O Love, How Deep
O love, how deep, how broad, how high
O Love, How Deep is a hymn text by Thomas à Kempis (1450) in 8.8.8.8.8.8 meter. Translated by Benjamin Webb. Found in CW21 545, CW93 371, ELH 281, ch95 209. Sung to DEUS TUORUM MILITUM.
This hymn expresses the paradox of divine condescension—God's infinite love demonstrated through finite human form and sacrificial death—central to Lutheran Christology. It embodies the Reformation principle that God's love reaches humanity not through human achievement but through Christ's humiliation and redemptive work.
History & Background
Originally composed in Latin by Thomas à Kempis, a 15th-century Augustinian canon and author of The Imitation of Christ. Benjamin Webb's 1854 English translation became standard in Lutheran hymnals beginning with 19th-century collections.
The original anonymous text in Latin (“O amor quam ecstaticus”) comes from a fifteenth-century manuscript from Karlsruhe. The twenty-three-stanza text has been attributed to Thomas a Kempis because of its similarities to writings of the Modema 520 EPIPHANY Devotio Movement associated with a Kempis (that movement Scripture References was an important precursor of the Reformation in the st. l = Eph. 3:18-19 Netherlands). However, there is insufficient proof that he Phil. 2:7 actually wrote this text. st. 2 = Matt. 3:13 Benjamin Webb (b. London, England, 1819; d. Marylebone, Matt. 4:1-11 London, 1885) translated the text in eight stanzas. It was st. 3-John 17:9 published in The Hymnal Noted (1852), produced by his friend st. 4 - Rom. 4:25 John Mason Neale . Webb received his education at 1 Pet. 2:24 Trinity College, Cambridge, England, and became a priest in the st. 5 - Rom. 8:34 Church of England in 1843. Among the parishes he served was John 16:7,13 St. Andrews, Wells Street, London, where he worked from 1862 to 1881. Webb’s years there coincided with the service of the talented choir director and organist Joseph Barnby , and the church became known for its excellent music program. Webb edited TheEcclesiologist, a periodi cal of the Cambridge Ecclesiological Society (1842-1868). A composer of anthems, Webb also wrote hymns and hymn translations and served as one of the editors of The Hymnary (1872). The text has a wide scope, taking in all ofJesus’s incarnate life: his birth (st. 1); identification with human affairs (st. 2); daily ministry (st. 3); crucifixion (st. 4); resurrection, ascension, and gift of the Spirit (st. 5); the final stanza is a doxology (st. 6). Thus the text summarizes Christ’s life in the same manner as the Apostles’ Creed. A striking feature is the text’s emphasis on the fact thatJesus accomplished all of this “for us”; “for us” occurs at least a dozen times! The redemptive work of Christ is very personally, very corporately applied.
Hymnal Appearances
- Christian Worship: Hymnal — 545
- Christian Worship — 371
- Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary — 281
- Chalice Hymnal — 209
- Evangelical Lutheran Worship — 322
- Glory to God — 618
- The Hymnal 1982 — 448
- Lutheran Book of Worship — 88
- Lutheran Service Book — 544
- Lift Up Your Hearts — 167
- Lutheran Worship — 275
- New Century Hymnal — 209
- Psalter Hymnal — 364
- Trinity Hymnal — 168
- United Methodist Hymnal — 448
- Voices Together — 253
Translation
Liturgical Use
Epiphany, especially later in the season; Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Ascension, and at many other times; the final stanza makes a good doxology for Epiphany, Lent, or the Easter season.
Bulletin Note
Composed by Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471), whose *Imitation of Christ* shaped spiritual life for centuries. This hymn distills his vision of Christ's self-emptying love as the model for all Christian devotion.
Preaching Connection
This hymn embodies the heart of Lutheran theology—that Christ's descent into our human condition and death exposes the Law's accusation while proclaiming the Gospel's unconditional grace.
Stanza Arc
The narrative or theological arc traced by this tune's stanzas: Christ's forty-day fast as pattern for believer's Lenten struggle against sin, culminating in Easter resurrection hope
In the Church Year
Hymn of the Day (Lutheran Service Book) for: Proper 22
Suggested in the one-year series
- Trinity 17 (3×)
- Lent 1 (2×)
- Lent 5 (2×)
- Trinity 4 (2×)
- Lent 2 (1×)
Suggested in the three-year series
- Proper 22 (3×)
- Easter 7 (1×)
- Lent 1 (1×)
- Lent 4 (1×)
- Proper 14 (1×)
From LCMS Worship's published hymn suggestions, 2014–2026. The count is how many of those yearly lists suggested this hymn for that day.
Overview
A walk through the whole life of Christ under two words: 'for us'. A late-medieval Latin poem from the circle of the Modern Devotion, it starts in wonder that God the Son took our mortal form, and then narrates baptism, fasting, temptation, prayer, teaching, miracles, betrayal, cross, resurrection, ascension and Pentecost, each line beginning 'For us'. The phrase is the Nicene Creed's ('who for us men and for our salvation') and Luther's pro nobis: the history of Jesus is not information but gift. The hymn is unusual in giving theological weight to the years between Christmas and Good Friday, Christ's active obedience, and that makes it a hymn for every season.
