And Are We Yet Alive?
A Methodist favourite hymn – sung at every synod and annual conference, after John Wesley started using the song for that purpose in the 1780s. Why did Charles, his brother, write this song? And why did John leave out a few verses in later publications? Here’s the story.
Welcome back to Friday Classic Hymns. As most of you know, I am a minister in the Church of the Nazarene, and we're Wesleyan. We love Wesley's theology and the history of the Wesleyan movement. Of course, before I was with the Nazarenes, I was a Methodist, and there I studied Wesley a lot.
Even so, I don't really know many Wesley hymns. I think by the time I started studying and going to ministry, they didn't really want to sing hymns anymore. I don't think I ever sang a single Wesley hymn my whole life until I started doing Friday Classic Hymns. I want to do one today that all Methodists know well, or Methodists in the past knew, because this one was always sung at every synod, at every annual conference.
I always just knew this title. In fact, it's also the title of a book, and I've got the book on my bookshelf: And Are We Yet Alive. It's quite a special song. Do you have any memories of this? Maybe those of you who are Methodists can tell stories of singing this with your brothers and sisters at your annual meetings. I'm sure those are special memories. Otherwise, do you have any other memories of the song? I love the song. As I've learnt this week, I've really come to appreciate these words.
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The Story Behind "And Are We Yet Alive"
This is another Charles Wesley hymn. I've already covered quite a few of his songs here in the series. You can go and have a look at them. This one was written in 1749, but let's just go back to Charles as a child. He was born in 1707 in Epworth, the 18th child of the Wesleys.
His father was an Anglican clergyman, and his mother, Susanna, was known for her strict, but I suppose pretty progressive for her time, approach to education. She really shaped the Wesley children strongly and with passion. Charles was later educated at Westminster School and Christ Church in Oxford, and he and his brother John became part of a group called the Holy Club. They were known as the Methodists because they were very methodical in their approach to their faith.
He became ordained as an Anglican priest in 1735, and soon after that, he and his brother went on a mission trip to Georgia and came back to England to continue their lives there. Both Charles and John had great moments in their spiritual journeys close to each other. John, famously at Aldersgate, had his heart strangely warmed. Charles, on the other hand, was sick, lying in bed, and came to faith where he was told by a Moravian brother that salvation was by faith, not by works. He placed his faith in Jesus alone and received His great peace of heart.
He wrote many great hymns - they say over 6,000 hymns Charles wrote. He had a real gift with language. Unlike his brother John, who did a lot of travelling around on his horse, preaching and setting up churches (or setting up Methodist societies within the Anglican Church), Charles favoured a more stationary ministry of writing hymns and taking care of his family.
He married his wife in 1749, the same year that he wrote And Are We Yet Alive. You see, the 1740s were a particularly troubling time in Methodism. It was the early days of Methodism, and Methodist preachers were scorned by the Church, by the Anglican Church in England, tossed out of churches, sometimes chased out of town by crowds with pitchforks and flaming fire and all sorts.
In those early years, if you read the Wesleys' diaries, they really went through a lot. That really informs this hymn. As we look at the words just now, you'll see what I mean. Charles wrote these verses, and if you look in the 1749 hymnal, which is called Hymns and Sacred Poems, there are actually eight verses. I want to look at all eight. But John dropped the last two for the later hymnals, which is a pity, because the last two verses are powerful. But in the 1780s, John started to use this at the annual meetings, and every time the Methodists would meet, they would sing the song. That tradition has stuck because Methodists everywhere, as I said earlier, tend to sing the song at their annual meetings.
Charles died in 1788, and the song is really one of his great ones, loved by many and having been born out of those difficult early years of the Methodist movement. We can see how special this must have been for the early Methodists to sing it.
What Do the Lyrics of "And Are We Yet Alive" Mean?
Verse 1
And are we yet alive, and see each other's face?
Glory and praise to Jesus give for His redeeming grace.
Isn't that wonderful? I suppose in those days they were fearing for their lives quite a lot, being attacked and imprisoned and all that sort of thing. He said, oh, isn't it great to see each other's face? We're still alive and we're still here. Let's give glory and praise to Christ for His redeeming grace.
But think about this in context of the church. It's quite a powerful thing for a church such as the Methodist Church or whatever church to get together as a group and say as one, are we yet alive as a church?
In fact, the book that I mentioned by Richard Wilke is about: is the Methodist Church still alive? This was written, I think, in the 70s or 80s in the United Methodist Church in the States, and he was saying, is this church still alive or has it died? Of course, John Wesley was supposedly not worried that Methodism dies out, but worried that it carries on as a dead sect.
