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

Friday, December 30, 2022

"Salvation unto Us Has Come"

In my post on the Biblical sources for "Salvation unto Us Has Come," I was unable to identify any specific sources since the citations in the hymnal overlapped so much.  Last month, however, I stumbled upon a few.

I was reading Titus and noticed that Titus 2:11 ("For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people") bears some resemblance to the first two lines of the hymn:  "Salvation unto us has come / By God's free grace and favor."

About a week later, KFUO tweeted the ninth verse, and I realized that the lines "And by its fruits true faith is known, / With love and hope increasing" echo the qualities listed in 1 Corinthians 13:13:  "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."  I also noticed that the lines "Works serve our neighbor and supply / The proof that faith is living" seem to refer to the last part of James 2.  Verse 17 is the most similar, although it has a slightly different point of view:  "So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."