Apr
4
All ye that pass by
Filed Under Easter, Justification, Music, Poetry
Chip Stam, Director of the Institute for Christian Worship at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, has a weekly “Worship Quote of the Week” you can receive as a free email (click here for more info). This week’s is a Charles Wesley poem about the atoning death of Christ. The opening line is based on Lamentations 1:12:
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me,
which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.
ALL YE THAT PASS BY
All ye that pass by, to Jesus draw nigh:
To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?
Your ransom and peace, Your surety He is:
Come, see if there ever was sorrow like His.
For what you have done His blood must atone:
The Father hath punished for you His dear Son.
The Lord, in the day of His anger, did lay
Your sins on the Lamb, and He bore them away.
He answered for all: O come at His call,
And low at His cross with astonishment fall!
But lift up your eyes at Jesus’ cries:
Impassive, He suffers; immortal, He dies.
He dies to atone for sins not His own;
Your debt He hath paid, and your work He hath done.
Ye all may receive the peace He did leave,
Who made intercession, “My Father, forgive!”
For you and for me He prayed on the tree:
The prayer is accepted, the sinner is free.
That sinner am I, who on Jesus rely,
And come for the pardon God cannot deny.
My pardon I claim; for a sinner I am,
A sinner believing in Jesus’ Name.
He purchased the grace which now I embrace:
O Father, Thou know’st He hath died in my place.
His death is my plea; my Advocate see,
And hear the blood speak that hath answered for me.
My ransom He was when He bled on the cross;
And losing His life He hath carried my cause.
—Charles Wesley, 1707-1788, from METHODIST HYMNS, 1779.
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