Musical Notes

Hello OCBC family,
“Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!’” (Isaiah 6:2-3).
This passage is the call of the Lord to Isaiah to be a prophet, but the call is a majestic scene that Isaiah’s answer is, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

In this passage we can see the revelation of God to Isaiah, but also a call to share his message, and this was the call that Reginald Heber had in his own life.

Reginald Heber was born on April 21, 1783, to a minister and his wife in an English village. He was a very smart child, and able to translate poetry from Latin into English. After his graduation from Oxford College, he became the vicar of the same church where his father used to be the pastor and served there for many years. But his desire was to do mission work. His desire was to go places where the gospel did not arrive yet.

He became bishop of Calcutta, India in 1823, and serve there preaching and visiting people and sharing the gospel with those who were in darkness. While he was in Calcutta, he prepared a 16-month tour to visit his diocese, and during that time, on April 3, 1826, he preached to a large crowd in the hot sun, and afterward plunged into a pool of cold water. He suffered a stroke and drowned.

After his tragic death, his widow found several of his hymns and one of them was a hymn that he wrote to be sung on Trinity Sunday, according to the England Church’s calendar. The name of the hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty.”
“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!”

The second stanza is based on the book of Revelation 4:8, “And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.” (KJV).
“Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore Thee,
casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
cherubim and seraphim, falling down before Thee,
which wert and art and evermore shalt be.”

But this glorious hymn is incomplete without the glorious melody composed by John B. Dykes. He was born in England in 1823, the same year that Heber was appointed as bishop of Calcutta. He learned to play violin and piano when he was very young, and when he was 10 years old, he became the organist where his father was the pastor. He composed many melodies, but he is very popular for this one.

As the lyrics of the hymn has a name, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty” the melody has a name as well. John B. Dykes named his composition “Nicaea” after the church council of Nicaea, on 325, where the church defended the doctrine of the Trinity against heresies that denied the divinity of Jesus.

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; from thence he shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets. In one holy catholic and apostolic church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”
Nicaea Creed as altered in 381

OCBC, if you use this hymn as part of your quiet time, use it as a sound doctrine document, and rejoice that now we have access to the throne of grace, because the Triune God called us from darkness into a new life, because of the death of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth and sky and sea;
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!”
​
In His service,
Israel