I find it funny that people get angry over this song about joy. Isaac Watts’ hymn “Joy to the World” was the most published Christmas carol of the twentieth century, but there is a strong case to be made that it is actually about the second coming of Christ and was therefore never intended to be sung at Christmas time. True to the nature of the internet, blog posts with this contrarian view are written and shared each winter. Truer still to the internet, these blog posts are then countered with other blog posts attempting to correct the correctors with new information about Isaac Watt’s beliefs on the finer points of theology (often using terms that did not exist in Watt’s day).
Both sides miss the bigger question. Isaac Watts wrote “Joy to the World” as a paraphrase of Psalm 98, but I have not found an article on this debate that simply lays out the text of Psalm 98! Watts’ theology is not the important question. The bigger question is, “What does the actual Scripture say?”
Watts wrote two hymns based on Psalm 98 and published them in The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament and Applied to the Christian State and Worship. Eighty-eight years after Watts died, Lowell Mason took the second of the two Psalm 98 hymns and rocketed “Joy to the World” to immense popularity among American churches. Its spike in popularity might be attributed to the unknown musical arranger’s use of Handel’s Messiah for inspiration. The composer borrowed the first four notes from “Lift up your Heads” in Part II, Scene 3 for the melody to the opening lyrics, “Joy to the world!” and borrowed the instrumental introduction from “Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye My People” in Part I, Scene 1 for the melody to, “And heaven and nature sing.”
Take a look at the lyrics to “Joy to the World.” You can see how it is interpreted as a song about the end-times; particularly with the lyrics to the often-omitted third verse: “No more let sin and sorrows grow nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.” In Genesis 3, God pronounces the curse that affects all of creation and causes thorns to inhibit Adam’s formerly difficulty-free work. The fact that this third stanza is often left out may be why so many are surprised at the apocalyptic view of the carol. The other lyrics about the coming King could rightly apply to either Christ’s birth or return:
Verse 1
Joy to the world! The Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.
Verse 2
Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns;
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.
Verse 3
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,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.
Verse 4
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness,
And wonders of his love,
And wonders of his love,
And wonders, wonders, of his love.
Psalm 98 and Psalm 96 are mentioned when we study “Joy to the World,” but “Joy to the World” is never mentioned when we study Psalm 98 or Psalm 96. Now, why is that? Consider the goal of the Bible commentator’s approach versus the blogger’s approach when discussing “Joy to the World.” The commentator seeks to dig out the Bible passage’s meaning in light of its original historical context. Theologians who disagree on various points in Watt’s lyrics agree in their interpretations on the text of Psalm 98! Watt’s paraphrase was so vague that most commentators do not think of “Joy to the World” when they are seeking to rightly understand Psalm 98. That is because they are asking the bigger question. So, what does the Bible actually say? Here is Psalm 98 in the Christian Standard Bible®:
1 Sing a new song to the Lord,
for he has performed wonders;
his right hand and holy arm
have won him victory.
2 The Lord has made his victory known;
he has revealed his righteousness
in the sight of the nations.
3 He has remembered his love
and faithfulness to the house of Israel;
all the ends of the earth
have seen our God’s victory.
4 Let the whole earth shout to the Lord;
be jubilant, shout for joy, and sing.
5 Sing to the Lord with the lyre,
with the lyre and melodious song.
6 With trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn
shout triumphantly
in the presence of the Lord, our King.
7 Let the sea and all that fills it,
the world and those who live in it, resound.
8 Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the mountains shout together for joy
9 before the Lord,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world righteously
and the peoples fairly.
Watts was the greatest of all the English hymn writers, a widely beloved minister, and even a published author of textbooks on logic and morality…but I respectfully do not care about his interpretation of Psalm 98 nearly as much as I care about Psalm 98 itself. Just as the final verse states, I will stand in judgment one day, but Isaac Watts will not be the one on the throne. We will not answer to Isaac Watts and there are no “extra credit points” given on judgment day for knowing where our fellow sinner Isaac Watts stood theologically. Psalm 98 was inspired by God, but Isaac Watt’s paraphrase of it was not. Regardless of Watt’s personal take, the true meaning of “Joy to the World” lies in the original intent behind Psalm 98. So, to the bigger question, was it about Jesus’ birth, or was it about his return?
Because Psalm 98 was written before Jesus’ birth, the original readers in Old Testament times rightly read it as a celebration of the victories God had given them and a proclamation of the Messiah’s coming. To them, it was about the coming Christmas. For modern readers, it is both a historical proof of how God did what He said He would do and a prophecy parallel to that of Revelation 19:11–21. It is, then, both a Christmas song and an apocalyptic song.
One can win the argument over Isaac Watt’s words but miss God’s Word in the process. So, let us address the bigger question together. Linked below is a plan to see exactly what Scripture says in every book. The Lord has indeed come and is indeed coming one day. Both in Christmas past and judgment day future, let earth receive her King.