The Future Tense
TO “That in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus....
“To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” — £p/?. ii. 7; Hi. 10.
THE FUTURE TENSE
“In the Ages to Come”
fJlHE study of this part of the subject includes, first, the state of the believer between Death and Resurrection; and, second, after the Coming of the Lord. At both of these we must at least glance.
I. The ‘ Intermediate State.’
The important question arises, What is the state of souls between Death and Resurrection?
In the Old Testament we have very few hints, for, in the former dispensation, the temporal was more emphasised than the eternal: the latter being reserved for the later day when Christ should bring ‘ Life and Immortality to light,’ and illumine the whole question, by Himself passing through
Death and the grave and entering for a time into Hades, and then coming forth to die no more.
But the key to New Testament unfoldings is in Acts ii. 26-31, where Peter quotes and applies to Christ the mysterious words of David {Ps. xvi. 8-1 1 ).
Here the “flesh” is represented as “resting in hope” in the grave, while “the soul is in Hades,” but not “left” there, but again joined to the body, which, meanwhile, as God’s “Holy One,” has not “seen corruption.” Compare ver. 31: “Neither was His soul {’^vxv) left in Hades, nor did His flesh {crkp avTov) see Corruption.”
Thus interpreted, many things become plain. When we read of them which ‘ sleep in Jesus,’ the reference is to the bod (or crapf); when we read of those who are ‘ with Christ ’ as holy dead, it is to the soul (orlrvxv).
Here, again, let us remember that, while no chain can hold more than its weakest link, a rope can sustain far more strain than any one of its single fibres; and our conclusions, on this subject, derive their strength not from solitary texts, which taken singly might not be conclusive, but from the combined testimony of many Scripture expressions. Of these we give simply a few examples.
The Body and the Spirit 77
Gen. ii. 7: “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives (Hebrew); and man became a living soul.” Here is the fundamental conception — a body of earth — a spirit inbreathed of God.
To this Solomon obviously refers, in Eccles. xii.
7: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; but the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” Here Death is the exact reverse of Creation, separating the body and spirit, joined at creation, each returning to its own. Compare Ps. cxlvi. 4.
Luke xxiii. 46: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”
Acts vii. 59: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
As to the present living and conscious state of the dead, consult such passages as the following: —
1 Sam. xxviii. 19: “To-morrow thou and thy sons shall be with me.”
Luke xxiii. 43: “Verily I say unto thee. To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.”
Phil. i. 21, 23: “To live is Christ, and to die is gain. ... I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.”
2 Cor. V. 6-9: “Knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord;... willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” (Note Greek used three times in this passage — en-homed and ex-homed.)
Matt. xvii. 3; Luke ix. 30: “There appeared unto them Moses and Elias” (Moses having died and been buried, but equally and consciously alive with Elijah, who had been translated).
1 Pet. iii. 18-20. Whether this means that Christ in person visiting Hades there preached, or in the person of Noah by the Spirit preached before the Flood — the “spirits” are represented as “in prison” in Hades.
Rev. vi. 9, 11: “I saw under the altar the souls of the slain,” etc.
Rev. xiv. 13: “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord — for they rest from their labours (vexatious toils); and their works (activities) accompany them” (literally), to their new abode.
Other passages confirm this view.
For example, Luke xx. 38. Christ replying to the Sadducees, who denied not only any resurrection, but any existence of sjoirit apart from body: “God is not a God of the dead, but of the living:
Two Terminal Events for all (even the dead, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) live unto Him.”
Heb. ix. 27, 28: “As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sin of many: and a second time, apart from sin, shall He appear, to those awaiting Him, unto salvation.”
The reference is to the disappearance of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement, after the Sacrifice at the altar — entering the veiled Holiest of All, with blood; and afterward reappearing in robes of glory and beauty — the people in the interval standing without, awaiting his reappearance.
Two events are plainly indicated as termini, with an interval between of expectation and anticipation.
The two events are Death and Christ’s Coming: the interval, the intermediate state, both saints and sinners alike awaiting His Advent — the one for reward, the other for retribution and judgment.
With the believer Death is the end of mortal life, but the beginning of a truer life beyond. It is not destructive, but constructive. Nothing is lost. Whatever was worth anything here is retained and enlarged. Death is not the scuttling and sinking
of a riclily-laden argosy in mid-ocean, but its arrival at port. Hope does not die — Dum ex-spiro spero. In fact, the New Testament banishes the word Death from its vocabulary after Christ’s Resurrection, and other words take its place — sleep, departure, putting off’ this tabernacle, etc. Once, indeed, the word “die” occurs, of saints, but it is “die in the Lord.”
The interval is one both of expectation and anticipation of the full salvation which awaits the final Redemption. The disembodied Spirit is with Christ and other saints, blessed with the joys of Paradise and looking forward to the full and final manifestation of the Sons of God. When He is thus manifested, their life, now in hiding with Christ in God, shall be also — the spirit united with the body of glory, and together ushered into a perfect abode.
On the other hand, to the unbeliever Death is the end of human life, and destructive. All that is desirable in this world is left behind for ever. Hope dies — Dum s-piro spero — and despair settles down upon the soul. The interval is again one of expectation and anticipation — but only of judgment. There is a foretaste of judgment as well as a fearful
Progress — Downward or Upward 81
looking for of fiery indignation — the accusation of conscience, the companionship of other lost souls and of evil spirits also awaiting judgment. Thus, beyond death is a second death, and beyond that no life. And at Christ’s reappearing He shall “take vengeance on them that know not God,” and retribution will be awfully complete.
Thus, in each case there is progress downward or upward. According as we have begun in this life, there is no essential change in character or condition; even judgment is begun in this life (Eph. vi. 8; Col. iii. 25). Whatever good or wrong any man doeth, that same shall he receive of the Lord, whether bond or free, and there is no respect of persons.
II. Our Lord’s Return.
The Bible is a wonderful book, and in few respects more worthy of study than in the collocation or conjunction of certain things — the way in which different teachings are brought together in its pages. In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles (vers. 8, 11), with only two verses between, we have the last message of our Lord
before His ascension, and the first message after His ascension; “Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld. He was taken up.” Then, in close conjunction with this last message of the ascending Lord, came the first message succeeding the ascension: “This same Jesus
which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heavenT
Do these two great messages stand there, thus linked together, by accident? What is the great mission of the Church in this whole gospel age? To bear witness to Him even to the uttermost parts of the earth. What is the great coming event toward which the whole Church and world and creation move? The world unconsciously, the Church half-consciously, and the inanimate creation unknowingly, all march on steadily toward one goal: the return of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven to earth.
Two grand features characterise this Coming —
The Second Coming Personal
ITS IMMINENCE AND ITS EMINENCE.
1. Its imminence. Certainty as to the fact and uncertainty as to the time — these constitute imminence. Nothing is more certain than that Jesus Christ will return personally, will so come in like manner as He was seen to go into heaven. It was significant that as He was seen to go His hands were outstretched in benediction. When He comes they will still be outstretched in benediction as when He left, for He will come to complete His benediction, to bestow full blessings on His people. He will come visibly, personally, really — as He went; only that He went wearing the robes of humiliation, but He will come in robes of glory and beauty.
2. The eminence of this event is such that it overtops all events that ever took place from the foundation of the world. We have seen that one peculiarity about God’s gifts is that every new one includes all that went before, and adds something beside. The written Word was a great gift; but when He gave His blessed Son, He gave in Him the Word that had been written, together with the Word that could not be written, but was incarnate
—the fulfilment of all that was in prophecy, and the example of all that was in precept, the ‘personal blessing that had been anticipated in the literal blessing of the written Word. When God gave the Holy Spirit, He gave the Interpreter and Inspire!’ of the Word, and the Spirit that filled the Lord Jesus Christ and constituted Him what He was, the God - man, and who now testifies to Christ in such a way as to glorify Him, to make Him appear glorious in the eyes of men. So it was ‘ expedient,’ actually advantageous — better that the Lord Jesus should depart, and the Spirit come, because through Him we know Him now “not after the flesh,” but through spiritual apprehension, which is far greater than to know Him by the bodily senses. “Henceforth know we Him no more after the flesh” (2 Cor. V. 16). The apostle does not lament this, but glories in the fact of such knowledge by the Spirit, as being greater than any possible through the flesh.
the history op redemption.
As every gift includes everything that went before and adds something, so every new great
History op Redemption event in the history of God’s redeeming love crowns and overtops all that preceded. There are seven great stages in the history of redemption — 1. Creation; 2. Incarnation; 3. Transfiguration — the only occasion when Christ fully disclosed His glory; 4. His Passion, including Gethsemane and the Cross; 5. Resurrection,
Ascension, Session, a compound event treated as one; 6. Pentecost — the organisation of the Church as His body, and the filling of that mystical body with the Spirit who was the vital breath of His literal body. Only one great event is to follow — 7. the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with all that it involves. This last and crowning event completes and includes all the others.
1. It is the New Creation. All that is worth anything in the old creation is reproduced in the new — the paradise of God, the river of the water of life, the tree of life, the tabernacle of God with men; but, in addition, there shall be no more curse, such as fell on the original Eden.
2. As to the Incarnation, the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is the bringing down of God to abide in man permanently, as though the
whole body of the redeemed became a sort of incarnation of God — a body of redeemed humanity, indwelt by divinity.
3. It is the Transfiguration of the whole Church, even the bodies of saints being changed from bodies of humiliation into the likeness of His glorious body as seen on the Mount of Transfiguration. Disciples will then shine as the sun, for holy thoughts and emotions will then irradiate, with their glory, the bodies and even the celestial raiment of the saints.
CRUCIFIXION OF THE SELF-LIFE.
4. The Lord’s coming will crown and fulfil His
Passion in His Church’s perfection. What was the central thought of Christ’s Passion but the crucifixion of the self-life. His will given up to the will of the Father, and His own life freely sacrificed for the salvation of men? What is the Second Coming of Christ but the entire and final death of the self-life to His whole body, with the merging of the will of all God’s children into His will? “Thy name be hallowed. Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done.” We should not dis-Nearness of Christ’s Advent 87
connect the following phrase from all the three preceding petitions: it belongs equally to all and not to the last only. It qualifies them all. “As in heaven, so on earth, Thy name be hallowed. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done”; Thy name universally hallowed. Thy kingdom universally regnant. Thy will universally done.
5. As to His Resurrection, what is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ but the absolute blossoming out into resurrection life of the whole body of the redeemed, who shall die no more, and who shall sit with Christ on His throne?
6. So, as to Pentecost, the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ will be the absolute possession by the whole body of the Holy Spirit, in absolute and unrestricted fulness.
Thus the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ takes in all that preceded, crowns all, fulfils all, brings all typical suggestions to absolute and complete realisation.
As already intimated, this last event in the series adds something peculiarly its own. In God’s Word, the Second Advent introduces, apart from the fulfilment of these typical forecasts, at least Ten great developments, which we
indicate, without attempting to fix their chronological order and sequence:
1. First Resurrection — of the elect dead. 1 Cor. XV. 23; 1 Thess. iv. 15-18; Rev. xx. 4-6.
2. Destruction of Man of Sin — Antichrist. 2 Thess. ii. 7-10; Dan. vii. 10, 11.
3. Conversion of Jewish nation. Rom. xi. 25- 32; Isa. lix. 20.
4. Setting up of Messiah’s kingdom, and Fall of Babylon. Dan. ii. 34, 35; Rev. xix. 11-16.
5. Judgment-seat of Christ, and awards to saints. 1 Cor. iii. 13-15, iv. 5; 2 Cor. v. 10.
6. Millennial reign of Christ with the saints. Rev. XX. 4; Dan. vii. 9, 22, 27.
7. General Resurrection and Last Judgment. John V. 28, 29; Rev. xx. 11-15.
8. Destruction of the Devil, Death, and Hades. 1 Cor. XV. 26; Rev. xx. 10, 14, 15.
9. Consummation of Redemption, and perfection of saints. 1 Pet. i. 3-7; Jude 24, 25.
10. The End — Delivering up the kingdom to God, the Father. 1 Cor. xv. 24.
Lines op Computation
NEARNESS OF THE SECOND ADVENT.
