Amazing Grace

One of the best loved and most often sung hymns in North America, this hymn expresses John Newton’s personal experience of conversion from sin as an act of God’s grace. At the end of his life, Newton said, “There are two things I’ll never forget: that I was a great sinner, and that Jesus Christ is a greater Savior!” This hymn is Newton’s spiritual autobiography, but the truth it affirms–that we are saved by grace alone–is one that all Christians may confess with joy and gratitude. You will want to read Newton’s story below. [1]

Of course we sang it as a part of our typical worship growing up as a child; however, Amazing Grace took on greater spiritual significance to me as part of communion. Our practice as a child, and now as a pastor for twenty-one years, was to sing Amazing Grace as we ended our communion service. My Uncle Henry Myers would lead it after my dad read, “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives” (Matt 26:30). Therefore, in my heart, this hymn has always been connected to communion as well.

This hymn has been published in almost 1,400 hymnbooks of various kinds.

Amazing Grace Lyrics (as I learned them from my childhood hymnal)

The Theology

Oh the grace of God demonstrated to us at salvation! As Newton penned, it is amazing!

Newton expresses his own profound sense of God’s amazing grace to him as a previous slave owner. Although dead in trespasses and sins, God graciously gave him new life through salvation. He who once was spiritually blind became the one who could see.

What did he see? He saw God’s amazing grace. As you read the rest of his lyrics, he understood all that was true in Christ as well. He rejoiced over the grace that enabled him to live everyday for the glory of God, as well as the future grace he looked forward to experiencing after death.

Related to the verse added by John Rees, it proclaims how long we will be happy to sing of the grace of God. “When we’ve been there ten thousand years… we’ve no less days to sing God’s grace than when we first begun.” Oh friend, think of that! After ten thousand years, we will have just barely gotten started.

The Author and Composer of the Song

John Newton was born in 1725 in London, England, into a Christian home, but his godly mother died when he was seven. He joined his father at sea when he was eleven. His licentious and tumultuous sailing life included a flogging for attempted desertion from the Royal Navy and captivity by a slave trader in West Africa. After his escape he himself became the dreadful captain of a slave ship himself.

People report several factors which contributed to Newton’s conversion: a near-drowning in 1748, the piety of his friend Mary Catlett (whom he married in 1750), and his reading of Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ. In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and, in association with William Wilberforce, eventually became an ardent abolitionist. After becoming a tide-surveyor in Liverpool, England, Newton came under the influence of George Whitefield and John and Charles Wesley, and began to study for the for the ministry. He was ordained in the Church of England and served in Olney (1764-1780) and St. Mary Woolnoth, London (1780-1807). His legacy includes his hymns as well as his collaboration with William Cowper in publishing Olney Hymns (1779), to which Newton contributed 280 hymns, including “Amazing Grace.”[1]

Composer:

The version most of us are familiar with was composed by Edwin Othello Excel. A member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, he became a prominent publisher, composer, song leader, and singer of music for church, Sunday school, and evangelistic meetings. He founded singing schools at various locations in the country and worked with evangelist, Sam Jones, as his song leader for two decades. He established a music publishing house in Chicago and authored or composed over 2,000 gospel songs. While assisting Gypsy Smith in an evangelistic campaign in Louisville, KY, he became ill, and died in Chicago, IL. He published 15 gospel music books between 1882-1925.[3] Although many have composed this text over the years, including Chris Tomlin. [7]

Enjoy This Media

Some groups singing the song from YouTube:

Enjoy listening to Buddy Green play this song on harmonica with other Gaither Homecoming singers joining in the song.

Chris Tomlin’s arrangement that uses more of Newton’s original verses and drops the one by Rees.

Classic congregational singing of all five verses, arranged by Excel.

Here is the earliest copy of the song as a text with a mention of the tune. The words were published without any musical score for nearly two centuries. This one is from The Psalms of David: with hymns and spiritual songs from 1789 [4]:

This is the first copy of the fourth stanza that many sing today, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years,” from Coronation Hymns #282 from 1910 [5]:

Here is a more modern version from The Hymnal #202 [6]:

 

---

Link to Other Blogs in this Series