral halls where Messiah is performed—there is ceaseless praise in heaven. And that praise changed key with the ascension of Christ.

Indeed, before Christ came into the world, the heavenly host gave praise to God in the precincts of heaven (see Isa. 6:2–3), but now such praise is magnified. It is magnified because the incarnate Son is seated on the throne, a mystery which the angels could not previously foresee.[11] Such praise is also is amplified, however, because the angels are joined by the saints made perfect. This is confirmed when we read Hebrews 12:22–24, where the angels are joined by the assembly of the firstborn surrounding the throne of God.

11. Danielou, The Angels, 24–33.

Wonderfully, in Hebrews 1:5–6 we find an introduction to angelology that leads us to the ascended Christ. Yet, that is only one aspect of the ascension. As Hebrews 2:16 clarifies, “It is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.” Indeed, in Hebrews the message about angels is not for angels, but for the people of faith (Abraham’s seed). And the same is true in Messiah. While the first effect of the ascension is the praise of angels, the second effect is the redemption of the saints and the formation church.

The Formation of the Church (Sections 36–37)

Next, Messiah moves from heaven to earth. Or, more precisely, the ascension of Christ to heaven results in the blessing of God’s people on earth. As Jennens cites Psalm 68, he takes up two verses. The first is Psalm 68:18, which is partly cited in Ephesians 4:8, “Thou art gone up on high; thou hast led captivity captive, and received gifts for men: yea, even for thine enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among them.” The second is Psalm 68:11, which seems to apply to Ephesians 4:11, “The Lord gave the word: great was the company of the preachers.”  

Together, these two verses present the formation of the church by way of Christ’s victory and the preaching of that good news. In the first place, Psalm 68:18 describes the people whom the Lord receives in his ascension. In the context of the Psalm, David looks to a day when God, as victorious king, will defeat his enemies (Ps. 68:1–2), such that the righteous (Ps. 68:3) and all those who have been saved by God (Ps. 68:4–6) can sing his praises. In this setting, Psalm 68:7–35 recount God’s procession, coming from the battlefield (Ps. 68:7–14, 19–23), up the mountain (Ps. 68:15–18), to the place where he will sit in his sanctuary (Ps. 68:24–35).

Rightly, Messiah interprets Psalm 68 as taking place when Christ, after winning victory on the cross, ascends to the right hand of the Father, leading a train of captives in his wake. And we know this fulfillment of Psalm 68 brings us to the ascension, because of the way Paul cites Psalm 68:18 in Ephesians 4:8. In that Prison Epistle, Paul alludes to Psalm 110:1 in Ephesians 1:22–23, as he prays for the saints to receive the help of Christ under whom all things in creation were placed. This prayer is based upon the ascension. Next, Paul highlights Christ’s work of salvation (Eph. 2:1–10), which results in the construction of a new temple (Eph. 2:19–22), wherein believing Jews and Gentiles can enter into the sanctuary offering praise to God. Importantly, this temple access continues in Ephesians 3:12, where Paul explains the mystery of the Gentiles approach to God (Eph. 3:1–13), which results in another prayer (Eph. 3:14–21). And all of this is to set up the life saints have as the temple of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:1–16).

It is in this temple context, with priestly overtones, that the saints—who have been placed in God’s temple—are called to build up the body of Christ in love. While Paul mixes metaphors—in the same way that Jesus mixes metaphors between body and temple (John 2:19–21)—he helps us to see that Christ who has received all the people for whom he died (see Isa. 53:10–12) has given them to the church, in order to see the temple grow throughout the earth. Accordingly, Paul takes Psalm 68:18 and changes the word “receive” to “give,” because the ascension is no longer in the future. Rather, the victorious procession has come, Christ has received his redeemed people, so that now he can give them to his church for their upbuilding. Still, there’s something else to see—namely, that the church will not be built by gifting alone. It must be built by preaching.

In Ephesians 4:11, the need for a preacher is observed in what Paul says with respect to apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers. These four servants of the Lord are necessary for bringing the life-giving message of Christ to those dead in sin (see Eph. 2:1–3). And they are equally necessary to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Eph. 4:12) in the temple-body that is being built up in Christ (Eph. 4:13–16).[12]  

This is how the church is formed in the New Testament. And in Messiah, the same logic applies. For after citing Psalm 68:18, Jennens adds Psalm 68:11, with language that approximates the KJV, but not modern English versions. The chorus in Messiah sings, “The Lord gave the word: great was the company of the preachers.” In this arrangement, the church comes by way of the word proclaimed by a great company of preachers.[13]

Indeed, in his ascension, the Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4) could now send shepherds after his own heart (Jer. 3:15) to call forth the sheep for whom the Good Shepherd saved with his death and resurrection (John 10:11–14, 17–18). Indeed, before the ascension the gospel was constrained to Israel, but now it could go to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). This is what makes the good news of Christ better than the gospel preached beforehand (Gal. 3:8). In his ascension, all authority was given to him (Dan. 7:13–14; Matt. 28:18), so that now the gospel could go to the nations. In Messiah, this gospel proclamation is connected to Christ’s ascension by way of Psalm 68, and it sets up the next result of Christ’s ascension, the universal scope of the proclamation.  

The Message of Salvation (Sections 38–39)

Following the exaltation of Christ in Psalm 68, Messiah turns to Romans 10:15 and Romans 10:18. As with so many other citations, Jennens takes verses that are obviously quotations from other parts of Scripture. Showing the unity of Scripture and the promise-fulfillment structure of the whole Bible, Messiah praises the beauty of the feet that preach the gospel of peace (Romans 10:15 citing Isaiah 52:7). And immediately, he follows with a chorus declaring the universal scope of the gospel (Romans 10:18 citing Psalm 19:4). Lyrically, it sounds like this, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” and “Their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world.”

By themselves these verses do not have anything to say about the ascension, but following Psalm 24:7–10, Hebrews 1:5–6, and Psalm 68:18 and Psalm 68:11, they absolutely do. The universal scope of the gospel, brought by the company of preachers could only go to the ends of the earth, if the exalted Jesus was sovereign over all creation. Yet, this is the point of ascension, as told by these verses. Jesus is the king of glory, and all gates open for him (Psalm 24). Jesus is also the exalted of Son of Man, and all angels must bow before him (Hebrews 1). And finally, Jesus is the victorious warrior, who has been given a people that are now being gathered from all nations, by way of the gospel (Psalm 68).

In context, Isaiah 52:1–12 describes a new exodus that the servant of the Lord will accomplish when he comes (Luke 9:31). Wonderfully, Jesus is that suffering servant, who dies for the sins of his people (Isa. 52:13–53:9), just as Messiah sings (Sections 23–26). Yet, the servant who suffers does not remain in the grave. Instead, when he is exalted to the right hand of God, he sends forth his servants to bring good news to the nations (Isa. 49:1–7). And more, he successful brings all of his people from all nations to himself by way of the preaching. This is the point of Isaiah 52:7, and it is further developed by Romans 10.

After answering questions about God’s faithfulness to Israel in Romans 9, Paul explains how God is faithful to his purposes of election (Rom. 9:6–29) and equally faithful to bring the good news of salvation to Jew and Gentile alike (Romans 10). While the details of Romans 9–11 require a verse-by-verse analysis, as these three chapters are bursting with biblical citations and allusions, the use of Isaiah 52:7 and Psalm 19:4 accomplish the same purpose, they confirm the fact that the good news that is as high as heaven is as wide as creation itself.

No longer do the nations have to grope in the dark for salvation (Acts 17:27). Now, salvation has come to them. With Christ on high, special revelation, which was bound to Israel under the old covenant, was now going to extend as far as general revelation itself. No longer would God only speak through creation to the Gentile nations; now in Christ, the message of salvation would go to the nations. Yet, in the same moment the message of salvation would also be accompanied by judgment (cf. Rom. 2:16), which brings us to the fourth effect of the ascension, the judgment.

The Judgment of Nations (Sections 40–43)

Typically, when we think about judgment in the Bible, our minds move to the end of the age. After all, there are plenty of passages that speak of a final day of judgment (2 Pet. 3:7), where the every person is brought before God’s throne and every word is given due consideration (Rev. 20:11–15). Indeed, since Adam disobeyed God, the world have been moving toward a final judgment. As God made the world moral, writing his law on human hearts and commanding Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit, man’s first sin has required a judicial response.

In truth, that judicial response came immediately in Genesis 3:14–19, when God pronounced a curse on all creation (Rom. 8:19–22). As history progressed, judgments continued as God sovereignly ruled over creation. As man continued to sin, there were judgments immediate (e.g., 2 Sam. 6:5–15; 2 Chron. 26:19) and delayed (Rom 3:25). In particular, the flood demonstrated God’s power to judge all creation, and ever since, the flood has been a symbol of God’s final end-times judgment (2 Pet. 2:4–5).

Still, between the flood and the fullness of time when Christ came (Gal. 4:4), the rising and falling of nations corresponded to God’s active presence in the world (see 1 Sam. 2:1–10; Luke 1:46–56); and notably, this presence brought salvation and judgment, kindness and severity (Rom. 11:22). In this story of salvation and judgment, the drama centered on Israel, and it coming Messiah. Thus far, in Messiah we have only seen the development of salvation, but now in Sections 40–43 we consider the other side of the coin—the judgment of the nations. And in particular, we can see three aspects to this judgment: (1) the hatred of the nations (in Psalms 2:1–3), (2) the vanity of the nations (Psalm 2:4), and (3) the judgment of nations and destruction of the wicked (Psalm 2:9).[14]

14. This threefold division of Sections 40–43 is the same way John Newton preached Sermons 33­–35, which I will reference below.

First, the hatred of nations.

When Messiah sings Psalm 2:1–2 and then Psalm 3, it does so as another response to the ascension of the Lord. As we have observed thus far, the ascension results in angelic worship and church building by way of gospel proclamation. Yet, Christ’s exaltation did not merely have positive effects. Now, in Psalm 2, we find the negative effect of the nations opposing Christ. Psalm 2:1–3 sings,

Why do the nations so furiously rage together: and why do the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth rise up, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his Anointed. Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their yokes from us.

This opening question (Ps 2:1), followed by the schemes (Ps. 2:2) and words (Ps. 2:3) of the wicked, illustrates the opposition that the rulers of the earth have towards God and his anointed king. In Psalm 2, the solution to this problem of the nations’ rage is found in verses that are not included in Messiah. The Lord looks to put his son of Mount Zion (Ps. 2:6–7), and—as I have argued elsewhere—the entirety of the Psalter goes in search of this son, the righteous king (a Melchizedek) who will defeat his enemies (Psalm 110).[15]

15. David Schrock, “Reading Psalms 2 and 110 with the Grain of Scripture: A Proposal for Reading the Psalter Canonically,” SBJT 25.3 (2021): 97–120.

In Messiah, however, this promised Son has already been identified. So, the messianic verses of Psalm 2 are not in focus. Rather, it is the hatred of the nations for God and his Son that receive attention. And this hatred of Christ is important for understanding the righteousness of Christ’s judgment. In his compassion for sinners, Christ does not seek first to destroy the nations. He begins by dying on the cross to save them. Yet, when his enemies persist in their unrepentant malice, then Christ is right to put them to flight in this age and to destroy them in the final judgment. This judgment will come in Psalm 2:9, but first there is the additional consideration that the rage of the nations is foolish and futile.

Second, the vanity of the nations.

In his sermon series on the texts of Messiah, John Newton called the opposition of the nations in Psalm 2:1–3 “unreasonable and groundless,” as well as “vain and ineffectual.”[16] When he turned to consider Psalm 2:4, he focused in on the “vanity of the nations,” as he followed David’s meditation to the Lord’s response to the nations. Psalm 2:4 says, “He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn: the Lord shall have them in derision,” and it reflects the sovereign freedom of God to withstand the assaults of his creation.

