How Can We Sinners Know: Meaning, History, and Theology
"How can we sinners know"
- Written
- 1749
- Category
- Hymn
- Tune
- Standard Tune
- Status
- Verified
- Rights
- Public domain
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Story
How Can We Sinners Know is Charles Wesley’s hymn on forgiveness, assurance, and the witness of the Holy Spirit, first published in 1749 and later reshaped for Methodist congregational singing. The modern form is commonly sung to the Genevan tune ST. MICHAEL, associated with Louis Bourgeois and later adapted by William Crotch.
Overview
How Can We Sinners Know asks one of the central pastoral questions of the Methodist revival: how may a believer have confidence that sins are forgiven and that reconciliation with God is real? The hymn answers by directing attention first to Christ’s saving work and then to the Holy Spirit’s witness within the believer. Assurance is therefore presented not as self-confidence, but as confidence grounded in grace.
The text also joins assurance to transformation. The Spirit who testifies that believers are God’s children also forms the “meek and lowly heart” of Christ in them and renews the mind. Wesley’s argument is both inward and practical: peace with God, the Spirit’s testimony, and a changed life belong together.
For worship, the hymn is especially useful when a congregation is reflecting on forgiveness, justification, assurance, and sanctification. Its movement from questioning to testimony allows singers to name uncertainty without remaining there, and then to confess together that God’s grace produces both pardon and new life.
Historical Background
Charles Wesley’s hymn first appeared in 1749 in the second volume of Hymns and Sacred Poems under the heading “The Marks of Faith.” The original opening was “How can a sinner know,” and the poem consisted of eight eight-line stanzas in a mixed metrical pattern. Rather than telling a dramatic conversion story, the poem works as a theological examination of assurance: what signs accompany saving faith, and how does a pardoned sinner know that God’s grace is real?
The form most familiar in later Methodist hymnody owes much to John Wesley’s editorial work. In A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780), he omitted two of the original stanzas and reshaped the remaining material into double short meter. This made the text easier to pair with established congregational tunes. Nineteenth-century Methodist collections continued to print the edited form, helping the hymn become part of the denomination’s sung teaching on inward religion, assurance, and holiness.
The modern title “How Can We Sinners Know” reflects a still later editorial change. Discipleship Ministries notes that the editor of The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) changed the older singular opening, “How can a sinner know,” to the communal “How can we sinners know.” The six-stanza form used in that hymnal selects key portions of the older Wesleyan text: the opening question, testimony to Christ’s atoning work, the Spirit’s gift, Christlike character, and the joining of God’s witness with the believer’s own renewed life. The alteration shifts the question from an individual voice to a congregation singing together without changing the hymn’s central argument.
The tune now commonly associated with this form is ST. MICHAEL, a sixteenth-century Genevan psalm melody credited by Hymnary to Louis Bourgeois. William Crotch later adapted the tune in Psalm Tunes (1836). Crotch’s role is therefore that of adapter rather than original composer. The pairing joins an eighteenth-century Methodist text to a much older Reformed psalm tune, a combination typical of later English-language hymnals.
Hymnary records the broader “How can a sinner know” text tradition in well over a hundred hymnals, while the plural modern form appears in a smaller group of recent Methodist and related collections. Its continuing use rests less on an origin legend than on the clarity with which it expresses a characteristic Wesleyan conviction: the grace that justifies also bears witness through the Spirit and begins to renew the believer’s life.
Biblical Foundations
The hymn’s clearest biblical foundation is Romans 8:16: “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.” Wesley develops that language into the image of two witnesses joined together—God’s Spirit and the believer’s renewed inner life. Galatians 4:6 reinforces the same theme by describing the Spirit of the Son crying “Abba, Father!” in the hearts of God’s children.
Romans 5:1 grounds assurance in justification rather than in spiritual achievement: those justified by faith have peace with God through Jesus Christ. That emphasis helps explain the hymn’s movement from Christ’s death and the application of his saving work to the believer’s experience of peace. First John 5:13 adds the explicit New Testament purpose that believers may know they have eternal life.
The line about knowing “the things of God” also closely echoes 1 Corinthians 2:12, where Paul writes that believers receive the Spirit from God so that they may know what God has freely given. Together these passages show why Wesley can speak of assurance as more than emotion: it is grounded in Christ, attested by the Holy Spirit, and accompanied by the Spirit’s transforming work.
Verse Explanation
Stanza 1 asks how sinners can know that forgiveness is real and that their names belong among the redeemed. The question establishes assurance, rather than doubt itself, as the hymn’s subject.
Stanza 2 turns from question to testimony. Christian experience is described as something that may be confessed with confidence and shared with others.
Stanza 3 identifies the foundation of that confidence: faith in Christ who died for sinners, bringing peace and the saving benefit of his blood.
Stanza 4 shifts explicitly to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit enables believers to know the gifts God has freely bestowed, echoing the language of 1 Corinthians 2:12.
Stanza 5 describes the moral shape of grace. The Spirit imparts the meek and lowly character seen in Christ, so assurance is joined to Christlike transformation.
Stanza 6 brings the argument together. A renewed nature and transformed mind join the believer’s testimony with the testimony of God’s Spirit, presenting assurance and sanctification as related works of grace.
