The Love of God Above
The feast of Shavuot reminds Christians and Jewish people alike of the special privileges God has given them.
On my dining room wall hangs a framed canvas featuring the artistically arranged words of the third verse from the beloved, well-known hymn “The Love of God.” My wife loves this hymn and this verse in particular:
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
The Enduring Akdamut
Frederick Lehman (1868–1953), pastor, publisher, and hymn writer, penned these words in 1917. Interestingly, his source for that stanza was a portion of an ancient Jewish poem (Hebrew, piyyut) called Akdamut, which means “introduction.” Written in Aramaic, the poem extols God’s greatness and man’s inability to describe His majesty fully.
Whether Lehman knew it or not, the author of that 90-line piyyut, Rabbi Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai, was murdered in Worms, Germany, in 1096, the same year he wrote the poem. The Crusaders who ended his life rode into Worms with a mission to kill the “infidels”— in this case, the cursed, “Christ-killing” Jewish people.
In spite of such a vile, racist, and deadly attack on those Jewish townspeople, Akdamut survived. It remains a fixture in Ashkenazi (Central and Eastern European) prayer books, chanted as an introduction to the reading of Exodus 19—20 (the Law) in observance of the Feast of Shavuot (called Pentecost in Scripture). The verse from Akdamut that Lehman used for his hymn reads this way in Jewish prayer books:
At God’s command is infinite power,
Which words cannot define.
Were all the skies parchment,
And all the reeds pens, and all the oceans ink,
And all who dwell on earth scribes,
God’s grandeur could not be told.
When our Jewish friends celebrate Shavuot (May 21–23 this year), they rejoice that the God of the universe chose to privilege them with His marvelous Word, the Law. I still can visualize the plaque that hung in my family home of Moses receiving that Law from the hand of God. In all synagogues, the Torah (Law) is placed in a large wooden cabinet (ark); and when it is opened, the whole congregation stands, a sign of great respect.
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
As Christians, we would be wise to pause and reflect on the significance of the Jewish feast of Shavuot. Though given to the Jewish people, God’s Law benefits us as well. But we have been given another great blessing. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit of God was poured out on believers in Jesus, establishing a brand new and unique people—His church, which is His bride (2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:25–27):
When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:1–4).
Since that day, at the moment a person trusts Christ as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit indwells and seals him or her as a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 1:13). The Jewish apostle Peter called believers “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9). At the head of this people is Christ, who came in “the fullness of time, . . . born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal. 4:4).
Christ’s mission, His incarnation, His life on Earth, His suffering, and His resurrection set the love of God on full display. We call that display the Good News—the gospel. And no matter how much or how often we meditate on it, we cannot accurately describe or fully comprehend it. By faith we marvel at it. God’s love and sovereignty alone moved Him to choose the Jewish people; make them His special people; and bring to Earth the Messiah, the incarnate, written Word. Yet, when they as a nation rejected Him, He temporarily set them aside. He did not replace them as His Chosen People, but He no longer used them as the main purveyors of spiritual truth. That privilege today belongs to the church.
The result of His action places believers in a wonderful, new position in which we are called “children of God” (1 Jn. 3:1). Because God is “rich in mercy, . . . even when we were dead in trespasses, [He] made us alive together with Christ” by grace (Eph. 2:4–5). The arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost made it possible for Jews and Gentiles to become one by breaking down the middle wall of separation, reconciling to God believers in Jesus from both groups (vv. 14–16). We become knit together as one people who love Him because He first loved us (1 Jn. 4:19).
I wonder if Lehman, while writing “The Love of God,” thought about the apostle Paul who, though he considered himself the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15), also wrote that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). This verse alone might have inspired Lehman to compose the first two stanzas of his hymn:
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled
And pardoned from his sin.
When hoary time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall;
When men who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call;
God’s love, so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
As our Jewish friends observe Shavuot, let us celebrate with them, not only because God gave a holy, just, and good Law (Rom. 7:12) but also because He demonstrated His love with the gospel of Christ, giving to us our Blessed Hope. Thus we can sing the hymn’s refrain:
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
