新心音乐 · Album: 你是我神. Explore “Amazing Grace”: song information and official sources.
Redeeming grace · Freely given grace
Newton wrote this hymn for his New Year's Day sermon in 1773, based on David's prayer: “Who am I, Yahweh God, and what is my house, that you have brought me this far?” (1 Chronicles 17:16–17). Its power lies less in elegant language than in its author's awareness of what he had been forgiven. As a young man Newton served on slave-trading vessels and later captained slave ships himself. In later life he publicly repented and worked for abolition. Grace is amazing because it is unexpected: the recipient has no claim to deserve it. The poem's structure is a testimony contrasting the past and present, like the words of the man healed of blindness in John 9:25. Singers often remember only the first stanza, but the weight of forgiveness lies in the second: grace both awakens reverent fear and removes terror. That pairing of reverence and freedom from fear expresses the gospel.
Responses of commitment, testimony and reflection before Communion; a response to teaching on justification by faith or God's mercy.