 This arrangement was performed in New York in the late 1800s, and was praised for "religiously preserving the spirit of the original".Upon its initial publication in 1821, the cantata was positively received, as demonstrated by a laudatory 1822 article by critic Johann Friedrich Rochlitz, which praised its "profound, highly original and—one might say—unimaginable wealth of sound".Christoph Wolff suggests that this cantata "acquired not only the character of prototype for Bach's church cantatas but also that of paragon of Protestant chorale composition" as the "musical symbol of Lutheranism".