Nearer My God To Thee
A classic hymn written by a Unitarian hymnwriter, based on Jacob's ladder in Genesis 28. It's controversial because it doesn't mention Jesus, but it is still a wonderful song of God's closeness through life's ups and downs.
Welcome to another Friday Classic Hymn, and today's hymn is a fascinating one. There's theological controversy surrounding it, there's a story about the Titanic related to this song, and I'm so glad that a few of you have requested it. I've seen it in the comments below, and I'm looking through your requests to see what to do next. This one has really captured me. It's one that I didn't really know—I think I sort of knew of it somehow but didn't know how to play it. So I've learnt it this week and learnt the history. As always, I want to ask you to share your comments below because I love to hear your stories and your memories attached to these songs. I read them and really enjoy seeing how these have had real-life impact. So has this song, "Nearer My God to Thee," meant something to you? Please share it below.
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Let's talk about the history behind this song.
The Story Behind "Nearer My God to Thee"
The song was written by Sarah Flower Adams, who was born in Harrow in England in 1805. Her father was the editor of quite a radical newspaper—he even got arrested for some of the things that were published. So maybe this explains why she had such a way with words, being surrounded by words growing up. She turned out to be a very good actress and ended up playing Lady Macbeth on stage in London. But really, it was her writing that endeared her to people. She published poetry, and the famous Robert Browning really enjoyed her poetry and became good friends with her. Yet most of what she's written has been forgotten, but "Nearer My God to Thee" has stood the test of time.
As it turns out, she wrote this song at the request of her minister, Reverend W. J. Johnson Fox, who approached her sister Eliza and her to write some songs for their church. He was compiling a new hymnal to be used for their congregation, and there were a few gaps in the hymnal that he wanted to fill. So he asked for their help—not only to compile it (because Eliza was a particularly good musician) but to write some new songs to be used.
One day, as they were doing this, the minister said to these ladies that he was struggling with a sermon. He couldn't find a fitting song to go with the sermon that he was writing, and his theme was from Genesis 28—the story of Jacob having a dream of the ladder going between heaven and earth, with the angels going up and down on the ladder. So Eliza said to her sister Sarah, "Why don't you write something? Why don't you go look at this text and write something that would be fitting to put in the hymnal?" She did exactly that. She went and spent a long time studying the text closely. When she was done, she wrote this song—all five verses that we know now.
The song quickly became popular in the Unitarian congregation that she was a part of, and that's where the controversy comes in. Because she was part of a Unitarian church, unitarians believe that God is not three in one—the Holy Trinity is a myth to them, a belief of nonsense in their mind. They say there's one God because God said that clearly in the Old Testament. Jesus was His Son but not one with Him in any sort of divine way, and the Spirit is not a separate entity but the spirit is part of God. So there is—well, not God the Father—there is just God.
I've had some unitarians on my page here asking me to reconsider my view of the Trinity. I remember especially when I did a Friday Classic on "Holy, Holy, Holy," which says, "God in three persons, blessèd Trinity," having some people take me on about that. But I'm a trinitarian, and so are most people who call themselves Christians. It is one of the central doctrines of the Christian faith.
So many people were confused by this hymn when it came out because it had a Unitarian sort of feel to it. There was no talk of Jesus, no talk of His sacrifice on the cross. So many people rejected the song and said, "We're not going to sing this—that's a Unitarian hymn." In fact, some people even rewrote it and added in words that had to do with Jesus just to make it fit their theology a little better. But if you look closely at the words (which we're going to do just now), there's nothing in there that is anti-Christian. There's nothing there that doesn't make sense to the normal Christian. Sure, it lacks words about Jesus—that doesn't mean you can't sing it. So most churches began to sing this one, and it's had a deep impact on people's lives.
In fact, the US President William McKinley, who was assassinated in 1901, loved this song, and it is said that as he lay there dying, he whispered these words: "Nearer, my God to Thee." The song was then played at his funeral.
Another story related to this song was a man named Professor Hitchcock, who was a theologian and a professor. He was travelling around Palestine and heard this tune being sung. He went and traced where the sound was coming from and saw a group of fifty Syrians singing the song in their own language. He said it moved him deeply.
