The blood of Jesus is an essential part of the gospel. According to the Bible (and to historic Christian orthodoxy), it wasn’t just that Jesus died, but that His blood was shed. It has become common to hear and read that the central truth of Christianity and of Holy Week in particular was the example of submission and selflessness that Jesus modeled for us to imitate. But that’s an expression of the substitute gospel that has been around for more than a century. Those who hold it promote the idea that Jesus was the first Christian, and that we should have a faith like His. We even find public figures ridiculing the “old-fashioned, medieval” talk about Jesus’ blood. Such people insist that we need a “modern” faith, free from the brutality of crosses and nails and spears.
But the message of the Bible stands in stark contrast to that counterfeit. We are not saved by trying to be like Jesus. That’s salvation by works, our works of goodness in our relationships with one another. No, to the contrary, we are saved by trusting in Jesus, and specifically in His blood shed in payment of our sin as our substitute. There is no salvation apart from the blood of Jesus! The cross is a symbol of Jesus shedding His blood as a vicarious sacrifice. It is our only hope. That’s why Paul wrote in Galatians 6:14, “God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of Jesus Christ my Lord.”
Recall how consistent the message of Scripture is about the matter of the blood of a sacrifice for sin, “from Genesis to the maps,” as some have said. In the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve had sinned, God provided animal skins to cover their nakedness. Where did He get them? By shedding the blood of those animals as substitutes. In Leviticus 17:11, God revealed that the life is in the blood. And Hebrews 9:22 explains that the Leviticus passage means that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. On Passover night, the Israelites were spared from the angel of death only if blood was applied to the door of their home. And how could we forget the dramatic moment repeated countless times when sacrifices were brought to the altar in the temple for the atonement of sin, and those present were confronted by the spectacle of the blood pouring from the animal that was slain before being sprinkled on the altar.
Moving to the New Testament, the message is the same. When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, He told the disciples (and us) that the cup was the new covenant in His blood, shed for many for the remission of sins. In the song being sung in heaven as John heard and reported it in Revelation 5:9 we read that it was “by His blood” that Jesus ransomed His people. And add to all that these passages:
- We have “redemption through His Blood” (Colossians 1:14).
- We have “peace through the Blood of His Cross”(Colossians 1:20)
- We are “brought near by the Blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13)
- We are “now justified by His Blood” (Romans 5:9)
- “The Blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7)
- “Having boldness to enter into the holiest by the Blood of Jesus” (Hebrews 10:19)
- “The church of God, which He purchased with His own Blood” (Acts 20:28)
Those who reject these clear biblical passages argue that God forgives simply because He is love. They argue that we don’t demand the shedding of blood when someone offends us, so why must we think God would do so. But they fail to realize three things. First, He has clearly said that this is what is necessary for atonement to be accomplished. Second, as He has warned us in Psalm 50:21, “You thought I was like you;” He is not! And third, sin against God is infinitely more serious than offending our neighbor; it is cosmic treason.
Finally, remember how many of our hymns convey this historic orthodox doctrine of atonement by the shedding of blood. Among them are these: There Is Power in the Blood, There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood, My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less Than Jesus’ Blood and Righteousness, and Jesus Thy Blood and Righteousness.
All of that brings us to today’s hymn study, Isaac Watts’ great Passion hymn, Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed.
In just 24 lines of rhymed poetry, “The Father of English Hymnody” has painted a vivid picture of the theology of the cross that evokes all of the following emotions: pity, wonder, grief, humility, love and self-surrender. This entire array of sentiments must appear side by side without any of sense of incongruity or affectation. And, of course, all of this as an explanation of the incredibly profound doctrine of Jesus’ substitutionary atonement. Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed belongs to a much larger family of Passion hymns which serve as rhapsodies on the wonder of “forensic justification,” a theological term meaning that by faith in Christ’s sacrifice we receive an imputed righteousness that is not our own.
As one hymnologist has written, “intense sorrow (“Alas! and did my Savior bleed? / and did my Sovereign die?”) gives way to self-reproach (“Would He devote that sacred head / for sinners such as I?”), which then yields to stunned marvel (“Amazing pity! Grace unknown! / and love beyond degree!”), which in turn blends into gratitude (“Thus might I hide my blushing face / while His dear cross appears; / dissolve my heart in thankfulness, / and melt mine eyes to tears.”)”
