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Fanny Crosby wrote this around 1875. In Britain it caught on almost immediately. In her own country it went essentially unsung for eighty years.
Americans only really took it up after Billy Graham’s London crusade in 1954, where his team heard it being sung by British congregations and brought it home. A hymn by one of America’s most prolific hymn writers had to be re-imported.
Listen: To God Be the Glory
To God Be the Glory — Full Lyrics
Verse 1
To God be the glory, great things He hath done!
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin,
And opened the life-gate that all may go in.
Chorus
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the earth hear His voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice!
Verse 2
O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood!
To every believer the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
Verse 3
Great things He hath taught us, great things He hath done,
And great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son;
But purer, and higher, and greater will be
Our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see.
Final chorus
O come to the Father through Jesus the Son,
And give Him the glory, great things He hath done!
“The vilest offender” — and the word after it
Verse two makes the sharpest claim in the hymn, and it does it in two lines: the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
Read the timing. Not eventually. Not after a probation. That moment. Crosby puts no interval at all between belief and pardon — and she attaches it to the worst case she can name rather than an average one. The logic only works if it works at the extreme.
Some modern hymnals soften “vilest” to “vilest sinner” or replace the line. It is worth noticing what goes when it goes: the hymn’s whole argument is that the offer does not get thinner the further down you are.
The hymn keeps redirecting the credit
Look at who does the acting. He hath done, He loved, He gave, He yielded, He opened. The believer’s only verb in the whole first verse is going in through a gate somebody else opened.
That is the point the title makes and the rest of the hymn keeps making. Crosby was not shy about human response — other hymns of hers are full of it — but this one is built to keep handing the credit back. The last line does it again: give Him the glory, great things He hath done.
Why Britain got there first
Ira Sankey, who sang for the evangelist D. L. Moody, took the hymn to Britain during their campaigns there and published it in a British collection. It stuck, and British congregations sang it steadily for decades.
In America it simply did not take. Crosby’s catalogue was so enormous — something like eight thousand hymns — that individual pieces could sink without trace. It was Billy Graham’s 1954 Harringay crusade in London that changed it. Cliff Barrows, Graham’s music director, encountered it there and began using it in American meetings, where it became a standard within a few years.
About this recording
The recording above is our own traditional gospel arrangement of Crosby’s public-domain text, produced with AI-assisted music generation. The words are unchanged. The setting is new, so if you grew up singing Doane’s tune, this will sound like the hymn you know in different clothes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who wrote To God Be the Glory?
Fanny Crosby wrote the words around 1875, and William Howard Doane composed the tune. Crosby, blind from infancy, wrote roughly eight thousand hymns including Blessed Assurance, Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior and All the Way My Savior Leads Me.
Why did To God Be the Glory become popular so late in America?
It was carried to Britain by Ira Sankey during the Moody campaigns and became well known there, while remaining largely unsung in the United States. It entered American use after Billy Graham’s 1954 London crusade, where his music director Cliff Barrows heard British congregations singing it and brought it back — about eighty years after it was written.
Is To God Be the Glory in the public domain?
Yes. Crosby’s text and Doane’s tune both date from 1875, far earlier than the 1930 US public-domain cutoff, so both may be printed, projected, sung and recorded freely. A specific modern arrangement can still carry its own copyright, so licence the arrangement rather than the hymn. You can hear our public-domain arrangement here.
What does “the vilest offender” mean?
Vile means morally repugnant, and an offender is someone who has done wrong. Crosby deliberately chooses the worst possible case rather than an average one, then claims that person receives pardon “that moment” on believing. The extremity is the argument — the offer does not weaken the further down the scale you go.
What Bible verse is To God Be the Glory based on?
John 3:16 stands directly behind the first verse — “so loved He the world that He gave us His Son.” Psalm 126:3, “the LORD hath done great things for us,” supplies the refrain of great things done, and 1 Timothy 1:15 the sense of the worst offender being received.
What does “the life-gate” mean?
It draws on John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” The image is of a gate that was shut and has been opened from the other side — which is why the believer’s only action in that verse is going in, not opening.
How many verses does To God Be the Glory have?
Three, each followed by the chorus. Ours sings all three, closing on the final chorus variant — “O come to the Father through Jesus the Son, and give Him the glory, great things He hath done.”
