Hymns: When Love Came Down to Earth

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 very modern hymns.

Today’s song is When Love Came Down to Earth It’s from 2004.

Perhaps I should have kept this one for Christmas. It’s often sung at Christmas, but it’s not just about the birth of Jesus. For example, this verses touches on His death on the cross for our sins:

When every unclean thought,
And every sinful deed
Was scourged upon His back
And hammered through His feet.
The Innocent is cursed,
The guilty are released;
The punishment of God
On God has brought me peace.

What’s emphasized here is that Jesus, God the Son, paid the price for our sin. So, when we trust in Him, we are forgiven. The innocent is cursed, the guilty are released.

Some might quibble about the last couple of lines. Was God the Father actively punishing Jesus in the way that He’ll punish people in Hell? And how can God punish God? I don’t think that anyone can thoroughly understand precisely what was happening on the cross. Some modern minds find the notion that the Father was punishing the Son distasteful. But surely, both the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, agreed that the crucifixion should happen. And just as Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him, the Father and the Holy Spirit would have had to endure seeing Jesus die on the cross for the joy set before them; His resurrection and the salvation of millions.

Hebrews 12:2
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Sometimes people are a little too vague about what happened at the cross. I was brought up knowing that Jesus died for us, but I had no notion of how the death of Jesus affected me. Later, as I studied theology, I learned all the specifics, but some modern evangelicals argue that it’s foolish to try to understand precisely how it all worked.

People debate about the specifics But, like the dying thief next to Jesus, if we repent and trust in Jesus, we will be with Jesus in paradise. The thief on the cross didn’t need to take a degree in theology. He simply asked Jesus to remember Him when He comes into His kingdom, thereby declaring his repentance and faith in Jesus.

And there are plenty of New Testament verses that teach that Jesus bore the punishment for our sins and that when we repent, God looks on us as if we were innocent. Here are some examples:

Isaiah 53:5-6
⁵ But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. ⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

1 Peter 2:24
²⁴ “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

1 Peter 3:18
¹⁸ For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

Romans 4:25
²⁵ He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

2 Corinthians 5:21
²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

So was the Father punishing the Son? Even if you don’t like the notion that the Father actively placed His judgment on Him, surely you believe that it was all in God’s plan that the Son should suffer and die for our sins so that we could be redeemed? Ultimately it’s all about God’s holiness, His justice, His hatred of sin, but supremely about His love.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Here are some other versions of today’s hymn.