Isaac Watts (1674-1748), the oldest of nine children, combined extraordinary literary skill in the eloquent expressiveness of his poetry with solid Calvinistic theology to communicate profound doctrinal truths. The son of a schoolmaster, he was born in Southampton. He is said to have shown remarkable precocity in childhood, beginning the study of Latin in his fourth year, and writing respectable verses at the age of seven. At the age of sixteen, he went to London to study in the Academy of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, an Independent minister. In 1698, he became assistant minister of the Mark Lane Independent Church, Berry St., London, where in 1702, he became pastor. It was this church in which the great Puritan John Owen had years earlier served as preacher. In 1712, he accepted an invitation to visit Sir Thomas Abney, at his residence of Abney Park, and at Sir Thomas’ pressing request, made it his home for the remainder of his life. It was a residence most favorable for his health, and for the prosecution of his literary labors. He did not retire from ministerial duties, but preached as often as his delicate health would permit.
The number of Watts’ publications is very large. His collected works, first published in 1720, embrace sermons, treatises, poems and hymns. His “Horae Lyricae” was published in December, 1705. His “Hymns” appeared in July, 1707. The first hymn he is said to have composed for religious worship, is “Behold the glories of the Lamb,” written at the age of twenty. It is as a writer of psalms and hymns that he is everywhere known. Some of his hymns were written to be sung after his sermons, giving expression to the meaning of the text upon which he had preached. Montgomery calls Watts “the greatest name among hymn-writers,” and the honor can hardly be disputed. His published hymns number more than eight hundred, and every hymnal today will contain a sizeable number of his hymns. They include such favorites as When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Joy to the World, I Sing the Mighty Power of God, Jesus Shall Reign, and Our God Our Help in Ages Past.
Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed was composed in 1707. It has endured as a widely known and loved Passion hymn. The Queen of Gospel Hymnody, Fanny Crosby, recorded this following her conversion. “After a prayer was offered, they began to sing the grand old consecration hymn, “Alas, and did my Savior bleed, And did my Sovereign die?” And when they reached the third line of the fourth stanza, “Here Lord, I give myself away,” my very soul was flooded with a celestial light. I sprang to my feet, shouting “Hallelu¬jah,” and then for the first time I realized that I had been trying to hold the world in one hand and the Lord in the other.”
The hymn will certainly be found in every hymnal in churches among our readers. But there are a few differences from the original. Watts’ second stanza is certainly biblical, but contains powerful reference to the blood that modern theology often abhors, as is true also of Watts’ reference to the divine wrath poured on Jesus in our place.
Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, Thine, and bath’d in its own blood,
while the firm mark of wrath divine, His soul in anguish stood.
And it should come as no surprise that in our age of theologies of self-esteem, the image in the original first stanza is often deemed unpalatable for the modern congregation.
Alas! and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?
Though the reference to oneself as a worm is clearly a scriptural allusion (Psalm 22:6, “But as for me, I am a worm, and no man”), it is often unnecessarily and unsatisfactorily replaced with “For sinners such as I.”
The overall tone of the text is of the weight of darkness as the singer gazes at Christ, remembers the blood shed there, and marvels that such love was shown for such unworthy recipients of divine grace. The music needs to match that heaviness.
Stanza 1 begins with the reaction of shock and astonishment … “Alas!” The reason for that is that it was the Sovereign who offered Himself for a worm!
Alas! And did my Savior bleed, And did my Sovereign die!
Would He devote that sacred head For such a worm as I!
Stanza 2 continues that sense of amazement by highlighting my crimes and His groaning. Three divine qualities are lifted up … pity, grace, and love.
Was it for crimes that I had done He groaned upon the tree!
Amazing pity! Grace unknown! And love beyond degree!
Stanza 3 magnifies the enormity of this sadness by singing of the brightness of the sun’s glories being hidden in darkness when the mighty Maker dies for the sinful creature.
Well might the sun in darkness hide, And shut his glories in,
When Christ, the mighty Maker, died For man the creature’s sin.
Stanza 4 turns away from the sun to my own face which I must hide in shame. And yet His work on the cross dissolves my hard heart in thankfulness and fills my eyes with tears.
Thus might I hide my blushing face While His dear cross appears;
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness, and melt mine eyes in tears.
Stanza 5 then ponders what the forgiven sinner could ever do to repay Him. No amount of tears would suffice. The only response can be to give my entire self to Him.
But drops of grief can ne’er repay The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away, ‘Tis all that I can do.
The original tune as intended by Isaac Watts is not known, but in 1800 Hugh Wilson began using his original music composition entitled MARTYRDOM. It is the preferred tune for most hymnals today. In 1885 Ralph F. Hudson (1843-1901) added the refrain and the tune that many use today and know as the gospel song, AT THE CROSS. Sadly, this is not a very helpful alteration, since it not only shifts the mood away from contemplation and the doctrine of Jesus’ suffering, to the joy of the sinner’s conversion, but also changes the entire dynamic of the stately text and traditional tune to the dotted rhythm that almost feels more like a dance than a somber meditation.
Here is a link to the congregation of Grace Community Church (Pastor John MacArthur) singing the hymn, but with the altered first stanza to replace “worm” with “sinner.”