Hymn of the Month: It Is Well With My Soul

Horatio Spafford was a successful businessman in Chicago in the late 1860s. He had heavily invested in real estate along the shores of Lake Michigan, which tragically was completely destroyed by the great Chicago fire of 1871. Though the fire had wiped out his holdings, and he had suffered much financial loss, he immediately worked to rebuild the city and assist the many that were left homeless, investing heavily from his own finances. In 1873 he arranged to take his family on a vacation in Europe, along with attending the evangelistic meetings of his close friends D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey. Shortly before the planned trip, an urgent business need delayed him, but he sent his wife Anna and four daughters; Maggie, Tanetta, Annie and Bessie, ahead on the S.S. Ville du Havre, planning to follow them shortly thereafter. The night of November 22, 1873, the Ville du Havre, collided with an English iron sailing vessel, the Lochearn. Within 12 short minutes the Ville du Havre was completely submerged. Of the 273 people on board, just 47 survived. Mrs. Spafford was found nearly unconscious, clinging to a piece of the wreckage, however all four of his daughters died in the tragic accident. When she reached Cardiff, Wales, she cabled home, "Saved alone, what shall I do?" Horatio immediately started to Europe to join his wife. En route, the captain pointed out the place where he believed the Ville du Havre had gone down. Returning to his cabin, he wrote, "It is well; the will of God be done." He later wrote the hymn "It Is Well with My Soul", based on these words. As we look at this powerful song, I would like to focus on the wonderful and triumphant words of the third verse, noting that Horatio didn’t spend long focusing on the sorrow and great distress of this tragic accident, but instead looked to his joy found in Jesus Christ:

My sin, oh the bliss, of this glorious thought,
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord Oh My Soul.

This is the entire reason that it is well with our souls. If we don’t have a right standing with God, If all of our sins aren’t forgiven, but only a part of them, then nothing else matters, and we simply don’t have the strength, or the hope to know that all things will work out for our good in the end. The scripture that Horatio had in mind when he wrote this verse was Colossians 2:13-14:

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Our faith in the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross should be enough for us to look at anything, whether it be trials, tribulations, financial hardships, death, persecution, whatever it may be, and we can truly say, “it is well with my soul.”

Click here to listen to the song.