16. Newton, “Sermon 33: Opposition to Messiah Unreasonable,” Messiah, 287.

More than withstanding humanity’s assaults, God Most High is wholly unfazed by their threats. While God’s children must suffer many tribulations before entering the kingdom (Acts 14:22), the exalted Lord now shares in his Father’s laughter. Though the nations rage, the Lord rejoices, for he knows that every hostile effort is in vain.[17] While the context of Psalm 2:4 anticipates the exaltation of Christ to the throne of God, in Messiah that exaltation has already come. And now, with all things in creation put under his feet, every evil attempt to halt the gospel and prevent the expansion of the kingdom is vain. As John Newton puts it,

17. Newton, “Sermon 34: Opposition to Messiah in Vain,” Messiah, 289, “The text therefore principally respects the opposition made to his gospel and his kingdom after his ascension, which is still carrying on, but which always was, and always will be, in vain.” Interestingly, Newton identifies the Messiah as the one laughing in Psalm 2:4, but it seems better to identify God the Father, without respect to persons, laughing in Psalm 2:4. Newton’s identification of the Son in Psalm 2:4 is premature.

By his providence, which ruleth over all, he manages [his people’s] concerns upon earth, supplies their wants, and gives them present and effectual help and support in their time of trouble. . . . He permits their enemies for a season to try if they can prevent his designs. For a season, things take such a course that their attempts seem to prosper; they threaten, they boast, and confidently expect to carry their point. But the contest always issues in their shame and confusion. He not only disconcerts their schemes, but makes them instrumental to the promoting of his own designs.[18]

18. Newton, “Sermon 34: Opposition to Messiah in Vain,” Messiah, 290–91.

Truly, the laughter of God over the wickedness of the nations is not malevolent or unmerciful. In light of the biblical canon, it is both good and true. The Lord knows what he has in store for the world—salvation for his elect and judgment for those who seek to harm his elect (2 Thess. 1:5–12). And thus, the laughter of God reinforces the point, that nothing in creation can separate God’s elect from his love in Christ (Rom. 8:28–39) or overturn his judgment.

Third, the judgment of the nations.

In Section 43, we come to the final step of judgment. And here we have a verse that could be held up as a testimony to God’s final judgment when all things are consummated at the end of the age. Or, in the case of Messiah, the exalted Lord’s judgment has commenced, and is even now executing judgment on the wicked.[19] As John Newton reads it, he makes a distinction between the current judgment “in the present life” in the first part of the verse (“Thou shall break them with a rod of iron”), with the final judgment in the second part of the verse (“thou shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel”).[20]

Without getting into all the eschatological questions that this verse entails, I believe Newton’s reading of this passage points us in the right direction. In between Christ’s ascension and his glorious return, the nations are being put under the feet of Christ. By way of (1) the miserable experience of sin, (2) the bitterness of conscience, and (3) the handing over of sinners to their vices, Newton outlines the effects of judgment today.[21] Still, there are larger illustrations of Christ’s judgment too.

As Psalm 2 focuses on the nations and the rage of their rulers—something Luke applies to the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:25–26—so it is fitting to affirm Christ’s ongoing judgment of the nations. While Revelation 2–3 identifies the judgment by which Christ can remove his lampstand from individual churches, the result of that judgment would have an effect on nations too. Where peoples are given to idolatry and all forms of wickedness, Christ is free to bring repentance and salvation. But he is equally within his kingly authority to bring judgment. And though we do not have an inspired interpretation of history (post-ascension), the rising and falling of nations does suggest Christ’s power to judge.

And so, as Messiah puts Christ’s judgment of the earth after the ascension and before his glorious return, it leads us to see that Christ is wielding his sword, as his Spirit and Word proceed throughout the earth. To be certain, judgment of the regional or generational kind are not the same as the final day of judgment. But they do bear testimony to the fact that God is true and his Son is not a liar. The wages of sin is death, but the way of eternal life comes by way of bowing the knee and kissing the Son (Ps. 2:12). Again, this is the part of Psalm 2 that is not found in Messiah. But it is the stated desire of Charles Jennens, who arranged these texts. And while this fourth effect of Christ’s ascension ends on a dark note, it is not the most prominent nor the final note. For as this word of judgment issues a sober warning to sinners, it follows the offer of salvation in Sections 34–39 and precedes the great note of praise in Section 44—namely, the Hallelujah Chorus for all who would turn from their wicked ways and find salvation in Christ.

The Desire of Charles Jennens (and Ourselves)

As I noted earlier, the man who arranged the Scripture of Messiah is someone who longed for others to know him too. Indeed, we might say that the desire of Charles Jennens was that the nations would desire Christ. Certainly, this was Jennens baleful longing for those like his brother, who had been led astray by the Deism of his day. As Calvin Stapert observes, Jennens wrote with a great desire to undo that philosophy, and he did so because of the effect it had on his own brother.

For in fact, when he sent Handel the manuscript, he sent along a word of introduction that included his thoughts on the text and on his own brother’s suicide.[22] In that context, Jennens wrote that, “Human beings, it seems, since time immemorial, have been plagued by a powerful need to know the answer to this question: Does God act in the world, or are we left to our own devices?”[23] And in answer to that question, Jennens composed his libretto, in order to show Christ’s birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and as we have seen here the activity of Christ in his ascension.

To those familiar with Deism, this question of God’s activity in the world is plainly related. And to put it in terms of Psalm 2, the philosophers of Deism raged against God when they declared that he is not present, active, or able to intervene. In answer to such Christ-denying erudition, Jennens penned his libretto, with hopes to give the world what was taken from his brother—namely, faith that Jesus Christ was alive and active in the world.

In this way, Jennens reflections on Christ’s ascension bear direct testimony to Christ’s actions in the world. These actions include judgment on the nations, but only as the message of salvation that precedes judgment. Indeed, the risen and exalted Messiah, is not simply a god who will come to judge at the end of time. He is also active to save and judge here and now. And so Jennens adds Psalm 2 at the end of his section on the ascension and in preparation for the Hallelujah Chorus.

For us, we too should take note of Christ’s saving and judging in this age. For in fact, eschatology is not simply a doctrine to debate. It is also a view of the world to embrace and a message to sing. Wonderfully, in Messiah we are introduced to this message and in the sections on the ascension we are given a full theology of what God is now doing in Christ in the world that has been given to him. In this way, we have great reason to believe that God exists, and that he rewards those who seek him. As we sing Messiah, may our desires match that of Charles Jennens and George Frideric Handel.

May we long to see the nations come to Christ, and may all that we say and do render Christ the glory he deserves. S.D.G.

So is that a good thing? It would seem to be, if evangelism were our only consideration. Or, if conversion came simply by way of proximity to biblical truth. But what does it mean when unbelievers hear and sing about themes of sin, judgment, prophecies given and then fulfilled, substitutionary atonement, and Christ’s return with no apparent conviction or awareness? How should we think about its enduring popularity? And how did such a Bible-saturated work become so famous in the first place? A little history review might help us answer those questions.

A Brief History of Handel’s Messiah

Handel received the libretto^[1] for his masterpiece from a friend at a time when his career was struggling. As a devout Lutheran, Handel had a heart for the poor, but the Messiah wasn’t written for the church. Handel needed income. Fortunately, when it debuted in the Great Music Hall of Dublin, Ireland, in 1742, it was a sellout crowd, raising 400 pounds for a hospital and freeing 142 men from debtor’s prison. It was an undeniable success, commercially and philanthropically.

1. Libretto (“word book”) is the technical term for “the listing of the biblical texts used in the musical composition,” For further introduction to the music of Messiah, see Esther Crookshank, “The Scriptures in Handel’s Messiah: An Overview.” ↑

But not everyone gave it glowing reviews. When Messiah came to London, many Anglicans thought it indecent to sing biblical texts from a theater stage. Years later, in the spring of 1784, a lavish multi-day festival was held in London to commemorate Handel’s upcoming 100th birthday and the 25th anniversary of his death. Crowds feverishly flocked to Westminster Abbey to revel in a four hour Messiah presented by over 500 musicians. John Newton, renowned pastor and author of “Amazing Grace” was not happy.

So four months later, while hoping to “avoid administering fuel to the flame of angry controversy,” Newton started a fifty sermon series expositing the Scriptural texts in the Messiah.^[2] Woven throughout his messages were biting criticisms, not of Handel or the Oratorio itself, but of how people heard it, who came to hear it, and where it was heard.

2. From the preface of John Newton’s 50 sermons, originally published on 15 April, 1786. See John Newton, The Works of John Newton, Vol. 3 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2015), 19. ↑

Newton knew many who attended the Messiah were more impressed with the music than the message it conveyed. In Sermon 1, he challenged this pervasive mindset, insisting, “true Christians, without the assistance of either vocal or instrumental music, may find greater pleasure in a humble contemplation on the words of the Messiah, than they can derive from the utmost efforts of musical genius.”^[3]

3. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 10. ↑

He also questioned the makeup of the audiences. Although Handel did sign off on the Oratorio with SDG, Soli Deo Gloria, this was no worship service intended to be heard only by Christians. It was written for entertainment (although not solely)^[4], and by the time of the 1764 festival, promoted as such. In Sermon 50 he said, “If the far greater part of the people who frequent the Oratorio, are evidently unaffected by the Redeemer’s love, and uninfluenced by his commands, I am afraid, it is no better, than a profanation of the name and truths of God, a crucifying the Son of God afresh.”^[5]

4. Calvin Stapert brings light to the morally beneficial component which was often understood to be a part of the “entertainment” in Handel’s day. See Calvin R. Stapert, Handel’s Messiah: Comfort for God’s People (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 67–68. ↑

5. Newton, “Sermon 50: The Universal Chorus,” Messiah, 436. ↑

Newton was also troubled that the Messiah was written to be performed in secular venues. In his mind, concert halls and theaters represented the height of worldliness. As he put it in Sermon 22, “The sufferings of the Son of God are, by no means, a proper subject for the amusement of a vacant hour.”^[6]

6. Newton, “Sermon 22: Messiah Unpitied and without Comforter,” Messiah, 201. ↑

Newton’s critiques can be difficult to assess apart from knowing his context. But his concerns aren’t irrelevant. As in Handel’s day, it’s not always clear whether the world’s celebration of Christian music is cause for rejoicing or discouragement. It isn’t always easy for artists to distinguish between wanting to be used by God and wanting to use God for our own ends, whether those be financial rewards or musical pleasure.

There’s no “one size fits all” when it comes to music and the church, but pastors and musicians should be aware of the potential consequences of their decisions. What can we learn from Newton’s reflections on Handel’s Messiah as one faithful pastor responded to the musical sensation of his day?^[7] Quite a bit. To that end, here are five reflections that might help us in that process.

7. Further historical reflections on Handel’s Messiah in the eyes of John Newton can be found in Ben Purves’s essay, “Profane Sacrilege or Redeemer’s Praise: John Newton on The Messiah and the 1784 Commemoration of Handel.” ↑

When Bringing Sacred Music into Secular Spaces

1. While the success of sacred works doesn’t mean the gospel is advancing, we can pray God uses them to that end.

The text of the Messiah incorporates verses from seven Old Testament books and six New Testament books. In preparing for this article, I read through the libretto and was deeply edified as the story of redemption unfolded. And yet many (most?) people are unaffected by the words and see the Messiah as simply a great religious classical work. Nevertheless, God in his sovereignty may use those very words to raise a dead soul to life. They are his living and abiding words, and we should pray he grants resurrection to those who hear them (1 Pet. 1:23).

2. Music can be creative, relevant, and edifying without being distracting.

Handel chose the music for the Messiah because it was popular. Nevertheless, some Christians took issue with its complexity. The trills, vocal runs, and melismas (one syllable sung over multiple notes) tended to draw attention away from the meaning of the lyrics to the talents of the performer. Even apart from the venues it was performed in, it’s not hard to see why some saw it more as entertainment than edification.

Wise leaders and composers will carefully weigh how much technical virtuosity people can take in before artistry becomes the focus. It’s not that we can’t enjoy the beauty and genius of Messiah and other works. God is the one who gives and commands artistic and musical skill in the first place (Exod. 35:34–35; Ps. 33:3). But when people are consistently more aware of our creativity than the Creator, of our skill than the Savior, we’re tempting them to idolatry.

3. Production values should never overshadow or obscure our message.

If the word of Christ is going to dwell in people richly as we sing and play music (Col. 3:16), they need to hear and comprehend it. While we can’t control the relative effect of music versus lyrics on any given individual, people’s attention can be drawn to the music through over-production, exaggerated physical movement, music that is out of emotional sync with the words, and an overpowering accompaniment.

One author described the Messiah at Handel’s commemorative festival this way: “Inside the building soloists received storms of applause, while cheap theatrical effects rendered Handel’s solemn strains noisy and bombastic, and the thunder of chorus and kettledrums for four hours proved almost deafening.”^[8] It sounds like at least that performance of the Messiah failed the test. We don’t need to fail it today.

8. Robert Manson Myers, Harvard Theological Review, Vol. XXXIX, Oct., 1946, “Fifty Sermons on Handel’s Messiah,” 218. ↑

4. Be aware that people often need help to understand the songs they’re hearing and singing.

The fact that people can listen to Messiah and miss what’s being said tells us that musical works on their own, no matter how inspired they might be, don’t always communicate what people need to hear. It’s not far removed from the people of Ezekiel’s day who likened his prophetic judgments to “one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well” (Ezek. 33:32). They heard his words but rather than taking them to heart and obeying them, they simply enjoyed them.

Knowing this, we want to pursue opportunities to draw attention to what songs are saying, trusting the Spirit of Truth to illumine the mind and quicken the heart. Those might include spoken comments, before, after, or during a performance or service, that provide direction, instruction, explanation, or inspiration. Our aim is to shepherd people’s souls as we apply the truths that are being sung to their hearts and lives.

5. Music should be led and performed in such a way that character, not gifting, receives the greater focus.

When we stand before the judgment seat of Christ on the last day (2 Cor. 5:10), no one will be applauded for their musical gifting, skill, or accomplishments. Those are gifts from God meant to draw attention to the Giver. What will elicit God’s praise is those who served him faithfully, endured suffering through faith, and boasted in the cross of Christ (Matt. 25:23; 1 Pet. 1:3–7; Gal. 6:14). For that reason, it’s contradictory when performers in a concert hall or musicians on a church platform sing songs about the glory of God and at the same time seek it for themselves.

Likewise, when unbelievers sing songs praising a Messiah they don’t know, we should be cautious about comments that focus solely on their art and ignore the condition of their hearts. Instead, we can see it as an opportunity to distinguish between the temporal benefits of music and the eternal benefits of repenting and believing in the One of whom they sing.

A Thankful Word of Caution

Should we be glad that the words of Scripture are being sung and listened to in concert halls throughout the world? Absolutely. Is that a sign that revival is around the corner? Hardly. Can God use Christian songs sung outside the church to awaken people to the power of the gospel? Certainly. Can people develop a false sense of assurance and closeness to God because they’re singing or listening to Christian songs? Undeniably. “Worship” is only taking place when those hearing or singing the Messiah are seeking to exalt and treasure Christ in their hearts and lives.

In the end, God will be glorified with or without our songs, no matter how magnificent they sound to us. They can serve God’s purposes for advancing the gospel, but he doesn’t need them. And as Newton pointed out in Sermon 1, Christians have something much better to look forward to:

They who love the Redeemer, and therefore delight to join in his praise, if they did not find it convenient, or think it expedient, to hear the Messiah at Westminster, may comfort themselves with the thought, that, in a little time, they shall be still more abundantly gratified. Ere long death shall rend the veil which hides eternal things from their view, and introduce them to that unceasing song and universal chorus, which are even now performing before the throne of God and the Lamb.^[9]

9. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 10. ↑

No matter how magnificent the orchestra and choir, Jesus himself will always be better than the music we use to praise him. As we look forward to that heavenly song in his presence with eager expectation, may God give us discernment, courage, and faithfulness to use music in a way that honors the One who alone is worthy of eternal praise.

1. This series has been republished in Volume 3 of The Works of John Newton by Banner of Truth Trust.

This sermon series followed the 1784 Commemoration of Handel during May and June of that year. The commemoration had become the talk of London, and Newton described “conversation in almost every company” as turning to “grand musical entertainments,” and the series of performances of Messiah at Westminster Abbey.[2]

2. John Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah: Fifty Expository Discourses, on the Series of Scriptural Passages, which Form the Subject of the Celebrated Oratorio of Handel, vol. 3 of The Works of John Newton (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2015), 9.

Fearing that Christ had been overlooked, Newton sought to set forth the person and work of Christ in this series, and declared that his aim was to “exhibit the principle outlines of the Saviour’s character and mediation in a regular series of discourses; so as to form, if not a picture, at least a slight sketch, of those features of his glory and of his grace, which endear him to the hearts of his people.”[3]

3. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 9.

In what follows, this article will revisit the much-acclaimed performances of Handel’s Messiah in 1784 London and the controversy stirred up by the spectacle. These concerts provide a cautionary example of what happens when artists are glorified and Christ is overlooked. The irony of celebrating Messiah for the glory of man is palpable, but this same irony can be felt every Christmas in Christ-less celebrations, and Charles Shultz’s A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) captures this well. London does not have Charlie Brown to decry the commercialization of the Messiah, but Cowper and Newton denounce the misuse of Christ for entertainment. Linus is not there, but Newton opens his Bible to remind London to look to Jesus.

Revisiting the 1784 Commemoration of Handel

The centenary celebration of Handel’s birthday also marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death. Works of Handel were performed in London on May 26, 27, 29, and June 3 and 5 at the Pantheon theatre and also at Westminster Abbey.

This concert series was unprecedented in the planning and execution of large scale musical performances, with the largest concerts held at Westminster Abbey.[4] To accommodate this, an architect drew up plans for renovation that required royal approval. Staging was constructed that reached heights of forty feet to accommodate 522 orchestra and choir members, and a royal box was added for the king and his family.

4. Daniel O’Quinn,Entertaining Crisis in the Atlantic Imperium, 1770–1790 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 302–57. Project Muse, accessed November 30, 2024.

Concert tickets were priced at the extraordinary price of one golden guinea, and proceeds of the ticket sales went toward charities, much like the original debut of Messiah in Dublin. (For the curious reader, one of the surviving tickets to the May 29, 1784 performance of The Messiah is available for purchase at Whyte’s auction house.)

In the celebration, different works of Handel were showcased at each concert, and Messiah had multiple performances. The concert programs and notes from each day are recorded in Charles Burney’s chronicle of the event.[5]

5. Charles Burney, An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster-Abbey, and the Pantheon, May 26^th, 27^th, 29^th; and June the 3^rd, and 5^th, 1784 in Commemoration of Handel (London, 1785).

A Crowded Spectacle and Social Success

The fashion of attendees had to be constrained to maximize seating at Westminster. Directions were given that women were to wear “small hoops, if any” in their dresses. Similarly, women were not to be admitted to the concert with hats, so as not to obscure the view of the audience.[6]

6. Jenny Ruthven, “The Handel Commemoration 1784,” University of Southampton Special Collections (blog), June 1, 2018, accessed December 3, 2024.

Crowds gathered in the early morning hours outside the doors of Westminster to obtain good seating. Thousands pressed up to the building, causing great alarm as some were almost trampled while others threatened to break open the doors.[7] Once inside, Burney described the spectacle:

7. Burney, Account of the Musical Performances, 25.

The very filling the Abbey with such company, and the Orchestra with such performers, was a new, varied, and amusing spectacle, before the arrival of their Majesties and their beautiful offspring crowned the whole, and rendered the ensemble as enchanting to the eye, as such sublime Music, so exquisitely performed, must have been to every ear.[8]

8. Burney, Account of the Musical Performances, 73.

Praise of the commemoration was grandiose and effusive. Burney reported that “the art of which the rudiments accompany the commencements, and the refinements adorn the completion of civility, in which the inhabitants of the earth seek their first refuge from evil, and, perhaps, find the most elegant of their pleasures.”[9]

9. Burney, Account of the Musical Performances, 2.

One correspondent recounted the event for the May 27 edition of The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, highlighting its grandeur: “Yesterday the grand festival in commemoration of the immortal Handel began. We cannot in any adequate terms describe the grandeur of the spectacle.” The report continued by way of comparison,

Habituated as we are to public exhibitions, and having had the opportunity of beholding whatever has engaged the attention of the Metropolis for many years, we may be allowed to speak from comparison. On experience, therefore, we say that so grand and beautiful a spectacle, with, at the same time, a feast so rich and perfect, has not been presented to the public eye within our memory. Before ten in the morning the appearance was numerous, and about half after eleven the immense space was crowded to overflowing. The number was not short of 4,000, the greatest part of which were ladies. Their Majesties arrived about a quarter past twelve. The Royal pair were accompanied by Prince Edward and the Princess Royal, who sat on the King’s right, the Princesses Augusta Sophia and Elizabeth on the Queen’s left hand. The Coronation Anthem was the first piece; it was selected as a Salutation. Our readers can imagine better than we can describe the fullness of a band of more than 500 instruments.[10]

10. The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, Thursday 27 May 1784, [2]. Handel Reference Database, accessed November 30, 2024.

In reporting on a performance of The Messiah, Burney described seeing members of the audience and choir moved to tears. At the first performance of Messiah, the king wished to hear the Hallelujah Chorus a second time, so a message was relayed to the orchestra, and it was repeated. At the following concert, the king himself signaled the orchestra to repeat the chorus.

Count Benincafa of Venetia, in a June 7, 1784 letter, described the commemoration as “one of those events which every friend of humanity should reverence and exalt for the honor of mankind.”[11] E. D. Mackerness in his Social History of English Music described it as “the most important single event in the history of English music during the eighteenth century.”[12]

11. Burney, Account of the Musical Performances, 115.

12. E.D. Mackerness, A Social History of English Music (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1964), 127.

In addition to the social success of this event, the concert series served to bolster the prestige of King George III after he had suffered multiple political defeats, including his loss of the American colonies in 1783.[13]

13. For more on the political nature of this event, review William Weber, “The 1784 Handel Commemoration as Political Ritual” in the Journal of British Studies 28, no. 1 (1989): 43–69, and Daniel Quinn, Entertaining Crisis in the Atlantic Imperium, 1770–1790 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011).

Negative Criticism

Despite popular acclaim, some were appalled by the commemoration’s use of Westminster Abbey and the performances of Messiah. Westminster had been repurposed for the glory of man, and Handel’s Messiah and the Scripture texts therein had been misused to celebrate the genius of a composer. The St. James Chronicle was harsh in condemning the moral hypocrisy of the nation that exulted in Handel’s music and overlooked Christ:

Almost all the active Instruments of publick and private Vice were in our Eye when the Band broke out into—“Hallelujah! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” And such a Scene would baffle the Skill of Homer; though the Finger of Heaven traces legibly the Characters of Iniquity on the human countenance. The Assent given to the Excellence of the Performances and the Resistance made to the terrifick Truth of the sublime Sentence, formed a mingled Expression more unpleasing and hateful than can be well imagined. This Circumstance has long induced us to avoid Oratorios, as they are performed exactly in the Manner of Parodies, to ridicule and insult the moral and religious Sentiments they were meant to promote; and it will make us deem the Commemoration of Handel as signal Proof of the musical Proficiency, and the abandoned Profligacy of the present Period.[14]

14. St. James Chronicle, 29 May–1 June 1784. Handel Reference Database, accessed November 30, 2024.

William Cowper, one of the most popular poets of his time, likewise denounced this event as sacrilegious in his poem “The Winter Walk at Noon” (1785). Cowper condemned the concert series as the praise of man, as the “commemoration-mad” thousands enjoyed the power of music, yet it was the “Messiah’s eulogy, for Handel’s sake.” They gave “the day to a musician’s praise,” and the Scriptures were abused to “buckram out the memory of a man.”[15]

15. William Cowper, The Task and Other Poems (London: Religious Tract Society, 1846), 129–30.

Cowper was a close friend of John Newton, and together they had collaborated in hymn writing which led to the publication of Olney Hymns in 1779. Their efforts in musical and lyrical composition for the church’s worship of Christ must be considered in their response to this event. Cowper vented his displeasure to Newton in a letter on June 21, 1794. He considered this event to be a profane glorification of man, and heaped scorn on London’s clergy for their participation, saying sarcastically that the bishops should have joined the performers to increase the entertainment of the audience.[16]

16. William Cowper, The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper, vol. 2, 1782-1786, ed. James King and Charles Ryskamp (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 254–56.

