The Story Behind the Song
“All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” is one of the all-time favorite hymns of English-speaking Christians. Written in 1779, it retains its popularity almost two and a half centuries later, having been published in over 3,000 hymnals. In 2016, “Share Faith” magazine listed it as an “honorable mention” in their “Top 10 Most Popular Hymns of All Time.” It was ranked fourteenth in a poll conducted by the website PopularHymns.com. Although it didn’t crack the top 10 in either of those collations, it was number nine in the list compiled by the website Unlocking the Bible in 2013.
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The original hymn, as is often the case, is different from the one we commonly sing today. Edward Perronet, the author, penned eight stanzas. The first is very similar to the one we currently sing:
Perronet then wrote six more stanzas, each of which encouraged a fresh group to offer worship to Jesus and to “crown Him Lord of All.” In stanza 2, “high-born seraphs” (angels) were instructed to “tune the lyre…and fall before His face.” In the third, it was the “morning stars of light” who were to “hail the strength of ISRAEL’s might.” Stanza four called on “ye martyrs of your GOD” to “extol the stem of JESSE’s rod.”
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Perronet’s stanza five is the source from which our modern stanza two is drawn.
His sixth stanza called on “ye heirs of DAVID’s line” to hail “the GOD incarnate, man DIVINE.” And in stanza seven, “SINNERS!” were adjured to “Go—spread your trophies at His feet.”
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The last stanza of the original hymn was greatly transfigured into the modern version’s third.
The final stanza we sing today was added by Rev. John Rippon in 1787. He was a Baptist pastor in London who that year published “Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors,” a hymnal that extended through thirty editions and “quickly became one of the most popular Baptist collections on both sides of the Atlantic.”
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In the book of Revelation, John got a glimpse of worship in heaven. Just as we sing in the hymn, he saw angels and multitudes of human beings from every people group falling prostrate in worship before Jesus (Revelation 7:9-11). And every believer in Jesus will one day be a part of that sacred throng that lifts up its collective voice to proclaim, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen” (Revelation 7:12). And we’ll crown Him Lord of all!
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