1 Before Lent 2026
Matthew 17.1-9
And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
Public polls of people’s favourite hymns tend to be a mixed bag of things, and one gets the distinct impression that familiarity begets likability; and certainly that good melodies are more important than good lyrics. In 2019, Jerusalem—listed in hymnals by first line as And did those feet in ancient time—topped the BBC’s Song of Praise charts. And why not? Hubert Parry’s tune is fabulously rousing; it is not for nothing that every couple to be married choses it as one of their hymns.
Parry did not intend for it to be a hymn—and, indeed, if a hymn is by definition a prayer, as some contend, then it most certainly isn’t one. Perhaps for this reason, it has a great life outside of churches, and has long been a popular contender as an alternative national anthem. Apparently, it replaces God Save the King at some rugby and cricket matches. The words, by William Blake, are delightfully mad, and multiply interpretable. On my favourite reading, it is an invective against the Church of England itself. The irony is irresistible.
Anyway, another stupendously popular hymn in such polls is the 2001 song by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend—In Christ Alone was their first ever collaboration, the beginning of a successful pairing. Getty, then in his twenties, wrote the melody on the back of an electricity bill. Townend loved it, in all its Irishness, and wrote the words for it. There are over 1,000 cover version of the hymn, which has been sung well over 100 million times. It is, as my wife would say, a banger.
It also happens to be quite controversial, because its second verse reflect Townend’s particular version of conservative evangelicalism. The line “til on that cross as Jesus died the wrath of God was satisfied” assumes a theological view that has sometimes been called the “child abuse theory of atonement”, as God seems to be taking his anger at our sinfulness out on Jesus. The duo have denied requests to allow the line to be edited: indeed, it is possible that that’s why the hymn doesn’t appear in our hymnal.
Pity. It is a banger. And, besides the aforementioned line, the rest of the words are uncontroversially great: they express, with awe and confidence, an assurance in the saving power of Jesus. Here’s the first stanza, for example:
In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease;
my Comforter, my All in All;
here in the love of Christ I stand.
Great stuff.
Admittedly, some people do find the “alone” part of “in Christ alone” a little bit tricky in our enlightened and pluralistic age. After our, our own King Charles—Supreme Governor of the Church of England—has said repeatedly that he’d rather not be defender of the faith, preferring instead defender of faiths. The religious exclusivism of this hymn is unfashionable. I suppose it doesn’t have to be understood this way. In keeping with the evangelical emphasis on personal commitment, first person pronouns occur throughout the hymn, “In Christ alone my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song”. There is room here to say, with the religious liberals, that he doesn’t have to be yours. But I can guess what Townend and Getty would say about that…
Truth be told, I admire the boldness of the assertion in its universalising mode. It is Christ alone who saves us—no one, and certainly no thing else. No bit of technology; no political and economic initiative; not even any spiritual and religious practices. We can no more meditate and pray ourselves into salvation than we can buy or vote ourselves into salvation. Neither the Law of Moses and the Prophets represented by Elijah will save us. If there is salvation to be found, it is found in no one except Jesus himself alone. The particularity of the thing is scandalously audacious, which is also what makes it so compelling, I think.
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The idea that it is Christ alone who saves bothers some people because they think that it implies that only Christians can be saved. And this assumption makes some sense on a view of Christian faith that requires some conscious decision on the part of the individual: a decision to convert or believe or whatever. But the claim about Christ and about Christians are, strictly speaking, different claims. It is entirely possible to maintain that it is Christ alone who saves without also believing that only Christians can be saved. Indeed, it takes the alone-ness of Christ’s work more seriously to say this. Again: it is Christ alone who saves, no one else, not even us, and our faith and our piety. It is not our belief that saves us, nor our behaviour; nor even—shock horror—our baptism. It is no one except Jesus alone.
This is a radical assertion of the sovereignty of God in Christ, and one that frees us, rids us of our existential anxiety: to understand that what we believe and how we behave surely matters, but they matter not as conditions of our salvation but as the outworking and outpouring thereof—faith and works both are our response to the divine initiative of the God who—alone—loves us absolutely and absolutely without condition.
Christian lives—and, if you ask us, all human life—is not a competition, not a race, not a struggle, not a chasing after anything, and certainly not after anything that we truly need. It is instead a thanksgiving, and offering back to the world ourselves, holding nothing back, because we know we don’t need to hold anything back for ourselves. Christ alone is enough.