John Newton on Messiah

Newton was alarmed that Messiah had becomethe entertainment of the nation’s capital, and that celebration of Handel’s musical genius appeared to have eclipsed Christ. Instead of denouncing the event publicly, Newton sought to address this by preaching through the Scriptural texts used in The Messiah to set forth the person and work of Christ.

Without being theologically timid, Newton often declined to engage in the controversies of the day. As a result, he often received criticism for the fellowship that he enjoyed across denominational lines. On matters where he believed there was liberty of conscience, he would refuse to sway others to his point of view. Instead, his letters often cautioned others from having a censorious spirit, and he encouraged his friends to be charitable and exhibit humility and grace. With this in mind, Newton’s unhappiness at the commemoration of Handel was unique.

Newton judged Messiah to have been reduced to “one of the many fashionable amusements which mark the character of this age of dissipation,” and that it was “improper for a public entertainment.” In writing about the audience’s reception, Newton warned that “if the far greater part of the people who frequent the Oratorio, are evidently unaffected by the Redeemer’s love, and uninfluenced by his commands, I am afraid it is no better than a profanation of the name and truths of God, a crucifying the Son of God afresh.”[17]

17. Newton, “Sermon 50: The Universal Chorus,” Messiah, 436.

Newton’s ire was not toward Handel or his oratorio The Messiah, but toward the issues surrounding it. Worship services at Westminster had been canceled in preparation for the concerts. Handel was received by the masses and celebrated, while Christ and his worship were neglected and rejected. In his 4th sermon, he declares,

Mr. Handel . . . has been commemorated and praised, many years after his death, in a place professedly devoted to the praise and worship of God; yea, (if I am not misinformed), the stated worship of God, in that place, was suspended for a considerable time that it might be duly prepared for the commemoration of Mr. Handel. But alas! How few are disposed to praise and commemorate MESSIAH himself! The same great truths, divested of the music, when delivered from the pulpit, are heard by many admirers of the oratorio with indifference, too often with contempt.[18]

18. Newton, “Sermon 4: The Lord Coming to His Temple,” Messiah, 40.

In addition to this, though the concerts raised funds for the poor, the concerts served the wealthy. “The gratification of the great, the wealthy and the gay was chiefly consulted in the late exhibitions in Westminster Abbey.”[19] Expensive ticket pricing made Christthe subject of entertainment for those with financial means. If this event was deemed to be worship instead of entertainment, then the church would be guilty of excluding the poor (cf. Jas. 2:1–7). In critiquing the cost of attending the event, Newton observed that the shepherds in Bethlehem “were honoured with the first information of the birth of Messiah,” and “enjoyed at free cost a much more sublime and delightful entertainment” in the chorus of the angels.[20]

19. Newton, “Sermon 10: The Angel’s Message and Song,” Messiah, 94.

20. Newton, “Sermon 10: The Angel’s Message and Song,” Messiah, 94.

In speaking to those who had not been able to afford or attend Messiah, Newton encouraged them to look to the greater pleasure that is readily available to them in Christ and his Word. “True Christians, without the assistance of either vocal or instrumental music, may find greater pleasure in the humble contemplation on the words of the Messiah, than they can derive from the utmost efforts of musical genius.”[21]

21. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 10.

Newton challenged concert goers to examine their hearts and consider whether they were captivated by the great truths of Christ, or whether they were only captivated by the music.[22] Newton was gravely concerned for those who delighted in Handel’s music of Messiah, but were blind to the truths set before them in the oratorio. Newton cautioned the unbelieving hearers, proclaiming their sinful condition and state under the judgment of God, and their need for salvation. If they had ears to hear, the truth contained in the lyrics could be the very salvation of their souls. Instead, they “have neither found, nor expected, nor desired to find, any comfort from the words.”[23]

22. Newton, “Sermon 2: The Harbinger,” Messiah, 29

23. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 19.

Newton understood that music has an indelible influence upon human emotions, but the power of music was powerless to change the heart of sinful man:

However great the power of music may be . . . it cannot soften and change the hard heart, it cannot bend the obdurate will of man. If all the people who successively hear the Messiah, who are struck and astonished for the moment by this chorus [The Hallelujah Chorus] in particular, were to bring away with them an abiding sense of the importance of the sentiment it contains, the nation would soon wear a new face. But do the professed lovers of sacred music in this enlightened age live as if they really believed that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth?[24]

24. Newton, “Sermon 36: The Lord Reigneth,” Messiah, 304–05.

If Messiah was truly performed and heard in worship to Christ, Newton wrote that such an experience might be one of the greatest enjoyments a believer might have before heaven. It’s hard to imagine a greater commendation of Handel’s oratorio than this.

If it could be reasonably hoped that the performers and the company assembled to hear the music, or the greater part, or even a very considerable part of them, were capable of entering into the spirit of the subject; I will readily allow that the Messiah, executed in so masterly a manner, by persons whose hearts, as well as their voices and instruments, were tuned to the Redeemer’s praise; accompanied by the grateful emotions of an audience duly affected with a sense of their obligations to his love; might afford one of the highest and noblest gratifications, of which we are capable in the present life.[25]

25. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 9–10.

Glory to Christ Over All

Handel’s Messiah, and truly, all sacred music, should be heard with hearts that are seeking to receive the great truths of God and respond with praise to the glory of Christ. The composer must not eclipse the subject of the oratorio. The worship of the church must set forth Christ over all. The glory of Christ must be preeminent above all composers, musicians, singers, and kings in the hearts of the congregation.

And so, in his sermon series, Newton set forth Christ, the subject of Handel’s Messiah, with the aim that his hearers would know Christ above all.

MESSIAH, the great subject of the Oratorio, is the leading and principle subject of every sermon. His person, grace, and glory; his matchless love to sinners; his humiliation, sufferings, and death; his ability and willingness to save to the uttermost; his kingdom, and the present and future happiness of his willing people, are severally considered, according to the order suggested by the series of texts. Nearly connected with these topics, are the doctrines of the fall, and depravity of man, the agency of the Holy Spirit, and the nature and necessity of regeneration, and of that holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.[26]

26. Newton, Preface, Messiah, 7.

It is a profane thing when the glory that is due to Christ is given to those who are below him. So it is when a congregation glories in the musical genius of the songwriter or performer, instead of in the Lord. And so it is, every year at Advent, when an unbelieving world glories in the celebration of Christmas without looking to Christ. Toward that end, as you celebrate this Advent season, and as you read Christ Over All’s content this December, our prayer is that you will turn your eyes to behold Christ, and that nothing would obscure your view of him.

In 2010 and 2014, excerpts from John Newton’s sermons were added to performances of Messiah. One such performance was held at Gloucester Cathedral in 2010. These sermon excerpts were provided to briefly expound the Scriptures in introductions to each song.[27] While we can learn no posthumous opinion from Newton on such happenings, I think it safe to assume that he would be perplexed and yet thankful that his words would be used to prompt the hearers of The Messiah to listen beyond the music and to behold the Lamb of God.

27. Marylynn Rouse, “Newton Script to Interweave with Part 2 of Handel’s Messiah,” The John Newton Project (blog), December 22, 2015.

Though one may rightly enjoy Handel’s music, we do well to receive Newton’s counsel and look to greater glories that are freely available in God himself, and the inexhaustible joys that are revealed in his Word.

There is no harmony to a heaven-born soul like that which is the result of the combination and coincidence of all the Divine attributes and perfections, manifested in the work of redemption; mercy and truth meeting together, inflexible righteousness corresponding with the peace of offenders, God glorious, and sinners saved.

There is no melody upon earth to be compared with the voice of the blood of Jesus speaking peace to a guilty conscience, or with the voice of the Holy Spirit applying the promises to the heart, and sweetly inspiring a temper of confidence and adoption.

These are joys which the world can neither give nor take away, which never pall upon the mind by continuance or repetition; the sense of them is always new, the recollection of them is always pleasant. Nor do they only satisfy, but sanctify the soul. They strengthen faith, animate hope, add fervency to love, and both dispose and enable the Christian to run in all the paths of holy obedience with an enlarged heart.[28]

28. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 10–11.

Amen. May the Lord so work in our hearts this Advent season, and may we rejoice to behold the glory and grace of the Messiah!

1. Simon Heighes, “George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)—Messiah” (London: Hyperion Records Limited, 1997), retrieved 16 November 2024.

Shadows of Messiah whisper through Part I of the oratorio. Then, as the curtain of the old covenant falls, Part II opens with this fading covenant’s greatest prophet, John, at long last declaring to the world, “Behold the Lamb of God!” The Lamb’s foretold suffering quickens his and his Father’s glory through his defeat of death to take away the sin of the world and inaugurate the kingdom of God. The “ministry of death” is abrogated by the “ministry of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:7–11) to “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:15).

After Part II Scene 1 introduces the Lamb of God to the sheep who have gone astray, the oratorio depicts his sacrificial atonement on their behalf. Scenes 2–7 doxologize Messiah’s underworld “tast[ing of] death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9) and his subsequent grand reception by the worshipping hosts of heaven as the mission-accomplished and returned Son of God who is adoringly coronated as King of glory (Ps. 24:7–10; cf. Heb. 1:6). Such cosmic climax cannot but resound throughout the Creator’s cosmos. The heralding of such victory over death and all that was rendered unholy by creation’s insurrectious fall cannot be contained to heaven; “their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Ps. 19:4; Rom. 10:18). Though “the nations furiously rage” against this proclamation of consummate judgment in mercy (Ps. 2:1–3; cf. Hab. 3:2), the newly coronated Subject of eternal oratorio “laughs” (Ps. 2:4–6; cf. Zeph. 3:17) as he magnifies his victory to worshipful choruses of “Hallelujah” from the cosmos he has now redeemed by his own vicarious blood.

Scenes 2–4: But Thou didst not leave his soul in hell (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:22–32).

Of core importance in Messiah’s victory over death is the implication for those on whose behalf he won that victory. As the curse of death was promised (and duly enacted) in conjunction with humanity’s rebellion against Life (Gen. 2:16–17), so also with equal fiat does the Sovereign promise life for repentant humanity (Rom. 5:15–17). Just as Messiah’s soul could not be abandoned to Sheol, so also is it no longer possible for death to hold those united to him by faith (Ps. 16:10; cf. Acts 2:22–32).

For the ancient Israelite (as well as other ancient people groups), life and living were deemed divine blessing, and death and dying were deemed divine curse—no longer being granted the grace of partaking in the joys and privileges of life under the sun (Deut. 30:19; Eccl. 9:4–6). Corporate and familial solidarity (so unlike contemporary Western rugged individualism) meant that Israelites solemnly reposed in the blessing of life extended through their offspring even beyond one’s own individual dismissal to Sheol (death). Still, though Sheol was universal and inescapable (post-fall), no one anticipated favorably this grim reaping. Moreover, the thought of spending eternity in this underworld of rephaim or “shadows”—where the gift of one’s life-force is diminished to near complete poverty—was even more literally damning. To be granted, then, the promise from the sovereign Creator of heaven and earth himself that one would not be abandoned to Sheol nor his life-force see decay was otherworldly good news worthy of resounding, eternal praise! Handel passionately sets to music the rejoicing commensurate with such a promise of life beyond the grave.

The Messiah’s apostle Peter, under divine inspiration, communicates King David’s grasp of the significance of Yahweh’s promise of life beyond Sheol at the institution of the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7:5–17. Peter writes of David’s Psalm 16:10 declaration that

³⁰ he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. ³¹ Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. ³² God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it (Acts 2:30–32, NIV).

David’s grasp of the significance of Yahweh’s promise included awareness (and declaration) that this promise extends not only throughout David’s generations but also as a binding axiom “for all mankind” (2 Sam. 7:19). Under the reign of this eternal King could all humanity receive Yahweh’s blessing of life beyond Sheol.