Central theme: Everything Christ was, did and suffered was 'for us': the incarnate life as one act of self-giving love
Structure
Seven long-meter stanzas. St. 1-2: wonder at the incarnation; st. 3-6: the life narrated with anaphora on 'For us' (baptism and temptation, ministry, passion, resurrection to Pentecost); st. 7: doxology returning to the dimensions of love named in st. 1.
Law & Gospel Shape
Nearly pure Gospel narrative. The Law is present as what he met in our place: temptation and the tempter (3), wickedness and betrayal, the 'shameful cross and death' (5). The only response asked is the glory given in st. 7.
Confessional Connections
'For us' is the Creed's 'for us men and for our salvation' and the 'for you' of the Words of Institution, which the Small Catechism calls the chief thing. St. 2 excludes every lesser mediator: no angel was sent; God the Son himself came (AC III; Heb 1-2). St. 3-4 confess Christ's active obedience, his keeping of the Law in our stead, alongside the passive obedience of st. 5 (FC SD III 14-15: his whole obedience from birth to death is reckoned to us). 'Still seeking not Himself but us' fits AC IV: salvation is entirely his seeking. St. 6 keeps the sending of the Spirit as the work of the exalted Christ (AC V; Third Article). A caution: Kempis's piety can turn the life of Christ into an example first; this hymn does not, and should be taught as gift before pattern.
Liturgical Use (Study Notes)
Lent 1 (the temptation), Epiphany season and the Baptism of Our Lord; Passion Sunday; Ascension; as a general hymn of the life of Christ and a catechetical hymn on the Second Article.
Historical Notes
Eight stanzas chosen by Benjamin Webb from the 23-stanza Latin 'O amor quam ecstaticus' for the Hymnal Noted (1852). The attribution to Thomas à Kempis is traditional and unproven. LSB's wording is lightly altered; LW 275 titles it 'Oh, Love, How Deep'.
About the Tune
DEO GRACIAS, the 15th-century English 'Agincourt' melody; LSB also uses it for 'O Wondrous Type! O Vision Fair'.
Scripture References
Eph 3:17-19 John 1:14 Phil 2:6-8 Heb 2:14-18 Matt 3:13-4:11 Heb 4:15 Mark 10:45 Isa 53:4-6 Rom 4:25 Acts 1:9 Acts 2:33 John 16:7-13
Stanza by Stanza
O love so deep, broad and high, beyond all thought and imagining: that God, the Son of God, should take our mortal form for the sake of mortals.
The hymn begins with Paul's prayer that the saints may grasp 'the breadth and length and height and depth' of a love that surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:18-19), and it measures that love by one fact: the incarnation. Before any deed is told, the wonder is who is acting, 'God, the Son of God', and what he took, 'our mortal form', a nature able to die. 'For mortals' sake' introduces the phrase that will carry the hymn. The love is not an attribute admired from a distance; it has a direction, toward us, and a cost. 'Beyond all thought and fantasy' sets a limit to speculation at the start: this is known only because it happened.
- Scripture
- Eph 3:17-19, John 1:14, John 3:16, Phil 2:6-7, Rom 8:3, 1 John 4:9-10
- Imagery & language
- The four dimensions of love; mortal form as clothing.
- Law / Gospel
- Gospel: God's love defined by the Son's taking flesh.
- Connection to previous
- Opening exclamation of wonder.
He did not send an angel of any rank to our race, but put on the garment of human nature and came to this world himself.
Hebrews spends two chapters on this point: the one who saves is greater than the angels, and he did not take on the nature of angels but the seed of Abraham (Heb 2:16). An angel could carry a message; no angel could be a brother, bear sin or die. So God did not delegate. 'Himself He came' is the emphatic centre of the stanza and a comfort against every picture of a distant God who deals with us through intermediaries. Isaiah 63:9 in the old Greek reading says the same: not an envoy nor an angel, but the Lord himself saved them. The 'robe of human frame' repeats stanza 1's image; the nature he wears is truly ours, and he has not taken it off.
- Scripture
- Heb 1:1-4, Heb 2:14-17, Isa 63:9, John 1:14, Gal 4:4, 1 Tim 2:5
- Imagery & language
- Angelic ranks set aside; humanity as a robe; coming in person.
- Law / Gospel
- Gospel: God came himself.
- Connection to previous
- Deepens st. 1: the marvel is that no one less than God came.
For us he was baptized; for us he endured his holy fast and hunger; for us he faced sharp temptation; for us he overthrew the tempter.