Maybe these words speak to that. Are we as a church, whatever church you're part of, still alive as we see each other's face?
Verse 2
Preserved by power divine, to feel salvation here;
again in Jesus' name we join, and in His sight appear.
Preserved by power divine - God is preserving His people. Is He preserving His people doing this work? Do you have a sense that God is preserving you by His power and that you can feel His salvation here? I like that line. We can feel His salvation here and now. It's not a future thing. He's saving us, has saved us now.
Again, as we gather in Jesus' name, we join and we appear in His sight. We are here together for Him to see.
Verse 3
What troubles have we seen, what conflicts have we past;
fightings without and fears within, since we assembled last.
You can see why this one is a favourite for yearly gatherings. Because you gather, you go away and you do your thing in your local churches, and then you come back together and you can say, well, we've faced troubles and conflict in our church. There's been fightings coming at us, and there's been fears within since we assembled last. But here we are. We've gathered together again.
This is the nature of church and the nature of the Christian life. It's a life of trouble and conflict, but persevering through it with God's grace.
Verse 4
But out of all the Lord hath brought us by His love;
and still He doth His help afford, and hides our life above.
Yes, we've had all these conflicts and troubles, but out of it all God has brought us by His love, and He still affords us His help and hides our life above. He protects our eternal life, and we can trust Him for that.
Verse 5
Then let us make our boast of His redeeming power;
which saves us to the uttermost, till we can sin no more.
It's an act of worship saying, God's power is amazing, which saves us to the uttermost till we can sin no more. There's some Wesleyan theology for you - being saved to the uttermost. Wesley believed that we could be holy. He never believed we could be completely perfect, by no means. But he spoke a lot about sanctification and holiness and power over sin.
You read things like this, and you think this was the Methodist ethic, and the Methodist passion was for holiness to spread across the land so that the people could be like Christ. This is a good reminder as we sing it, that He saves us to the uttermost. In other words, He completely saves us and redeems us so that sin no longer has power over us.
Verse 6
Let us take up the cross, till we the crown obtain;
and gladly reckon all things lost, so we may Jesus gain.
He's done such great things for us. He's preserved us, He's redeemed us. We're going to take up our cross as Jesus has instructed. We're going to deny ourselves and push on until we get our crowns one day in heaven.
We'll count all things lost. That's Paul. Paul loved to speak like that. In Philippians he spoke about how all the things that he used to try to do to make him acceptable to God, he now counted all as loss, all that ritual stuff, and he now just relies on faith. Wesley is saying here, let's commit ourselves to godly living again.
Verse 7
Jesus, to Thee we bow, and for Thy coming wait:
give us for good some token now in our imperfect state.
That is where it normally ends - the six verses. But as I said, in the 1749 publication, there are these two verses as well.
We bow in worship and we wait for Your coming again. Of course, Christians do this. Give us for good some token now in our imperfect state - while we're on earth, we are imperfect, of course. While we wait in this imperfect state, give us some good, something to hold on to, something that, during this time of waiting for You to come again or for us to be gathered up to You, give us Your goodness and preserve us as we cling to You.
Verse 8
Apply the hallowing word, tell each who looks for Thee,
Thou shalt be perfect as thy Lord, Thou shalt be all like me!
This beautiful last verse - again that emphasis on perfection and on Christian holiness. He's saying, let each person who looks for Christ receive the word, that they will be made perfect in Him through sanctifying grace, and they shall be like Christ.
This is deep stuff. This is typical Wesley, isn't it? With that emphasis on perfection and holiness. Just remember, it was never a perfection which is free of mistakes and free of falling short. You're never going to perfectly keep the law, but you can be free from the power of sin. That's where the confusion comes in.
Some people think that the Wesleyan view of perfection is like an angelic perfection, but it's not. It's an imperfect performance, but with a perfectly committed heart, no longer doing or straying from God and saying, oh, then He'll just forgive me, but perfectly attempting, perfectly committed to living out the holy life. He will then break the power of sin.
If you do that, you still will not get it completely right. But you won't be dragging your feet through sin anymore and coming back to God saying, oh, I've done it again. That's the kind of thing that Wesley was after. A true holiness and God's sanctifying grace, enabling us to do that, to no longer go back to our old lives of sin.
You see this in all these hymns, and you see it here again.
Conclusion
I love this song! It's so encouraging. I wish that I'd been at a Methodist conference where we'd sung this, but in the few years that I was there training, I never got to experience it.
What do you think of these words? Did something speak to you today? Do you feel encouraged? Do you long to see the faces of your brothers and sisters in Christ and celebrate God's preserving grace with them? I think this hymn has got a special place for that.
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