What Wondrous Love Is This Meaning, History, and Theology
"What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul"
- Written
- 1811
- Category
- Hymn
- Tune
- Standard Tune
- Status
- Published
- Rights
- Public domain
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Story
What Wondrous Love Is This is an anonymous American hymn first documented in 1811 and later joined to the traditional shape-note tune WONDROUS LOVE in 1840. Its movement from Christ’s cross and redeeming love to praise and eternal hope has made it especially enduring in Lent, Holy Week, and shape-note worship.
Overview
“What Wondrous Love Is This” is an anonymous American folk hymn whose central response to the gospel is astonishment. Rather than beginning with an argument about salvation, it begins with wonder that divine love should reach a sinner through Christ’s self-giving. The repeated inward address gives the song the character of meditation: the worshiper is not merely stating a doctrine but urging the heart to contemplate what grace means.
The hymn’s movement is distinctly Christ-centered. It passes from the cost of redemption, through the believer’s helplessness and Christ’s saving action, toward praise of God and the Lamb and finally toward worship beyond death. The cross is therefore not treated as an isolated tragedy; it becomes the ground of salvation and the beginning of doxology.
Its combination of plain language, repetition, and a stark modal melody makes it especially effective during Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday, Communion, and services focused on atonement or the love of Christ. The hymn asks singers to do more than understand redemption intellectually: it teaches the church to receive grace with humility, amazement, gratitude, and praise.
Historical Background
“What Wondrous Love Is This” emerged from the revival-era religious culture of the early nineteenth-century American South, but its author remains unknown. The earliest firmly documented texts appeared anonymously in two hymn collections in 1811. Stith Mead’s second edition of “A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs Now in Use,” published at Lynchburg, Virginia, printed six stanzas. Starke Dupuy’s “A Selection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs from the Best Authors,” published at Frankfort, Kentucky, printed seven. Because no earlier manuscript or signed publication has been established, 1811 is best treated as the earliest documented date rather than a proven year of composition.
The hymn circulated as words before its familiar music appeared in print. That was normal in a culture where words-only hymnals, camp meetings, oral transmission, and singing-school tunebooks overlapped. The text’s highly repetitive structure and unusual meter made it especially adaptable to folk-song practice. An 1848 attribution in William Hauser’s “The Hesperian Harp” associated the words with the Methodist minister and educator Alexander Means, but the text had already circulated anonymously for decades. Modern hymnological authorities therefore continue to treat the authorship as uncertain rather than accepting Means as established author.
The decisive musical event came in 1840, when William Walker included WONDROUS LOVE in an enlarged edition of “The Southern Harmony.” Walker’s publication is the earliest documented printing that brings this text together with the tune now regarded as standard. The setting was credited to James Christopher of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Later, in “The Christian Harmony” of 1867, Walker called it a popular old Southern tune and said it had been arranged by Christopher, indicating that Christopher wrote down and harmonized a melody already circulating orally rather than necessarily composing it from nothing.
The tune belongs to the broad Anglo-American ballad and folk-hymn world. Its meter is shared with the old “Captain Kidd” ballad and a number of other songs, which has led to frequent claims that WONDROUS LOVE simply borrowed the pirate ballad’s tune. The relationship is more complex: scholarship documents a common metrical and tune-family environment, but the precise line of melodic descent is difficult to prove. It is safer to describe WONDROUS LOVE as a traditional southern folk melody shaped within a larger Anglo-American song tradition.
B. F. White and E. J. King included WONDROUS LOVE in the first “Sacred Harp” in 1844, helping preserve it within four-shape singing. That tradition remains active. The Sacred Harp’s current historical index credits the words to Mead’s 1811 collection and the music to James Christopher’s 1840 setting, with a later alto part by Anna Blackshear. William Walker returned to the hymn in “The Christian Harmony” in 1867 and printed six stanzas, giving the text and tune another important channel of transmission.
During the twentieth century the hymn moved from regional folk and shape-note repertory into denominational hymnals, choral literature, organ music, and ecumenical worship. Modern hymnals use several harmonizations while retaining the old melody, and composers including Samuel Barber have treated WONDROUS LOVE as source material for new works. The anonymous text, traditional tune, and nineteenth-century shape-note forms are public domain, while later harmonizations, arrangements, translations, and compositions may be separately copyrighted.
Biblical Foundations
Romans 5:8 provides a concise biblical center for the hymn’s astonishment at divine love. God’s love is demonstrated not after sinners make themselves worthy but while they are still sinners, through Christ’s death. This keeps the hymn’s wonder rooted in grace rather than in human spiritual achievement.
Galatians 3:13 is especially important for understanding the hymn’s severe curse-bearing imagery. Paul describes Christ as redeeming people from the law’s curse by taking the curse upon himself. The hymn uses this biblical language devotionally, pressing the singer to contemplate the cost and unexpectedness of redemption without attempting to provide a complete theory of the atonement.
Philippians 2:6-8 deepens the hymn’s portrayal of Christ’s descent and self-giving. The one who exists in the form of God takes the form of a servant and becomes obedient to death on the cross. The movement from divine glory to humiliation gives theological substance to the hymn’s amazement that Christ should act for the salvation of the helpless.
First John 4:9-10 identifies God’s initiative as the definition of love and describes Christ as the atoning sacrifice for sins. Revelation 5:12-13 then supplies the hymn’s final horizon: redemption leads to worship of God and the Lamb. The song’s movement from the cross toward unending praise therefore follows a strongly biblical pattern.
Verse Explanation
The hymn begins in astonishment before Christ’s saving love and then turns inward to the helplessness of the sinner. The contrast between human need and Christ’s self-giving gives the opening movement its emotional and theological force.
From there the song turns toward praise. Personal redemption is not treated as an end in itself; the worshiper joins a larger act of adoration directed to God and the Lamb. The final movement carries that praise beyond the limits of mortal life, so the hymn progresses from wonder, through salvation, to enduring doxology.
The repeated phrases throughout the song are not merely decorative. They slow the act of singing and make each theological claim something to be contemplated, remembered, and personally appropriated.
Theological Reflection
The hymn’s dominant theological category is grace apprehended as wonder. The singer does not begin with personal worth, religious achievement, or moral improvement. Salvation originates in God’s love and in Christ’s action for those who cannot rescue themselves. That gives the hymn both humility and assurance: redemption is received before it becomes a reason for praise.
Its atonement language is strong but compact. Galatians 3:13 makes curse-bearing a legitimate biblical theme, while Romans 5 and 1 John 4 place Christ’s death within divine love and reconciliation. The hymn should not be forced into a more detailed theory than it actually states. Its purpose is devotional and doxological: it confronts the singer with the cost of redemption and asks for a response of astonished faith.
Christology is equally important. Philippians 2 helps interpret the hymn’s contrast between Christ’s glory and his humiliation. The cross is the action of the one Christians confess as Lord, so divine majesty is revealed not only in exaltation but also in self-giving obedience. This challenges definitions of power that have no room for humility, sacrifice, or love.
The hymn finally becomes eschatological praise. Redemption is not complete as a private experience of forgiveness; it opens into worship with the redeemed community and, ultimately, praise beyond death. Revelation 5 provides a fitting biblical counterpart, where the Lamb’s saving work becomes the theme of a vast act of worship.
Church Impact
The hymn’s earliest life belongs to southern folk religion, words-only hymnals, and shape-note singing rather than to the standard denominational hymnals that later made it familiar across North America. Its inclusion in “The Southern Harmony” in 1840 and “The Sacred Harp” in 1844 secured a durable place in the shape-note tradition. It remains song 159 in the 2025 edition of “The Sacred Harp.”
Its continuing vitality within Sacred Harp singing is measurable. An analysis of singing minutes from 1995 through 2013 cited by the Sacred Harp Publishing Company ranked WONDROUS LOVE thirteenth among the songs most often led from the book and tenth among pieces used in memorial lessons. That is unusually concrete evidence that the hymn remains part of a living singing tradition rather than merely a historical artifact.
During the twentieth century the hymn entered a much wider denominational repertory. It appears in Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Reformed, Moravian, Catholic, Mennonite, Disciples of Christ, and other collections. Editors frequently place it under Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday, Christ’s passion, atonement, divine love, salvation, and eternal life.
The tune has also attracted concert and choral treatment, including Samuel Barber’s 1958 organ work “Wondrous Love: Variations on a Shape Note Hymn.” Such adaptations demonstrate the melody’s reach beyond congregational singing while also creating a layered copyright history: the old hymn is public domain, but many modern artistic settings are not.
Musical Notes
WONDROUS LOVE is a traditional southern American folk-hymn tune first documented with this text in William Walker’s enlarged 1840 edition of “The Southern Harmony.” The shape-note setting was credited to James Christopher, whom Walker later described as the arranger of an already popular southern melody. The tune therefore should not be attributed simply to William Walker, nor should Christopher automatically be treated as the original creator of the underlying folk air.
