1 Corinthians 15:54-55 vs. “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”
Reawaken Hymns · checked 2026-08-02
What we checked
Graded against the standard
Quotation criteria this song presents words as scripture, so these apply
Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard
✓ What's good
- The taunt stanza keeps both of Paul's questions whole: death asked about its sting, the grave asked about its victory, nothing softened
- The "now" the hymn adds is Paul's own move, since verse 57 thanks God in the present tense for the victory
- Every stanza dwells on what Christ did; the singers appear only in response
- The recording sings the full stanza, both questions intact, where an arrangement could easily keep one
⚠ Cautions
- No translation is named. The grave-address tracks the King James specifically, so a singer checking the stanza against most modern Bibles will find both questions put to death and no grave addressed at all. The hymn did not err; its Bible was the KJV
- In the text the saying is "brought to pass" when the mortal puts on immortality, at the resurrection of the dead. The hymn sings the taunt in the present. Paul's verse 57 licenses the anticipation, but the fulfilment verse 54 names is still ahead
- The Alleluia after every line was added by later editors to fit the tune, so the hymn's best-known feature is editorial. See "Hymns get edited" elsewhere on this site
Verse Proof
1 Corinthians 15:54-55The text in KJV (public domain)
“So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
Paul, closing the resurrection chapter of his letter to the Corinthian church, some of whom were saying there is no resurrection of the dead. He has argued from Christ's rising to the future rising of those who belong to Him, and here he names the moment the argument lands: when the mortal puts on immortality, "the saying that is written" comes to pass. The saying is Isaiah 25:8, and the taunt that follows it reworks Hosea 13:14. Paul ends the paragraph thanking God, who "giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
What the song says, described not quoted
Charles Wesley's Easter hymn of 1739, sung here in a four-stanza acoustic arrangement by Nathan Drake of Reawaken Hymns, with the traditional Alleluia after every line. The first stanza calls earth and heaven to announce the resurrection. The second announces that the King lives again and then turns Paul's two questions into meter: it asks death where its sting is now, and asks the grave what became of its victory. The third declares love's redeeming work finished and the fight won. The fourth follows the risen Christ upward. Every stanza is about what Christ has done; the congregation appears only as the ones answering.
The taunt stanza keeps both of Paul's questions and all of their furniture: the sting, the victory, death addressed directly, the grave addressed directly. What shifted is metrical. The questions are reordered to rhyme, a "now" ties them to Easter morning, and Wesley's original text gives the grave a boastful character the verse leaves implicit. Two further things are worth naming. The address to the grave is the King James rendering specifically; most modern translations put both questions to death. And the Alleluia after every line, the hymn's most famous feature, is not Wesley's. It was added by later editors to fit the tune.
▸ Official upload. Now listen with the proof in mind.
The hymn taunts death in Paul's words, and Paul taunted death in the prophets'.
Why it matters
This hymn is a chain of quotation three links long. Wesley recasts Paul; Paul is himself quoting, since verse 54 introduces Isaiah 25:8 as "the saying that is written" and verse 55 reworks Hosea 13:14. A congregation singing this stanza is singing an apostle singing the prophets. That is not a complication to apologise for. It is how scripture itself handles scripture, and the hymn inherits the whole chain, including the fact that the triumphant reading of Hosea's line is Paul's reading.
Is it safe to dwell on?
Sung on repeat, this song fixes your attention on God.
What this stanza plants, sung year after year with an Alleluia after every line, is a pair of questions in nearly the verse's own words. That is about the best deposit a hymn can leave. The questions are the form the confidence takes: scripture does not say death has no sting, it asks death where the sting went, and a singer who has looped that asking owns a defiance ready for a graveside. The hymn dwells entirely on Christ, so repetition here forms the singer toward God, not toward self. If you sing it, read Hosea 13 once. Knowing the dark oracle the line came from makes Paul's use of it, and the hymn's, heavier rather than lighter.
Helpful comparison
Two layers sit under the stanza, and both are checkable.
First, the chain. Verse 54 flags its own quotation: "then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written." The saying is Isaiah 25:8, "He will swallow up death in victory" (KJV). The taunt of verse 55 reworks Hosea 13:14, which in the KJV reads "O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction," and ends "repentance shall be hid from mine eyes." Hosea's line sits inside a judgment oracle, and translations divide over it: the KJV renders promises, while the ESV, NIV and NASB render summons-style questions with compassion hidden from God's eyes. Paul takes the address to death and the grave and turns it to triumph, and the hymn inherits that reading, not the oracle's darkness.
Second, the grave. The Greek text behind the KJV reads death in the first question and hades in the second, in the order sting then victory. The critical text behind most modern translations reads death twice, in the order victory then sting. So Wesley's stanza, which addresses the grave by name, is datable to its Bible: it tracks the King James rendering, and a reader with an NIV open will not find the grave in the verse at all. Neither text gives death the last word; they differ only in who gets taunted second.
Sources
- Reawaken Hymns — Christ the Lord is Risen Today (official lyric video) · (the recording checked for this proof; oEmbed author is the Reawaken Hymns channel)
- Apple Music — Christ the Lord is Risen Today (single) · (Nathan Drake, released 15 March 2024, AFV Records)
- Reawaken Hymns — song page · (the arrangement's four stanzas, including the sting-and-grave stanza; Wesley 1739, arrangement by Nathan Drake)
- Hymnary.org — Christ the Lord Is Risen Today · (first published as "Hymn for Easter Day" in Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1739, eleven stanzas; the Alleluias added by later editors to fit the tune; scripture references include Hosea 13:14 and 1 Corinthians 15)
- UMC Discipleship — History of Hymns · (the Alleluias absent from Wesley's original, added to fit the tune Salisbury in John Wesley's First Tune Book, 1742)
- BibleHub — 1 Corinthians 15:55 Greek text analysis · (Textus Receptus reads death then hades, sting then victory; the critical text reads death twice, victory then sting)
- BibleHub — Hosea 13:14 parallel translations · (KJV and NKJV render promises, ESV, NIV and NASB render questions; the closing clause hides compassion from God's eyes)
Corrections
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Where the text survives the song
✓ VERIFIED
“Movement II (V.4-10)”
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Sing it without a caveat. It is the middle of a whole chapter set word for word in a named translation, and it keeps the clause about prophecies and tongues that ties the love chapter to the letter around it.✓ Every word sung is the passage's own: verses 4-10 in order, with the repeats drawn from the text itself
⚠ The track title names the verses but not the version, so a streaming listener has to find the ESV credit on the album page or in the video description
✓ VERIFIED
“Psalm 16”
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You can sing this one straight through. It is all eleven verses of Psalm 16, in order, in a named version. What you repeat is the psalm.✓ The printed sung text carries all eleven verses of Psalm 16, in order, with no line printed twice and no refrain added
⚠ The track title alone will not tell you which Bible you are singing. On Apple Music and Spotify it is just "Psalm 16". The version is named on the album page and in the video description.
✓ VERIFIED
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✓ no cautions: this is the standard
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