slant. I think it's perfectly legal to do so, although I think you're
supposed to cite the hymn title with "alt." or "adpt." afterward,
which stand for altered or adapted, respectively.
For example: "In Christ Alone" (alt.)
Here's one version of a verse of "In Christ Alone" which alters the
one-sided emphasis on eternal security and determinism. The original
reads:
No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath;
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand,
Producing fruit in Christ the Vine,
Faithfully for my Christ I’ll stand.
The obviously offensive lines are "Jesus commands my destiny" and the
reference to the impossibility of being plucked out of Christ's hand.
Of course, with caveats, Arminians can affirm them. But why sing
songs which might confuse people unnecessarily?
The altered version reads:
No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus, Command my destiny!
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand,
Producing fruit in Christ the Vine,
Faithfully for my Christ I’ll stand.
The alteration about a deterministic destination is subtle. It
converts an indicative statement to an prayer of commitment. It does
so first by converting the previous semi-colon after "From life's
first cry to final breath" into a comma. Then, the utterance of
Jesus' name is converted into a vocative (as indicated by the comma
immediately after his name). Next, in good form befitting the
vocative, the first word Command is capitalised, and the final
punctuation converted to an exclamation point. Thus, the worshiper
emotively thrusts his life into Christ's control.
My resolution to the John 10 passage about plucking is to recognise
that Jesus publicly tells his opponents that no one can pluck his
sheep out of his hand, but that Jesus, in the intimacy of private
teaching, tells his disciples that if they don't continue in abiding
with him and bearing fruit, they will be cut off from the vine. The
alteration of the hymn has this in mind.
To be sure, nothing can pluck out of Jesus' hand those who abide in
Christ and produce fruit. This is reflected by the participle
"producing." The idea here is that producing is assumptive: the
promise of security is only for those who faithfully stand in Christ.
Posts
