Exegeting the Hymns 3 - "Jesus Paid It All"

Jesus Paid It All
w/m Elvina M. Hall, John T. Grape, Alex Nifong
I hear the Savior say, “thy strength indeed is small
Child of weakness, watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all”
Chorus 
Jesus paid it all
All to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow

Lord, now indeed I find Thy power and Thine alone
Can change the leper's spots and melt the heart of stone

And when before the throne I stand in Him complete
"Jesus died my soul to save" my lips shall still repeat
O praise the one who paid my debt
And raised this life up from the dead
O praise the one who paid my debt
And raised this life up from the dead
O praise the one who paid my debt
And raised this life up from the dead
O praise the one who paid my debt
And raised this life up from the dead
O praise the one who paid my debt
And raised this life up from the dead

This is an older hymn that has been “reworked” by Alex Nifong and performed by Christian artist Kristian Stanfill.  Some of these reworkings update older hymns in a way that modernizes successfully, like Chris Tomlin’s “Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone).  But some, are not as successful.  This arrangement falls somewhere in the middle for me.  Usually, my problem is that the hymn is originally written like a story, and the verses all play a part in telling that story.  When they are “updated”, often a key verse is dropped, and the obligatory bridge is added so they can pump up the song. (It used to be that the compelling lyrics were enough to engage the mind, which then engaged the emotions.  Today, much of that process is bypassed and emotion is built with repetition and musical crescendos).  
However, this is one of the best hymns ever written, and even though a key verse is left out, it still leads us to view the work of Christ in all its majesty.  I hear the Savior say, “thy strength indeed is small is such a simple way to start a song, but the writer knew that we must see our need before we can properly view the work of Christ.  Grace means nothing without the law.  Until we know what we are being saved from, the promise of a Savior is empty.  Note that before we are saved, we are not only weak, we are dead, but even after we are saved, we are a Child of weakness.  Our only hope to make it through this life is to watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all.  Our justification as well as the strength to do what God calls us to do in service of Him is not found from within our selves, but outside of us.  It is found in Christ.

The chorus is one of the the clearest refrains written, telling of the extent of the work of Christ on the cross… Jesus paid it all.  All to Him I owe.  Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.  We contribute nothing to our salvation.  We cannot, through our good deeds erase even one smudge of the imbedded sin that rots our souls, but Jesus, through the washing of His blood, cleansed us forever from every single stain.
This concept is further developed masterfully in the next verse… Lord, now indeed I find Thy power and Thine alone can change the leper's spots and melt the heart of stone.  Note that not only are our sins washed away, but our attitudes are changed.  Our minds and wills and hearts are no longer bent away from God, but are now made alive and inclined toward Him.

One of the sad consequences of the seeker-sensitive movement in the last 20 years is the dropping of certain vocabulary from the church’s songs in order to not offend.  Kristian Stanfill did this once before in his arrangement of the song “In Christ Alone”, where the verse about the “Wrath of God” was eliminated in order to make room for a comparatively pointless bridge.  Here, we see the same issue.  The verse that is not included here is this:  For nothing good have I whereby Thy grace to claim, I’ll wash my garments white in the blood of Calvary’s Lamb.  This is probably my favorite verse and I think it’s pretty clear that Alex Nifong’s bridge above…O praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead repeated ad nauseam, is a poor substitute.

In this self esteem culture where nobody wants to be made to feel bad about themselves, a line like “Nothing good have I” is a bit out of place.  But it isn’t until we come to that realization, that we can ever be saved.  Plus, the imagery of washing your clothes in blood, while a Biblical analogy, is a bit too much for some churches and denominations that have removed references to the blood from all of their music.  I glory in the cross, I know what I have been saved from, and know what stains the blood of Christ washed away from my heart.​

Finally, as many great hymns do, this one ends with a view of eternity…And when before the throne I stand in Him complete "Jesus died my soul to save" my lips shall still repeat.  When we are saved, the old man has died and all things are made new, but this new nature is still encased in fallen flesh.  One day, we will receive a new body to match our new nature and we will be complete.  1 John 3:2 says “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”  One day we will be complete, and in the truth of what the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world has done, we will forever rejoice!

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