The blessing—life (Ps. 133:3)—is a non-quantifiable essence that the living God alone possesses and bestows upon whom he wills (John 5:21, 26). All those who heed the “instruction for mankind” by hailing the King eternal promised in 2 Samuel 7:5–17 will not only escape the eternal decay of Sheol. Far beyond that, they will also share in this “life” by being made partakers of the divine nature of the living God (2 Peter 1:4) to sustain them eternally.

Scenes 5–6: How beautiful are the feet of them who bring good news (Isaiah 52:7; Romans 10:15).

The nations are literally deluded as they rage against this “good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10; cf. Ps. 2:1–3; 2 Thess. 2:11–12). Nevertheless, anyone who brings this message of ultimate and universal hope should be welcomed heartily by rebels who are graciously offered a truce of peace—shalom—and, more, an invitation to dine at the table of the King.

Through the prophet Isaiah, Israel’s covenant Lord declares that he will relent of his chastisement of his disobedient people and redeem them from their Babylonian exile. This deliverance will (again) confirm not only to Israel but also to raging nations who God is (Isa. 52:6, 10, 15). This deliverance will further reveal the pattern of God’s rescuing his covenant people. The pattern was originally seen in the Exodus. It is seen here in Isaiah at the conclusion of Israel’s promised seventy-year captivity (Jer. 25:8–14; 29:10–14; Dan. 9:2). It is seen prophetically of Messiah’s first advent to save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21; cf. Luke 2:11). It is seen consummately at Messiah’s second advent “to reconcile all things to himself” (Col. 1:15–20; 1 Cor. 15:22–28; Heb. 9:28).

That this herald of good news arrives “upon the mountains” is not insignificant. In addition to “high places” being the ascents where God and man meet, “the mountains of Israel” had served as a metaphor for the people of Israel themselves (see, for example,  Ezek. 36:8; 37:22; 38:8). In the present aria, they serve as host of the herald who hastens good news of captive Israel’s ransom.

7 How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns” (Isa. 52:7; cf. Isa. 40:9 and Part I movement 9).

The apostle Paul appropriates Isaiah’s proclamation in correspondence with anyone who heralds the good news of great joy of God’s ultimate ransom of humanity from bondage to sin and death. Paul makes this legitimate interpretive correspondence because in Messiah, Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled, namely, “Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here I am” (Isa. 52:6; cf. John 8:24, 28, 58; 18:6). Paul further quotes Psalm 19:4, asserting in regard to this message of Messiah’s victory, “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world” (Rom. 10:15–18). The report in heaven of Messiah’s victory indeed is heralded in all the earth not only at Christmas and Easter, but whenever and wherever this gospel of the Kingdom is proclaimed.

Scene 7: Hallelujah! (Revelation 19:6, 16; 11:15)

The two-movement Scene seven of Handel’s Messiah concludes Part II with the perfect segway into choruses of the worshipful exultation due the Messiah for his vanquishing of unholiness in his cosmos and redemption of his people such that “the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3). Such a perfecting consummation of the age can contain the composure of the redeemed, it seems, for no more than “half an hour” (Rev. 8:1). Gloria in excelsis Deo—glory to God in the highest—bursts forth. Probably the most famed of the entire oratorio is movement 44, the Hallelujah chorus written entirely from Revelation 19:6, 16; 11:15. In John’s apocalypse, we are given eschatological glimpses of the will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven, “a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns’” (Rev. 19:6; cf. Isa. 52:7)! Whether or not the legend is true that King George II rose to his feet in salutary approval of the masterpiece’s 1743 London premier, the tradition is fitting to rise with the hosts of heaven and praise God in the highest—literally, “Hallelujah!”—for his “tast[ing of] death for everyone” in order to provide salvation for the cosmos he loves (Heb. 2:9; John 3:16). For this unparalleled display of love, Messiah alone is both worthy of praise, and “he shall reign forever and ever”(Rev. 11:15)!

1. For background on the often overlooked philanthropist and polymath Charles Jennens, in particular his devout faith and “role as a champion of Christianity,” see Ruth Smith, “The Achievements of Charles Jennens (1700-1773),” Music & Letters 70.2 (1989): 161–190; Ruth Smith, “Online Talk | Charles Jennens: The Man Behind Handel’s Messiah,” FoundlingMuseum, 13 July 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3zdb2jdm.

2. “Jennens was the only Handel librettist to cast the defense of Christianity itself as an oratorio. He set out precisely those essentials of Christianity that were being attacked [in his day]: the Old Testament prophecies of Christ’s birth, life and death; His chief miracles—His incarnation, resurrection and ascension; His redemption of mankind; apostolic authority; and the primacy of Christianity among the world’s religions.” Smith, “The Achievements of Charles Jennens (1700-1773),” 182.

3. Calvin Stapert’s explanation of Deism helps demonstrate the apologetic and evangelistic reasons why Charles Jennens wrote the libretto for Messiah: “Deism was fundamentally at odds with Christian beliefs that humans are basically sinful, that they are incapable of saving themselves, and therefore that they need a savior. In other words, Deists did not believe in the need for a Messiah. Messiah was born into this world of growing threat to the church.” Calvin R. Stapert, Handel’s Messiah: Comfort for God’s People (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 75.

4. Jonathan Keats, a Handel biographer, speaks of Handel’s devout and storied Protestant faith, noting that “there is not the slightest evidence that Handel ever swerved from the Protestant Christianity in which he had been brought up. His forebears, who included Lutheran pastors [Handel’s mother was the daughter of a Lutheran pastor], were noted as having suffered during the Thirty Years War for their adherence to ‘the pure evangelical truth,’ and he remained constant to the beliefs his family had instilled within him.” Jonathan Keates, Messiah: The Composition and Afterlife of Handel’s Masterpiece (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 119.

Jennens offered the libretto to Handel as gift and took no payment, hoping the finished musical work would direct people to the greatest Gift.

Handel’s finest oratorio, the one that fills concert halls everywhere at Christmas, is every bit Jennens’s Messiah as Handel’s, and even more so. Handel himself referred to the finished musical masterpiece about Christ’s work as “Your (Jennens’s) Messiah.”[5] Together, they composed a masterpiece that made the truth about the Messiah beautiful so as to make him delightful. The loveliness of the music helps see the loveliness of Christ.

5. Donald Burrows, Handel: Messiah, Cambridge Music Handbooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 15.

A Carol of The King: Psalm 22

No section of Messiah showcases the love of Christ in his suffering for sinners more clearly than Part II: I. Christ’s Passion, Scourging, and Crucifixion (Scenes 22–30) and II. Christ’s Death and Resurrection (Scenes 31–32).[6] While most modern performances of Messiah take place during Christmastime, hearing Messiah during Christmas would have been unfamiliar to Jennens and Handel. They wrote Messiah for performances during Lent and Easter, that time of year when Christians round the world remember the vicarious death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in the place of sinners.[7]

6. This labeling follows Jennens’s own authoritative layout given for the London performance in 1743. Burrows, Handel, 57–58.

7. At Handel’s death bed, “Dr. Warren, who attended Handel in his last sickness, . . .  remembers his dying . . . that he had most seriously and devoutly wished, for several days before his death, that he might breathe his last on Good-Friday, ‘in hopes,’ he said, ‘of meeting his Good God, his sweet Lord and Savior, on the day of his resurrection,’ meaning the third day, or the Easter Sunday following” (italics original).” Charles Burney, An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster-Abbey, and the Pantheon. (London, 1785), 31. For an online edition see, https://tinyurl.com/3spsrkar.

The Context of Psalm 22 in Messiah

Jennens opens Part II of Messiah the same way he opened the entire oratorio, with a word from John the Baptist. The opening voice of Part I comes with John the Baptist’s cry, voiced through a tenor aria, to comfort the Lord’s people (Isa. 40:1–4). Handel had preceded the Baptist’s cry with an opening French overture whose stately rhythm could announce the entrance of a king.[8] The surprise as Messiah unfolds is just what kind of king the Messiah would be.

8. Stapert, Handel’s Messiah, 88–89.

Handel opens Part II of Messiah, like Part I, with another French-styled piece, yet this time he employs a minor key and a chorus. [9] Handel is matching Jennens’s text, hinting at the kind of king to come. The music of Part II, as with Part I, also opens with a cry of John the Baptist. The fugal chorus takes up his words singing somberly, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29 KJV). Following the call to “Behold, the Lamb,” one song after another holds up a picture of Christ’s anguished suffering from Isaiah 53 (Scenes 22–31).

9. Burrows, Handel, 63.

Slashing strings sound like lashes across the Savior’s back. “Dotted rhythms in the opening chorus ‘Behold the Lamb of God,’ in the second section of the great alto aria ‘He was despised’ and in ‘Surely He hath borne our griefs’ evoke jagged extremes of pain and suffering.”[10] This is not the king we expected to behold, whose entrance Handel had announced with the opening royal overture of Part I. Nor is it the outcome we expect of the babe lying in a manger at Christmas.[11] But here we arrive at the heart of the Handel’s Messiah, compositionally and thematically. We arrive at the heart of God’s Messiah, too. His throne lies not on a bed of straw or in a palace, but on a tree.

10. Keates, Messiah, 80.

11. The Baroque Spanish painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo combined evocative images of Christ’s birth, crucifixion, and resurrection in a striking portrait called “The Infant Christ Asleep on the Cross” (c. 1670). Charles Jennens had this painting in his personal art collection. It can be seen now at Sheffield Museums.

After the opening chorus “Behold, the Lamb” in Part II, Handel writes to make us behold Christ for over ten minutes. We see him “despised and rejected … [giving] his back to the smiters” in the alto’s aria (Scene 23,Isa. 53:3; 50:6). Here Handel gives us the longest piece of music in the entire oratorio. He will not let us look away. Moreover, with every song after the choruses call to “Behold, the Lamb of God,” Handel moves farther away from the opening key of Part II (G minor). Adding flats to every successive song, Handel musically descends deeper and deeper into the darkness of Christ’s suffering, taking the listener all the way down with him.

After four songs of beholding the Messiah from Isaiah 53 (“He was despised”; “Surely he hath borne our griefs”; “And with his stripes we are healed”; “All we like sheep”), we expect a textual response and resolution. But at this very moment, Jennens and Handel take an unexpected turn. Textually, Jennens suddenly transports us from Isaiah 53 to Psalm 22; musically, Handel adds more flats again to another minor key taking us to the very bottom of the opening scene.[12]  Now, instead of reverence at scenes just witnessed, a tenor voice breaks in with an irreverent, unexpected response: “All they that see him, laugh him to scorn” (Ps. 22:7). Musically and textually, we have come to a jarring and unexpected outcome. By placing Psalm 22 right after Isaiah 53, Jennens has made Isaiah’s suffering Messiah (Isaiah 53) into the forsaken Davidic Messiah (Psalm 22). We expected resolution but are met with rejection. People are not embracing God’s suffering Messiah; they are taunting him.[13] Handel’s music matches the mood.

12. Handel opens Part II with the “Behold, the Lamb of God” chorus in G minor (Scene 22). By the time he arrives at the tenor recitative in “All they that see him” (Ps. 22:7), he has moved to B-flat minor (Scene 27). In five scenes, Handel has “descended” from two flats in G minor to five flats in B-flat minor. The complete movement from the opening of Part II, Scenes 22—27, runs G minor — E-flat major — F minor — F minor — F major (ending in F minor) — B-flat minor. Even the tryptic of choruses in the key of F (Scenes 24–26) provide a sustained meditation before a “downward” key change to B-flat minor when a tenor solo breaks in. Chris Enloe (MM in Composition from The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University and current DMA candidate) provided valuable input for this note. Any error in explanation remains the writers, however.

13. As Tozer observed, “Self can live unrebuked at the very altar. It can watch the bleeding victim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees.” A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, (2014), 46.

The Messiah of Psalm 22 in Messiah

Handel has followed Christ downward into the darkness of grief. He and Jennens have now taken us into darkest pit of the Bible, Psalm 22. We have arrived at hell on earth. “My God, my God,” an orphaned cry erupts—“Why hast thou forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1). The accent falls on that last word. It’s God Messiah King, screaming in the dark. Merry Christmas. It’s the carol of the King.

