Indelible Grace Hymnbook

In 1738, Charles Wesley was struggling to find peace with God. He had served as a missionary to Georgia, but that had turned out disastrously bad. Peter Bohler, the leader of the London Moravians, asked Charles if he hoped to be saved. Charles answered that he did. Bohler pressed, “Upon what basis do you hope to be saved?” Wesley replied, “Because I have used my best endeavors to serve God.” Bohler sadly shook his head and walked away. Wesley recorded his reaction in his journal. “What, are not my endeavors a sufficient ground of hope? Would he rob me of my endeavors? I have nothing else to trust to.”

Wesley was stuck in the tension that many raised in church have experienced. It is all too common to confuse the fruits of the gospel at work in our lives (good endeavors) with the root of spiritual life (the gospel promise believed.) The problem with trusting our good works is that they are not perfect works. Jesus said that we are to love Him with all our heart, all our mind, and all our strength, and this is a considerably higher bar than just offering Him our best endeavors. God requires that we love Him perfectly from the moment we are born ‘til the moment we die, with no lapses. Faced with this impossible requirement many religious people attempt to take solace in such empty hopes as Wesley. But this hymn points us to a greater ground of hope that derives from the gospel.

Later in 1738, Wesley’s friend, John Bray, discovered Martin Luther’s Commentary On Galatians and brought it to Wesley, who was sick in bed. Wesley recorded in his journal again, “I spent some hours this evening in private with Martin Luther, who was greatly blessed to me, especially his conclusion of the second chapter. I labored, waited, and prayed to feel ‘Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.’” Luther had famously once said that the whole of the gospel was found in the personal pronouns, and Wesley found peace as the Lord gave him faith to believe that Jesus had died for him.

It is sometimes said that this hymn was Wesley’s first, written soon after his conversion. Hymn scholars are now convinced that “Where Shall My Wondering Soul Begin?” was actually his first hymn. But And Can It Be was written soon after and expresses beautifully and powerfully the converting power of the gospel that he had experienced.

Wesley is one of the most skilled hymnwriters. He begins with a piercing question to which no real answer can be given. “How can it be, that thou my God, shoulds’t die for me?” If we ever get the point where God’s grace seems deserved or expected, we are in deep trouble. We see his grasp of Luther’s point in his use of the personal prounouns; my God, for me. But it is in the last verse where Wesley reveals the heart of his new-found hope. “Alive in Him, my living head, and clothed in righteousness divine.” Wesley had come to understand that in the gospel Christ gives us what God requires, His perfect righteousness, through our union with Him. What Christ does, we get credit for, what He deserves, we get! Rather than trusting in our best endeavors, Wesley gives us words to praise God for the only true hope, the righteousness of Christ imputed to His people through faith. This brings us not only, hope, but boldness to claim the crown not because of what we have done, but because of what Christ has done in our place.

Kevin Twit (c)2015