"EMMANUEL, or Titles of Christ" by Octavius Winslow

"Christ, the Wonderful"

"His name shall be called Wonderful."  Isaiah 9:6.

In the universe, where all is wonderful, itself the most wonderful of all, there yet exists a wonder which eclipses all. And when this beautiful world- beautiful still, though marred by sorrow and tainted by sin- shall have been dissolved in the fires of the last day, and its grandeur, glory, and history shall have become a thing of yesterday, this wonder will remain the object of admiring and adoring love, everlasting as eternity. Ask you who this Wonder is? It is the Son of God- Jesus, the Savior of men! "His name shall be Called wonderful." If, my reader, you have carefully and devoutly studied His name Emmanuel, God with us, you will be prepared for the exposition of a name which will unfold new wonders to our admiring and adoring souls at each step in the progress of our study.

God has implanted in the human heart a love of the wonderful. And not only has He inspired the sentiment, but in countless forms He has met it. He has clothed the universe with the wonderful. Turn the eye where we may, it lights upon some object of wonder, which, but for the blinding and stupifying power of sin, would awaken the exclamation from every lip, "How great is His beauty! how great is His power!" In sending His beloved Son into the world, in bestowing upon man His unspeakable gift, God has met the sentiment of wonder in man in a way- we say it with reverence-  He Himself could not surpass. The Incarnation of God is the wonder of the universe. All other demonstrations of God's power and wisdom, goodness and glory, pale before the splendor of this marvellous event. In view of this profound stoop of Deity, this unique and costly exhibition of God's love to man, could our Savior wear a title more expressive or more appropriate than this- "His name shall be called wonderful"? We are about to attempt an unfolding in some faint measure of this wonder of wonders. To see it spiritually, to experience it savingly, is of more worth to us than to gaze upon and understand the greatest wonders in the material universe. What if the arcade of all natural and scientific marvel were opened to us, and we could understand all mysteries and all knowledge and all tongues, and yet saw nothing to awaken our astonishment in God's greatest wonder, nothing to inspire our admiration in God's greatest beauty, nothing to incite our love in God's most precious gift- even Him whose name is Wonderful– oh! it had been better for us to have lived and died with the idiot's stare and the madman's frenzy! But, so long as we remain rational and responsible, to see no beauty or loveliness or love in the Lord Jesus, and to die without one life-look at the Crucified One, is of all appalling events the most appalling. May the Holy Spirit of truth unveil to our minds the hidden wonders of the Son of God, while we attempt to study the deep significance of this His name.

In the first place, HIS ABSOLUTE DEITY justifies the name thus applied to Him by the Holy Spirit. God is wonderful, the most wonderful being in the universe, "Who alone does wondrous things." What low conceptions do men in general form of God! What imperfect thoughts of His greatness! To what may we trace man's idolatry of man? – to his wrong thoughts of God. To what may we attribute man's light views of sin? – to his inadequate view of God's holiness. In a word, wrong and bedwarfed views of God lie at the root of all idolatry, disobedience, and sin. In proportion as the greatness of God unfolds to us, everything else becomes great. In the light of His great holiness, we see the great guilt of sin. In view of His great power, we see the great sin of unbelief. Low views of His law, and superficial views of sin, and imperfect feelings of trust, are all traceable to the low thoughts we have of God.

But our low sense of God cannot really affect His greatness. He is great and glorious, essentially and unchangeably so, whatever men's thoughts of Him may be. At best we know but little of God, so infinitely great is He. He reminded His servant that He could see only His "back parts," that is, parts or degrees of what He was; the whole of God no mortal possibly knowing." Can you by searching find out God? Can you find out the Almighty to perfection?" Impossible!
"The more of wonderful
In Him, the more we should assent.
Could we conceive Him, God He could not be;
Or, He not God, or we could not be men."

