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.
I am sure when Paul wrote – {{Ephesians 2:4-5 “but God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, . . .”}} he realised full well that the love of God was an eternal love. I am sure John Chapman did as well. I really do think it is difficult for us to understand that. Billions of years before Calvary, in fact, even before the creation of the universe (I am happy to agree with that as 13 billion years ago, but it does not matter), even before all that, the omniscient God knew, at the appropriate time, after the creation of Adam, that man would sin. Even in eternity past God loved the human lives He was to create. Creation was no surprise to God, otherwise He could not be God.
We could call that an eternal love, for it was with God as far back as you can extend eternity into the past, and remains steadfast for all future eternity. Our feeble brains cannot comprehend that and that is why God has allowed us faith to believe.
There is nothing wrong with that opening Chorus line for Jesus loved us while on earth, not just those of His time, but all who ever have been born into the world.
The next part of the line [[“Living He loved me; Dying He saved me,”]] is “Dying He saved me.” That is the part we know very well and it becomes the critical part in our salvation. Without the death of the Lamb of God there could be no salvation. Even before the cross there was a covering of sin by animal sacrifices but it was not a complete salvation. Only the blood of the Lamb could remove the last trace and stain of sin for all pre-Calvary and post-Calvary believers.
I think sometimes that there are Christians who have an imperfect understanding of Christ's death on the cross. It was more than that. Sin warrants a penalty, which is death both physical, but mainly spiritual. Spiritual death leads to hell and then the lake of fire. The Lord Jesus addressed that penalty on the cross. Only He could do that.
Penalty produces wrath. Sin earns the penalty that culminates in wrath. One important verse covers this idea – {{2Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him,”}}. That was the means of our reconciliation. The righteous One who was sinless, became the guilty bearer of sin, and endured the wrath of God until the entire wrath against sin was used up.
{{Isaiah 53:4 “Surely our griefs He Himself bore and our sorrows He carried, yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted,”}} By taking upon Himself our sins, Jesus became the sacrificial Lamb over whom our sins were confessed, and He died. He bore them; sins not His own.
Isaiah 53:5 is one of the greatest verses of substitution (as is 2Corinthians 5:21) {{“but He was pierced through for OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. He was crushed for OUR INIQUITIES. The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.”}} There was a transaction made at Calvary. It is like we were in court judged as guilty, but before the sentence, One steps in to declare that there is no penalty whatever, because He dealt with it.
We love Him who first loved us. Not only has Jesus cleared to way to the Father for us, but has clothed us in the same righteousness as His own. Incomprehensible for slow human minds to conceive, but that is what “Dying He saved me” means. His was a love unto death even death on a cross. We move on . . .
[3]. “BURIED HE CARRIED, MY SINS FAR AWAY”
This line I have heard attacked more than the others as some say our sins were atoned for AT the cross, not IN the burial of Christ in Joseph’s tomb. Of course that is nonsense, as we know that. The new covenant was enacted through blood and that happened at the cross so all sin’s penalty was forever gone for those who believe. For those who don’t believe they bear their own penalty at the great white throne.
This is a poetic way of saying all our sins have gone (the penalty and judgement dealt with). However, I think the author may have been thinking of the Day of Atonement and we look at these verses – {{Leviticus 16:8-10 “and Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the LORD and the other lot for the scapegoat. Then Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the LORD fell, and make it a sin offering, but the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make atonement upon it, TO SEND IT INTO THE WILDERNESS AS THE SCAPEGOAT.”}}
There were two goats on the Day of Atonement; one became the sacrificial goat, and the other, the scapegoat. After the goat of sacrifice was offered then the scapegoat was taken – {{Leviticus 16:21-22 “Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins, and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness, and the goat shall bear on itself ALL THEIR INIQUITIES TO A SOLITARY LAND, and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.”}}
That scapegoat carries the sins of the people into an unknown place in the wilderness, not to be recalled. Jesus was the Antitype of both these goats, the sacrifice one (at the cross) and the live goat who took sins away never to be recalled; never to be remembered (our salvation). In type, Jesus “carried our sins far away”. What a beautiful type each of those is of the work of Calvary!
[4]. “RISING HE JUSTIFIED, FREELY FOREVER”
This is the third Chorus line and it also causes some short sighted people some trouble. They say that our justification happened at the death of Christ on the cross, not when He rose from the tomb. Well that is true, because without Christ's death when He victoriously cried out “IT IS FINISHED”, there would be no justification. We were justified through the death of the Lamb on the cross.
However, later on Paul also wrote this – {{Romans 4:25 “He who was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.”}}
In that magnificent verse Paul links the raising of Christ with our justification. Is Paul saying here that we are justified through His resurrection? Well the answer is “No.” What do we then have? Firstly Paul is breaking up the transaction in a similar way that John Chapman did. Paul says [delivered for our transgressions; raised for our justification].
Let us be very clear here, if Christ was not raised from the dead there would be no justification! The work of justification was done at the cross, but a dead Saviour in the grave is not a Saviour at all and we would still all be in our sins. Because Christ has risen, then He is able to fully justify all who believe; indeed save all who believe.
Paul is very clear that justification belongs to the cross – {{Romans 5:9 “Much more then, having now been JUSTIFIED BY HIS BLOOD, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.”}} But he is equally clear that justification must be enacted through faith - {{Romans 5:1 “Therefore having been JUSTIFIED BY FAITH, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”}}
John Chapman is correct in what he said in that line 3. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ sealed emphatically and eternally, the work of the cross. Therefore our salvation and justification hinge NOT ONLY on Calvary, but on the resurrection. We can not let line 3 pass without mentioning the words “FREELY FOREVER”.
Who could ever pay for salvation? No one. All we have are putrid rags of unrighteousness. Undone sinners, helpless and hopeless. {{Ephesians 2:8-9 “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast.”}}
That now brings us to the 4th line of the Chorus -
[5]. ONE DAY HE’S COMING; O GLORIOUS DAY
There would seem no doubt that what inspired this line is the following verse from the AV – {{Titus 2:13 “Looking for THAT BLESSED HOPE, and THE GLORIOUS APPEARING of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ”}}
The NASB omits the word “glorious” altogether but the Church has always associated that word with the Lord’s coming because of the Authorised Version of the bible. The Titus verse is an interesting one because both future comings are in the one verse; the Rapture is the blessed hope, and the glorious appearing (or coming in glory) is the Second Coming. The word for “appearing” is “parousia” meaning a full display of Christ's glory, but the first stage of it will be frightening as He comes for the Battle of Armageddon in Revelation 19.
The early Church waited with anticipation for the Rapture of the Church with scriptures taken from 1Thessalonians 4:13-18; and 1Corinthians 15; supported by Revelation 4:1 and John 14:3. It had a living expectation. As time passed the Rapture was placed on the back burner through persecution, heresies and disputes, and by the time of the Apostles Creed in the sixth century (in some completed form), the church, to all intents and purposes, had lost the inspiring teaching of the Rapture when the Lord returns for His beautiful Bride.
For those who might want to look further into the Rapture, I have a 4 Part series on Sermon Central beginning with this one - https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/2-an-examination-of-the-rapture-of-the-church-part-1-of-4-ron-ferguson-sermon-on-rapture-267058
It is so sad that the Reformation could not have returned to the proper, early teaching of the early church, but it DID not on this matter, and others beside.
As I am putting these thoughts together there is chaos in the Middle East with the atrocious hellish – satanic – wicked slaughter of innocent people by Hamas, and supported by other hateful Islamic terrorists and by radicals and Hamas sympathisers in every western nation, and strongly in Australia.
These are sad times because the bulk of the mass media is anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian and even pro-Hamas. In western nations we are betrayed by the media and a lot of politicians, especially all those who are on the left or better still, pro-Marxist, who hate Israel. Socialism hates Israel, and as an offshoot to that, they automatically hate the Church. That is why we are looking forward so much to the Lord’s coming. Even so, come Lord Jesus!
At the beginning of this article I mentioned I write poems. Here in one touching on the Rapture –
HEAVEN’ S DOOR WILL OPEN TO US
Let the door of heaven open;
Let the Saviour’s voice be heard;
Let the trumpet sound its calling;
We are waiting for the word.
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“Come up here!” will be our summons.
“Come up here!” He calls the Bride.
“Come to ME My glorious one,
You, for whom I wept and died!”
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Who can comprehend those gathered?
Who can contemplate such bliss?
The Lord will snatch up all His own;
Not one redeemed, will He miss.
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Hear the voice of the archangel!
Hear that trumpet call for you!
In an instant; in a moment -
There’s no waiting in a queue.
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Heaven’ glory bursts upon us;
Heaven’s centre is the Lamb.
Heaven’s beauty centres ‘round Him;
He the Lord, the Great I AM.
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Light and truth will be resplendent.
Light and Truth - that my Lord is.
Light illumines ev’ry facet,
Shows the splendour that is His.
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Praise resounds from ev’ry quarter.
Praise will rise from the redeemed.
Angels likewise see His glory
In the Church His blood has cleaned.
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Evermore rejoice in Jesus;
Evermore to share His love.
O, melt our hearts in gratitude,
And our thoughts, transport above.
28 March 2022 R E Ferguson Metre = 8-7-8-7 ABCB
[6]. CONCLUDING THIS DISCUSSION MESSAGE
John Chapman had it correct in every line of the great Chorus in this magnificent hymn. I guarantee a lot who might read this don’t know the hymn because so sadly, hymns are passed over for the world’s music culture in an increasing number of churches, and people are left with lamentable lyrics, in many cases, and poor “music” to accompany them.
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