The Second Coming of our Lord, which is thus an eminent event, is always imminent, and may be very much nearer than most of us think. Some of the most devout students of Scripture have said that it would not at all be surprising if some saints, now living, should never pass through the experience of death, but be alive and remain at His coming. There are about twenty different lines of computation, based on scriptural hints, all of which — as many close students of prophecy think — converge between the years 1910 and 1940.
When Daniel by the books understood that the years were drawing nigh when the captivity should end, he began fasting and praying before God, and had a revelation which he did not expect, of how a greater period of four hundred and ninety years — seventy times seven — lay ahead; and how, within that period, lay two great events, so significant that they include the whole history of redemption. Four hundred and eighty-three years of this four hundred and ninety were specially separated from the rest, as marking the time of the first advent; and, to a day, as Sir Robert Anderson
has shown in his book, Daniel in the Critics’ Den, when the four hundred and eighty-three years had expired, Christ rode into Jerusalem, the only time when He was ever saluted as Prince of the house of David.
Seven years remain beyond that four hundred and eighty-three, and in the inspired record all history stops until these final events, that are the consummation of both prophecy and history, become real. Do not tell me that the Bible is not the Word of God. In everything it is unique and sublime. God has His own mathematics. His own lexicon. His own calendar, His own terminology, His own ways of reckoning time. His own methods of making history. He drops out whole years when His people are not in faithful relations to Him, and does not count them in His prophetic periods. He drops out centuries because they have nothing special to do with the onward progress of His elect kingdom: that is to say, they are Gentile Times: they are not concerned with the history of Israel, which is the nucleus of the history of the Jcingdom. *
The Two Advents
NOT A CIRCLE, BUT AN ELLIPSE.
With regard to the eminence of this event, the Lord’s Coming, we often mistakenly talk of Christianity as a circle whose one centre is the Incarnation — a misleading conception. Christianity is rather an ellipse, with two foci, and these focal centres are the Incarnation and the Second Coming — the two Advents. Every part and point in this great circumference of Christianity and redemption has thus a co-ordinate relation to both of these two events. Between the creation and the first of these foci there is one object, an altar, pointing backward to the Fall and forward to the first coming of the Lord. Between the two foci there is one object, the Lord’s Table, pointing back to His death and forward to His Second Coming. Between the Second Coming and the End there is one object, a throne, looking back to its erection at His Second Advent and forward to the merging; of the throne of the Son into the throne of the Father. What a shame to a Christian disciple to know practically nothing about the Second Coming! to treat it with scornful contempt, or even with indiflerence! Not to understand the relation of
such events as these to the great all - inclusive circumference of redemption!
Spirit, soul, body — all are, at His Advent, to be brought into conditions of perfection. But Heavenly Perfection is something surpassing all our present experiences and conceptions. Perfection in this life, and in the earthly sphere, always means, in the New Testament, correspondence to a pattern set before us. The relative perfection of Christian character is therefore correspondence to the pattern of Christian character: the perfection of benevolence is conformity to the disinterested Love of God. But the perfection of heaven is more than this: it is actual approximation to God’s own perfection in ever - increasing resemblance. However a disciple might be filled with God to-day, his capacity is so small that he can take in but little; but the capacity which is now like that of a little flower that overflows with a single dewdrop, shall eternally increase until it becomes like an ocean. Growth does not stop when the Lord comes, and the believer is clothed with the resurrection body: growth wdll never stop. The redeemed and glorified saint will increase in capacity until what he knows of God “Restitution” will be infinitely greater than now, his power to understand and comprehend Him being perpetually expanding and enlarging. How true it is, that “we know not what we shall be!”
“THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS.”
In Acts iii. 20, 21, there is another hint of what the Lord’s Coming means as the pre-eminent event of Redemption history. “Restitution” is a word, used only in this place, and scarcely translatable. It means full re-estahlishment, and includes all things spoken by all the prophets through all the ages of human history. It thus represents the absolute consummation of all things contemplated in the Redemptive plan of God.
