Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending

Heather Allington

Heather writes for Sunday Song Book on behalf of the The Salvation Army Oshawa. As a lifelong member of the Army, she has loved these familiar - and some less familiar - songs for many years, and enjoys researching and writing about their origins. She is a wife, mother, grandmother and retired elementary school teacher who likes trying her hand at watercolour painting and poetry writing.

Lo! He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favoured sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of His train;
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign.

Every eye shall now behold Him
Robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at naught and sold Him,
Pierced and nailed Him to the tree,
Deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
Shall the true Messiah see.

Those dear tokens of His passion
Still His dazzling body bears;
Cause of endless exultation
To His ransomed worshippers;
With what rapture, with what rapture,
With what rapture
Gaze we on those glorious scars!

Yea, amen, let all adore Thee
High on Thy eternal throne;
Saviour, take the power and glory,
Claim the Kingdom for Thine own;
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Everlasting God, come down!

A follow-up to Easter’s joyous celebration is this hymn describing Jesus’ eventual return to earth in all His glory. One might expect such a majestic hymn to have been written by a master of hymn-writing, as it was, by Charles Wesley. He was the most notable hymn-writer of his family, and may be considered the great hymn-writer of the ages, because of the numerous songs of excellence he penned.

Charles was the youngest son of the eighteen children of Susannah and Samuel Wesley. He was born in the rectory at Epworth, England, in 1707. At the age of nine he went to live with an older brother in order to attend Westminster School. In 1721, Charles was elected to be a King’s Scholar, and thus received free room, board and education at the school. Five years later he was honoured again to be given a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained his degree and became a tutor. He spent many years preaching in conjunction with his brother, John. In the “Wesleyan Hymn Book”, 623 of the 770 hymns were written by Charles, who possibly wrote about five thousand hymns in his lifetime. He is sometimes called “The Bard of Methodisim”. Charles Wesley died in 1788.