No study in hymnology would be complete without “Amazing Grace.” Amazing Grace is probably one of the best known, published and loved Hymns by all religions. It has often been referred to in modern gatherings as the Baptist Hymn. There is probably no more accurate description of Grace than Amazing and this is really the case when considering John Newton’s biographical background.

John Newton was born in London in 1725 but his mother died at the age of 6. She was a pious and prayerful woman who instilled in him the Word of God proving what the Bible declares in Proverbs: “Instruct the child in the way he should walk, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” The song Amazing Grace could well be the testimony of John’s conversion and Christian life. In its original form, there were six verses. The first three that are known and used now were written by John Newton. In its original publication in Olney Hymns in 1779 it was titled “Review and Expectation of Faith.”

As we explore the Amazing Grace verses, from the very first verse we see Newton’s theological insight.

Amazing grace, how sweet is the sound,

That saved a wretch like me.

Once I was lost, but now I am found

I was blind but now I see.

The definition of Grace, according to Emory H. Bancroft, is “unmerited favor to sinners.” The word Grace appears alone in the New Testament more than 170 times. One cannot even read the title, Amazing Grace, without immediately recalling Ephesians 2: 8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not from yourselves: it is the gift of God:” It is grace that saves us. Grace that guards us, Grace that guides us and Grace that one day will take us home. What John Newton was saying about Grace is that it sounds good, I like the way it sounds.

The phrase “who saved a bastard like me” draws our attention to the depravity of man. Man is born without a spark of divinity; all men are born with the depraved nature of Adam. The scriptures that prove this are Romans 3:10, 3:23, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Galatians 3:22 and 1 John 1: 8. These lines also introduce the fact that John Newton realized that for man see God there must be a new birth. Acts 4:12 declares that there is no other name by which we must be saved.

Salvation, regeneration, is the only way to Christ. Man is born lost. You don’t have to do anything to get lost, you are lost. The only way for man to get to heaven is that he must be quickened, quickened. And that is what it does and it is regeneration. Regeneration is the spiritual work of the Holy Spirit that imparts the new nature, the nature of Christ in a man. That is what is meant by the phrase “I was once lost.”

“I was blind, but now I see,” the lost condition of man is typified in the Scriptures as blindness. Undoubtedly, John Newton had read the story of Jesus healing the blind in John 9, where the blind man declared “While I was blind, now I see.”

The second verse of Amazing Grace,

It was grace that taught my heart to fear

and grace my fears relieved.

How precious that grace appeared

The hour I first believed

Juan says clearly, everything is by grace. He says the same grace that put me under conviction and condemnation, when I turned to Christ, it was that same grace that alleviated all my fears, and it came at the same hour, the same hour that I believed. Surely the promise in Romans 10: 9 to “believe in the heart” came to John’s mind as he wrote these words. That word believe has a strong meaning, trust or entrust, have faith. The implication is illustrated by believing that a chair will support you, but that you haven’t really put your faith in the chair until you sit in it. You think it will sustain and support you, but you haven’t shown your faith until you commit to it by sitting in it. That is what the word believe means, showing your faith, surrendering yourself to Christ.

The third verse, if you know anything about the life of John Newton speaks a lot to the heart:

In dangers, toils and Traps,

I’ve already come.

It’s the grace that brought me safe so far

And grace will take me home.

At the tender age of 6, after the death of his mother, little John set sail with his father, who was a sea captain. Later, John joined the British navy, but he was a very rebellious sailor. He even defected from the navy and was later captured, chained, and publicly beaten. Later he would become a ship captain himself, a slave ship captain. John was on a long journey from Brazil and, to pass the time, he was reading a book called Imitation of Christ written three hundred years earlier by Thomas Kempis. Then came a terrible and frightening storm that almost sent the ship and all the crew into the ocean. After surviving this storm, this made John think about life and death. He knew he was lost, he knew he was a sinner. The teachings of his godly mother came to mind and John knelt, repented, and received the Lord Jesus. You can only imagine the storms and dangers John had been through when he wrote those words. He knew it was only by the grace of God that he was not dead and in hell.

After being saved, John would trade his position for the pulpit. John, a lover of the sea, took a job on land and studied for sixteen years and then was ordained in the Anglican Church and assigned a pastorate in the small English town of Olney. It was there that he wrote the words of Amazing Grace, and he was absolutely right, what a sweet sound !!

John Newton wrote the first three verses of Amazing Grace and wrote these additional verses that we don’t use and you may not know:

The Lord has promised me good,

Your word assures my hope;

He will be my shield and my portion,

As long as life lasts.

Yes, when this flesh and this heart fail,

And mortal life will cease,

I will possess, within the veil,

A life of joy and peace.

The earth will soon dissolve like snow,

The sun refrains from shining;

But God who called me down here

It will be forever mine.

The fourth verse in our hymn books, “When We Have Been There Ten Thousand Years” is anonymous and was added in 1910 by Edwin Othello Excell in Coronation Hymns. The musical melody we use now for Amazing Grace was composed by Edwin Excell in 1910.