Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross;
Lift high His royal banner, it must not suffer loss:
From vict’ry unto vict’ry His army shall He lead,
Till ev’ry foe is vanquished, and Christ is Lord indeed.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the trumpet call obey;
Forth to the mighty conflict, in this His glorious day:
Ye that are men now serve Him against unnumbered foes;
Let courage rise with danger, and strength to strength oppose.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus, stand in His strength alone;
The arm of flesh will fail you, ye dare not trust your own:
Put on the gospel armor, each piece put on with prayer;
Where duty calls or danger, be never wanting there.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the strife will not be long;
This day the noise of battle, the next the victor’s song:
To him that overcometh, a crown of life shall be;
He with the King of glory shall reign eternally.
Public domain hymn text (1858). Words by George Duffield Jr..
The Story Behind the Hymn
George Duffield Jr. was an American Presbyterian minister who wrote this hymn's text in 1858 following the sudden death of a close friend and fellow minister, Dudley Tyng, who had been fatally injured in an accident involving farm machinery only days after preaching a widely noted sermon on the text 'quit you like men, be strong' (1 Corinthians 16:13), delivered during a period of significant religious revival activity in Philadelphia.
Tyng's own dying words, as reported by those present, reportedly included the request that his fellow ministers 'tell them to stand up for Jesus,' and Duffield, deeply affected by his friend's sudden death and this final charge, wrote this hymn directly in response, incorporating Tyng's own dying instruction into the hymn's now-famous opening command.
Duffield originally intended the hymn only for use at his own church, appending it as a closing text to a sermon he preached shortly after Tyng's death, without any expectation of wider publication; it was only distributed more widely after a Sunday school publication reprinted it without Duffield's direct knowledge or involvement, gradually spreading it far beyond its original single-congregation context.
George J. Webb, an English-born composer working in America, had composed the tune years earlier for an entirely different, secular patriotic text before it was later paired with Duffield's hymn, and the completed work, born directly out of a specific, dateable personal tragedy and a dying friend's final recorded words, became one of the standard hymns of Christian courage and steadfastness, its military language of banners, armor, and battle reflecting the same broader tradition of martial hymn imagery found elsewhere in this collection in hymns like 'Onward, Christian Soldiers' (hymn 29) and 'Hold the Fort' (hymn 139).
