I guess I’m showing my age a little, but I always loved this hymn when I was a little boy (I think I’m still a little boy sometimes, just in a big boy’s body!! – Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional!). My dad was a tenor in the London Male Voice Choir is the 1950’s, and I always remember loving the bass blokes singing, and then dad and the tenors adding to it, not that – then – I ha any idea of what bass and tenors were!
And maybe as I’m getting older, I appreciate a lot more the words of many old hymns which had such depth, and were often profound, even if the tunes were naff – though this one is far from naff. And it’s wonderful truth, as is Stuart Townend’s amazing son, In Christ Alone. When it gets to ‘then bursting forth, in glorious day up from the grave he rose again’, and ‘bought with the precious blood of Christ’, I’m invariably wrecked with tears of utter thankfulness to the Lord of Lords and King of Kings… He did this for ME….he did it for you, and even if it had only been the two of us, he’d still have done it…..
Man of Sorrows! what a name
For the Son of God, who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
“Full atonement!” can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Lifted up was He to die;
“It is finished!” was His cry;
Now in Heav’n exalted high.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
When He comes, our glorious King,
All His ransomed home to bring,
Then anew His song we’ll sing:
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.
In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fulness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.
There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine –
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.
No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.