Just as the opening scenes in Part II of Handel’s Messiah about a suffering Messiah clash with the opening scenes in Part I about a sovereign Messiah, so the suffering King in Psalm 22 clashes with the sovereign King in Psalm 2. The Psalter opens with its own overture in Psalm 2 with a reprisal of the Davidic covenant from 2 Samuel 7: God has set his holy Messiah-King on high in Zion and given him the nations as his inheritance (Ps. 2:6, 8). All shall be well.

Yet after the royal Davidic overture decrescendos to silence in Psalm 2, Book I of the Psalter (Pss. 3–41) generally shows, starting immediately with Psalm 3, God’s Messiah-King harried, in deep distress. Right in the middle of Book I (Pss. 3–42), with nineteen psalms on either side (Pss. 3–21 and 23–42), sits Psalm 22. We have gone from Mt. Zion in Psalm 2 to Mt. Calvary in Psalm 22. The dissonance between the expected Messiah of Psalm 2 and the executed Messiah of Psalm 22 is deafening. “Silent night, Holy night.” The “Son of God, Loves pure light,” lies not in a crèche but on a cross.

Psalm 22 is a Psalm of David, God’s promised Messiah-King. But if Psalm 22 opens with God’s King bereft of God, then what of God’s people? If a song opens with God forsaking his King, it means that God must be forsaking his people as well. The bloodcurdling cry of God’s King, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1) calls into the question the very love of God, as prophets throughout the Old Testament described God as “steadfast” (Exod. 34:6–7). An absent God means abandoned promises. And lost promises mean lost love. God has left the building and left no forwarding address. But it gets worse.

Psalm 22 is a “Psalm of David,” the superscription explains. The New Testament writers leave no doubt that this song of Psalm 22 is not about David at all, but about great David’s greater Son. This is the carol of the King. A carol of Jesus, the King. Alec Motyer explains that “this Psalm goes beyond any experience of David’s. While it could arise from sometime of suffering, it goes far beyond such to torture and death. We are listening to David the prophet (Acts 2:30) looking forward to the suffering Messiah.”[14] The New Testament writers quote Psalm 22 directly no fewer than four times, with twenty more possible allusions.[15] The preacher of Hebrews puts the words of Psalm 22 directly into the mouth of Christ, boldly declaring that Psalm 22 is what “he [Jesus] says” (Ps. 22:22 // Heb 2:12 NIV). [16] Psalm 22 truly is a carol of the King.[17]

14. Alec Motyer, Psalms by the Day: A New Devotional Translation (Christian Focus, 2016), 57. Waltke sees Psalm 22 as “typico-prophetic, in which David’s trials and triumphs typify Christ, yet David’s exaggerated language rises above his own experiences and finds fulfillment in Jesus Christ.” Bruce K. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 895. J. Barton Payne argues that “Psalm 22 is unique because it is the only psalm in which David was so completely overshadowed by the Holy Spirit that all of its words became in fact, the words of Christ.” J. Barton Payne, The Theology of the Older Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1962), 253.

15. The Greek New Testament editors indicate twenty-four references to Psalm 22: four direct quotations (Μatt. 27:46; Mark 15:34; John 19:24; Heb. 2:12) and twenty allusions. Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M Martini, Bruce M. Metzger, The Greek New Testament, 4^th rev. ed. (New York: United Bible Society, 1994) 887, 895.

16. James Mays adds that when the gospel writers highlight that the first words of Psalm 22 are the words of Christ, they mean for readers to read all of Psalm 22 in light of Christ, as “citing the first words of a text was … a way of identifying an entire passage.” James L. Mays, “Prayer and Christology: Psalm 22 as Perspective on the Passion,” Theology Today 42.3 (1985): 322.

17. Waltke and Houston explain that “rarely have commentators been condemned for heresy on the basis of their interpretation of psalms,” but that is what happened at the fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople: “As a test case of orthodoxy (i.e., that the Psalm refers to Christ), Theodore of Mopsuestia’s exposition of Psalm 22 was used to condemn him of heresy. . . . [P]art of the case against Theodore of Mopsuestia at the fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553 was his commentary on Psalm 22.” Bruce K. Waltke and James M. Houston, The Psalms as Christian Worship: An Historical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 383.

Charles Jennens affixed a Latin phrase from Virgil at the top of Messiah’stitle page. The phrase read Majora Canamus, meaning “Let us sing of greater things.” Jennens was calling all to sing of things greater than anything in this world and to see greater things in the Bible than we could ever imagine, Christ himself. “Did not our hearts burn with us?” Jennens hoped listeners would say (Luke 24:32). In the same way, Majora Canamus sits across the top of Psalm 22, “Let us sing of greater things (than David).” The great British Baptist pastor, Charles Spurgeon explains

[Psalm 22] is the photograph of our Lord’s saddest hours, the record of his dying words, the lachrymatory of his last tears, the memorial of his expiring joys. David and his afflictions may be here in a very modified sense, but, as the star is concealed by the light of the sun, he who sees Jesus will probably neither see nor care to see David (italics added).[18]

18. C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Volume 1: Psalms 1–57 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1988), 324.

In the voice of David, we see sufferings of Christ. The gospel writers apply Psalm 22 directly to the passion of Christ (Μatt. 27:46; Mark 15:34; John 19:24). Indeed, as Bruce Waltke highlights, “No psalm is quoted more in the gospels than Psalm 22, . . . it shaped the Passion Narratives of the Synoptic[s].”[19]  The gospel writers show us what Messiah was suffering, and when they quote Psalm 22, they also show us what he was thinking. As his body twisted in agony, his soul twisted, too. The little Lord Jesus may have been asleep on the hay, but his soul seared with pain, fastened to a tree.

19. Waltke and Houston, The Psalms as Christian Worship, 377.

In the first half of Psalm 22, the Son of David stretches his arms across a wooden beam and sings an aria of searing separation (Ps. 22:1–21a). As the Lord “laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6), the cosmic horror set in on the Savior’s soul “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,” he screams into the night (Ps. 22:1 KJV). Matthew records the groan; it is Christ’s fourth word from the cross (Μatt. 27:46). What a way for the King’s carol to sound.

The anguish of abandonment (Ps. 22:1–5) turns into the anguish of personal attack (Ps. 22:5–13). Abandon by God, he is now mocked by men, men more like savage beasts than noble human beings. It is here in Psalm 22, as Christ descends into the darkness of bearing the sins of the world, that Handel captures the drama. First, a tenor mockingly declares, “All they that see him laugh him to scorn; they shoot out their lips, and shake their heads” (Ps. 22:7 // Matt. 27:39). Handel elevates the word “laugh” in the music, capturing the mocking tone of those around the cross and allowing the tenor soloist to sing the word sounding like derisive laughter. The “scourging rhythm [from the preceding pieces] of ‘He gave his back to the smiters’ and ‘Surely he hath born our griefs’” returns.[20] Handel’s music paints a scene telling us that they shredded his soul with their words just as they had shredded his body with their whips.

20. Stapert, Handel’s Messiah, 116.

But the tenor’s angry recitative is but prologue for a second round of mockery. Imitating the mocking mood of Psalm 22:8, Handel summons a large fugal chorus to heighten the anguish of Christ’s personal attack and deepen the venomed mockery of the crowd. They gather at Christ’s feet as he is suspended in the air. They hiss, “He trusted in God that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, if he delights in him” (Ps. 22:8 // Matt 27:43).[21] Like drunken men in a pub, the choristers pass along their mocking chant, “He trusted in God. . . . Let him deliver him,” from one voice part to the next. Handel sets the word “delight” onto the lips of choristers in melismatic runs, notes rapidly moving and up down, so that the word “delight” sounds like derisive laughter. We are now far away from the “Glories to the newborn King” sung at his cradle. There is only jeering, searing laughter here. But more than merry mockery is happening.

21. See the See “The Text, Grammar and Participants of Ps 22:9” Psalms: Layer by Layer to see the textual difficulties with Psalm 22:8[9]. One might translate the verses as a mocking command to “Commit your way to God,” rather than as simple declaration: “He trusted in God.” Either way, the point remains largely the same, though the temptation of Christ during this moment is stronger if one takes the verse as a command.

Roger Bullard points out that “this is a temptation scene, the third and last of the temptations of Jesus.”[22] Bullard explains:

22. Roger A. Bullard, Messiah: The Gospel According to Handel’s Oratorio (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 83.

The first is immediately after his baptism, when Satan challenges him to turn stones into bread, and do other things which would gain him a large messianic following. But that is not to be the way of God’s anointed one (Matt. 4:1–22; Luke 4:1–13). The second is midway through Jesus’s ministry, when he withdraws from the country with his disciples and asks them who they think he is. Peter confesses him—for the first time in Mark’s gospel—as the Messiah. It is at this point that Jesus first tells his disciples of impending suffering, and he does so plainly. Whereupon Peter rebukes Jesus: this cannot be—the Messiah does not suffer. Jesus responds to Peter with the same words, which in Matthew he addresses to Satan: “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matt. 8:29–33). The way of Messiahship is to be a way of suffering. Now, on the cross taunted by those who believe that his dereliction is an obvious sign that he is no Messiah, no Son of God, Jesus keeps his silence.[23]

23. Bullard, Messiah, 83.

But what dramatic irony. Jesus was not only “Lord at his birth” as the words of “Silent Night” proclaim; he is also Lord at his death. This is the Lenten carol of the King reigning from the cross. For in his silent response to their demonic temptation, he proves himself to be the Lamb of God “who opened not his mouth,” to “taketh away the sin of the world” (Isa. 53:7; John 1:29).

But then the anguish of abandonment and personal attack land Christ in “the dust of death” (Ps. 22:14–21). Centuries before crucifixion existed, we see a vivid view of Christ’s crucifixion in real time. Christ groans from the cross as they bore holes into his hands and feet.[24] He slides down the cross in exhaustion pulling bones out of joint, and his tongue shrivels like a prune and sticks to the side of his jaw. It is now a total eclipse. All is not calm, but all is dark.

24. See “Exegetical Issues: The Text of Psalm 22:17b” Psalms: Layer by Layer.

14 All my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.

16 For dogs encompass me;
a company of evildoers encircles me;
they have pierced my hands and feet—

17 I can count all my bones—
they stare and gloat over me;

18 They divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots (Ps. 22:14–18 ESV).

As Psalm 22:18 ends, the gospel writers apply Psalm 22 to Christ’s crucifixion one final time (John 19:24). They have taken everything from Christ, his strength, his reputation, and now his clothing. He came into this world naked; he would depart the same way. This is the carol of the naked King, an aria of agony (Ps. 22:1–21a).

Then in a eucatastrophic moment, the King changes his tune right in the middle of Psalm 22:21. He moves from searing suffering in Psalm 22:1–21a to sudden deliverance in Psalm 22:21b–31. The executed Christ becomes the exalted Christ. The aria of agony has modulated up to an aria of ascension. In a sudden turn, in the middle of a line, he changes his tune, “You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen! I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you” (Ps. 22:21b–31). The feasts of merry old Mr. Fezziwig in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol have nothing on the feasts of Christ, the ascended king of Psalm 22:21b–31. The risen Christ shall see to it that “the afflicted eat and are satisfied”; “that all the families of the earth shall . . . turn to the Lord, and all . . . the nations shall worship,” and “they shall . . . proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it” (Ps. 22:26–27, 31). The carol of the King has become the carol of the redeemed.

But Christ has saved one last surprise in his aria as the King. The cross looked like an inglorious defeat, but in his death Christ took up the final words of Psalm 22 and declared victory: “It is done (finished)” (Ps. 22:31 // John 19:30). The carol of the anguished King has now become the carol of the ascended King.

Postlude: Handel’s Messiah and The Messiah of Psalm 22

The anguished aria of searing separation in Psalm 22:1–21a modulates to one of sudden deliverance in Psalms 22:21b–31, not only for Christ, but for all, who like the shepherds and wise men at Christmas, adore this King. The writer of Hebrews, quoting Psalm 22:22, tells us that Christ identified with our humanity in his incarnation at Christmas, identified with our sin in his atoning death on Good Friday, and achieved our victory over sin and death in his resurrection at Easter. And now the carol of the King becomes the carol of redeemed. Having passed through the darkness of death and out the other side, he stands amid his people and sings praises so that his carol might become ours (Heb. 2:12).