Theological Reflection
The central doctrine of How Can We Sinners Know is assurance of salvation. In Wesleyan theology, assurance does not mean confidence in one’s own moral performance. It rests on God’s justifying grace in Christ and on the Holy Spirit’s testimony that believers have been received as God’s children. The hymn therefore holds together the objective ground of salvation—Christ has died for sinners—and the personal reception of that grace.
The text also refuses to separate assurance from sanctification. The Spirit who gives peace also imparts the mind and character of Christ, turning the believer’s nature and transforming the powers of the mind. These changes are not presented as the cause of pardon, but as signs of grace already at work. That distinction is important: holiness confirms and unfolds salvation; it does not purchase it.
A further theme is Christian testimony. The hymn moves from “what we have felt and seen” to a public confession of the signs of grace. Assurance becomes something the church can sing together, encouraging believers who struggle with doubt while also calling them toward a life shaped by Christlike humility, love, and obedience.
Church Impact
How Can a Sinner Know circulated extensively in Methodist hymnody after John Wesley’s 1780 revision, and Hymnary records the broader text tradition in more than a hundred hymnals. Its strongest institutional home has remained Methodist and Methodist-related worship, where its themes closely match traditional teaching on justifying grace, assurance, the witness of the Spirit, and sanctification.
The six-stanza plural form appears in The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) under the section on justifying grace and assurance, and it continues in later Methodist resources such as Our Great Redeemer’s Praise. Its persistence shows the usefulness of hymnody as theological formation: the congregation does not merely hear a doctrine of assurance explained but sings the movement from forgiveness in Christ to the Spirit’s witness and the renewal of life.
Musical Notes
The modern Methodist setting of How Can We Sinners Know uses ST. MICHAEL, a short-meter Genevan psalm tune. Hymnary credits the melody to Louis Bourgeois and connects it with the sixteenth-century Genevan Psalter, while also noting that the exact extent of Bourgeois’s work on individual Genevan melodies is a subject of hymnological study. The tune has a history several centuries older than Wesley’s text.
William Crotch adapted ST. MICHAEL in his Psalm Tunes of 1836. Modern hymnals sometimes list Crotch prominently, but the historical distinction matters: he adapted an older Genevan melody rather than composing it from nothing. The United Methodist Hymnal and other Methodist collections use this short-meter form because John Wesley’s 1780 editing reshaped Charles Wesley’s earlier mixed-meter poem for congregational singing.
ST. MICHAEL’s compact phrases suit the hymn’s question-and-answer movement and allow the doctrinal text to remain clear. The historic melody and Wesleyan text tradition are public domain, but particular modern harmonizations, arrangements, recordings, and engraved editions may have separate rights.
Application
- Use the hymn after confession or a sermon on justification to connect forgiveness with assurance grounded in Christ.
- Pair the hymn with Romans 8:16 and Galatians 4:6 when teaching about the Holy Spirit’s witness and adoption as God’s children.
- Encourage believers who struggle with doubt to distinguish assurance from self-confidence and to return to God’s promise in Christ.
- Use the later stanzas to discuss how sanctification and Christlike character serve as fruits of grace rather than the price of salvation.
- Invite the congregation to hear the plural opening as a shared confession: assurance is personal, but it is also strengthened within the worshiping community.
Discussion Questions
- Why does the hymn begin by asking how sinners can know they are forgiven?
- How do Romans 8:16 and Galatians 4:6 help explain the hymn’s language about the Spirit’s witness?
- What is the difference between assurance grounded in Christ and confidence grounded in our own performance?
- How does the hymn connect justification with the beginning of sanctification?
- What changes when the opening is sung communally as “How can we sinners know” rather than individually as “How can a sinner know”?
Teaching Tips
- Read Romans 8:16 and 1 Corinthians 2:12 before singing so the hymn’s language about witness and spiritual knowledge is easy to recognize.
- Explain that Charles Wesley’s 1749 poem was longer and that John Wesley reshaped it for congregational use in 1780.
- Distinguish Louis Bourgeois’s Genevan melody from William Crotch’s later adaptation when discussing the tune credit.
- Use the hymn to map the Wesleyan sequence of grace: Christ’s saving work, justification, assurance through the Spirit, and growth in holiness.
- Invite singers to identify which stanzas speak about the ground of salvation and which describe the fruits of grace.
Sources
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Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology — “How can a sinner know,” first publication in 1749 and John Wesley’s 1780 revision
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Discipleship Ministries — History of Hymns: “How Can We Sinners Know,” including the 1749 source, 1780 editing, and 1989 plural opening
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Hymnary.org — “How Can We Sinners Know” text authority and public-domain status
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Hymnary.org — The United Methodist Hymnal 372, six-stanza modern text and ST. MICHAEL pairing
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Hymnary.org — ST. MICHAEL tune authority, Louis Bourgeois attribution and Genevan Psalter history
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Cyber Hymnal via Hymnary — public-domain ST. MICHAEL score crediting Louis Bourgeois and William Crotch’s 1836 adaptation
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General Commission on Archives and History, The United Methodist Church — Charles Wesley biography
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World English Bible Classic — Scripture edition used for reference_text wording
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Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines — copyright terms for literary and artistic works
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U.S. Copyright Office — public-domain guidance and expiration of copyright terms
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