Moment by Moment: Meaning, History, and Theology
"Dying with Jesus, by death reckoned mine"
- Written
- 1893
- Category
- Hymn
- Rights
- Public domain
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Story
Moment by Moment is Daniel Webster Whittle's 1893 gospel hymn about union with Christ and continual dependence on his keeping grace. Its original tune, WHITTLE, was composed by his daughter May Whittle, making the enduring hymn a documented father-daughter collaboration.
Overview
Moment by Moment is an 1893 American gospel hymn by evangelist Daniel Webster Whittle, set to music by his daughter May Whittle. Its governing idea is continual life in Christ: the believer's identity, endurance, and hope come from the living Savior rather than from intermittent devotion or self-generated strength.
The hymn begins with union with Christ and then applies that doctrine to trial, sorrow, weakness, illness, temptation, and moral struggle. Assurance and discipleship are held together. Christ keeps his people, yet they are repeatedly directed away from self-reliance and toward trust in him.
That combination gives the hymn unusual theological weight for a revival song. It can serve as testimony, prayer, pastoral comfort, or a sung response to teaching on Romans 6, Galatians 2, John 15, and the perseverance of believers.
Historical Background
Moment by Moment emerged from the transatlantic evangelical network surrounding Dwight L. Moody, Ira D. Sankey, and Daniel W. Whittle. Whittle was already an experienced evangelist and gospel-text writer by 1893, while his twenty-three-year-old daughter May had studied music at Oberlin and London's Royal Academy of Music.
In his 1906 memoir, Sankey connected the hymn's origin with the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He recalled British evangelist Henry Varley telling Whittle that the familiar idea of needing Christ every hour did not go far enough: the need was present every moment. Sankey said Whittle wrote the hymn soon afterward. This near-contemporary account supports the inspiration and setting, but it does not support later dramatic details sometimes added to the story, such as a specific all-night writing session.
Sankey further reported that Whittle brought him the manuscript and offered the copyright in both words and music if Sankey would print five hundred fine-paper copies for distribution among Whittle's friends. May Whittle supplied the music. Sankey arranged simultaneous copyright registration in Washington and England, making the original 1893 text-and-tune pairing a deliberate collaboration rather than a later editorial match.
A 1900 collection of Whittle's poetry prints the hymn with five stanzas and identifies an 1893 copyright by the Biglow & Main Company. That documentary witness confirms the year and the longer early form. Many later hymnals reduce the text to three stanzas, generally retaining its doctrinal opening and its treatments of trial and weakness while omitting two additional stanzas about providential care and spiritual conflict.
Sankey said the hymn quickly gained notice in England and became a favorite of South African pastor and devotional writer Andrew Murray, who encountered it while visiting London. Murray's later use helped associate the song with the Keswick-era language of abiding, surrender, and continual dependence, although its core imagery remains closely tied to Pauline teaching on union with Christ.
The hymn continued in revival collections and denominational hymnals, including the 1904 Northfield Hymnal and later Baptist, Presbyterian, Adventist, and multilingual books. Because the paired words and music were published in 1893, both are in the public domain in the United States. New arrangements, harmonizations, recordings, and translations may carry separate rights.
Biblical Foundations
Romans 6:11, Galatians 2:20, and Colossians 3:3 form the hymn's doctrinal center. Each passage describes Christian existence through participation in Christ: dead to sin, alive to God, crucified with Christ, indwelt by Christ, and hidden with him. The hymn therefore begins from an accomplished relationship before turning to daily experience.
John 15:5 explains its continual dependence. A branch bears fruit only by remaining in the vine, so the Christian's strength is neither autonomous nor merely occasional. First Peter 1:5 supplies the complementary assurance that God's power guards believers through faith until salvation is fully revealed.
Hebrews 7:25 grounds the hymn's confidence in Christ's present activity. The risen Lord lives and intercedes for those who approach God through him. His sustaining care is thus not an impersonal force but the ministry of the crucified, risen, and exalted Savior.
Verse Explanation
The first stanza states the theological premise: through union with Christ, the believer shares in the meaning of his death and receives a new life directed toward final glory. It is a confession of identity before it is a description of emotion.
The second applies that identity to trials, burdens, and sorrow. Christ's presence does not deny hardship; it assures the worshiper that hardship is neither solitary nor outside his care.
The third moves to weakness and sickness. Its strong confidence should be sung as trust in Christ's compassion and sovereign power, not as a formula promising immediate physical cure in every case.
The original fourth stanza, often omitted from modern three-stanza versions, considers grief and danger under Christ's attentive rule. It widens the hymn's pastoral range from felt comfort to providence.
The original fifth stanza, also frequently omitted, turns from suffering to conflict with evil. It portrays perseverance as a struggle undertaken beneath Christ's authority and with his aid. Across all five stanzas, the recurring response gathers doctrine and experience into continual belonging, dependence, and hope.
Theological Reflection
The controlling doctrine is union with Christ. Whittle does not treat Jesus merely as an external helper added to an otherwise independent life. The believer's new identity and vitality are located in Christ's death and risen life, making grace the source of both justification-shaped assurance and sanctified living.
The hymn also presents perseverance as dependence. Divine keeping does not make watchfulness, prayer, or obedience unnecessary; it makes them possible. Faith returns continually to Christ because every circumstance exposes the limits of self-sufficiency. This avoids both anxious legalism and passive fatalism.
Its treatment of suffering is compassionate but requires careful interpretation. Christ's sympathy and power give reason to pray for healing and to trust him in bodily weakness, yet neither the hymn nor its supporting biblical theology warrants a guarantee that every disease will be removed in the present age. Christ may sustain through affliction as well as deliver from it, and final wholeness belongs to the resurrection.
