Merry Seventh Day of Christmas!
Have you noticed the optimistic nature of Christmas hymns? They are abundant in virtually every story-telling of carols. They are absorbed into the very fabric of carols. In fact, to sing Christmas is to sing an eschatology of victory.
A few examples will suffice:
The famous Isaac Watts’s “Joy to the World” says:
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow,
Far as the curse is found.
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove,
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love.
R.J. Rushdoony commented on this hymn when he wrote:
“The Christian religion is a faith of ultimate victory, where the very gates of hell cannot prevail against Christ and His chosen people (Matt. 16:18).”
What makes the postmillennial hope so distinct is that it views the gospelization of the world in history as a central feature of its eschatology. It does not believe in an utterly spiritualized Church whose voice only speaks to internalized religion.
Watts argues that nations are tested by the wonders of his love. Where the Gospel of Christ goes, people are tested in their loyalty. As C.S. Lewis so aptly describes: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.”
Another great optimistic hymn is: “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” which says:
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep,
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep.
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With Peace On Earth, Good Will To Man.
Again, the language of a prevailing peace on all the earth is crucial for a postmillennial eschatology. These hymns do not merely predict a post-parousia peace at the end of history but a first-parousia peace that brings about peace on earth in time and history.
Or, the language of Isaiah 11 is made clear in that famous hymn: “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” where the final verse boldly rejoices:
For lo, the days are hast’ning on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of Gold,
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendor fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.
Before the language of “postmillennial” came as a systematic category, the phrase “age of Gold” was used as a descriptor of a victorious eschatology in history. The carols spoke of a time in this world when the glory of the Lord would cover the seas.
Similarly, “Hark! the Harold Angels Sing” also joins in with the testimony of carols to the Kingship of Christ:
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies,
With angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
The tidings of great joy are not good feelings during the Christmas Season; the tidings of great joy are comfort and joy to the world. This is what animated these hymn writers as they echoed the biblical message.
The Incarnation did not bring a spiritualized peace–though it is included–but rather a physical and cosmic peace far as the curse is found, a peace that is revealed as the world receives the incarnate Christ.
And this is what exhorts us to sing loudly and confidently the words of the incarnation.
“Give ye heed to what we say: Jesus Christ is born today…calls you one and calls you all to gain His everlasting hall.”
