1 Ch 17:16-17 (KJV) And David the king came and sat before the Lord, and said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is mine house, that thou hast brought me hitherto? And yet this was a small thing in thine eyes, O God; for thou hast also spoken of thy servant’s house for a great while to come, and hast regarded me according to the estate of a man of high degree, O Lord God.
Most Christians must think the Scripture passage which best fits the widely known favorite hymn, Amazing Grace, must be Eph. 2:8-9 or a similar passage where God’s grace is spoken of directly, but it is not. The author of that great hymn, John Newton, was a preacher at the time he wrote the beautiful worship song, and the text he preached from what the one above: 1 Chron. 17:16-17. I think we can all see why grace was the theme. David was a murderer, an adulterer, and a schemer, yet God blessed him and called him a man after His own heart (1 Sam. 13:14).
In his younger years, John Newton was hardly the man to have written Amazing Grace. Yes, he was raised by a Christian mother, but she died a few days before he reached the age of seven. His father was a sea captain, and John later followed him to sea. John was “impressed” (forced) into the Royal Navy as a young man and eventually left there to work for a slave trader in West Africa. There he watched the mistreatment of slaves, the harsh and evil way they were treated by the traders. Eventually, he became a slave trader himself serving as a captain of slave ships. As such, he was not simply an observer of these atrocities but participated in them.
On March 10, 1748, Newton’s ship was trapped in a severe storm. He thought he was about to die and sincerely cried out to God for help. Newton afterward held this as the date of his true conversion to Christianity, yet he continued to work in the slave trade. When he left it, he left for health reasons not moral. By the 1760s, Newton felt called to Christian ministry. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1764 and became the curate of the parish at Olney, a town in Buckinghamshire, England.
His church was made up mostly of poorer folks, factory workers and laborers many of whom were illiterate. Newton made a point of writing a hymn each week that reflected the theme of his sermon. That way the congregation would remember it more easily and sing it during the week to remind them of God’s message. His church grew. On January 1, 1773, John Newton delivered the sermon and the hymn Amazing Grace for the first time.
Newton eventually became disgusted by the slave trade in which he once had participated and in 1788 wrote Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade in which he described in horrible first hand detail the cruelty and suffering of the trade. The book became popular and was instrumental in the British abolitionist movement – a book by someone who had engaged in the trade himself and testified to the terrors. Fewer than twenty years after the book was published, and just before Newton died, the slave trade in which he had once participated was outlawed in Britain.
Why is this important?
In 1779, Amazing Grace was first published in Olney Hymns but without the familiar melody we all know. That was added in 1835 when American composer and singing-school teacher William Walker published the tune known as New Britain alongside the words of Amazing Grace in his songbook The Southern Harmony. It wasn’t until the 1900s that the hymn gained popularity and mostly in African American churches.
In 1947, Mahalia Jackson recorded the hymn, and its popularity began to grow as other stars such as Judy Collins, Elvis Presley, and Aretha Franklin recorded it. Interestingly, the song became an important hymn in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Descendants of slaves used a song written by a forgiven and converted slave trader to point to the need for individual civil rights for all. Today, of course, the song is sung widely throughout most Christian denominations since it points to the common needs of grace, forgiveness, and salvation.
Newton’s dedication to service never lessened. Even when his eyesight was failing, he had a young man read his notes to him so he could preach. In 1807, near the end of his life, Newton proclaimed, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” Like you and me, John Newton knew well God’s amazing grace.
