Amazing Grace
by Peter F Whyte, 17 Feb 2007
The hymn from which the film “Amazing Grace” takes its title is a well-known one. Very few people would claim never to have heard the tune, but perhaps you've never thought about the words. Maybe you don't even know the words (see the original complete words to the right).
John Newton, who wrote the words, carefully explains just what this Amazing Grace is, and what it does. Much of his explanation echoes his personal experience, but it is more than his experience or merely his opinion—it is a succinct summary of what God tells us in the Bible.
Newton tells us that Amazing Grace is what “saved a wretch like me.” He does not consider himself a wretch simply because he had been a slave trader, but because he was a sinner. Though God certainly delivered him from a life as a slave trader, he knew the greater deliverance was from his sin, and the deserving judgment that God would mete out to him.
It was sin that made him both lost and blind. But God's grace that found him and restored his sight—his spiritual sight. What Newton was, and what happened to him, is not his unique experience. God tells us that every one of us is a lost, blind wretch (the writer included).
All we like sheep have gone astray, writes Isaiah (53:6). The direction of our lives without God is the opposite of the way it should be. That's just what sin is—going astray, missing the mark, doing our own thing instead of what God requires.
The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, writes Paul (2 Cor 4:4). Our predicament is compounded by the influence of a malevolent spiritual power. We are starved of light. Like someone physically locked up in the dark we have lost the capability to see.
If we could but see ourselves as we really are in God's sight—lost and blind—then we would cry out with the Apostle Paul, “Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver my from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24) Although Paul cries out as a forgiven sinner, a Christian believer, how much more do such words express the longing of an unforgiven sinner who sees their true condition before God.
Paul's cry is not one of total despair. It may be more one of frustration at the continuing sin that besets him, as it does many a Christian believer. But Paul's remedy for his frustration may also be the salvation of a sinner who recognises their lostness and blindness. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:25a) Deliverance is not in our own power, but there is one who can remedy our wretched situation.
Newton's experience
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see
is precisely what Jesus does for any sinner who trusts in him. He came to earth “to seek and to save the lost.” (Gospel of Luke 19:10).
He is the Light of the World, bringing light where there was none. While he lived on earth he restored the sight of many blind men, but his greater restoration was the gift of spiritual sight to those blinded by sin and Satan (the god of this world).
When he came to earth as a human being, the Apostle John describes him as “full of grace and truth” (Gospel of John 1:14). The Amazing Grace that saved Newton was in fact a person—Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Saviour of the World—full of grace and truth. Grace is in his gift, Amazing Grace. And if we will but accept his deliverance we can know spiritual direction and spiritual sight.
So what do you know about Amazing Grace? Do you know the tune? Are you going to see the film? All well and good, but not good enough. You may not know the tune, or ever see the film, and you will be none the worse for it. But if you don't know the Saviour who offers Amazing Grace, you're lost and blind, a sinful wretch, no matter how good a neighbour or work colleague you may be.
Let God find you. Let him restore your sight. And let him forgive your sin. Then you can know Amazing Grace—the amazing free gift of God—forgiveness of sins and life in all its fullness. Life now, and life hereafter—eternal life. And then you can sing the hymn in truth and with conviction:
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.The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
the sun forbear to shine;
but God, who called me here below,
will be forever mine.
Peter F Whyte, ‘Amazing Grace’, 17 Feb 2007, Gilnahirk Baptist Church Web site. http://www.gilnahirkbaptist.org.uk/resources/welcome/amazinggrace.php (accessed 21 Nov 2008).
