O PERFECT LOVE, a Hymn Devotion for week following 1st Lent Sunday, 11 March 2025 Anno Domini, the Anglican Orthodox Communion Worldwide
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Gospel of St. John 3:16
“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” 1 John 4:8
Just as there are none perfectly righteous beside the Lord Jesus Christ, there is likewise no perfect love apart from His great love signed and sealed by the nail and lance wounds inflicted on the cross for us. This hymn is the composition of Dorothy F. Gurney (1858-1932), daughter of an Anglican clergyman, in 1883, to the tune, O Perfect Love, by Barnby. It has appropriately been sung as a wedding anthem, and rightly so, since it was that Perfect Love of Christ in drinking that bitter cup at Calvary’s Mount to seal His betrothal; to His Bride, the Church. Under Hebrew betrothal customs, the prospective Bridegroom attended the home of his prospective Bride with parents present as witnesses. After discussion before a table furnished only with a cup of wine, if the Bridegroom was receptive to the betrothal, he drank from that Cup; then, if agreeable to the betrothal; as well, the prospective bride would drink from that same Cup sealing the betrothal. This custom reflects the meaning of the counsel of Christ in Matthew 20:22 – “But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.” Mrs. Gurney wrote the hymn for her sister’s wedding after retiring to the study for only fifteen minutes.
O PERFECT LOVE
1 O perfect Love, all human thought transcending,
lowly we kneel in prayer before thy throne,
that theirs may be the love which knows no ending,
whom thou in sacred vow dost join in one.
2 O perfect Life, be thou their full assurance
of tender charity and steadfast faith,
of patient hope and quiet, brave endurance,
with childlike trust that fears no pain or death.
3 Grant them the joy which brightens earthly sorrow;
grant them the peace which calms all earthly strife;
grant them the vision of the glorious morrow
that will reveal eternal love and life.
1 O perfect Love, all human thought transcending, lowly we kneel in prayer before thy throne, that theirs may be the love which knows no ending, whom thou in sacred vow dost join in one. This stanza points out the transcending love of God that surpasses all human comprehension. His love is pure and undiluted. Though we may love Christ with all our hearts, that love can never reflect in completeness the torrential beams of love coming down to us from the Father of Lights and of our Lord Jesus Christ. We kneel before His throne in reverential worship and not the man-centered worship that has become ‘fashionable’ in the modern church. It is our fixed love of God that unites the Body of Christ (the Church) into one just as illustrated by the one Bread of which we partake at Holy Communion.
2 O perfect Life, be thou their full assurance of tender charity and steadfast faith, of patient hope and quiet, brave endurance, with childlike trust that fears no pain or death. Truly, we are saved by faith through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; however, that grace of God is not dispensed through a false or misguided faith. True faith results in good works as evidence of its presence. Love commands hope, patience and long suffering. It is not a passing whim of the lukewarm heart. The loving faith of a child exceeds the faith of the aged elect when it is nurtured and tenderly expressed by the parent.
3 Grant them the joy which brightens earthly sorrow; grant them the peace which calms all earthly strife;
grant them the vision of the glorious morrow that will reveal eternal love and life. Stephen, though under the duress of stoning, looked with joy into Heaven and saw his Lord. So does every professor of faith pass from life to LIFE with joyous expectation of seeing the same Lord that blind Fanny Crosby saw so clearly in her hymns. We, too, may taste that eternal love and life even in our mortal bodies if we have placed our trust in the Lord.
