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

Wednesday, November 3, 2021

LSB #597 "Water, Blood, and Spirit Crying"

Biblical citations in the hymnal:  1 John 5:5-8, John 10:10

1 John 5:5-8:  "5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

"6 This is he who came by water and blood - Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood.  And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.  7 For there are three that testify:  8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree."

John 10:10:  "'The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.'"

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The passage from 1 John 5 is the basis for the hymn and appears most clearly in the first and fifth verses.  John 10:10 appears in the line "Life has come, with life for all," which occurs at the end of both of these verses.

The third verse ends with the lines "[Christ] spreads a table where He feeds us / With His body and His blood."  While this clearly refers to the Lord's Supper, the language recalls Psalm 23:5:  "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows."

Part of the fourth verse ("God, His two-edged sword unsheathing, / By His Spirit life is breathing / Through the living, active Word.") comes Hebrews 4:12 ("For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.") and possible also Ephesians 6:17 ("and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God").