What a view of our Lord Jesus does this present to the believing mind! All this divine glory, all this unsearchable greatness, belongs essentially to Him, and all justify His name as "Wonderful." When the angel of the covenant appeared to Manoah, Manoah asked Him, "What is Your name? " The angel of the Lord said unto Him, "Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful." It is the same word in the original which our translators have rendered in Isaiah, "Wonderful;" thus identifying the "Angel of the Lord" who appeared so wondrously to Manoah, with Him of whom the evangelical prophet wrote, "His name shall be called wonderful." Oh, how sad the spectacle of men calling themselves Christians, yet, while thus wearing outwardly that honored name, practically denying it by their refusal of divine honor to Christ! It has ever been one of the master efforts of Satan to rob our Lord of His Divinity. Among the many crowns He wears, this is the crown of all; and to pluck it from His kingly head, and thus degrade Him to the level of a mere creature, has been one of the earliest and latest efforts of the 'great serpent, the devil.' What is this but the conflict predicted in Eden- "He, (the seed of the woman, that is Christ,) shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." Satan, we are told, believes and trembles. Well does he know that the foundation-stone of the whole fabric of man's salvation is the Deity that wrought it. Well is he assured that none but God could save. And although there is not a solitary instance on record, in the life of our Lord, of Satan's denial of His essential Deity, (on the contrary, several in which Satan acknowledged it,) yet it has ever been his master effort to lead men to the commission of a crime of which it would seem as if he himself were guiltless- the crime of rejecting the Godhead, and thus denouncing the personal glory of the Son of God! I would exhort you, my reader, to listen to no reasoning, and to harbor no doubt whatever, tending to shake your faith in this fundamental truth of Christianity, this foundation stone of your salvation. In proportion to the strength of your faith in the essential Deity of the Savior, will be the firmness and stability of your hope, resting on the blood that, from its divine virtue, "cleanses from all sin," and on the righteousness that, because it is the "righteousness of God," justifies from all things.

Christ is Wonderful in THE CONSTITUTION OF HIS PERSON, AS GOD AND MAN UNITED. Wonderful that the Son of God should take upon Himself our nature, that He should be "made flesh," and dwell as man among men. The expression is a strong one, "made flesh." It implies His pre-existent nature, and His assumption of one inferior to His own. He was not always flesh. He was 'made flesh' when He was 'born of a woman,' and 'made under the law.' Let it be borne in mind that our Lord's wondrous stoop was not the exchange of one finite nature for another. It was not a mere lowering of Himself in the scale of creation. It was not the finite taking an inferior position among finite beings. Far from this. It was Deity allying itself with humanity. It was the Godhead emptying, humbling itself, to a nature infinitely more beneath itself than the human is beneath the angelic. And what was the condition of the nature our Lord assumed? It was fallen, degraded, tainted, sunk in the lowest depths of sin and wretchedness and woe. And yet He stooped to it! And yet He assumed it! And what was most wonderful of all, He still remained "without sin" "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners! He wrapped the leprous garments of sin about Him, and yet "knew no sin!" He took upon Him our sins, bore them, suffered, died, and atoned for them, and yet He was sinless. Is not this wonderful? Sin made Him sorrowful, but could not make Him guilty. It touched Him, but could not taint Him. It made Him die, but could not make Him sin. Satan came to Him, tempted Him, probed Him, sifted Him as wheat, but, Christ tells us Himself, "found nothing in Him." Here, beloved reader, is our hope as poor, sinful, guilty, lost sinners. In Christ we have a holy Redeemer; in His atonement a sinless offering; in the Lamb of God a Victim "without spot or blemish;" in His sacrifice, a peace-offering for sin of a "sweet- smelling savor unto God" How full of encouragement and consolation is this truth to those who feel sin dwelling in them, tainting and destroying all they do- who see the need of confessing their very confessions, of weeping over their very tears, of renouncing their best and holiest doings as grounds of merit and acceptance with God, and of standing only and fully in Christ! Behold in faith a spotless Victim, a sinless offering, a pure sacrifice, an atonement, that cancels all your guilt, a righteousness that hides all your deformity. Be no more cast down because you find nothing but the defiling, defacing touch of sin and imperfection in your best and holiest and most lovely doings. Jesus presents Himself before God in your behalf, and God sees you only in Him. Jesus wraps around you, in exchange for the leprous garment of your sins, the white robe of His divine, unsullied righteousness, which presents you to God without spot or wrinkle; and God, thus beholding you only in the Son of His love, sees in you no perverseness, and traces in you no sin. Why, then, should you yield to a moment's despondency, or despair because of the indwelling sin that defiles the fountain, and because of the outward taint that mars the beauty of
all that you are, and of all that you do? Oh what a mercy that, when we go to God in prayer, in confession, in supplication, these poor trembling, unclean hands can repose upon the Head of a sinless Victim, and lift up a holy sacrifice, and present a sin-offering in which the holy, searching eye of God can see no sin. Here is a chain which fathoms the lowest depths of our sinfulness and unworthiness, and if taken hold of by faith, will uplift the desponding, despairing soul out of the horrible pit and the miry clay of its vileness, wretchedness, and woe, and place its feet upon the Rock, and plant a new song of salvation upon its tongue. Well does Jesus deserve the name of "Wonderful!"

But wonderful is THE UNION OF THESE TWO NATURES in our Lord. When God created man out of the dust of the earth, endowing him with intelligence, and arraying him with the beauty of holiness, there issued from His hands the masterpiece of creation, wisdom, goodness, and power. Angels must have gazed upon the glorious creature with astonishment and praise, receiving from that pure reflection of Deity new lessons of the character of God. But there remained a display of God's wisdom and praise, holiness and love, which should as far transcend this as the Infinite towered above the finite, as the Uncreated distanced the created. The union of the Infinite with the finite, of the Divine with the human, in the Person of Him whose name is "Wonderful," was that eclipsing display of Deity, before whose strange, marvellous manifestation and splendor, every other paled into insignificance. God is the greatest wonder in the universe. But that He should, in His essential and undiminished glory, dwell in that young man, that poor and despised man, often, perhaps, seen plying industriously the implements of the carpenter- for He was, as man, the son of a carpenter, and doubtless, as subject unto His father, aided him in his humble but honorable craft- oh, this must have been a wonder to those who recognized His Deity, yet saw with their bodily sense nothing but His poor
exterior! Yes, He was" God over all, blessed for evermore." The Deity, unimpaired, untouched, dwelt in that mysteriously constituted Person of our Lord. How wonderful the union! Never, except in the Old Testament anticipations of the Incarnation, which now and then threw a trembling beam upon those dark shadows, has so wonderful a spectacle been beheld. In Christ we see the union of Deity and humanity; of the Creator and the creature; of Omnipotence and weakness, of Majesty and lowliness; of wealth and poverty; of joy and sorrow. Yes, beloved, the Lord Jesus allied Himself to all that is human, to all that belongs essentially to your nature. Are you feeble? Christ was weak. Are you poor? Christ battled with poverty. Are you lowly? Christ was esteemed a root out of the dry ground. Are you tempted? Christ was set up as a target for Satan's fiery darts, and the archer sorely grieved Him, and shot at Him, and hated Him. Are you a child of sorrow? He
was a man of grief. Are you without means, friendless, solitary, homeless? All this was Jesus, and all this He was that He might show His wonderful union with His saints in all that belonged to them, that the Head might be one with the Body, and all the menrbers of that Body be conformed to Him their Head. Behold a continuous, never ceasing stream of sympathy from Jesus, with all His people, in all their individual and collective circumstances, meandering like a pure, silvery stream throughout this fallen world, reaching, penetrating, soothing the remotest and most obscure place of gloom and sorrow where dwells a sinner ransomed with His precious blood. Lose not sight of this wonderful union of Him who is the Wonderful. Keep firm hold of it. Other ties may weaken, other bonds be severed, other unions be dissolved, but this one never! Nor does it depend even upon your realization of its existence. Like the electric cable submerged in the deep ocean, it is there intact, though you see it not. Your peace, and comfort, and joy will be increased in proportion as you know it; but its existence depends, not upon your love or faith, faithfulness, or fruitfulness, but upon the immutable nature and unchangeable love of your Lord.

CHRIST IS WONDERFUL IN HIS WORK. The works of God are manifold, and all are perfect. But His great, His greatest, His master-work, is the salvation of His people. If before He has unveiled His whole Being; all His divine attributes are revealed, harmonized, and glorified in this wondrous scheme of saving sinners. Look at this work in its several parts. Wonderful was His perfect obedience to the law. Never before was that law so illustrated, honored, and magnified, as by the obedience of Christ, the Lawgiver. Had the whole human race through eternity kept perfectly every precept; their obedience had not shed such luster on the law as one act of our Lord's obedience did. Was it not wonderful to see Him who was above the law, made under it, who was the Lawgiver, become the law-fulfiller, that He might yield such an obedience–  the obedience of the righteous One- as would fully justify, and thus place in a state of righteousness all who should believe in Him! Thus we are "made the righteousness of God in Him."

Behold your present standing, believer in Christ! Turn your eye away from all your failures in obedience- the flaws and imperfections that mark your sincere endeavors to serve Christ and to glorify God- and see where your true acceptance is, even in the Beloved of the Father, "The Lord our righteousness." "Accepted in the Beloved," is the record that will raise you above all the fears and despondencies arising from your shortcomings and failures, and fill you with peace, and joy, and assurance.

Wonderful, too, is Christ in His death. This was the second part of His atoning work. Wonderful the spectacle of Essential Life condescending to die! To see Him who had given life to all living beings, and from whom at the very moment that He yielded up the spirit, a stream of vital power was flowing into every creature that had breath, now paling and stiffening in death! Oh, it was a sight of wonder to the universe! Never was a death attended by such wondrous results. It touched sin, and it was cleansed. It touched the curse, and it became a blessing. It touched itself, and it died. It touched the grave, and it yielded back its prisoner. It touched the gate of paradise, and the kingdom of heaven was opened to all believers. This was the "grain of wheat which fell into the ground and died," and which, in virtue of that death, brought forth much fruit. Oh, wonderful that Jesus should die that death for us, poor sinners, who, not He, deserved to die. Wonderful, that that one death should have given so perfect satisfaction to Divine justice as to have emancipated countless millions from its eternal punishment.

Penitent sinners! humble believers! that death was for you. For you the crimson blood, for you the dying agony, for you the expiring convulsion, for you the yielding up the spirit. Come and gather the sacred, precious fruit that grows upon the Cross of Calvary. Lift your believing hand, tremulous though it be, and pluck the bending clusters of pardon, and peace, and joy, and hope, and triumph. Jesus, the Wonderful, died for you, died in your stead, died that you might never die. Christ died for our sins; and accepting in faith this wondrous fact, you shall pass from death unto life, and never see death. Oh! the wonders that spring from this wonderful death of Jesus! Never shall we come to the end of them. All is peace with God now. Truly is Christ our spiritual Jonah. As the tempestuous sea became a perfect calm the moment the prophet was cast into its angry billows, so the moment our blessed Lord plunged into the sea of God's wrath, yielded Himself up to death, that wrath was appeased, and all was peace. And now that a most sure atonement has been made by His suffering and death for sinners, comfort flows into the troubled conscience, and all is peace between God and the believing soul. Tremble not, then, O believer, at the prospect of death. Christ will not allow the deepening shadows that drape the margin of the cold, dark river to hide Him from your view. He who died for you will meet you there; and taking your hand of faith in His hand of love, will gently lead you over, and all the shining ones that line the shore will welcome you on the other side.

Not less wonderful is Christ's resurrection. This was the headstone of the sacred edifice of our redemption. For this reason, after His resurrection, the apostles went forth preaching, not so much the fact of their Lord's death, as the fact of His resurrection. "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." Now, the death of Jesus quickens into life. The Victim becomes the Victor. Death itself dies. Jesus is risen indeed; and from that empty tomb goes forth throughout the Church on earth and in heaven, as with electric power, a new-born life, quickening all whom it touches with immortality. Behold, then, your grave, O Christian, radiant with the light of your Savior's wondrous resurrection! It is no longer cold, nor dark, nor lonely. Jesus has made it the resting place of those who sleep in Him. It is the sacred urn in which the Lord has deposited the ransomed dust of the ruined temple of the Spirit, there to repose beneath His watchful eye until the trump of the archangel shall bid it rise. "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of those who slept."

Oh, what comfort distills from this truth to the bereaved, who sorrow not as those who have no hope. The grave has closed over all that gave to life its charm, and to your heart its bliss. But oh, let faith, and hope, and love entwine in the garland you lay upon that cold breast; "for this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your stint? O grave, where is your victory? Thanks be unto God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.''

"Why do we mourn departed friends,
Or shake at death's alarm?
It is but the voice that Jesus sends,
To call them to His arms.
Why should we tremble to convey
Their bodies to the tomb?
There the dear flesh of Jesus lay,
And left a long perfume.
The grave of all His saints He blessed,
And softened every bed;
Where should the dying members rest,
But with the dying Head?
Thence He arose, ascending high,
And showed our feet the way;
Up to the Lord our flesh shall fly,
At the great rising day."

Christ is wonderful in His love. Shall I say it? this wonder seems to transcend and eclipse all others. It was the first and eternal link in the golden chain lowered from the highest throne in heaven down to the lowest depth of earth. That Christ should love us was the beginning of wonders. When we endeavor to comprehend that love, measure it, fathom it, scale it, and learn that it has heights we cannot reach, depths we cannot sound, lengths and breadths we cannot measure, we are prepared for every wonder belonging to and springing from Him who is Wonderful. Such love, such Infinite love, such Divine love, such everlasting love, such redeeming, dying love, is an Ocean whose eternal waves waft into our fallen world every wonder of God and of heaven.
"Let all the world fall down and know,
That none but God such love could show."

