O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go / George Matheson / Albert L. Peace
O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
Speak, Lord, for servant is listening. I read I Corinthians 15 (select verses):
The Resurrection of Christ
1 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born…
The Resurrection of the Dead
12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive…
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
My Understanding: As I read through this passage of scripture, I could not help but notice the parallels between the words to this song and the words in this passage of scripture. The gospel is presented clearly in this way –
Which you have received
In the second stanza of this song it says, “O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to Thee.” I noticed that the word “Joy” was capitalized, so this was not speaking merely of the word joy, as in “happy,” but this was speaking of the person of Jesus Christ, who is our joy, hope and crown. He is the one who seeks us. The Bible tells us in I John 4:10: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” We are able to come to Jesus Christ and to receive him as Lord and Savior because he first loved us and he sought us. He seeks us “through pain” – Romans 5:8 says “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The pain of sin is what separates us from God, so Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that we could go free from the penalty and control of sin over our lives. So, when we receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior by repenting of our sin and by making him our Lord, no longer sin controlling our lives, Jesus gives us the victory over the sting of death, which is sin. As a heart response, thus, to what he did for us in dying for our sins so that we can go free, we cannot close our hearts to Him.
Upon which you have taken your stand
The song begins, “O Love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee; I give Thee back the life I owe.” The Love that will not let us go is Jesus Christ. He is love and he loves us, and because he loves us so much he will keep after us, he will comfort us, and he will encourage us, etc. Because of the assurance of his love and his saving grace, we can rest our weary souls in Him. I find that very reassuring, as often this body of mine has times of weariness, and so does my soul. We all have those times in our lives when we are just plain tired, discouraged, or sad. Whatever we are going through, as believers in Jesus Christ, as long as we are walking in fellowship with Jesus and are not living to gratify the desires of the flesh, we can rest our souls in him. I find great comfort in that.
Then, the song says, “I give Thee back the life I owe.” We owe Jesus everything because of what he did for us. Taking a stand for Jesus is not just taking a doctrinal position, but it means to give him everything about our lives – our time, resources, thoughts, actions, words, the things that we do, read, watch, our relationships, etc. It means to be crucified with Christ so that we no longer live but Christ lives within us and the life we now live, we live by faith instead of by the flesh or self-will (See Gal. 2:20). Romans 12:1-2 tells us that we should offer our bodies as living sacrifices unto God and that we should not be conformed to the pattern of the world, but we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds. So, to take a stand for Jesus Christ means to place our absolute trust in him and to give him our entire being, holding nothing back.
By which you were saved IF you hold firmly to the word
The song says, “O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from Thee.” When we read through scripture and we study God’s word, we will find this word “IF” coming up from time to time in relation to the subject of our salvation. So many people see salvation as wrapped up in a prayer they prayed at an altar that guarantees them their eternal inheritance, and yet they don’t see salvation as a continuous process in their lives, day by day, where they continually reckon themselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Yet, I cannot get away from this idea that to truly have salvation means that we hold firmly to the word of God to the end, established and firm, not moved, and that we continue and remain in our faith, etc. [See Rom. 11:17-24; Col. 1:21-23; Heb. 3:14-15; II Pet. 1:5-11; and I John 2:24-25]. The Bible is clear that we are saved, we are being saved and we will be saved when Jesus returns. It is a continuous, on-going process of faith, of remaining in Christ, and of standing firm in our faith; not moved from the gospel, etc.
Christ died for your sins
Christ died for our sins so that we could go free from the penalty and the control of sin over our lives. The song said, “I lay in dust life’s glory dead.” Glory means “fame, admiration and honor that is given to somebody; praise; beauty; success; stardom,” etc. (Encarta). To lay something in dust and to lay it there as something that is dead means that you have buried it. So, this is talking about us being crucified with Christ so that we no longer live and this is speaking about us putting to death all the praise or success or fame that this world has to offer us. Jesus left the glory of heaven to come down to earth and to take upon himself the flesh of man (yet without sin) and then to die on a cross and take upon himself all the sins of the world so that we don’t have to sin any longer. So, when we come to Jesus Christ and we believe in him as Lord and Savior, it means that we, too, lay our lives down and we consider our own human glory as dead so that we can live for the praise of God’s glory, and we do not take our own glory up again.
Christ rose from the dead
Jesus Christ did not remain in the grave. He rose again, so that we have a living Lord, our Savior, our Messiah, and our Intercessor. He rose again so that he could conquer hell, Satan, death and sin so that we could go free. He then sent the Holy Spirit to indwell the lives of believers in Jesus – God within us – and so that we could be raised to newness of life in Jesus Christ, no longer living to please the flesh, and to have eternal life. The song concluded with, “Life that shall endless be.” This is speaking of eternal life with Jesus because we have accepted the cross of Christ into our lives, we have laid in the dust our own life’s glory (praise of man), we have given our Lord everything about our lives, we have not withheld our hearts from him, we have not sought to flee from the cross in our lives, and we have continued in our faith, holding firmly, and we have remained in Christ. Not one of us is going to do this perfectly and we are not going to be able to do it from our own flesh. It is Christ working in us and through us to accomplish his own purposes in our lives that gives us what we need to live godly lives. We just need to surrender to Jesus, and we need to yield control of our lives to Jesus instead of trying to run them ourselves.
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