The refrain-like recurrence of the title's time image makes sanctification concrete. Christian maturity is not independence from grace but a deepening practice of receiving, obeying, and hoping in Christ through ordinary moments. The destination is glory, but the mode of travel is present communion with the living Lord.
Church Impact
Sankey's own account shows that the hymn circulated internationally almost from the beginning: copies were copyrighted in the United States and England, Andrew Murray adopted it in his ministry, and it became known in South Africa. Its early reach therefore belonged to the same print-and-evangelism networks that carried Moody-Sankey gospel song across the English-speaking world.
Hymnary catalogs the text in well over one hundred pre-1979 collections and documents continued use in Baptist, Presbyterian, Adventist, revival, and independent evangelical hymnals. The tune also appears with translations and adaptations in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, Malayalam, and other languages, demonstrating circulation beyond its original American setting.
Its lasting strength is pastoral specificity. Congregations have used it for assurance, consecration, testimony, healing services, and teaching on the Christian life. Modern editors often shorten the five-stanza original, but the father-daughter text-and-tune pairing remains stable. The hymn endures because a memorable gospel form carries a substantial claim: the Christian life is sustained by present communion with Christ.
Musical Notes
May Whittle composed the tune specifically for her father's 1893 text, so WHITTLE is the hymn's original and historically normative tune. Hymnals may instead label it MOMENT BY MOMENT or identify it by the text's opening words; those labels normally refer to the same melody in this record.
The tune is commonly classified as 10.10.10.10 with refrain and printed in F major. Its 3/4 meter, largely stepwise melodic motion, and recurring cadential shapes give it the accessible, testimonial character of a late nineteenth-century gospel song. The refrain repeats melodic material clearly enough for congregational memory without separating the devotional response from the stanzas' doctrinal claims.
A moderate tempo best preserves both textual clarity and forward motion. Accompanists can shape each stanza lightly, broaden the refrain without dragging, and avoid an excessively sentimental rubato. When all five historical stanzas are used, modest variation in registration or texture can clarify the progression from union with Christ through suffering to spiritual conflict.
Application
- Begin the day by naming one responsibility or fear that must be met through dependence on Christ rather than self-sufficiency.
- Use Romans 6:11 and Galatians 2:20 to connect the hymn's assurance with the believer's union with Christ.
- In illness or grief, pray both for God's intervention and for sustaining grace, without implying that faithful Christians are always immediately delivered.
- When temptation comes, turn the hymn's theme into a brief prayer for Christ-given strength in the present moment.
- Use the song after sermons on abiding, perseverance, assurance, sanctification, pastoral care, or Christ's intercession.
Discussion Questions
- How do Romans 6:11, Galatians 2:20, and Colossians 3:3 shape the hymn's understanding of Christian identity?
- What is the difference between continual dependence on Christ and passive inaction?
- How can the hymn's confidence during illness be taught without promising immediate healing in every case?
- What is gained or lost when a hymnal prints three of the original five stanzas?
- Which present circumstance most exposes your need to abide in Christ rather than rely on yourself?
Teaching Tips
- Introduce the hymn with Sankey's documented account of Henry Varley's comment at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, while avoiding later details not found in that account.
- Read Romans 6:11 and Galatians 2:20 before singing so that union with Christ, rather than generalized comfort, frames the text.
- Tell worshipers that Daniel Webster Whittle wrote the words and his daughter May composed the original tune WHITTLE; do not collapse their distinct contributions.
- Check the hymnal edition before teaching: the 1900 printed witness has five stanzas, whereas many modern books retain only three.
- If the sickness stanza is used in pastoral care, explain that Christ may heal, sustain through affliction, or finally restore in resurrection.
- Teach the refrain at a steady moderate pulse, then let the stanzas' doctrinal progression determine phrasing and dynamics.
Sources
-
Ira D. Sankey, My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns (1906/1907), entry on Moment by Moment: [https://archive.org/details/mylifestoryofg00sank
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Daniel](https://archive.org/details/mylifestoryofg00sank
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Daniel) W. Whittle, Jonathan, and Other Poems (1900), pp. 154-159, including the five-stanza text and 1893 Biglow & Main copyright notice: [https://archive.org/details/jonathanotherpoe00whit
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Hymnary.org](https://archive.org/details/jonathanotherpoe00whit
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Hymnary.org), Moment by Moment text authority and hymnal instances: [https://hymnary.org/text/dying_with_jesus_by_death_reckoned_mine
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Hymnary.org](https://hymnary.org/text/dying_with_jesus_by_death_reckoned_mine
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Hymnary.org), WHITTLE tune authority and hymnal instances: [https://hymnary.org/tune/dying_with_jesus_by_death_reckoned_moody
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Hymnary.org](https://hymnary.org/tune/dying_with_jesus_by_death_reckoned_moody
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Hymnary.org), Northfield Hymnal (1904), no. 36: [https://hymnary.org/hymn/NH1904/36
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Canterbury](https://hymnary.org/hymn/NH1904/36
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Canterbury) Dictionary of Hymnology, May Whittle Moody: [https://hymnology.hymnsam.co.uk/m/may-whittle-moody
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Jacob](https://hymnology.hymnsam.co.uk/m/may-whittle-moody
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Jacob) Henry Hall, Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers (1914), biographical notice on Daniel W. Whittle: [https://archive.org/details/biographyofgospe00hall
-
World](https://archive.org/details/biographyofgospe00hall
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World) English Bible Classic, public-domain Scripture text: [https://ebible.org/eng-web/](https://ebible.org/eng-web/)
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