But the most famous story associated with this hymn comes from the day the Titanic sank in 1912. Survivors have claimed that as the final section of the big boat started to sink into the water, the band started to play—and they started to play this tune. Haunting story. Some people don't believe it; other people swear by it.
Sarah Flower Adams died at the age of 43, and so she never got to know all of these stories or see her hymn go anywhere. She died a few years after writing it, after a brief illness. But her words go on, and her work goes on, pretty much solely through this hymn. I hope it endures because it's very deep and very powerful and, I think, very comforting.
Let's have a look at the words she wrote.
What Do the Lyrics of "Nearer My God to Thee" Mean?
Verse One: Drawing Near Through the Cross
So verse one we all know: "Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!"
Every verse ends with that phrase as well.
"E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me, still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!"
There's this cry from the author saying, "I want to be closer to You, nearer to You."
Jacob in the story that she based this on felt separated from God because he'd sinned and he ran off, wandered around by himself, and fell asleep. Yet God still appeared to him and drew him near. In fact, it reminds me of James 4:8, which says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."
I wonder if you need to draw nearer to God—that you can know that He's drawing near to you?
But there's something interesting in this verse that says, "E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me." Even though I have to bear a cross in order to get closer to You—I'm not saying be crucified, because of course Christ was crucified once for all, for all of us—but a cross is a symbol of suffering. So she's saying, "Even if I have to suffer, if that will lead me closer to You, if that will raise me up to be closer to You, Lord, I will suffer."
That's a very mature Christian view. In today's world, most Christians don't think that way. They think, "Well, if it's going to cause me to suffer, I'll go somewhere else. I'll find another religion." But the early Christians suffered for their faith, and it reminds me very much of what James said in James 1:2 when he said, "Consider it joy, brothers and sisters, when you have any trials, when you go through difficulties. Consider it joy, because it is growing you." More than that, God is working in you.
When the author writes, "Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to Thee," I think of Paul and Silas singing in prison. Even though they were bearing a cross, so to speak, they still raised up their song to God.
Is that how you have lived your life as a Christian? Even if you have been in a prison or had to bear a cross of some sort, are you still able to lift your song to God and say, "Nearer to You, O God, I want to draw near to You"? I hope so.
Verse Two: God's Presence in Darkness
Now verse two is where the picture of Jacob's dream starts to come out.
"Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down, darkness be over me, my rest a stone; yet in my dreams I'd be Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee."
Jacob had run away from home. He was wandering around, far from God in his mind, because darkness was over him—he'd sinned. So he goes to sleep with a stone for a pillow, and I suppose that represents just the restlessness that he was going through—not sleeping well.
God appears to him even so. Even though he was in a place of darkness, God was there for him, and it's a picture of God's grace—the way that God reaches out to us even though we don't deserve it.
God said to him in this dream, "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go." He thought that he'd left God's presence and that his sin had pulled him out of the presence of God, but God promised him, "I am with you and I will be with you. Doesn't matter where you go, I'll be with you."
Do you need to hear those words today? God saying, "I will be with you wherever you go."
Jacob found out even in his dreams God was there. Have you ever had God speak to you in a dream? I have. I've had a few dreams—I won't go into details now—but we have woken up and thought, "Well, I think I need to speak to this person" or "I think I need to do this because of the dream."
Jacob, of course, had this amazing dream, and it drew him nearer to God. Maybe we need to pray when we go to bed: "Draw me nearer to You in my sleep, Lord."
Verse Three: The Ladder to Heaven
Verse three says this: "There let the way appear, steps unto heaven; all that Thou sendest me, in mercy given; angels to beckon me Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee."
You can think of his dream of seeing steps to heaven and angels going up and down, God right at the top. This dream that Jacob had of seeing the angels going up and down this ladder to heaven drew him nearer to God. It was like the angels were beckoning him to come and hear God speak.
Now Jesus mentions this in John 1. Look at this verse from Jesus where He said, "Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." You can see those quotes in the middle of that verse—it means He was quoting from the Old Testament, but He applied it to Himself.
