April 8, 2010

It was during a Sunday morning service in the spring of 1865 that a hymn was born that pictures so well the finished work of Calvary.

Elvina Hall was seated in her usual spot in the choir of the Monument Street Methodist Church in Baltimore. Her pastor, Reverend George Schnick, led in prayer, thanking God for such a perfect and complete salvation as found in Jesus Christ. Elvina became so overwhelmed with this great truth that she felt compelled to express her feelings. Unable to find suitable paper, she took a copy of the church hymnal, The New Lute of Zion, and started to compose a poem on the flyleaf of the book. Later that day, she recopied the new poem and it to her pastor.

Sometime later, Pastor Schnick was visiting the church organist, Mr. John T. Grape. A successful coal merchant and a skilled amateur musician, Grape enjoyed composing new melodies of his own from time to time. Knowing this, the pastor inquired if any new tunes had been written recently. Brother Grape replied by playing a new melody he had just finished. Upon hearing it, the pastor exclaimed, "Why you know, Elvina Hall gave me a beautiful set of words some time ago; and if I'm not mistaken, the melody sounded as if it had been written just for her words." With that, he opened his Bible and produced the poem. As the two men started to sing and play the new song, they witnessed a union of words and music as if God had planned the writing of the hymn in the first place.

God does have a plan for the redemption of mankind that began in the Garden of Eden and was completed on the cross of Calvary. This is what Elvina Hall recorded for us when she wrote:

I hear the Savior say
Thy strength indeed is small
Child of weakness....watch and pray
Find in me....thine all in all

Chorus:
Jesus paid it all
All to Him I owe
Sin hath left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow

Lord, now indeed I find
Thy power and Thine alone
Can change the leper's spots
And melt the heart of stone

For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim
I'll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calvary's Lamb

And when before thy throne
I stand in Him complete
Jesus died my soul to save
My lips shall still repeat

Jesus Paid It All - Scriptures that may have inspired this hymn “‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the LORD. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool’” (Isaiah 1:18).

“He must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:30).

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17).