San Francisco Central Seventh-day Adventist Church

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177 Jesus, Your Blood and Righteousness

Words by Nicolaus L. von Zinzendorf (1700-1760)
Tr. by John Wesley (1703-1791) alt.
Music from Wm. Gardiner's Sacred Melodies, 1815

Originally 33 stanzas long, this hymn was written in 1739 while Zinzendorf was returning to Saxony from a missionary journey to St. Thomas, West Indies. Count Nicholaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf was born in 1700 in Dresden, Germany, to a wealthy family of nobility who were determined that he would be a nobleman, involved in politics. Although he dutifully studied law, he was interested in observing different kinds of religions. In Dusseldorf he was deeply impressed by a picture of the thorn-crowned Christ that bore underneath the words, "What has thou done for Me?" Returning home, Zinzendorf accepted the position of councilor of state at the court of Saxony. He held prayer meetings at his large house and wrote hymns especially for these occasions.

William Gardiner, born in 1769 in Leicester, England, worked in his father's business, manufacturing stockings. But his hobby of music took most of his interest. On trips to Germany he met Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart. From 1812 to 1838 he published two editions of Sacred Melodies, with tunes adapted from the great composers and put to the finest of sacred poems. This tune named GARDINER was credit to a Beethoven "subject," bearing a remarkable resemblance to the Allegretto ma non troppo movement of Beethoven's Piano Trio, Opus 70, No. 2 (1809).

Jesus, your blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
Mid flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in that great day,
Cleansed and redeemed, no debt to pay;
For by your cross absolved I am
From sin and guilt, from fear and shame.

Lord, I believe your precious blood,
Which at the mercy seat of God
Pleads for the captives’ liberty,
Was also shed in love for me.

When from the dust of death I rise
To claim my mansion in the skies,
This then shall be my only plea:
Christ Jesus lived and died for me.