in my place condemned He stood" and "Full atonement, can it be? Hallelujah! What a Savior!", this hymn is full and rich in theology and expressions of worship.
In 2011, Aaron Ivey (worship pastor at the Austin Stone church in Austin, Texas), in collaboration with other pastors from Austin Stone, took Bliss' hymn and did some slight rearranging and rewriting. While maintating the melody, Ivey and the other pastors restructured the chord progression and some other slight aspects of the song. Maintaining verses 1, 4, 5, and the context of verse 2, they rewrote the second verse. Co-writer Halim Suh says, "What's really beautiful about old hymns like this is that they have lines like 'Bearing shame and scoffing rude.' But one of the bad things about old hymns like this is that they have lines like 'Bearing shame and scoffing rude.'" Fellow co-writer Matt Carter adds, "It's not in common language." So realizing this truth, they took the context of verse 2 and adapted it to make it more understandable and relative to today's worshippers.
Aaron Ivey says that one of the values they hold to as a church and as a worship team is to lead their church in songs they can sing "boldly and anthemically." With that mindset, after singing such theologically rich truths about our redemption through the cross and sacrifice of Jesus, the writers felt they needed a chorus to proclaim. Which is where the lyrics "Hallelujah; Praise to the one whose blood has pardoned me; Oh what a Savior, Redeemer, and King; Your love has rescued me" come from.
Austin Stone Worship provides great resources for their songs. They want worshippers to truly worship in spirit and in truth. The truth aspect comes from knowing what you're singing and the truth of the scripture behind the songs you sing. Which is also the premise for this blog I author. Because of this desire from Austin Stone Worship, they accompany each song they produce with what they refer to as a "Theology Paper". For the bulk of the theology behind this particular song, I thought I'd let you read from the writers themselves. Below is the "Theology Paper" released by Austin Stone Worship as well as a video of the writers discussing the story behind the song.
Theology of Song: Hallelujah, What a
Savior
“Man of sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came...”
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) He was in the beginning with God. (3) All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (4) In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
From eternity’s past, Jesus was. He was in the beginning with God and He was God. He was the one and only eternal Son of God, coequal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, infinitely satisfied in the Trinitarian union absolutely independent from and not in need of creation. He was “before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light”1. This eternal God, this eternal Son, who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light,
became human...
Not only did He become human but Isaiah 53:3 tells us that He became a “man of sorrows”, despised and forsaken of men, like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
“Stand unclean, no one else could, In my place condemned He stood...”
But His humiliation didn’t stop there. Because all of mankind sinned against God we could not stand in His presence without the condemnation of being crushed by Him. We committed the most heinous act of evil by exchanging the goodness of our Creator for created things. And so the only one who was able to stand before the Almighty without shame, without guilt, without fear,
became sin...
2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
“Lifted up was He to die, “It is finished!” was His cry...”
And so Jesus lived the life that we couldn’t live and died the death that we should’ve died. Because God is just, He demanded a payment for our sin and that payment was death. But because God is gracious, He provided - at the cross - the payment that He Himself demanded. At a great cost to Himself, Jesus
“Man of sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came...”
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) He was in the beginning with God. (3) All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (4) In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
From eternity’s past, Jesus was. He was in the beginning with God and He was God. He was the one and only eternal Son of God, coequal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, infinitely satisfied in the Trinitarian union absolutely independent from and not in need of creation. He was “before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light”1. This eternal God, this eternal Son, who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light,
became human...
Not only did He become human but Isaiah 53:3 tells us that He became a “man of sorrows”, despised and forsaken of men, like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
“Stand unclean, no one else could, In my place condemned He stood...”
But His humiliation didn’t stop there. Because all of mankind sinned against God we could not stand in His presence without the condemnation of being crushed by Him. We committed the most heinous act of evil by exchanging the goodness of our Creator for created things. And so the only one who was able to stand before the Almighty without shame, without guilt, without fear,
became sin...
2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
“Lifted up was He to die, “It is finished!” was His cry...”
And so Jesus lived the life that we couldn’t live and died the death that we should’ve died. Because God is just, He demanded a payment for our sin and that payment was death. But because God is gracious, He provided - at the cross - the payment that He Himself demanded. At a great cost to Himself, Jesus
became our ransom...
By becoming our ransom Jesus made another exchange. He credited us with his life which He lived to meet all the righteous requirements of the law and He received for Himself every drop of God’s wrath that was directed at us as sinners.
Rom 8:1-4 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (2) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. (3) For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, (4) so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
“Hallelujah, what a Savior!”
And so having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, by taking it out of the way, and having nailed it to the cross, He
became our Savior!
And so what should our response be to this eternal Son of God who humbled Himself to become sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him? The only proper response seems to be, “Hallelujah, what a Savior!” They say that the word “Hallelujah”, which means “praise be to God”, is the only word that is the same in all languages. Almost as though God is preparing us for the day when every language will be gathered up in one accord to sing, “Hallelujah!” to our precious Jesus who became man, who became sin, who became our ransom, who became our Savior!
No comments:
Post a Comment