So this dream of Jacob's was actually a picture of what Christ would do. Christ would become the ladder, so to speak, in between earth and heaven. So not only angels, but now human beings—because we've all got a soul—can go from this earthly place to the place where God is. But it's through Christ and Christ alone. It's through Christ's sacrifice and by placing our faith in Him—not by good works—that we get into heaven.
So maybe she didn't even think about it in this way, but Jesus is in the song, even if the author didn't mean it—because Jesus is the ladder that Jacob dreamed of. How amazing that we can ascend to heaven because Jesus is our Saviour and we've put our faith in Him.
It's such mercy. I like how she says "in mercy given"—it's such an act of mercy. It's not that we've earned it; it's just God's mercy and grace. Oh, praise Him, because coming nearer to Him is not reliant on our good works but simply on placing our faith in Him.
Verse Four: Raising Altars from Stones
Verse four says this: "Then, with my waking thoughts bright with Thy praise, out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise; so by my woes to be Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee."
Again, this calls to mind the story in Genesis where Jacob awoke from this dream and began to praise God and say, "How great it is that God is here."
So he took the stone that he had been sleeping on—that his head had been resting on—and turned it into a pillar or an altar. He anointed it with oil, and he called it Bethel, which means "House of God," so that this could represent "God is here—God did something amazing here."
So out of his grief, out of his woe, out of his difficult place, God met him and did something great.
For us, we can sing this verse and say, "Even through my woes and difficulties, I know God is here." You know, the very difficulty, the very stones that are in our lives, we can actually raise up as altars to Him and say, "This difficulty, this hardship, this difficult part of my life has drawn me nearer to God."
Oh, friends, don't let your difficulties push you away from God. Let them encourage you to go deeper with Him and not draw further away from Him. You'll find that even in those difficulties, He is there, and you can trust in Him. You know, somehow God touches us in a different way when we're going through difficulties.
I still remember a sermon that was preached when I was very young in our church. The minister spoke about how God does His best work in caves. He was talking about David hiding in a cave and how God was forming him and shaping him in those years that he had to hide out in caves. His point was that our difficulties, our hardships, are when God does His best work in us.
Do you see the stones in your life as God working in your life? It'll change everything for you if you start to see your life through that sort of a lens.
Verse Five: Drawing Near in Joy
But on the other hand, we have verse five, which says this: "Or if on joyful wing cleaving the sky, sun, moon, and stars forgot, upward I fly, still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to Thee."
So not just the bad times that draw us nearer to God (although they do), but the good times do as well. Many people don't get this right. Many people, when things are going well, they turn away from God, or—it's not that they reject Him—but they just get indifferent towards Him. They don't see the need to draw near to Him.
But I love how the songwriter here pulls it back and says, "Even if I'm so joyful that I'm flying, I will still praise, and I'll still go nearer to Him in my joy."
Are you taking your joys, your good times, your laughter, your happiness to God and celebrating them with Him? Such an amazing thing—to get nearer to God in your good times and not just in your bad times.
The Bible is full of words saying that God wants us to be joyful. Jesus often said, "I've told you these things that you may be joyful, that the fullness of My joy may be in you."
When joy comes, friends, take it to God and worship Him because of the good pleasures in your life as well.
Conclusion
So that's the song "Nearer My God to Thee." Just like Jacob found that he was still near to God because of God's mercy—not what he'd done—so you and I can find, through Jesus, nearness to God in good times and in bad.
We're going to sing it, and we're going to sing the Bethany tune, which was written by Dr Lowell Mason. This is the most popular tune, although there are other tunes that it's sung to. This is the one that most people know.
Friends, thank you for watching my channel. Thank you for subscribing, and thank you for those who donate. I really do appreciate every donation that comes in. It allows me to spend the time to do this. So if you're able to donate via Patreon or PayPal, I would be so appreciative. But please don't feel that you need to—my content is always free, and it's those that donate that allow it to be free for those who can't.
Friends, let's sing the song together now, and I hope that God will draw nearer to you as you draw near to Him as you sing.
References
Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1985)
John McLelland, The Ambassador Book of Great Hymn Stories (Belfast: Ambassador Productions Ltd, 1994)
