Thou Alone Must Save
Well, the words of this hymn are indeed rich, and I hope you're learning from them as I am as we do this this week. Verse 2 goes like this:
Not the labours of my hands
Can fulfill Thy Lord's commands
Could my zeal nor respite know?
Could my tears forever flow?
All for sin could not atone
Thou must save, and thou alone
Salvation by Grace
“Not the labors of my hands can fulfill Thy laws, commands”. That means nothing I do can ultimately fulfill the law of God. I can try all I want. I can do all the good deeds in the world. I can be remarkably godly. I can be very kind and loving towards people, but I'll still fall short of completing God's law. My good deeds will never make me right with God.
And then the song says even if my zeal knows no respite - in other words, if I'm fully zealous and passionate for God every single day of my life until I die, I still won't be able to atone for my sins.
Then he says, Could my tears forever flow? Even if I could cry and wail before God, hoping that He will forgive me because of my tears, that also won't atone for my sins.
He says Thou must save and Thou alone. Lord, it is Your doing, not mine. Only He can save me. Nothing that I do can make me right with God.
Theological Debate
Now, Augustus Toplady, who wrote this, was a very fierce competitor of the Wesleys in the 1700s. Wesley believed that God prepared the way for people to be saved, but they ultimately had to choose to accept His offer of grace.
Toplady was a Calvinist, and so he believed we don't have any power even to choose. But God draws us in. It's all His doing and not ours. And Wesley couldn't stand Toplady's Calvinism, and Toplady couldn't stand Wesley's free will theology. And this debate rages even today. The Internet is abuzz with Calvinists hating on free-will, Wesleyans and Arminians hating on Calvinists.
Only God Saves
It's a shame because in the end, both schools of thought teach that the believer has no claim to make their own salvation happen. Both teach that only God saves, and as the song said, Thou must save and Thou alone.
I've come to believe that whether you feel you've responded to an offer that God gave to you, or whether you feel that God drew you in by Himself and you didn't even have to lift a finger - either way, I praise God that He has saved you, because what it all comes down to is that His grace is a free gift. We can't earn it by the labor of our hands, or by zeal, or by good deeds, or by tears. It's just His gift of grace.
Praise Him today, friends, that the Rock of Ages gives us a free gift of salvation, not because of what we've done, but because He loves us, treasures us, and longs to save us.
