Unless stated otherwise, my source for hymn texts and tunes is The Lutheran Service Book.

Friday, September 13, 2019

"Glory Be to Jesus"

I recently watched the Worship Anew program from 25 August (Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost).  The Epistle reading was from Hebrews 12, and I think part of this appears in the fourth verse of "Glory Be to Jesus":
Abel's blood for vengeance
Pleaded to the skies;
But the blood of Jesus
For our pardon cries.
In my original post on the Biblical sources, I wrote that this verse comes from Genesis 4:10:  "And the LORD said, 'What have you done?  The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.'"  But this contrast between Abel's blood and Jesus' blood is specifically mentioned in Hebrews 12:24:  "and [you have come] to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."  While Genesis 4:10 is important as far as the context, this verse from Hebrews seems to be the actual source for this hymn verse.