Yesterday I learned a new to me worship song. There were parts of it that were great but the end really grated. It was the Noel and Tricia Richards song 'Filled with Compassion' the last verse of which says...
From every nation we shall be gathered,
Millions redeemed shall be Jesus' reward.
Then He will turn and say to His Father:
"Truly my suffering was worth it all!"
Is it me, probably it is, but I don't recall anything about 'reward' in the reasons for the cross, there was no 'if I do this then my Father will reward me.' As I came to this verse - of a hymn/song that has some great ideas expressed - I was dismayed, it contradicted, or so it felt, everything I understand about the cross, about Christ's kenosis, about atonement, about Christ's character. Maybe it is me, but I really cannot envisage Jesus looking around heaven/eternity/new creation and saying 'yup, actually you know what all that pain, isolation and death was worth while because this is the outcome.' Surely part of God's risk was that even despite all this we would choose the way that deals death rather than the way that deals life. To me this last line feels too human, too mercenary almost - how many souls saved is enough to make it worthwhile? My understanding has always been that one would have been enough justification. I don't want to knock someone's heartfelt response to God, but when I got to the end of this hymn I was left thinking 'not quite...'
Comments
It's not just you, or if it is it's me as well! Geoff
*resisting the temptation to be snooty about Noel Richards*
I agree the language of reward is wrong, but see it the other way round. An infinite number of humans saved would not be enough to justify what happened on the cross. I can't see the cross as anything other than fundamentally unjust and terrible, and to be brutally honest, intuitively I don't think it was worth it. I would rather we were all damned than the cross happened.
Whether it is that God doesn't see it that way, or just that He couldn't do anything else because He loves us too much, I'm not certain. There is a twisted logic in the idea that the state of the world and us in it causes God so much suffering that reconciling it and us to Him is in His self-interest even though it meant the cross, but on an emotional level I can't make sense of that idea because it seems natural that being separated from a Person God had spent eternity in community with would be more painful than being separated from His creation who had decided to rebel against Him. So I am brought back to the idea that God's whole plan for reconciling us to Him is borne out of a reflex of love and no logic of reward or self-interest can explain it.
One of the things I'm most looking forward to about heaven is having the mysteries of the cross revealed. If we don't understand it all immediately, I am going to quiz God like a three-year old until I get it all.
Not disagreeing, but there's an element here of that bit in Hebrews ("For the joy that was set before him he went to the cross"), which follows the pep talk in ch 11 about the great crowd of witnesses who endured all sorts of things, trusting in their reward which was not seen but was ultimately trustworthy.
We may sometimes gib at the suggestion that there's any ulterior motive or a trade off in going through suffering as we're encouraged (rightly or wrongly) to be more high minded than that, but it's a very human response and seems to be met by a divine motivation to balance suffering with light at the end of the tunnel as well as along the way.
I find the second verse just as painful ... definitely the reason why every worship song writer should at least have a degree in theology ...
Andy J - I can't agree with you on the Hebrews bit, sorry! The song assigns 'reward' (as in millions of souls saved) to Jesus, Hebrews says 'joy' - in my understanding these are not synonymous. I'm not sure what Jesus' 'joy' might look like, but I cannot equate it to a 'prize' or 'payment.' It is the people (i.e. not Jesus) who get a reward. Part of my problem with the song is an infernece - by me, granted - that maybe if it was 'only' thousands, say, Jesus might be less sure it was all worthwhile.
Andy G - I can't go a bundle on verse 2 either, not least as I believe that Christ died for all - whether or not we know or respond, and whatever the implications of either of those might be (which is, thankfully, God's problem not mine). At the time we were singing it I think I was mentally telling God what I meant by the words!
Plus I agree, that some sort of theological training probalby ought to be a pre-requisite to publishing hymns/songs, not from snobbishness but because at least people who sing the things might actually get some decent insights.
Yep, I agree if that's what it meant. But surely it isn't... As you and Andy say, the rest of the song definitely has its dodgy moments. I don't think this is necessarily one of them.
I don't read any of this as the theological equivalent to the utilitarian problem of exactly how many sparrows one person's happiness is worth. Moral calculus and soteriology don't mix.
Nor do I read into any of this the inference that Jesus would only have gone through with the cross if the 'transaction' guaranteed a minimum return measured in thousands ('crowds without number' doesn't scan and 'myriad's' is in old money). But Christ's self-giving results in a redeemed community, not simply one or more redeemed individuals (significant as each individual may be). Admittedly that's probably not in the song either, but it's drawing on images of multitudes rejoicing in the victory of the lamb. Not my particular taste in worship or theology these days, but not to be denied given its original apocalyptic context of endurance in a time of tribulation, equated in some measure with the image of the 'lamb upon the throne'.
You're right of course that the NT concept of 'reward' always occurs as ours, not Christ's, but I think I can allow either the human Jesus or the risen Christ either before or after the event to derive some satisfaction and even motivation from the outcome, even if it's only love's return. Not that that's an 'only'...
Certainly one strand of Noel Richards' songnody is the crude triumphalism that Brian Wren would pick up on, and this particular song is one that I haven't chosen or deliberately sung in years, but I think Richards' choice of words here has created an inference that he didn't intend.
"Plus I agree, that some sort of theological training probalby ought to be a pre-requisite to publishing hymns/songs"
Can we make having some degree of musical talent a pre-requisite too?