A wretch like me...

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

Over the years I have heard this hymn sung in many different ways by a variety of artists, and it is often put to a different tune than the original. This rarely bothers me too much. But what does bother me is when I hear the words of the first line changed to read “who saved someone like me”. The deliberate removal of the word “wretch” I find rather disturbing for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the author of these words, John Newton, came to a knowledge of Christ in his late twenties. Prior to this he had been a slave trader in West Africa and was an extremely godless and ruthless man. Not only was he responsible for destroying the lives of hundreds of men, woman and children, but he was also a murderer. At one point in his life he actually kept a black slave as his mistress. When he discovered this slave was having a relationship with a black man, he beat the man to death with his shovel, only to find out later that he was actually her husband. When John Newton finally came to accept Christ and was blown away by the confronting power of Gods grace, he penned the words of this song without the least amount of doubt that he had been a total wretch of a man. The overwhelming power of Gods grace, that had saved him from the person that he was, had no small effect on his life. To change the word “wretch” as was originally penned in this testimony to the power of Gods’ grace, to that of the innocuous term “someone”, does neither justice to the emphasis Newton must have originally intended for this hymn, and neither does it do justice to the meaning of the radical life changing power that is Gods amazing grace.

Grace is by definition one of the most powerful bequests a wretch can receive. When I receive Gods grace, I receive far more than a pardon and far more than mercy. I also receive Gods favour. It is one thing to be forgiven, it is one thing to find mercy, it is one thing to be freed from punishment. But if in exchange for my wretchedness I receive the unmerited favour of God and am elevated to a state of privilege, given the rights of one who is a son, then this is indeed “amazing” grace that only the one who fully comprehends the extent of his wretchedness can understand. This is the truth that Newton had come to realise and it was this thought that motivated him to write “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see”. When I stand next to Gods grace merely as a “someone” and not as the “wretch” that I truly am, then the magnitude of Gods grace ceases to be amazing, and looks more like a mediocre kind of benevolence. This is neither the kind of Grace that God gives and neither is it the kind of Grace that Newton experienced. It remains therefore in my opinion, that the only way to correctly sing this song is in the spirit of the one who wrote it, and in the spirit of the God who’s grace has been given.... using the words.....“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”