Hark the Herald Angels Sing
The most famous of all Charles Wesley’s Christmas hymns celebrates the birth of Christ, in company with the shepherds of Bethlehem.
The most famous of all Charles Wesley’s Christmas hymns celebrates the birth of Christ, in company with the shepherds of Bethlehem.
‘Hark how all the welkin rings’ was the first line of this famous hymn, when Charles Wesley first composed it in 1739 — welkin being a word of Anglo-Saxon origin meaning the vault of heaven. The subsequent change was Charles’s own; the decision to omit the last two verses from most hymn books was not, and it has sadly diminished the poem as a whole.
God With Us
HARK, the herald-angels sing
Glory to the new-born King,
“Peace on earth, and mercy mild;
God and sinners reconciled.”*
Christ, by highest heaven adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord,
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’ incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with men t’ appear,
Jesus our Immanuel here.*
Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace,*
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!*
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,*
Born that man do more may die;*
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.*
Come, Desire of Nations,* come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering Seed,*
Bruise in us the Serpent’s head.
Adam’s likeness now efface,
Stamp thine image in its place:*
Second Adam from above,
Re-instate us in thy love.
* This was the greeting of the angels to some shepherds out in the fields near Bethlehem. See Luke 2:8-16.
* The name Immanuel or Emmanuel is interpreted by St Matthew as meaning ‘God with us’: see Matthew 1:23. The name comes from Isaiah 7:10-16, where the sign of Emmanuel is that a virgin will conceive and bear a son.
* See Isaiah 9:6.
* See Malachi 4:2. Wesley was partial to this figure: see also Stupendous Height of Heavenly Love.
* See Philippians 2:5-11.
* In the sense that death will be overcome eventually, last of all the enemies of mankind, and those who have died will be restored to life in a New Creation. See 1 Corinthians 15:22-26.
* See John 3:3-8, where Nicodemus is told that everyone must be ‘born again’ by the Holy Spirit.
* See Haggai 2:7: “And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts”.
* ‘The woman’ here is Eve, and her conquering Seed is Christ, born of Mary, the second and more obedient Eve. The final verse follows St Paul in naming Christ as the second Adam. Christ will ‘bruise the serpent’s head’ in the sense that he will overcome the attempts of the devil and his servants to ruin all mankind: for the phrase, see Genesis 4:14-15.
* According to Genesis, Adam was made in the likeness of God: see Genesis 1:26-27. This ‘likeness’ is (of course) not physical, and the authors are careful to let us know that is has nothing to do with biological sex; it refers rather to mankind’s share in certain divine virtues not shared by any other creatures.