This hymn by Isaac Watts (1674–1748; see Biographies) appears in his Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1707, under the title “Christ Crucified, the Wisdom and Power of God.” Originally, there were six stanzas. Watts’s title indicates that this hymn should be included in the SDAH section on Christ’s sufferings and death, for the first stanza is introductory only, speaking of one aspect of God’s power and glory. But as stanza 2 states, God’s brightest glory was shown in His sacrifice for humanity. The words were inspired by the apostle Paul: “But we preach Christ crucified … Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23, 24).

Not willing for “God the Savior” to love and die, most hymnal editors changed it to “Christ the Savior.” There are a number of minor alterations in the four stanzas in SDAH, two of them to change the sexually exclusive words “her” and “man” to “its” and “us.” The first word of the fourth stanza has been changed from “I” to the collective “we.” Some feel this atonement hymn ranks right up there next to “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” as one of Watts’s finest works. Strangely, it appears in very few hymnals. The Dictionary of American Hymnology lists it in a Baptist book, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1766, by Samuel Hall, Newport, Rhode Island. It was included in Congregational Praise, 1951, and Lutheran Book of Worship, 1978.

Not much is known of Georg Joseph, composer of the tune ANGELUS. He was a musician employed in the seventeenth century by the prince-bishop of Breslau, Germany. Collaborating with Lutheran poet and physician Johann Scheffler (1624–1677), he published five books of hymns from 1657 to 1668. The volume containing this tune (and 184 more of his) was Heilige Seelenlust (Holy Desire for Souls), 1657. The original tune was a soprano solo styled after Italian secular music. Undergoing some changes from the original, the SDAH form of the tune is from Cantica Spiritualia, Munich, 1847, with further rhythmic changes from the version printed in the 1875 revised edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern. Joseph named this tune ANGELUS to commemorate his collaborator, Scheffler, who, though brought up a Lutheran, converted to the Roman Catholic faith in 1653 and took the name Angelus Silesius when he became a priest.