Joy to the World

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

This most-beloved ( among many ) of songs that are sung during this time of the year is a very hopeful song; and not only hopeful: it speaks very boldly, assuming a present reality! Although many people do love to sing this song, especially during this season, in which we celebrate the birth of our Savior; I think that many fail, if not to realize what they are saying, to see the full implications of what Isaac Watts' words say! ( I think that Watts himself didn't realize fully, what he wrote! )

He writes, in the second verse; 'Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!'

I think that most of my readers will agree with me that He does reign; but in the spiritual plane, in our 'hearts', so to speak. Most people who sing these words, do not see Jesus' reign as over this physical earth, especially not as a present reality.

In the third verse; Watts really 'brings it home', in a manner of speaking, when He says that Jesus came to make His blessings ' irrigate' the 'ground' that was cursed after the Fall of our first father, Adam. The words here in this third verse though, have less a weak hopefulness in them, than a sovereign certainty. He is not saying that Jesus came, hoping to make His blessings flow, and then left it up to weak-willed humans to accept these blessings, and to 'let' them flow through them! He wrote, in a very Scriptural tone, which words we most often sing without thinking, that Jesus, not only came, but stayed, to MAKE His blessings flow, wherever the curse is found, and through our joyful lives, where the curse of sin has been removed!

Watts re-enforces his words in verse 2; stating, in the last verse, that 'He rules the world'!

I suppose that it's very easy ( and tempting ) to look at all the 'bad things happening to good people' all around the world, and say that, well; 'maybe in a spiritual sense, He is ruling now; but He will not really rule over this world until He returns physically to rule and reign on the earth from His throne in a physical Jerusalem'. As I've explained in previous articles, though; I believe that Scripture shows us a much different scenario: Jesus said, in Luke 17:20 & 21, that God's kingdom would not be something that we could see; but rather that it was a kingdom of the hearts, minds, and lives of men. As I've stated previously; the writer to the Hebrews, in chapter 12, told those first-century believes that they had ( already ) come to the heavenly ( or New? ) Jerusalem, and saying at the beginning of verse 23, that they had come to, or joined with, the company of the elect, Christ's Body on earth; thus equating the heavenly Jerusalem with the Church!

As I've said before; when Jesus said, in Isaiah 45 ( He repeats these words in Romans 14:11 ),

23 I have sworn by Myself;
The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness,
And shall not return,
That to Me every knee shall bow,
Every tongue shall take an oath.

He was saying, not only that all those who came to him would willingly 'bow the knee' and worship Him, but that even those ( in the first-century ) who refused to acknowledge Him for who He was, would be forced, unwillingly, 'like it or not', to acknowledge Him as their Creator: even so, I believe, Watts was saying in the final few lines of this beloved carol, that He would make the nations prove, or reveal, His righteousness, whether they meant to or not!

As we celebrate the coming of the True Light of the world in this most joyous of holyday seasons, and sing the words of this beloved carol; let us remember what Isaac Watts was actually saying when he penned these words. These words should give us hope and strength, not only for the future, but also, and maybe even moreso, for the present!

For His Kingdom, and in the JOY of His Holy Spirit,

Charles Shank