Christmas is a time for caroling. In this carol of the King, Christ sings the loudest among his brothers, bringing great favor on those whom his favor rests (Heb. 2:12; Luke 2:14). The Messiah’s suffering was for us. He changes our suffering from a fermata of death to a measure of rest in this life that modulates to eternal rest in the next.

So, sing into the dark, even at Christmas. Christ not only sympathizes with our sorrows; he also transforms them. He suffered finally, so that we will not finally suffer. What the venomous voices of the crowds meant for evil—Let him trust God to deliver him—God was working for good. “Hallelujah! The Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth!” Handel taught us to sing. The carol of the King has become the carol of redeemed.

A sculptured monument adorns Handel’s grave at Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey. Handel had set aside 600 pounds to cover any funeral costs, which would have included his gravestone. At his tomb in Westminster, Handel’s sculpture stands holding a music score opened to a page from Messiah. The notes reveal a song that echoed Handel’s own personal hope: “I know that my redeemer liveth” (Job 19:25 KJV). His life, like the motto adorning the title page of Messiah—Majora Canamus—had sung of greater things indeed. The Messiah of Psalm 22, far greater than Handel, invites us to take up his song and make it our own. “You who fear the Lord,” he says in Psalm 22, “Praise him!” “You, your children, and generations to come.” Merry Christmas. And Majora Canamus.

You may know Messiah combines Handel’s exquisite music with Charles Jennens’ erudite libretto (i.e. the sung text). However, you may not know this text covers the full gamut of Jesus’s story arc: his birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and victorious second coming. Thus, the content of Messiah is broadly Christological – not merely incarnational. In fact, the first performance of Messiah happened not during Advent season, but during Eastertide. It was performed in Dublin on April 13, 1742, just 19 days after Easter. ^[1] Surely this was not an accident on Handel’s part.

1. See Mark D. Roberts, An Unexpected Easter Masterpiece.

In his Messiah, the resurrection plays a vital but subtle role. Only one brief section is dedicated to Christ’s resurrection. But as in Scripture, the resurrection of Christ is used as the joyful hinge upon which every blessing for God’s people turns: from exile to freedom, from darkness to light, from death to life. Indeed, the whole Christian faith stands or falls with the bodily resurrection of Jesus. If not for the resurrection, there would be no vindication, ascension, and exaltation for Christ nor for His people (cf. 1 Cor. 15:14–19).

Even musically, keen listeners will pick up on a striking transition. Until the resurrection is introduced, the music of Messiah is almost entirely in a minor key. But when the resurrection is first examined, the music makes a happy transition. Calvin Stapert says that it’s at this point “the full-blown A major of the aria ‘But thou didst not leave’ is like full sunlight after a long night.”^[2]

2. Calvin Stapert. Handel’s Messiah: Comfort for God’s People (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 119.

How does Handel’s Messiah invite its listeners to understand and rejoice in Christ’s resurrection? Let’s reflect on this by first looking at the forest, before considering the trees. We will briefly review the resurrection theme in the broader context of Jennens’ text. Then we will explore Jennens’ particular use of Psalm 16 and 24 to highlight the resurrection, before concluding with reflections for the modern Christian.

The Resurrection in Messiah’s Fuller Context

Jennens’ libretto is divided into three sections. Part 1 describes the birth and life of Jesus; part 2 revels in Jesus’ suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and exaltation; part 3 returns to themes of resurrection, though with an emphasis on the final resurrection of God’s people. In particular, sections 31–33 speak via Scripture about Jesus’ death, resurrection, and subsequent vindication and victory:

• 31. Accompagnato (tenor)– “He was cut off out the land of the living: for the transgressions of thy people was he stricken.” (Isaiah 53:8)
• 32. Air (tenor)– “But thou didst not leave his soul in hell; nor didst thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption.” (Psalm 16:10)
• 33. Chorus– “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” (Psalm 24:7–10)^[3]

3. The full text of Handel’s Messiah can be found in Chase Rea’s “Interactive Edition of Handel’s Messiah.”

Jennens’ text devotes sections 22–30 to the suffering of Christ, exploring short bursts of mainly Old Testament texts, such as Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. Nine pieces of music are dedicated to the suffering of Christ, while only one is dedicated to the death of Christ. This abrupt transition then quickly ushers in the good news of Jesus’ resurrection by way of Psalm 16:10 and Psalm 24:7–10. The Messiah takes no time to dig into the details of the earthquake, the burial, the guards, the angels, or the Mary’s. Instead, Jennens prods us to ponder the resurrection through the anticipatory eyes of Psalms 16 and 24. Because these are psalms, they inspire worship and not just affirmation of supernatural events. As such, they are quite fitting for Handel’s purposes.

The Messiah’s Use of Psalm 16

Jennens’ choice of Psalm 16 to introduce the resurrection is masterful, as this psalm is pregnant with meaning. His selection invites the thoughtful listener to not only consider David’s original song, but to consider it in light of Peter’s Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:24–27) and Paul’s Antioch sermon (Acts 13:35).

In its initial context, David pens Psalm 16 to help his original singers to say “you are my Lord” (Ps. 16:1–4) and then “you are my portion” (Ps. 16:5–8). This commitment to God, which brings about this contentment in God, then results in a great confidence in God (Ps. 16:9–11). “You are my Lord” and “you are my portion” lead to this effusive, joyful outburst:

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;

my flesh also dwells secure.

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

or let your holy one see corruption.

Why is David’s body shaking with joy? David is confident that God won’t let him waste away in hell. God has been David’s refuge, portion, and counselor in this life (Ps. 16:1, 2, 5). This Psalm promises that He will be David’s refuge, portion, and counselor forever. It’s this rock-solid conviction that brings him this body-shaking joy.

Interestingly, the Apostles Peter and Paul both argued that David could not be talking about himself in Psalm 16:10. David is dead after all! His body has decayed somewhere in ancient Palestine. His muscles, skin, and tissue have rotted away and turned into dust.^[4] So Peter in Acts 2:24–27 contends that David must have been speaking of His descendant Jesus, who did not stay in the tomb nor experience decay. Peter states in Acts 2 that David was a prophet who knew God would raise up a descendant of his who would sit on the throne. So somehow David saw in his own life a pattern, a type of One to come. He had an expectation that the promised King would live out the fulfillment of Psalm 16:10.^[5] It’s not only David that would be raised one day; there would be Another.

4. Jim Johnston, Psalms: Rejoice the Lord is King (Chicago: Crossway, 2015), 173.

5. Jim Hamilton, Psalms Volume 1: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (Bellingham: Lexham Academic, 2021), 217.

Jennens could have chosen for his soprano to sing “I am the Resurrection and the life” (John 11:25) or “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22) or a host of other appropriate texts. But instead he shrewdly chose a passage that not only prophecies of the Greater David’s resurrection, but bids us to consider our own preservation. Jennens likely had two resurrections in mind: Christ’s and Christ’s Bride. Psalm 16 invites us to consider both. Jesus would be both the firstfruits of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:23) and the firstborn of God’s new creation (Col. 1:15). We who are united to him are the second crop and the second born. So Christians who sing Psalm 16 may glory in their eternal preservation, on the basis of Christ’s preservation. More on this later.

The Messiah’s Use of Psalm 24

Like a dam finally bursting, the entire chorus bursts forth in loud response to Ps. 16:10 with Ps. 24:7–10:

Lift up your heads, O ye gates;

and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors;

and the King of glory shall come in.

Who is this King of glory?

The Lord strong and mighty,

the Lord mighty in battle.

The celebratory nature of this chorus makes it the culmination of the resurrection scene. Mark Roberts comments that “now all of heaven is being summoned to receive the risen Christ into glory.”^[6] According to Roger Bullard, this chorus “hymns the resurrection of Messiah, the Anointed One.”^[7] Ps. 24:7–10 depicts a vindicated King, returning from battle victorious. Is this not what Peter announced at Pentecost? “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). Psalm 24 reminds us that Easter is not only about resurrection; it is also about vindication. Easter teaches that the cross will turn into the crown, for Christ first and then all who are in him.

6. Mark D. Roberts, An Unexpected Easter Masterpiece.

7. Roger A. Bullard, Messiah: The Gospel According to Handel’s Oratorio (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 63.

David’s original readers would have understood Psalm 24’s as fitting a liturgical occasion, perhaps bringing to mind the celebration of David bringing the Ark of Covenant back to Jerusalem (cf. 2 Samuel 6). In antiphonal manner, the procession makes declarations while the doorkeepers of the city respond. Among all of Messiah’s choruses, Handel wrote this one uniquely as a call-and-response, which suitably corresponds to the structure of Ps. 24:7–10.

Who is this King of Glory? It is the Lord! Centuries later, after Jesus’s resurrection he would be welcomed back to heaven, vindicated and victorious. Our King of Glory returns from his victory over Satan, sin, and death.^[8] He has exchanged his cross for a crown. His resurrection ratifies that all the assertions he made about himself—assertions that led to his unjust slaughter—are true. So he comes home to his heavenly city as the triumphant, celebrated King of Glory.

8. Hamilton, Psalms, 306.

In this way, Jennens use of Psalm 24 on the heels of Psalm 16 is brilliant. He understands the storyline of Christ. Jesus’s life counts only if he is crucified for sinners. Jesus’s death matters only if he is resurrected. And Jesus’s resurrection is of great consequence because it vindicates him and his, proving his authority and displaying his glory. No wonder Handel dedicates the full choir to sing the glories of this King.

Rejoice in Christ’s Resurrection and Vindication

Like David, we too can exclaim, “my whole being rejoices!” The thrilling wonder of singing Psalm 16:10 in Messiah is that it reminds us that the ultimate source of our infallible protection is Jesus’s resurrection. Since Jesus is forever preserved, so we too who are in Christ are forever preserved.

Christian, do you hear the resounding blessing of this? It is not ultimately your efforts, your spiritual accomplishments, your church attendance, or your relational investments that will ensure you make it to the Celestial City. Psalm 16:9–10 teaches us that the final guarantee of our eternal safety is Jesus’s resurrection. Because Jesus was raised, one day we will be raised. Because Jesus was preserved, we will be preserved. Because Jesus enjoys God’s presence, one day we too will enjoy the fullness of His presence (Ps. 16:11).

In fact, our confidence today can be even greater than David’s when he wrote Psalm 16. What David saw far ahead of him, we see in our rearview mirrors. We apprehend clearly today what David saw only hazy on the horizon. So Christian, let the message of Psalm 16:10 sung through the stunning music of the Messiah redound in your soul. In the face of trouble, heartache, grief, and even death, believe on the basis of an empty tomb that God will not abandon you to the grave. Death will not be the end of our relationship with God. It was not the end for Jesus; it will not be the end for those who are in Christ.^[9] Now that’s something to sing about!

9. Johnston, Psalms, 253–254.

So therefore, at Christmastime when you hear Handel’s Messiah, do not forget the resurrection as Psalms 16 and 24 are sung. Let Messiah remind you of your eternal preservation and righteous vindication. Because of Christ’s empty tomb, we will be raised, preserved, vindicated, and validated. Remember that after his cross, he received the crown. That is our path as well. Let Messiah stir you up to join the chorus of the redeemed, declaring the historic resurrection of our Lord and the future resurrection of his Church—a truth that Handel will pick up in Part 3 of his oratorio.

1. When speaking of Isaiah 53, I am referring to Isaiah 52:13–53:12, which is sometimes called the fourth servant song or poem. Identifying it as fourth is unhelpful for two reasons: (1) within Isa. 40–55, the four servant passages are not evenly distributed, but instead Isaiah placed one in chs. 40–48 and a group of three in 49–55; (2) the designation of fourth fails to account for what seems in all likelihood to be another servant passage in Isaiah 61 (see W. A. M. Beuken, “Servant and Herald of Good Tidings: Isaiah 61 as an Interpretation of Isaiah 40–55,” in The Book of Isaiah Le Livre d’Isaïe: Les Oracles et Leurs Relectures Unité et Complexité de l’ouvrage, ed. Jacques Vermeylen, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 81 [Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 1989], 411–42). In speaking of our passage as a song or poem, we will not—like Bernhard Duhm—weaponize this label to isolate it from its contexts.

In this brief article, I aim to show that the pivotal nature of Isaiah 53 resides in this—Isaiah 53 describes how all God’s promises will be Yes. We will proceed in four steps: (1) recall the canonical and broader literary contexts, (2) receive a shocking surprise, (3) consider how Isaiah 53 works in those contexts, and (4) conclude with an eye towards Jesus’s fulfillment.

Canonical and Broader Literary Contexts

Two problems in the Book of Isaiah clarify our need for a wider canonical context. First, in Isaiah 1:2b–4 we read,

^2b The Lord has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. ³ The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. ⁴ Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.’

In the span of three verses, the Lord characterizes the problem his people face using two key words that will reappear in Isaiah 6—they fail both to know and to understand. The Lord also uses the three major Hebrew terms for sin in 1:2–4: sin, iniquity, and rebellion.[2] They are spiritually “sick” with sin (the term ḥŏlî in 1:5). This sinful rebellion did not start in Isaiah’s day, but rather, with the garden catastrophe. In the garden, “claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God” (Rom. 1:22–23), and in that way, “all sinned and are [now] lacking the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) because “through one man . . . all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).[3] In short then, the first major problem in Isaiah—the one which leads to the exile—is the fallenness, the sinfulness of God’s people. Even though God’s merciful character includes “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (the same terms as Isa. 1:2–4), we wonder how he can do this and still “by no means clear the guilty” (Exod. 34:7).

2. Motyer comments insightfully, “The three great words in the ‘sin’-vocabulary are “sin” (chat’a, v. 4), the actual item of wrongdoing; “iniquity” (v. 4, from ’awah, to be bent), the ‘warp’ in the fallen human nature; and ‘rebellion’ ([v. 2] pash’a), wilful, deliberate disobedience” (J. A. Motyer, Isaiah by the Day: A New Devotional Translation [Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2011], 10n3).

3. See esp. Dane C. Ortlund, “What Does It Mean to Fall Short of the Glory of God?: Romans 3:23 in Biblical-Theological Perspective,” WTJ 80.1 (2018): 121–40; Mitchell L. Chase, Short of Glory: A Biblical and Theological Exploration of the Fall (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023).

The second major problem which stands out in Isaiah is the jeopardy of God’s promises to David. Alec Motyer observes, “[Though] no other prophet dates an event by a death,”[4] Isaiah does this twice—both times with the death of a king over Judah, a king of Davidic descent (Isa. 6:1; Isa. 14:28)! This is why, early in the Book of Isaiah, he prophesies a “shoot shall come forth from the stump of Jesse” (Isa. 11:1), upon whom the Spirit would rest in both knowledge and understanding (Isa. 11:2). The reason it is the stump of Jesse is because the family tree of Davidic kings is hewn back so far we do not just need another Davidic king but a new David.[5] This coming Prince of Peace will reign on the throne of David, and there will be no end to the peace he brings (Isa. 9:6–7 cf. Isa. 16:5). The need for a new David is only intensified by Hezekiah’s shortcomings as king in Isaiah 38–39. He “became sick and was near the point of death” (Isa. 38:1), and the Lord alone could remove such sickness (Isa. 38:5, 9 [Hebrew: ḥŏlî]). After being healed, Hezekiah was content with peace in his days (Isa. 39:8). Although God has promised “my steadfast love will not depart from [the Davidic king]” and “your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:15–16), we see the Davidic line deteriorating and exile looming with Isaiah, and we wonder with the psalmist, “Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?” (Ps. 89:49).

4. J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction & Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 75.

5. This observation is indebted to Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 121.

Thus, the twin problems of both sin-sickness and dashed Davidic hopes form the gloomy darkness into which the Servant’s light would shine (Isa. 9:2 [MT 9:1]; 42:6; 49:6). Moreover, since God’s promised remedy for the fall (Gen. 3:15) is expected to arise as the Davidic Messiah,[6] these problems are really one—how will God keep all his promises?

6. See, e.g., T. Desmond Alexander, “Royal Expectations in Genesis to Kings: Their Importance for Biblical Theology,” TynB 49.2 (1998): 191–212; Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 443–85.

The Surprise of the Servant Solution

Everything hinges on what the Servant does in Isaiah 53.[7] If God’s promises are going to be Yes, then Isaiah is making the case that they are Yes in the Servant. The twelve verses before Isaiah 53 make this point by showing that Yahweh’s solution is the Servant.

7. For the reader interested in how we ought to think about the identity of the servant in each of the servant passages, see L. Michael Morales, Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption, Essential Studies in Biblical Theology 2 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), 134–56; Matthew S. Harmon, The Servant of the Lord and His Servant People Tracing a Biblical Theme Through the Canon, ed. D. A. Carson, New Studies in Biblical Theology 54 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), 109–42.

The Lord promises redemption for his people (Isa. 52:3), and because his name is despised continually (Isa. 53:5), Yahweh himself will come to redeem (Isa. 52:6, “Behold, me” [hinnēnî]). This is the good news heralded from the mountaintops (Isa. 52:7)! He is coming to redeem with an outstretched arm (Isa. 52:9–10). When this happens “before the eyes of all the nations,” the “salvation of our God” is beheld (Isa. 52:10 cf. 49:6).

So, when we next hear “behold” and encounter the Arm of Yahweh, who do we see? What do the nations witness in Isaiah 52:15? “Behold my Servant!” (Isa. 52:13). Wait—what!? You read that correctly. We heard Yahweh was coming, but we see the Servant.[8] He is “high and lifted up” (Isa. 52:13) in a manner only otherwise used of Yahweh in Isaiah (Isa. 6:1; 33:10; 57:15) because Yahweh alone may be exalted in such fashion (Isa. 2:11–17).[9] When Yahweh raises his Arm to redeem his people (Isa. 52:10), we see the Servant lifted up (Isa. 53:1). The Servant who comes as the Arm of the Lord is, therefore, not merely a representative of the saving action of the Lord—but, surprisingly, the LORD himself in saving action![10]

8. This is not unlike John’s experience in Revelation 5 of hearing about a lion, but seeing a lamb.

9. See esp. Jaap Dekker, “The High and Lofty One Dwelling in the Heights and with His Servants: Intertextual Connections of Theological Significance between Isaiah 6, 53 and 57,” JSOT 41.4 (2017): 475–91; Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 49–51.

10. This wording is adapted from similar phraseology in James D. Smart, History and Theology in Second Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 35, 40–66 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965), 182; Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 427.

The Song of the Redeemed

Isaiah 53 itself develops in five stanzas, as seen in Table 1 below. The initial stanza is like the summary idea which the next four stanzas unpack in two topic-comment pairs.[11] I will briefly highlight how Isaiah’s portrait of the Servant communicates that he is how all God’s promises are Yes.

11. For those interested in the textual issues of Isaiah 53, the Text & Canon Institute of Phoenix Seminary published a series of articles that are very helpful in this regard.

12. I am operating with Gentry’s structure but with adapted section headings inspired by Motyer. See Peter J. Gentry, “The Atonement in Isaiah’s Fourth Servant Song (Isaiah 52:13–53:12),” SBJT 11.2 [2007]: 24; cf. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 423.

In the enigmatic prologue (Isa. 52:13–15), in addition to the surprise I noted above, we see Paul’s motivation for church planting (Rom. 15:20–21), namely that by virtue of the Servant’s atoning work nations will both perceive and understand (cf. Isa. 1:3). When the nations and Israel worship idols, they experience what Greg Beale calls sensory-organ-malfunction—they lack eyes to see and ears to hear; however, the sacrifice of the Servant reverses this spiritual calcification.[13]

13. G. K. Beale, We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008); on how this theme works in Isaiah, see esp. Torsten Uhlig, “Too Hard to Understand? The Motif of Hardening in Isaiah,” in Interpreting Isaiah: Issues and Approaches, ed. David G. Firth and H. G. M. Williamson (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 62–83.

In this first pair (Isa. 53:1–6), God’s people have lived like sheep without a shepherd (1 Kgs. 22:17), so when the Good Shepherd arises like a shoot from the stump of Jesse, he suffers unbelief and rejection. He would call out as their teacher, “This is the way, walk in it!” (Isa. 30:21), but each one turned to his own way instead (Isa. 53:6). The sickness he experiences is not his own (as in Hezekiah’s case [Isa. 38:9]) but that of the many whom he saved, who testify about “our sicknesses” (Isa. 53:4 cf. 1:5).[14] The Servant secures the peace that Hezekiah could not (Isa. 53:5), so that those united to him have an unshakable covenant of peace (Isa. 54:10, 13). By bearing sickness, being struck, and enduring chastisement, the Servant bears covenant curses for his people (sickness: Deut. 28:59–61; struck: Deut. 28:22–28; chastisement cf. Deut. 11:2; wounds: Deut 28:27–35).[15] These verses prepare us to hear about the extent to which the Servant would vicariously substitute himself to reverse curses for his people.

14. I’m indebted to Reed Lessing’s observation that these are the only three passages in Isaiah which use the language of sickness (Isaiah 40–55, 86n363).

15. See Harmon, Servant of the Lord, 130–31.

In the second pair (Isa. 53:7–12), we behold the lamblike Servant who is silently obedient unto the slaughter. He emptied himself by “pouring out his soul unto death” (Isa. 53:12 cf. Phil. 2:6–8).[16] Not only is he removed from the land of Israel (Deut. 28:63–68); he is “cut off from the land of the living” (Isa. 53:8). His death in the place of the many atones for their sin and removes their guilt, echoing language from Leviticus 16:20–22 and 17:11. In fact, the Servant successfully atones for iniquity, transgression, and sin (Isa. 53:11–12), which explains how Yahweh himself solves the tension in his gracious character (Exod. 34:6–7). This is, therefore, how the Servant resolves the problem of sin mentioned above. But, what about the second problem?

16. See esp. J. Alec Motyer, Jesus Our Joy: The Message of Philippians, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983), 108–18.

What about the dashed Davidic hopes? We know this Servant did not remain in the grave because numerous elements of Isaiah 53:10–12 would misfire if the Servant is not resurrected.[17] In Isaiah 54 we meet the many (servants who are redeemed by the Servant), and after this we are reintroduced to the Servant asthe New David (Isa. 55:3 cf. Acts 13:32–40). This is the David through whom all the blessings of an everlasting covenant with Yahweh come.[18] The invitation to the feast of Isaiah 55 is the open offer to be satisfied in the Servant and all that God is for us in him (cf. John 6:27–56; Rev. 21:6; 22:17). Thus, the Servant is also how the Lord keeps his promises to David.

17. On which, see Harmon, Servant of the Lord, 132–37; Gentry, “The Atonement in Isaiah’s Fourth Servant Song,” 38–39.

18. For arguments in favor of this, see pages 73–86 of my dissertation and the sources cited therein.

The Servant of Servants: Our Lord Jesus Christ

This mystery is profound, but I have been writing to you about Jesus Christ, in whom “all the promises of God find their Yes” (2 Cor. 1:20). When the Eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet [Isaiah] say this, about himself or about someone else?” Philip “beginning with this Scripture [Isaiah 53] . . . told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:34–35). Isaiah 53 is so pivotal to the Bible and to Handel’s Messiah because it describes the turning point of salvation history, which has come in Christ.

Because the Servant dies to purchase his people and those people are described as Yahweh’s bride in Isaiah 54:5, Reeves’ words are appropriate to conclude: “‘All that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you.’ . . . Just so, our great bridegroom has taken all our sin, our death, our judgment, and he shares with us all his life and perfect righteousness [cf. 2 Cor. 5:21]. He has become poor that we might share his riches. It is the great marriage swap . . .. Christ is one with his people, and so all theirs is his, and all his is theirs.”[19]

19. Michael Reeves, Rejoicing in Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015), 68.

The King of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness faileth never.
I nothing lack if I am his,
and he is mine forever.

—H. W. Baker (1868)