What Wondrous Love Is This

Hymn Text: What Wondrous Love Is This
First Line: What wondrous love is this, oh! my soul!
Title: What Wondrous Love Is This
Meter: 12.9.6.6.12.9
Source: S. Mead's A General Selection, 1811; American folk hymn, ca. 1835
Place of Origin: United States
Refrain First Line: What wondrous love is this

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Full hymn text — Compare to other versions of this textInformation about this text

1.
What wondrous love is this, oh! my soul! oh! my soul!
What wondrous love is this, oh! 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.

The Southern Harmony

Popular products for this text:
WHAT WONDROUS LOVE IS THIS (Celebration Hymnal 314)
WHAT WONDROUS LOVE IS THIS
SATB, Sheet Music
WHAT WONDROUS LOVE IS THIS (Trinity Hymnal 261)
WHAT WONDROUS LOVE IS THIS?
Choral, Lent, SATB, Sheet Music

Scripture References:
all st. = Rev. 5

Although various sources have attributed this text to a number of different writers, it remains anonymous. "What Wondrous Love" was first published in both Stith Mead's hymnal for Methodists, A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1811), and in Starke Dupuy's hymnal for Baptists, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1811).

Like 103 and 305, the text is addressed to the soul. It meditates on Christ's wonderful love (st. 1), which brought about our salvation (st. 2), a love to which we and the "millions" respond with eternal praise (st. 3-4).

Liturgical Use:
Lent; stanzas 1-3 for services of confession/forgiveness; funeral services (entire hymn); stanza 2 with preaching about Jonah; stanza 3 as a doxology.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook