Hymns: This is Amazing Grace

In this series, I explore some of the very modern worship songs as an old guy 😀.

Select the arrow for my “general intro” (which I’m reusing for all the modern hymns that I explore)

I grew up with rock music, so it’s not such a shocking thing for me to explore these. Back in my earlier years as a Christian, we had the old hymns and some modern choruses that originated in the 1970s charismatic movement. As time went on, I started to prefer the older hymns.
Nowadays, I try to maintain an interest in all Christian music. It’s easy to find “trendy” Christian music annoying, even as a Christian 😀. I don’t know why. But I’m trying to overcome that prejudice. Perhaps the older hymns give us a sense of history, but many of these would have been similar to popular music of their day. So maybe people cringed when they first heard some of these too 😀.

Anyway, today’s hymn is This is Amazing Grace. It’s from 2013.

Several hymns have Amazing Grace in the title. I think I first heard the version by Judy Collins as a child back around Christmas 1970. It got to number 5 in the UK charts. It was surprising to see a hymn in the pop charts. And it was even more surprising in April 1972 when a Scottish pipe band made number one with the same song:

And several modern songs use the expression or are based on the original hymn. Perhaps the most well-known is the song that featured in the Amazing Grace movie, which incorporated the original song into a more modern rendering. And another is Broken Vessels

So why is grace amazing? Well, the writer of the original, slave trader John Newton, was amazed because knowing how much he had sinned, he was amazed at how God offered forgiveness, an offer that goes out to all if they willingly repent and believe.

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sometimes people quote a simple definition of Grace – God’s riches at Christ’s expense. We don’t deserve heaven, but Christ has earned it for us by dying on the cross.

I myself was amazed when I heard about Martin Luther in history class back when I was 12. I probably spent much of my time daydreaming. But I vividly remember the teacher (who wasn’t a protestant) mentioning Luther’s belief that salvation is by grace alone through faith. You don’t need to earn it by living a perfect life.

Romans 10:9
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

I was a Roman Catholic. We believed that Mary and the Saints went straight to heaven, but for the average Catholic, we’d most likely end up in purgatory or even in hell if we happened to die after committing a mortal sin. And mortal sins aren’t just sins such as murder. Back then, I was always told that purgatory was similar to hell, except that you eventually emerge having served your sentence.

Nowadays, I would think that most nominal Roman Catholics reject the traditional beliefs about purgatory and hell. So many have gone to the other extreme – universalism, the notion that everyone just automatically gets to heaven. For example, if a notorious drug dealer gets murdered, in his tributes, people will say that he’s partying in heaven. Perhaps serious-minded or devout Catholics still stick to the traditional teaching. My hope is that more would accept the biblical view of heaven and hell and the teaching that Jesus saves us if we repent and trust in him- he didn’t die to give us a “running chance” of getting to heaven on our own merits.

When I investigated Luther’s view, I concluded that it did align with Scripture, so it truly is amazing. It’s true that God still wants us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourselves. But we’ll only ever be partly successful. But salvation is a gift. Jesus didn’t die to give us a running chance to earn salvation ourselves. He paid the price.

John 10:11
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Ephesians 2:8-9
⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Here are some other versions of today’s hymn: