The Swiss author of this hymn, Edmond Budry, originally wrote it in French. He beautifully captures the intimate connection Christ’s earthly body has with His resurrection glory.
Thine be the glory, risen, conqu’ring Son;
endless is the vict’ry Thou o’er death hast won.
Glory is when you do something pretty significant in your eyes and you think everyone should know about it and congratulate you. So you post about it online.
In this hymn, Jesus is acknowledged for doing something no one else can do. He alone deserves the honor of overcoming in a way that no political party, think tank, technological power, or military might has been able to do. No one can keep people from dying. No one can bring people back to life.
He’s the Son of God who beat death forever, and showed it by rising from the dead through His own power.
Angels in bright raiment rolled the stone away,
kept [guarded] the folded grave-clothes where Thy body lay.
The heavy stone door covering the tomb was rolled away to show its interior; now emptied of the Savior’s body; now stripped of its enslaving power.
The grave clothes that bound the body of Jesus were left behind. What grave robber unwraps the body when carrying it away? He doesn’t unwrap the head and carefully fold the strips of cloth and lay it aside. So the person who raised others from the dead in power is the same that woke on the third day in glory and undid the wraps.
The angels who guarded the tomb; the angels with flaming swords who guarded the way back to the Tree of Life–they guard the way no longer. All who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Lo, Jesus meets us, risen from the tomb.
Lovingly He greets us, scatters fear and gloom;
Our own sins drove the nails into His body. Our hard hearts jeered at Him on the cross. We His enemies put Him to death. And how does He respond to that? “Lovingly He greets us.” His love for us compelled Him to put aside His glory for human form. His love took the posture of a suffering Servant toward us. His love for the Father allowed Him to embrace the cross.
With that love, and grace that is greater than all our sins, He “scatters all our fear and gloom.” We can approach Him. We can return His love. We can pour our worship out to Him.
let His church with gladness hymns of triumph sing,
for the Lord now liveth; death hath lost its sting.
We mourn the passing of luminaries and our own loved ones. Death is unnatural. No one knows why the growth of our bodies inexplicably reverses after about 35 years.
Yet “death has lost its sting.” We who believe in Jesus don’t look forward to dying, but the sting is gone because Jesus bore its poison in His own body.
The church sings in gladness because we who trust in Jesus and believe in His resurrection have a share in His victory. The curse of suffering, aging, and disability is now used as an instrument to build our character to become like His. God has turned the tables on death and suffering. Christ is risen. His triumph is already ours.
Thine be the glory, risen, conqu’ring Son;
endless is the vict’ry Thou o’er death hast won.
He did what no one else could do; He paid for that victory with His own death. And He did for His enemies.
The victory is absolute: “endless.” Death is abolished and immortality looms before us who accept His forgiveness.
No more we doubt Thee, glorious Prince of life!
Life is nought without Thee; aid us in our strife;
God is not asking us to put our faith in a dead man. He died according to the Scriptures–with nails in hand and foot. He rose from the dead according to the Scriptures–His body did not decay. He’s more than a good, moral prophet; His fulfillment of the Scriptures makes Him the risen Prince of Life. This is the one whom we are tasked to believe and receive.
Jesus pulled off the greatest feat in history, so “no more we doubt Thee.” He can save us from our sins, from death, from hell.
The God who was clothed in flesh and has suffered in this life understands our frailties, and has compassion on us. So His followers run boldly to the throne of grace to ask for “aid us in our strife.” He revives us from a thousand little deaths.
make us more than conqu’rors, through Thy deathless love;
bring us safe through Jordan to Thy home above.
We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. He shares His triumph with His church universal. We shall be raised in the last day when He comes for His own.
We rest on His “deathless love,” unfailing lovingkindness, and the impeccable character of Him who cannot lie. With joy we expect Him to bring us safely to the other side in glory. He who promised will also perform it.
No more tears. No more graves. No more loss. God is glorified by all, loved by all, alive to all.
