Hymns: Look and Live

I’ve been exploring some of the very modern worship songs as an old guy 😀. But now, I’ve decided to alternate between very modern hymns, old hymns, and in-between hymns, namely the worship songs from the 60s to the 90s that feature in hymnbooks such as Mission Praise. Today it’s the turn of the old hymns.

Today’s song is Look and Live from 1887.

I don’t remember singing this one in church. I remember hearing it at the London City Mission AGM in Westminster Central Hall in London back in 1983. The London City Mission’s men’s choir sang it. Even then, it sounded familiar to me.

The hymn is based on the story of the bronze serpent in Numbers 21, where God tells Moses to lift up the serpent so the people can look and live. So much of the Old Testament contains rituals that are hints of what’s to come. Ultimately, it reaches fulfilment in the coming of Christ, where people look to Jesus and His death on the cross for salvation.

John 3:14-15
¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,¹⁵ that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

Jesus often referred to himself in the third person as “the Son of Man”. I used to wonder why He called himself the Son of Man when He was the Son of God. From earth’s perspective, Son of God is more thought-provoking. But from Heaven’s perspective, it’s might be much more significant that He became the Son of Man. In Daniel’s vision in the Old Testament, Daniel sees “one like a Son of Man”. And as the Jews anticipated the coming of the Messiah, this title was often used of him.

Daniel 7:13
¹³ “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. ¹⁴ He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

So it’s amazing that a man is also God and is worshipped, as only God should be, but it’s also amazing that God became man.

Here are some other versions of today’s hymn: