Just A Misunderstanding - Or - Just Being Contentious?

JUST A MISUNDERSTANDING - OR - JUST BEING CONTENTIOUS?

[1]. A HYMN CHORUS UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT

There would be none of us who is without misunderstanding when it comes to biblical issues. We may try with God’s help to grasp a passage of scripture but sometimes it is not within our reach.

Then again there might be some who can be contentious about something in scripture; some even like to be. That is a different matter and can be quite upsetting. At some time in our lives we probably have at times been contentious, and human nature ensures we might get a bit nasty.

I can remember now and again people disagreeing with the wording that is found in some hymns. There just might . . . maybe . . . be a reason for that, but sometimes, some people are just plain contentious or argumentative.

It can be so easy to misunderstand the intention of the poet in the writing of a lyric that becomes a hymn. People fail to understand the writer’s thinking and application. I do understand that point well, as I am a poet and have studied English literature and the English poets of the past. I write poems (one is lower down). I have one hundred thousand words of Christian poems that might occasionally appear in my messages on SermonCentral.

One such hymn that has been raised as not being correct is this lovely hymn that these days, along with so many beautiful hymns of the past, has been excluded in favour of these glitzy, rather meaningless chant-type songs strummed out with guitars and percussion in churches that pass as music with the endless repetition. That is not proper singing.

Anyway, in case I am accused of being contentions, I want to look at the hymn in question. I contend that here the odd person is not understanding the content of the words, or understanding the writer’s intent. Let us look at the hymn in question. The first stanza and chorus are these:-

[[ One day when heaven was filled with His praises,

One day when sin was as black as could be;

Jesus came down to be born of a virgin,

Dwelt among men; My Redeemer is He.

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Living He loved me; Dying He saved me;

Buried He carried, my sins far away.

Rising He justified, freely forever.

One day He’s coming; O glorious day. ]]

I have heard people say, “Jesus dealt with our sins BEFORE He was buried, so the theology in the hymn is incorrect.” The same argument can be applied to the “Rising He justified,” because the purist will say that justification came through Christ's death on the cross.

At face value those statements can be quite valid when taken in isolation and not applied to the whole content of the Chorus. I want to look at that today and in doing so we will be examining the nature of Christ's death on the cross.

The poet here is John Wilbur Chapman 1859-1918, evangelist, and this hymn was written in 1910. This man had very sound theology. Some people just fail to see in his divisions of the work of Calvary, that he is separating the different aspects to highlight each one. What is true, very true in fact, is that Christ's death would be ineffective and insufficient for us IF He did not die AND was buried AND rose again, AND is coming again. Here our minds must understand what Paul wrote – {{1Corinthians 15:3-5 “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ DIED FOR OUR SINS according to the Scriptures, and that HE WAS BURIED, and that HE WAS RAISED on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”}}

Yes, there are legalistic people in churches who latch on to an idea and won’t let themselves examine that unless they be found wanting. The wider picture needs to be seen.

Let us now look more into this Chorus.

[1]. LIVING HE LOVED ME; DYING HE SAVED ME.

The writer is not saying that Christ loved us only when He lived on earth. Poetically he divides the fact of living and dying. There is a contrast, a legitimate thing to do. The Son of God loves all human beings even though we don’t always do that ourselves. God is not willing that any should perish, not even the evil Hamas Islamic terrorists.

John wrote – {{John 3:16 “for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life”}}. It was love from past eternity that God always had. Love was the motivation for Calvary. God loved the world even before Jesus came and God loved the world while Jesus lived on earth, and God loved us when He was on the cross.