Hymn Highlight: Amazing Grace
“There are two things I'll never forget: that I was a great sinner, and that Jesus Christ is a greater Savior!”
John Newton said these words not long before his death. Born into a Christian home, Newton’s early life was marked by sin and vulgarity. Newton was the captain of a slave-trading ship in the middle of the 18th century in England. Newton, however, was converted and became an associate with William Wilberforce, the great British abolitionist. Soon thereafter, Newton also became an abolitionist. Newton then became a pastor in the Church of England, ministering in Olney and St. Mary Woolnoth in London. Newton composed hundreds of hymns as well as correspondence that still serves the church.
Without a doubt, Amazing Grace is one of, if not the, most popular hymns ever written. Newton penned the hymn as an autobiography of his conversion. The original hymn contained six verses that take the congregant on a journey from conversion to eternity future, reminding us that the whole of the Christian life is all of grace.
The hymn begins with the titular line: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.” Truly, God’s grace is a sweet sound to fall upon sinful ears. We are reminded of our status before Christ: sinful wretches, lost and blind. But the grace of God saves us, finds us, and makes us see. Surely this is praiseworthy!
Newton’s second, third, and fourth verses detail the Christian life: We look back upon the preciousness of grace the hour we verse believed, and we’re encouraged. Grace also continues to help us live our lives day by day, leading us home to God’s Celestial City. We will safely endure to the end only by God’s good grace. We will be protected by God, as he never abandons his people, but instead is abounding in steadfast love. God is our portion for all of our days.
The fifth verse is my personal favorite and is yet omitted from many versions. Newton writes:
“Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease:
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.”
For so many, the end of this mortal life brings forth feelings of horror and strife. The Christian, as one enveloped in God’s sovereign grace, experiences true life: joy and peace, when mortal life is over. We will live, as it were, behind the veil, in the very presence of God. What a joyful and peaceful reminder!
Amazing Grace, as Newton originally penned it, ends with our great eschatological hope: God, who called us while we were on earth, will be forever ours. At the end of days, the earth as we know it will be remade and we will dwell in the house of the LORD forever in his flourishing kingdom.
May this song bring you a sense of God’s comfort, peace, and joy brought about by his amazing grace, even in the most tumultuous of days.