This hymn is full of solid theology. In order to catch all of it, I have to read it slowly. I need to think about and take in the words. How often do I think about Christ’s sacrifice for me in it’s entirety? Having grown up in a Christian home, I know about the cross and the resurrection. But it’s so easy to rush through Easter and not to think about what it really means. To not think about Christ’s sacrifice.
I don’t want to do that, and I don’t want you to do that, my friend. We need to keep our eyes fixed on the author and finisher of our salvation.
“His robes for mine: O wonderful exchange!
Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered ‘neath God’s rage.
Draped in His righteousness, I’m justified.
In Christ I live, for in my place He died.”
We need to meditate on Christ’s sacrifice and what His resurrection means. We need to slow down and refocus on Him. Holidays are often very busy and go past too fast to us to focus on spiritual things. But it’s we that need to make time for those things. We that need to slow down and refocus. To renew our minds in the Word. This is one of those hymns that helps me remember. One that points me to the Bible.
“I cling to Christ, and marvel at the cost:
Jesus forsaken, God estranged from God.
Bought by such love, my life is not my own.
My praise-my all-shall be for Christ alone.”
How often do we remember that we aren’t our own? It’s so easy to forget. We belong to God and He is our master and leader. He is our all in all.
“His robes for mine: what cause have I for dread?
God’s daunting Law Christ mastered in my stead.
Faultless I stand with righteous works not mine,
Saved by my Lord’s vicarious death and life.”
Jesus has bought for us salvation and a place in Heaven. All we have to do is to accept His gift.
“His robes for mine: God’s justice is appeased.
Jesus is crushed, and thus the Father’s pleased.
Christ drank God’s wrath on sin, then cried “‘Tis done!”
Sin’s wage is paid; propitiation won.”
It’s an easy, but a dangerous thing to forget God’s justice. It’s an easy, but dangerous thing to forget that sin has a high cost. And that in order for us to be forgiven, that cost had to be paid.
“His robes for mine: such anguish none can know.
Christ, God’s beloved, condemned as though His foe.
He, as though I, accursed and left alone;
I, as though He, embraced and welcomed home!”
The Christian Thinker 