In Romans v. 9-20, the phrase “much more” occurs five times (in vers. 9, 10, 15, 17, 20), and there may be observed a regular progress of truth in the use of this phrase: 1. We are n.o’^ justified, but “much more,” we are kept safe from condemnation. 2. We are now reconciled, but “much more,” we are kept from alienation and made sons. 3. We are not only saved, but “much more,” grace abounds in our salvation; so that
not only are all sins of the deliberate offender forgiven, but the sinful nature of those who died before they had sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, is cleansed in the blood of Christ, so that those who are physically, mentally, or morally irresponsible pass into heaven fitted for its joys. Grace is often called an attribute of God, but His attributes are the necessary, inherent characteristics of His nature. Grace is not therefore an attribute. God is bound to be truthful, righteous, just, holy, but He is not bound to be gracious. Grace is therefore a voluntary exercise of the attribute of love, and that is the point on which this third “much more” turns — that God has not dealt with us simply in truth, or justice, but He has been gracious — what no attribute of His nature compelled Him to be. If it were debt, it would be no more grace. 4. The next “much more” turns on this, that the abundance of that grace confers not only deliverance from death, but reigning in life — eternal life.
5. The last “much more” is all-inclusive. Sin reigned over us unto death, but we are in Christ to reign over sin and over death. We are not only forgiven, and cleansed, and reconciled, and
The True Jacob’s Ladder 95
put into God’s family, but “much more,” we are made sons and heirs, and more than heirs, eosovereigns with Jesus Christ. This “crown of glory” we cannot understand till He comes. This final “much more,” which is greater than all the others, suggests that you and I, who were slaves of sin, have not only been lifted up out of the horrible pit and miry clay, and had our feet set upon the rock; but that our hearts have been so cleansed that we have been made partakers of the divine image; and, by the grace of God, we shall mount to a heavenly height, and sit down with Jesus Christ upon His throne, as He overcame, and is set down with His Father on His throne.
Jacob’s ladder.
Here is the true Jacob’s Ladder, reaching from earth to heaven. Christ came down that ladder from heaven to earth to bring God down to man; and in Christ redeemed man goes up on that ladder from earth to heaven — and thus man is brought up to God!
There are four levels in the first two chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews — ( 1 ) the level of God; (2) the level of angels; (3) the level of man; and
(4) the level of demons. Man was originally on the terrestrial level, and was made to have dominion over all that is on the earth. Satan came up from the infernal level, and dragged man down to his own level. But in Christ redeemed humanity rises
FROM THE LOWEST LEVEL TO THE HIGHEST.
The problem in the divine mind was how to redeem man. The race had fallen in its first representative. Could it rise in another? If any other and sinless man had been permitted to undertake the work Adam had failed in, he might have been overtaken by similar temptation. If an angel had been permitted to become man, and so identify himself with the human race, Satan might have successfully tempted this angelic man, and the race have been worse off than ever. There was only one being who could solve the problem. The Son of God condescended to become the Second Man for the sake of contesting the sovereignty of the world with Satan; and so, overcoming Satan in our behalf and as our representative, and regaining man’s lost sovereignty over creation, make us to share His sceptre.
The Mystery op Grace But the triumph of the God-man brings to us much, more than man lost in the fall. If a man could have redeemed men, all he could have done would have been to lift them to his own terrestrial level. If an angel could have redeemed men, all he could have done would have been to lift them to an angelic level. But, so far as the Son of God became wedded to man, man became wedded to the Son of God, and so identity was established; and when He went back to His own level He inevitably lifted redeemed humanity with Him, not only from the infernal and terrestrial levels, but past the angelic, up to His own — the divine.
This is found fully brought out only in these two opening chapters in Hebrews. In the first chapter are the seven marks of His divinity, and in the second, the seven marks of His humanity. He so closely united Himself with humanity that humanity must be equally united to Him. So, as He became the ladder for God to come down to men. He also became the ladder for men to go up to God. This is the great much more — the wonderful ‘ mystery ’ of surpassing, infinite, eternal grace, that never can be fully understood, even when we enter into
the fulness of final blessing.
“the blessed hope.”