Hymnals commonly describe the tune as D minor or modal, and many modern settings emphasize its Dorian character. The incipit indexed by Hymnary is 11724 54211 72576. Its narrow opening, repeated phrases, and modal contour give it an austere sound that supports the text’s combination of lament, awe, and praise without requiring elaborate accompaniment.
The meter is unusual and is indexed in more than one way. “The Sacred Harp” gives 12.9.6.6.12.9, while many modern hymnals combine the central short lines and give 12.9.12.12.9. These are different ways of dividing essentially the same repeated poetic structure rather than evidence of two unrelated hymns.
The tune works effectively unaccompanied, especially in shape-note practice, but it has also generated many organ, choral, orchestral, and congregational arrangements. Later settings by Paul J. Christiansen, Alice Parker, Carlton R. Young, and others should be credited as harmonizations or arrangements rather than as the origin of WONDROUS LOVE.
Application
- Use the hymn during Lent or Good Friday to dwell on the love revealed in Christ’s self-giving rather than rushing immediately from the cross to celebration.
- When guilt leads either to despair or self-justification, return to Romans 5:8 and receive salvation as God’s gracious initiative rather than a reward for becoming worthy.
- Let Galatians 3:13 prompt careful reflection on the seriousness of sin and the cost of redemption without using atonement language to portray the Father and Son as divided in purpose.
- Allow the hymn’s repeated self-address to become spiritual examination: ask whether familiarity with Christian language has dulled the capacity to be amazed by grace.
- Let contemplation move into praise and discipleship. Wonder at divine love should form humility, gratitude, love of neighbor, and worship rather than remaining only an emotional response.
Discussion Questions
- Why does the hymn respond to the cross with wonder rather than beginning with a systematic explanation of the atonement?
- How does Galatians 3:13 illuminate the hymn’s curse-bearing imagery, and what limits should be observed when interpreting that imagery?
- What does Philippians 2:6-8 teach about the relationship between Christ’s glory, humility, and saving obedience?
- How does the movement from personal salvation toward praise of God and the Lamb prevent Christian faith from becoming purely individualistic?
- What does the anonymous origin and oral history of the tune teach us about the way congregational songs can be created and preserved by communities?
Teaching Tips
- Use 1811 as the earliest documented date for the text while explaining that the anonymous hymn may have circulated orally before its appearance in Stith Mead’s and Starke Dupuy’s hymn collections.
- Do not assign the text confidently to Alexander Means. His name appears in the 1848 “Hesperian Harp,” but this attribution comes decades after the hymn’s anonymous 1811 publication and has not displaced anonymous authorship in major hymnological sources.
- Separate text and tune chronology: the words were printed in 1811, but the familiar text-and-tune pairing is first documented in an enlarged 1840 edition of William Walker’s “The Southern Harmony.”
- Explain James Christopher’s role carefully. Walker later called WONDROUS LOVE an old southern tune arranged by Christopher, making Christopher the earliest named arranger or harmonizer rather than a securely established original composer of the melody.
- Let the congregation experience the music’s shape-note heritage when possible by trying a stanza unaccompanied before adding organ, piano, or a modern arrangement.
Sources
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Stith Mead, “A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs Now in Use,” second edition, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1811, no. 121, early anonymous printing with six stanzas
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Starke Dupuy, “A Selection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs from the Best Authors,” Frankfort, Kentucky, 1811, no. 198, early anonymous printing with seven stanzas
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Sacred Harp Publishing Company, Harry Eskew, “William Walker: Carolina Contributor to American Music,” on the 1811 texts, the 1840 Southern Harmony pairing, James Christopher’s arrangement, and later shape-note reception
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William Walker, “The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion,” enlarged 1840 edition, appendix entry for WONDROUS LOVE credited to Christopher
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William Walker, “The Christian Harmony,” 1867, later printing of WONDROUS LOVE describing it as a popular old Southern tune arranged by James Christopher
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The Sacred Harp, 2025 edition, no. 159, WONDROUS LOVE, crediting the words to Mead’s General Selection, 1811, and music to James Christopher, 1840
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Hymnary.org, text authority page for “What wondrous love is this, O my soul,” including anonymous authorship, meter, early sources, and hymnal circulation
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Hymnary.org, tune authority page for WONDROUS LOVE, including the 1840 Southern Harmony setting, James Christopher attribution, incipit, modal practice, and later harmonizations
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The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology, “What wondrous love is this,” identifying the hymn as an anonymous American folk hymn
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World English Bible, public-domain Scripture text verified through Bible Gateway
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Library of Congress, National Library Service organ-score catalogue, listing Samuel Barber’s “Wondrous Love: Variations on a Shape-note Hymn,” Op. 34
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