Timeless Hymn #3 - Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed

Why We Sing

Singing has always been an important part of Christian worship, but have you ever stopped to consider why we sing?

Congregational singing is not simply a way to begin a worship service, or fill the time between other parts of the service, or only to prepare us to hear the sermon. Scripture gives singing a much greater purpose.

Paul writes:

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs..." (Colossians 3:16, ESV)

Notice how closely Paul connects the Word of Christ, teaching, and singing. When the church gathers for worship, we read the Word, pray according to the Word, preach and teach the Word, and sing biblical truth to one another. Through songs that are faithful to Scripture, we learn who God is, what He has done, what we believe, and how we should respond to Him.

That means the words we sing matter.

Some of the Timeless Hymns of our faith are almost like Bible lessons set to music. Their words teach biblical truths that remain in our hearts and minds long after the final note has been sung.

"Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed?" is a beautiful example. In six short stanzas, Isaac Watts takes us to the cross, confronts us with our own sin, leads us to stand in awe of the grace and love displayed at Calvary, and finally asks us how we will respond.

Background

"Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed?" was written by Isaac Watts (1674–1748). Watts began writing hymns while still a young man. Robert J. Morgan notes that he composed many of his early hymns during his late teens and early twenties while living in Southampton. These hymns would help shape congregational singing for generations to come.

In 1707, Watts published Hymns and Spiritual Songs, which included the six-stanza hymn we now know as "Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed?" Watts originally titled it "Godly Sorrow Arising from the Sufferings of Christ."

That original title tells us something important about the purpose of the hymn. Watts was not simply recounting the events of the crucifixion. He was inviting the believer to contemplate the suffering of Christ personally. Why did the Savior suffer? What does His death reveal about our sin? What does the cross reveal about God's grace and love? And how should we respond to what Christ has done?

The hymn originally contained six stanzas and no refrain. The familiar words "At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light" came later. In 1885, Ralph E. Hudson published a new musical setting of Watts's hymn with the familiar refrain in his Songs of Peace, Love, and Joy. This gospel-song version became widely known as "At the Cross" and remains the form familiar to many congregations today.

Over the years, some of Watts's original words and stanzas have also been altered or omitted. His original first stanza, for example, asked:

Would He devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?

Many modern hymnals substitute wording such as "for sinners such as I." Watts's original six-stanza text, however, gives us a fuller picture of what he intended the hymn to teach.

One particularly meaningful chapter in the hymn's history came more than a century after Watts wrote it. In 1850, a young Fanny Crosby attended revival meetings in New York City. Blind from infancy, Crosby would go on to become one of the most influential hymn writers in American church history, writing thousands of hymns and gospel songs during her lifetime, including such beloved hymns as "Blessed Assurance," "To God Be the Glory," and "Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross."

Morgan recounts that as the congregation sang Watts's hymn, the words of its final stanza became deeply personal to her:

Here, Lord, I give myself away,

' Tis all that I can do.

Crosby later described the experience by saying that her soul was "flooded with a celestial light." The hymn that had given eighteenth-century Christians words with which to contemplate the cross had become part of the spiritual story of a woman who would herself give the church thousands of hymns.

The Bible Lesson We Sing

Watts begins by asking us to stand before the cross and consider something astonishing:

Alas! and did my Savior bleed?

And did my Sovereign die?

The words Savior and Sovereign matter. The One suffering on the cross is not merely an innocent man. He is our Savior and Lord. Peter writes that Christ "bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24, ESV).

Watts then turns our attention toward the reason for Christ's suffering:

Was it for crimes that I had done

He groaned upon the tree?

Isaiah had prophesied that the Messiah would be "pierced for our transgressions" and "crushed for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:5, ESV). Paul tells us that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8, ESV). Watts does not allow us to stand at the cross merely as spectators. The cross confronts us with the seriousness of our own sin. Christ suffered for sins that were not His own.

But the cross reveals more than our sin. It reveals the extraordinary grace and love of God:

Amazing pity! grace unknown!

And love beyond degree!

John writes, "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him" (1 John 4:9, ESV).

Watts then draws our attention to the darkness that accompanied Christ's crucifixion, an event recorded in the Gospels:

Well might the sun in darkness hide,

And shut his glories in,

When God, the mighty Maker, died

For man, the creature's sin.

Matthew records that "from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour" (Matthew 27:45, ESV). But Watts does more than describe the darkness. He places the Maker and the creature side by side. The One through whom all things were made (John 1:3) willingly suffered for His creation. In just a few lines, we are singing profound truths about who Christ is and what He accomplished at Calvary.

Having contemplated Christ's suffering, the singer can no longer remain detached:

Thus might I hide my blushing face

While His dear cross appears;

Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,

And melt mine eyes to tears.

Biblical truth is meant to affect more than our minds. Understanding the gospel should move our hearts and shape our lives.

And that brings Watts to the conclusion of his hymn:

But drops of grief can ne'er repay

The debt of love I owe;

Here, Lord, I give myself away,

'Tis all that I can do.

We cannot repay Christ for salvation. Salvation is the gift of God's grace, received through faith, not something we earn.

But grace calls for a response. Paul writes: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." (Romans 12:1, ESV)

The proper response to the grace of God is not an attempt to earn what Christ has already provided. It is grateful, willing surrender to the One who loved us and gave Himself for us.

Isaac Watts's Original Six Stanzas

1

Alas! and did my Savior bleed?

And did my Sovereign die?

Would He devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?

2

Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, thine,

And bathed in its own blood,

While all exposed to wrath divine

The glorious Sufferer stood!

3

Was it for crimes that I had done

He groaned upon the tree?

Amazing pity! grace unknown!

And love beyond degree!

4

Well might the sun in darkness hide,

And shut his glories in,

When God, the mighty Maker, died

For man, the creature's sin.

5

Thus might I hide my blushing face

While His dear cross appears;

Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,

And melt mine eyes to tears.

6

But drops of grief can ne'er repay

The debt of love I owe;

Here, Lord, I give myself away,'

Tis all that I can do.

Why We Still Sing It

"Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed?" gives us far more than beautiful poetry set to music. It gives us biblical truth to sing.

We sing about who Christ is. We sing about what happened at the cross. We sing about the seriousness of our sin. We sing about the immeasurable grace and love of God. And finally, we sing the response that should flow from a heart that has truly understood the gospel:

Here, Lord, I give myself away,

'Tis all that I can do.

This is one reason congregational singing is such a vital part of Christian worship. When our songs are grounded in Scripture, we are not simply singing together. We are reminding one another of the gospel, teaching biblical truth, confessing what we believe, and responding together to the God who has revealed Himself in His Word.

The words we sing matter.

May we not simply sing them. May we understand what they mean, believe the truths they proclaim, and allow those truths to shape the way we live.

Sources

Hudson, Ralph E. Songs of Peace, Love, and Joy. Alliance, OH: R. E. Hudson, 1885.

Morgan, Robert J. Then Sings My Soul: 150 of the World's Greatest Hymn Stories. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2022.

Watts, Isaac. Hymns and Spiritual Songs, in Three Books. London, 1707.