Death is not the objective point of the Christian, but the Lord’s coming. Our hymns do not touch always a high level —
“Fight on, my soul, till death
Shall bring thee to thy God,’^
The blessed hope is that we shall yet see Jesus in the flesh, and never die. Death, put it the best way you will, is the curse, the enemy. “The last enemy, death, shall be destroyed.” Death is the penalty of sin. Other penalties are removed, abolished, in Christ’s Death and Resurrection; but this remains, until the whole creation that groans and travails, together with man, enters, with him, into its redeemed state (Rom. viii. 19-23). We must therefore — as to the abolition of death — wait for this consummation; and “what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God!” Think of the lives we are living! think of the lack of holy witness! think of the prayerlessness and neglect of the Christless world! Think of all these and other inconsistencies, and how they witness against us before God and before men!
Here — There After all that God has revealed about the Future of the believer, there still remains a vast realm of unexplored and inscrutable mystery. But even the mystery is uplifting, for it is the mystery of glory, indescribable and unutterable. There every doubt, difficulty, and perplexity will be solved. As Dr. Holmes used to say, an abridged history of two worlds may be found in a thin partition line, with an interrogation point below and an exclamation point above.
!
The thinnest possible dividing line between. Questionings below, answers above; here doubts, there certainties.
Our future is God’s ‘present. He “declares the end from the beginning.” He is Jehovah, and Jehovah embraces the three tenses of the verb “to be” — I am, I was, I shall be. The great name announced to Moses was “I am.” One of the great proofs of our Lord’s divinity was that He used the divine “I am” — “Before Abraham was, I am.” What does this imply? That God sees you to-day not as you are now, but as you will he. There may be a cripple
who is suffering all the effects of the criminal practices and debauched lives of parents, but who is a child of God. There is to our eyes nothing beautiful in his appearance, but, as God looks on him, He sees him already beautiful, transfigured, wearing garments of glory and beauty, just as we shall see him in the infinite future, with capacities to understand God infinitely greater than the greatest capacity of the greatest living saint to-day. Do not you see how sure this fact that our future is God’s present already makes that future? It is even now with Him an accomplished fact. We struggle and stumble, but He sees us ‘past the struggling and stumbling, with all the infirmities and inconsistencies left behind and the waves and the storms under our feet.
BETTER THAN BEING AN ANGEL,
He sees us in the eternal glory, nearer to Him than the angels. No angel can say, “I am a son of God; by grace I am a member of the Lord Jesus Christ, of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” The angels stand
His Return 101
round about the saints. I do not “want to be an angel.” It is better to be a saint. God has a greater future for saints, and even the angels only minister to them, and may envy them the glory and grandeur of that future.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, likewise, already sees His future, as present; He therefore already “sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied.” There is no uncertainty in regard to the future of the salvation He wrought out for us, or of the final prevalence of His kingdom. All this means that we should live in the daily expectation of our “future tense” — of His Return — with a daily looking up, not down — forward, not backward — outward, not inward; seeking His glory and devoting ourselves to the bringing of this fallen world to His pierced feet, that multitudes more may leave the awful gloom and darkness of the past, for the peace and joy of the present, and the exaltation and glory of the future!
“Ye turned to God from idols” — The Past.
“To serve the living and true God” — The Present.
“And to wait for His Son from heaven” — The Future.
102 The Future Tense
The study of this subject suggests to the writer
NEW ‘GLORY SONG.’
I.
Jesus, what love and compassion were Thine,
When Thou didst heavenly glory resign.
Bearing the cross for the guilt that was mine, Purchasing Pardon and Sonship for me!
Chorus.
Crucified, glorified Saviour and King,
How shall I sing praises to Thee?
Since by Thy blood Thou hast brought me to God,
I will give glory, all glory to Thee.
II.
Once I was helpless and dead in my sin.
But Thou didst in me a new life begin.
Breathing Thine own Holy Spirit within,
Hallowing God’s holy temple in me!
Chorus.
III.
When, amid dartness and death of the race.
Thou wouldst send heralds to publish Thy grace. Passing by angels, Thou didst in their place Call to this service a sinner like me!
Chorus.
IV.
When all temptations and trials are past.
And in Thy likeness I stand, at the last,
Down at Thy feet. Lord, my crown I will cast: All is of grace — there’s no glory to me!
Chorus.