T o L i V e I s c h r I s t

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NE W TON ON T HE CHR IS T I A N L IF E

With his counsel and his hymn “Amazing Grace,” Newton “had tried 

hard to persuade Cowper that God’s grace is universal and never with-

held from a believer, but depression closed the poet’s mind to this truth.”

 13

 

Cowper was convinced God had become angry with him, and Newton would 

spend years—decades—serving his friend’s physical needs and laboring to 

convince him of God’s abundant and amazing grace. Amazing grace can be 

a hard sell. Even today, some professing Christians find the bold message 

of “Amazing Grace” tough to stomach. Yet this radical message of God’s 

sovereign, life-transforming grace was the keynote of Newton’s ministry.

Grace is amazing, as Newton discovered firsthand on the sinking Grey-

hound. Grace is free, sovereign, and sufficient. And yet, convincing sinners 

of God’s free grace, as Newton would discover, was a laborious full-time 

task. He became an apologist of God’s free and unmerited favor and devoted 

his life to confirming God’s grace and applying the promises of Scripture 

to the lives of his parishioners, his acquaintances, and his friends; and he 

did so through songs, sermons, and personal letters. From the hard lessons 

learned at his friend’s bedside, Newton would never make the mistake of 

assuming grace.

Sovereign Grace

One of the most beautiful paradoxes in God’s wisdom is sovereign grace. 

The same grace that is unmerited is also unstoppable. Grace is a battering 

ram. Grace is forced entry. And Newton’s famous hymn is filled with this 

sovereign grace. In another hymn he opens with this verse:

Sovereign grace has pow’r alone

To subdue a heart of stone;

And the moment grace is felt,

Then the hardest heart will melt.

 14

Grace alone is powerful enough to break the sinner’s bondage to wick-

edness. “His grace can overcome the most obstinate habits.”

 15

 Grace breaks 

in to free and unshackle souls. Grace takes away the guilt of sin, the love of 

sin, and the dominion of sin, even hard sins like drunkenness.

 16

13

 Aitken, 229.

14

 W, 3:428.

15

 W, 4:328.

16

 W, 4:189–90, 328.

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Amazing Grace 

41

Newton speaks firsthand of sin’s self-destructive power, and firsthand 

of the power of grace to liberate the soul. “The mercy of God is infinite, 

and the power of his grace is invincible” (see Rom. 11:29).

 17

 And the same 

invincible grace that brings salvation is the same grace that is “training us 

to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, 

upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:12). Only grace breaks 

us free from the power of self-destructive sins and empowers the true free-

dom of obedience (Rom. 6:14).

Understanding God’s sovereign grace at the front end of the Christian 

life is critical for understanding the rest of the Christian life, because we are 

certain to face personal sin and insufficiency all throughout the Christian 

journey. What hope is there for a redeemed Christian who sees indwelling 

sin still lurking in his heart? If justification can be explained only by the 

sovereign grace of God, then sanctification can be rooted only in the same 

cause. God’s sovereign grace stabilizes the Christian life. Newton explains, 

“That I am still preserved in the way, in defiance of all that has arisen from 

within and from without to turn me aside, must be wholly ascribed to the 

same sovereignty,” that is, the same sovereignty that saved him.

 18

Grace Builds off a Blueprint

As we will see many times, Newton is a master craftsman of metaphor, and 

he employs every image at his disposal to explain the Christian life.

 19

 In 

one place, he explains the Christian life with a building metaphor framed 

by Paul’s words in Philippians: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a 

good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (1:6). 

Paul’s “good work” was the Christian life in its complete form.

In a large building project the foundations are laid deep. Metaphori-

cally, grace works below the soil and out of view to lay the sturdy founda-

tions of the Christian life. Down under the soil the work seems slow, and 

then the walls begin to go up. But so does the scaffolding. The building pro-

gresses behind this scaffolding, and in broad daylight the mess and trash 

and broken stones and building materials lying around the site cloud the 

progress from many bystanders. The progress is obscured by the rubble. 

This is the perspective we often have of ourselves and other Christians. The 

17

 Letters (Palmer), 129.

18

 W, 2:108.

19

 See Newton’s poem “A Thought on the Sea Shore” (W, 3:670).

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NE W TON ON T HE CHR IS T I A N L IF E

Christian life is a hard-hat area, and we struggle to see God’s “good work” 

coming together in the mess of our lives.

How different is the view of the architect. The architect has done this 

many times before, and he perceives the end of the project from the first 

stone to the final shrub. He can steer the progress along to the end he 

designed. He may need to adjust the materials or change the schedule, 

but even in the jobsite mess, the end product is clear in his imagination. 

In time, the project will be finished: the scaffolding will be removed, the 

debris cleaned up, the discarded building supplies taken away, the win-

dows and floors polished, and the project delightful in its completion. 

Writes Newton:

Men, indeed, often plan what, for want of skill or ability, or from unfore-

seen disappointments, they are unable to execute: but nothing can disap-

point the heavenly Builder; nor will he ever be reproached with forsaking 

the work of his own hands, or beginning that which he could not or would 

not accomplish (Phil. 1:6). Let us therefore be thankful for beginnings, 

and patiently wait the event.

 20

Grace finishes what the divine Architect planned. As the builder, 

grace never walks off the job or leaves the project unfinished. The Chris-

tian life is always progressing behind scaffolding and debris that clouds 

our vision and makes it difficult for us to gauge the work of grace in our 

lives and the lives of other Christians. Yet we are confident that grace 

executes the Architect’s blueprint. Newton is confident that even when 

it feels like the construction has stopped, grace continues to labor. This 

trust in the active work of grace in the Christian life helped Newton keep 

his trust in God when his spirits were low or when progress was obscured. 

The work of grace progresses from behind the scaffold, until the great un-

veiling (1 John 3:2). This event is on schedule and the infallible Architect 

will deliver the end product, all by grace.

All-Sufficient, Red-Letter Grace

While Newton is most famous for the phrase amazing grace, he much pre-

ferred the phrase sufficient grace. The two are not unrelated, but sufficient 

grace was more common in his vernacular because few (if any) Bible pas-

20

 W, 1:637–38.

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