O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done

By Steve Manskar

Hymns have always been an important devotional resource for the people called Methodists. John and Charles Wesley published many collections of hymns. The hymns were sung in class, band, and society meetings and at Love Feasts. The people carried their hymns with them to the meetings and used them at home as part of daily prayer and devotional practices. In singing, praying, and meditating on the hymns the Methodist people learned and internalized the theology they heard in the preaching and teaching. The poetry of the hymns helped get the theology of Methodist preaching from the head into the heart.

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Crucifixion. (Rembrandt) 1631. Public Domain.

Hymns have always been an important devotional resource for the people called Methodists. John and Charles Wesley published many collections of hymns. The hymns were sung in class, band, and society meetings and at Love Feasts. The people carried their hymns with them to the meetings and used them at home as part of daily prayer and devotional practices. In singing, praying, and meditating on the hymns the Methodist people learned and internalized the theology they heard in the preaching and teaching. The poetry of the hymns helped get the theology of Methodist preaching from the head into the heart.

Here is a powerful reflection on the meaning of Christ's death on the cross:

O Love divine, what hast thou done!
The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father's co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree.
Th'immortal God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Is crucified for me and you,
To bring us rebels back to God.
Believe, believe the record true,
Ye all are bought with Jesu's blood.
Pardon for all flows from his side:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Behold him, all ye that pass by,
The bleeding Prince of life and peace!
Come, sinners, see your Savior die,
And say, "Was ever grief like his?"
Come, feel with me his blood applied:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Charles Wesley, 1742

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