Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed

Isaac Watts was born into a non-conformist family in Southhampton, Hampshire, England. His father, a protestant preacher, read scripture and prayed for and with Isaac throughout his childhood. The oldest of nine children, he began his personal walk with Christ at the age of 15. By the time he was 16, he learned Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and French. 

In the early days of the Protestant Reformation, it was considered a sin to sing anything that didn't directly come from scripture. The Psalms, via the metric Psalter, and some New Testament canticles were considered to be the only acceptable form of music in the worship service. For the first 150 years of Protestantism, they didn't even sing about Christ's death and resurrection. 

Watts, in his early 20s, grew frustrated with church music and his dad wisely challenged him to do something about it. He did. Isaac Watts is considered the Godfather of English Hymnody, having written more than 700 hymns. 

The statement and question structure of this hymn are powerful in their literary tug-of-war between knowledge and response. We know the story. But knowledge is not where things end for us. 

Alas and did my Savior bleed

And did my Sov'reign die

Would He devote that sacred head

For sinners such as I

Ernest K. Emurian wrote, "While this generation substitutes ‘sinners such as I’ for the original, ('such a worm as I') confident that we are not worms, it is well to remember that a worm is the only thing in God’s world that can change into a butterfly. And Watts well knew the transformation, wrought in the human heart by the grace of God whereby the ‘old man’ dies and the ‘new man in Christ Jesus’ is born, finds its parallel in the process of nature whereby a worm dies that a butterfly may be born."

Was it for crimes that I have done

He groaned upon the tree

Amazing pity grace unknown

And love beyond degree

Well might the sun in darkness hide

And shut His glories in

When Christ the mighty Maker died

For man the creature's sin

Thus might I hide my blushing face

While Calvary's cross appears

Dissolve my heart in thankfulness

And melt mine eyes to tears

But drops of grief can ne'er repay

The debt of love I owe

Here Lord I give myself away

'Tis all that I can do 

After Jesus had finished telling his disciples about his death and resurrection, he said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Matthew 16:24 (ESV). At that time, the event had not yet happened. They didn't believe, nor did they understand. For us, it is different. His torture, his mocking, his embarrassment, his death - that all happened. And three days later, he walked out of the grave so to speak. 

The refrain first appeared in 1883 in the meeting notes of the Salvation Army in Luton, Bedfordshire, England. In 1885, Ralph Hudson published it with Watts's hymn, and it was widely accepted.

Refrain

At the cross at the cross

Where I first saw the light

And the burden of my heart rolled away

It was there by faith I received my sight

And now I am happy all the day

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 (ESV)

Watts wrote and published "Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed" in 1707.