Christ the Lord is Risen Today

Charles Wesley answers death's biggest claim in the second verse before explaining the resurrection itself: "death in vain forbids Him rise... Christ has opened paradise." Each line ends on the same word, "Alleluia," as if the hymn can't finish a thought without praising first.

The third verse turns the question directly on death and the grave: "where, O death, is now thy sting? ... where thy victory, O grave?" It's not a rhetorical flourish — the hymn is quoting an old taunt and daring it to answer back. The final verse applies the same resurrection to the singers themselves: "made like Him, like Him we rise."

That third verse is 1 Corinthians 15:55 lifted almost directly into the hymn's own meter, and 1 Corinthians 15:20's "Christ has been raised from the dead... the first fruits" is the theological claim behind "soar we now where Christ has led." Congregations have been singing the same argument on Easter morning for centuries.