That Jesus should love such beings as we; that He should love us while we were yet sinners; that He should set his heart upon us, choose us, die for us, call us, and finally bring us to glory, knowing what we were, and what we should prove, Oh, this is wondrous love indeed! Plunge into this fathomless, boundless ocean of love, O you sin-burdened one! It will cover all your sins, it will efface all your guilt; it will flood over all your unworthiness; and, floating upon its golden waves, it will gently waft you to the shore of eternal blessedness. How often have you wondered how Christ should set His heart upon such an one as you! It was because His name was "Wonderful." And is it not a wonder that, amid all your fickleness, backslidings, cold, base returns, this love of God towards you has not chilled or changed? But do not rest, do not be satisfied with your present limited experience of Christ's wonderful love. It is so marvelously great, the Ocean is so fathomless, boundless, and inexhaustible, you may plunge, with all your infirmities, sin, and sorrow, into its fulness, exclaiming, "O the depth!" "The well is deep," drink abundantly, O beloved!

But, perhaps, to some, whose penitent, weeping eye, moistens these pages, the greatest wonder in Christ of all is, that He saves sinners- still greater, that He will save them! And truly this is wonderful; but it is just like Christ. It harmonizes with our highest conception of His character, and with every perfection of His being, and with every sentence of His Word. You have, perhaps, thought that it would be too Wonderful an act of grace on the part of Jesus to save you. That it would be one of the greatest moral wonders in a world so wonderful, that you should become a saint, a child of God, an heir of glory. Admit it. Yet, considering what Christ is, what He has undertaken to do, what He has done, and what He has promised to do, it would be a greater wonder if He did not save you. That it would be a marvellous manifestation of His grace to save you, I acknowledge; but this is no argument against, but rather for your salvation. Jesus deals with wonders. He has enriched the universe with the wonders of nature- the world teems with the wonders of His providence, and the Church is illustrious with the wonders of His grace. Thus, the very greatness of your salvation is an argument for its accomplishment.  Because it would be a wonderful, marvellous display of electing love and sovereign mercy, that Christ should convert you by His grace, change you by His regenerating Spirit from a rebel to a child, from an heir of hell to an heir of heaven– therefore you have every encouragement to hope in Christ's salvation. Thus, your case is met by the very name the Savior bears. Faith, however weak, and hope, however faint, and love, however feeble, may expect a present salvation in Christ. So wonderful is His love to sinners, so wonderful the freeness of His grace, so wonderful the boundlessness of His power, so wonderful the cases of conversion which the history of His grace records, you have every encouragement and warrant to cast yourself upon the Lord Jesus. Dreadful as may have been your rebellion against God, dreadful your life of sin, dreadful the lengths to which in iniquity, and crime, and resistance of the Savior you have gone; yet, if the Holy Spirit has now convinced you of sin, laying you in the dust, humbled, penitent, and heart-broken, yet more wonderful is the efficacy of Christ's blood, the greatness of His love, the freeness of His grace, and the illimitable power to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him.

Hesitate not, then, O penitent, to approach the Savior! He never rejected one true penitent- He will not reject you. The only suitor that He was ever known to refuse is the man who seeks to purchase, by His own merits, rather than receive it as an act of free grace, the salvation that cost Him His heart's life-blood. Come with an empty hand, come without a plea springing from yourself- come sincerely, unworthy as you are, and you shall read His name, "Wonderful," in a light you never read before.

How wonderful, too, is Christ's sympathy and compassion. Wonderful that, from One so divine as He- clothed with all the attributes, and performing all the works of Deity- there should flow such a stream of human feeling; that, He should be so Divine to help, yet so human to support; so God-like to deliver, yet so man-like to sympathize. There, then, let us take our griefs, and woes, and sufferings. So wonderful is His sympathy, He will bow down His ear to your faintest whisper, will enter into your deepest sorrow, will heed your smallest need.

Yes, all that belongs to Christ is wonderful. Wonderful is the grace that He incessantly and immeasurably metes out to His people. Wonderful is the intercessory work He is carrying on in heaven on their behalf. Wonderful His knowledge of His people, their names, and their needs, so that not one, the poorest and most obscure of the flock, escapes His eye or fails of His love.

