LYRICS
Refrain:
God’s love is so wonderful. God’s love is so wonderful.
God’s love is so wonderful. Oh wonderful love!
So high you can’t get over it. So deep you can’t get under it.
So wide you can’t get around it. Oh wonderful love!

What Wondrous Love is This?
c. 1933

Hymn Background:

This hymn, often just referred to as “Wondrous Love”, is a Christian folk hymn, sometimes described as a “white spiritual”, from the American South. Its text was first published during the Second Great Awakening and its melody derived from a popular English ballad. Today it is a widely known hymn included in hymnals of many Christian denominations.

The hymn’s lyrics were first published in Lynchburg, Virginia in the 1811 camp meeting songbook A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs Now in Use.

Most sources attribute the hymn’s melody to the 1701 English song “The Ballad of Captain Kidd”, which describes the exploits of pirate William Kidd. In the early 1800s, when the lyrics to “What Wondrous Love Is This” were first published, hymnals typically lacked any musical notation. People attending camp meetings during the Second Great Awakening would sing the hymns printed in these hymnals to a variety of popular melodies. The text and melody we are familiar with were first published together in The Southern Harmony, a book of shape note hymns compiled by William Walker.

Here is an example of shape note musical notation:



In 1952, American composer Charles F. Bryan included “What Wondrous Love Is This” in his folk opera Singin’ Billy. Dwayne S. Milburn composed a prelude on Wondrous Love as the first movement of his “American Hymnsong Suite” (2003) for concert band. In 1966, the United Methodist Book of Hymns became the first standard hymnal to incorporate What Wondrous Love Is This.

What Wondrous Love is This
LYRICS:

1. What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul.
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul!

2. When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down;
When I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside his crown for my soul, for my soul.
Christ laid aside his crown for my soul!

3. To God and to the Lamb I will sing, I will sing,
To God and to the Lamb I will sing!
To God and to the Lamb, who is the great “I am”
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing.
While millions join the theme, I will sing!

4. And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,
And when from death I’m free I’ll sing on!
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be,
And through eternity I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on.
And through eternity I’ll sing on!

Ride On, Ride On in Majesty!