Hymn Story: Hallelujah, What a Savior

Isaiah 53:3 

He is despised and rejected of men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:
and we hid as it were our faces from him;
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 

Preparing us for eternity, when all nations will praise God together, the word "Hallelujah" provides a similar expression of praise in all languages. "Hallelujah, What a Savior" uses the word to tie the cross with the triumph of the risen and reigning Lord.

 

The first four verses tell the crucifixion story, that Jesus, the "spotless Lamb of God," stood condemned in our place. He took on our sins for us, the "guilty, vile and helpless." Completing each short stanza, we cry out with overwhelming praise "Hallelujah, what a Savior!"

In the last public meeting before his untimely death, Philip Bliss the hymn's composer conducted a service at the Michigan State Prison for 800 inmates. Many of them wept in true repentance as he spoke of Jesus' redeeming death and sang the verses of "Hallelujah, What a Savior!"

Listen to it here: Hallelujah, What a Savior