Grace Greater than Our Sin

with MOODY

I. Origins

By 1910, Daniel B. Towner (1850–1919) had spent the last seventeen years of his career as a successful music professor and director of the music program at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, having originally been a traveling evangelistic musician with Dwight L. Moody. One biographer of the time said of him, “by his ability as an organizer and teacher, he has succeeded in establishing one of the most unique and prosperous training schools for gospel singers in the world.”[1]

Julia H. Johnston (1849–1919), a resident of Peoria, Illinois, was also well known at the time, with at least 26 years of experience in writing lyrics for gospel songs, plus a long career of teaching and writing for Sunday Schools, especially her home church, First Presbyterian of Peoria. Fellow gospel writer Charles Gabriel remarked, “Miss Johnston considers her hymn-writing peculiarly sacred, but, although she has quite five hundred of them in print, it is only a part of her professional work, which includes Primary lessons for two periodicals; Golden Text Talks for Mothers is another, with stories, editorial paragraphs, and sketches for little and larger ones, with articles and poems scattered widely.”[2]

The manner of acquaintance between Johnston and Towner is not well documented, but they had written gospel songs together as early as 1894, as in “Lift the royal banner” (“Marching song”) in Song and Study for God’s Little Ones (1894), a collection Towner co-edited. Their most popular and enduring collaboration has been “Marvelous grace of our loving Lord” (“Grace Greater Than Our Sin”), first published in The King’s Message (NY: Lorenz, 1910 | Fig. 1), in four stanzas with a refrain.

 

Fig. 1. The King’s Message (NY: Lorenz, 1910).

 

The common tune name, MOODY, was assigned by the editors of The Baptist Hymnal (1956).

II. Analysis

The most relevant Scriptures for the overall message of the song are probably Romans 5:20-21 (“…where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord,” ESV) and Ephesians 1:7-8 (“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight”), or possibly also John 1:16 (“For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace”). Of course, many other Scriptures elaborate on the nature and extent of God’s grace toward his people. Others point to the darkness of sin and despair present in the world. In stanza 3, the idea of being washed by blood comes from Revelation 7:14. Ephesians 2:8 tells us this grace is “freely bestowed” (“this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God”).

Music scholar Jeannette F. Scholer described the function and use of the hymn in gathered worship:

Julia Johnston’s words and Daniel Towner’s music together provide an opportunity to sing reflectively in gratitude and amazement for such grace. Quite naturally, the final stanza invites others to receive this grace also, and so this can be used as an invitation hymn; it also would be particularly fitting for communion, giving expression to adoration because of the death of Christ, which Christians recall at the Lord’s table.[3]

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
27 July 2020

Footnotes:

  1. J.H Hall, “Dr. D. Brink Towner,” Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers (NY: Fleming H. Revell, 1914), p. 296: Archive.org

  2. Charles H. Gabriel, The Singers and Their Songs: Sketches of Living Gospel Hymn Writers (Chicago: Rodeheaver, 1916), p. 73: Archive.org

  3. Jeannette F. Scholer, “Grace Greater Than Our Sin,” The Worshiping Church: Worship Leaders’ Edition (Carol Stream, IL: Hope, 1990), no. 472.

Related Resources:

Carlton R. Young, “Grace Greater Than Our Sin,” Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), pp. 387-279.

Robert Cottrill, “Grace Greater Than Our Sin,” Wordwise Hymns (30 May 2012):
https://wordwisehymns.com/2012/05/30/grace-greater-than-our-sin/

“Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,” Hymnary.org:
https://hymnary.org/text/marvelous_grace_of_our_loving_lord