The depths of the ocean are a frequent metaphor for the immensity of God. It makes perfect sense when we realize how big the ocean is and how little of it we actually know. Samuel Francis utilized this imagery in picturing the love of Jesus. It was only the greater depths of Jesus’s love that were able to overwhelm the rivers of depression experienced by the teenaged Francis.

During one of my first chapel services as a student at RTS-Orlando, Dr. John Frame played the organ to accompany our hymn singing. The first hymn we sang was “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.” I don’t know if it was the first time I had heard that hymn, but I remember how the organ absolutely filled the chapel with the deep, somber, sonorous notes. As I sang out the lyrics, the awe and gravity of God’s love swallowed me whole. The melding of instrument, music, and lyric was a wonderful experience of worship.

This song was written by Samuel Trevor Francis (1834-1925) after a serious bout with depression. As his biographers tell the story, one winter night as a teen, Francis was walking across the Hungerford Bridge over the River Thames. He paused and stared down into the depths of the river below. He contemplated plunging into the icy waters and ending everything. But instead, John 3:3 came into his mind, “Truly, truly, I say unto you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Francis repented and this reformation of heart prompted him to begin writing poetry and lyrics. One of the songs that came from this was “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.”

Initially, this song had four verses, though since its appearance in the 1911 The Song Companion to the Scriptures, it is usually shortened to three. The text echoes the Apostle Paul’s description of the strength required to “comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of Christ (Eph. 3:18). The picture is of a limitless ocean.

Herman Bavinck spoke of God as, “an immeasurable and unbounded ocean of being.”[1] The Puritan John Flavel (1627-1691), who ministered in the seaport of Dartmouth, often contextualized his ministry to the many seafaring men in the city. He wrote, “Another resemblance you have from the sea, the great abyss, that vast congregation of waters, whose depth no line can fathom.” [2]

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O The Deep Deep Love Of Jesus—Indelible Grace