Wonderful will He appear in His second coming! O the wonders of that day! When the trump shall sound, and the graves will open, and the sea give up its dead, and the heavens will be rolled up as a scroll, and the earth will melt with fervent heat, and all, yes, all, shall stand around the judgment seat! Reader, are you anticipating that event! Are you prepared for its solemn issues? Are you living with death, eternity, and judgment before you? Lose not a moment in determining these questions. Make sure work for eternity by flying immediately to Christ. His name is "Wonderful," and wonderful is His grace and love to poor sinners.

But how fearful must be the final condition of those who prefer sin and self, lusts and pleasures, the creature and the world, to this wonderful Christ. The final, indescribable and eternal sufferings of the lost will be in proportion to their rejection of this wonderful Savior. Nothing can either keep you out or mitigate the torments of hell, if you die in your present persistent course of sin against God and your own soul. Hell is astonishing! Astonishing that it should exist- astonishing that it should be peopled by such countless souls- astonishing that its worm never dies nor its fires ever extinguished- astonishing that it should be forever and ever! But the righteousness of God provides it, the justice of God demands it, the immortality of God perpetuates it, and are all astonishing; and thus the appalling wonder involved in the existence and intensity and eternity of future punishment finds its true and solemn solution. Oh risk not, I implore you, the precious, the undying well-being of your soul! Think what it must be to be lost! Forever lost! Do not be carried away by the modern heresy that denies the eternity of future punishment, and do not be deceived by the equally false notion of the eternal unconsciousness of the soul. Both ideas are contradicted by the Word of God, which, in a matter of such infinite importance to you, must be your sole guide. Go to Jesus, sit at His feet, learn of Him, believe in Him, embrace Him, and you are saved!

Live preparedly for, and in daily anticipation of, the full and glorified vision of this wonderful Savior, when we shall see Him as He is, be completely like, and forever with Him. This vision of glory constantly floating before the eye of your faith, will tend to draw off your thoughts, affections, and desires from this poor world; dim its luster, weaken its attraction, and deaden its power. We become worldly, as we have much to do with the world; we grow heavenly, as we have much to do with heaven. Think that, in one hour, yes, in one moment of time, you may leave all your wealth, and learning, and honors, and creature loves, and find yourself a disembodied spirit rushing through space, past suns and moons and stars- where? Ah! where? Bound for heaven or for hell! Borne by angels to the one, or dragged by demons to the other! But if you believe in the Savior, and have seen the wonders of His person, grace, and love; if you are trusting only in His blood and righteousness for salvation, and are living and longing for His appearing, then soon, oh, how soon! the curtain will be drawn, and you shall see Jesus in all His unveiled wonder! Oh, what wonders await our astonished view! Could we realize this fact more, how should we rise superior to present trial and sorrow, suffering and loss; and, soaring upon the wing of faith and hope, be more with Him we love within the veil. How should we pray for holiness, pant for holiness, strive for holiness, knowing that, without holiness no man shall see the Lord! Oh, let us keep fast by the cross, sheltered close by the Savior's side, washing daily in His blood, confessing Him before the world for the Lord living, and unto the Lord dying.

"Jesus, Lord, I lie before You,
Low in dust I worship You!
Brightness of God's awful glory,
You can stoop to worthless me,
And 'mid seraph songs on high,
Bend to catch my breathed sigh
Jesus, Savior, You are mine!
"Son of God! Your Father's treasure!
He yet gives You all to me
Angels vainly toil to measure
What I have in having Thee.
Grace so vast bewilders heaven;
God to me His Christ has given
Jesus, Savior, You are mine!
"Let life's hours of joy or sadness
Come and go as You shall please
Earthly grief, or earthly gladness
What have I to do with these?
Creature comforts all may flee;
You Lord, are enough for me
Jesus, Savior, You are mine!
"A soul more lost never lay before You;
Guilt has never louder cried
Just the more in You I'll glory,
Who for one so vile have died;
Kissed me, cleansed me, made me whole,
Wrapped your skirt around my soul
Jesus, Savior, You are mine!
"Not in heaven alone I deem You,
Lord, I feel Your presence near!
Yes, Your Spirit dwells within me,
joins in grace's wondrous tie;
Join us so- that Yours is mine,
join us so- that mine is Your
Jesus, Savior, You are mine.
"Lamb of God! I'm lost in wonder,
When I search Your searchless love;
Praises fit I sincerely would render,
Sincerely would sing like saints above
Here, full hearts can only weep,
Drowned in mercy's glorious deep
Jesus, Savior, You are mine!