The anaphora begins, and it begins at the Jordan, not the manger. The sinless one was baptized 'to fulfil all righteousness', standing among sinners as their substitute, and so our Baptism is joined to his. Then the wilderness: forty days where Israel had forty years, hunger where Adam had a garden, and obedience where both had failed. The stanza says he was tempted 'for us' in two senses. He sympathises, being tempted as we are (Heb 4:15), and, more than that, he wins: 'for us the tempter overthrew'. His victory in the desert is credited to those who lose their own battles. This is active obedience sung, the Law kept by one man for the many (Rom 5:19).
- Scripture
- Matt 3:13-17, Matt 4:1-11, Heb 2:18, Heb 4:15, Rom 5:19, 2 Cor 5:21
- Imagery & language
- Fourfold 'for us'; fast and hunger; a duel with the tempter.
- Law / Gospel
- Gospel: his obedience and victory are ours. The tempter's defeat answers the Law's accusation.
- Connection to previous
- From the incarnation in general to the first public acts of the incarnate life.
For us he prayed and taught and did his daily works; in words, signs and actions he was always seeking not himself but us.
The three years of ministry are gathered under the same phrase. His prayers were for us, on the mountain at night and above all in John 17, and they continue (Heb 7:25). His teaching and his signs were not displays of power but acts of seeking, as he said of himself: the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost, not to be served but to serve. The last line states the character of the whole life negatively and positively, 'not Himself but us'. It is Paul's 'Christ did not please himself' (Rom 15:3). The ordinary word 'daily' matters: the hymn honours the unspectacular faithfulness of Christ, every day lived under the Law without sin, as part of what is counted to us.
- Scripture
- Luke 6:12, John 17:9, 20, Luke 19:10, Mark 10:45, Rom 15:3, Acts 10:38
- Imagery & language
- Words, signs and actions; seeking; the daily round.
- Law / Gospel
- Gospel: the whole ministry as self-giving for sinners.
- Connection to previous
- Continues the narrative from the wilderness into the years of teaching and healing.
For us he was betrayed by wicked men; for us he wore the crown of thorns, bore the shameful cross and death, and for us gave up his dying breath.
The Passion in four lines. 'By wickedness betrayed' names Judas and, behind him, the sin of all; the thorns are the curse of Genesis 3 worn as a crown; the cross is 'shameful', the death Deuteronomy calls accursed, which Hebrews says he endured, despising the shame. The seeking of stanza 4 ends here. Each clause still begins 'For us', and at this point the phrase carries its full weight of substitution: in our place, for our benefit, the punishment that brought us peace (Isa 53:5). 'He gave His dying breath' keeps the death voluntary, as in John: no one takes his life from him. What the Law demanded of sinners, he yielded.
- Scripture
- Matt 26:47-50, Matt 27:29, Heb 12:2, Gal 3:13, Isa 53:4-6, John 10:18, Luke 23:46
- Imagery & language
- Crown of thorns as mock royalty; shame; the last breath given.
- Law / Gospel
- Gospel through the Law's penalty: he bears the curse in our place.
- Connection to previous
- The life lived for us becomes the death died for us.
For us he rose from death; for us he ascended to reign on high; for us he sent his Spirit here to guide, strengthen and cheer us.
The 'for us' does not stop at the grave. He was raised for our justification (Rom 4:25), so Easter is God's public absolution of those for whom he died. He ascended 'to reign', and his reign is for the Church's good, as Head over all things for her (Eph 1:22). He sent the Spirit, as he promised it would be to our advantage that he go (John 16:7). The three verbs for the Spirit's work, guide, strengthen, cheer, are the Paraclete's office as Comforter. So the stanza reaches the singer's own present: the love that began in the incarnation is what is at work when the Word is heard today. The history has no gap between him and us.
- Scripture
- Rom 4:25, 1 Cor 15:20, Acts 1:9-11, Eph 1:20-22, John 16:7, 13, Acts 2:33
- Imagery & language
- Rising, reigning, sending; the Spirit as guide and comforter.
- Law / Gospel
- Gospel: resurrection, ascension and Pentecost given as gifts to us.
- Connection to previous
- Completes the life of Christ from the cross to the present work of the Spirit.
All glory to our Lord and God for love so deep, high and broad: the Trinity, whom we adore for ever and ever.
The dimensions of stanza 1 come back, now as the reason for praise. 'Our Lord and God' is Thomas's confession before the risen Christ. The doxology names the Trinity because the story just sung involved all three Persons: the Father who sent no angel but his Son, the Son who did all 'for us', and the Spirit sent to bring it home. After five stanzas in which we did nothing and received everything, the one thing left for us to do is to give glory, which is the proper shape of faith's response.
- Scripture
- John 20:28, Eph 3:20-21, Rom 11:36, 2 Cor 13:14
- Imagery & language
- The measures of love repeated; adoration without end.
- Law / Gospel
- Doxology: faith's thanks for love received.
- Connection to previous
- Frames the hymn by returning to the wonder of st. 1.
Themes
Christ's incarnation and sacrifice Divine love Redemption Humility of God Christian devotion