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Sabbath Service
Saturday, March 10, 2007
“Lessons from the Cross:
Symbols of the Crucifixion”

(If you are meeting in a small group, select a leader for the day. The leader reads
the text printed in regular face. The rest of the group reads the text printed in
bold face and wherever it states “In Unison.” If you are worshipping as a single
individual, read all the parts.)

CALL TO WORSHIP

L: O God, how glorious is your name in all the earth!
    All: Your glory is sung by all of your creation!
    When we look to the heavens, the work of your fingers,
    The moon and the stars, we wonder—
    Who are we that you care for us and for this world?
L: You are the God of Life, crowning us with glory and honor
To serve you all our days.
    All: O God, how glorious is your name in all the earth!

INVITATION (In Unison)

O Father, in whom we live and move and have our being, we have gathered in your presence to sing your praise. Gather up the prayer of each heart, however scattered we may be, into one harmony of worship and service, that we might truly be one body in Christ. Accept the words of our mouths and the thoughts of our hearts, for we are yours. We ask in the name of Christ Jesus. Amen.

OPENING HYMN #211                         “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken”

John Newton
Franz Joseph Haydn

Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God;
God, Whose Word cannot be broken, formed thee for His own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded, what can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded, thou mayst smile at all thy foes.

See, the streams of living waters, springing from eternal love,
Well supply thy sons and daughters, and all fear of want remove.
Who can faint while such a river ever will their thirst assuage?
Grace which like the Lord, the giver, never fails from age to age.

Round each habitation hovering, see the cloud and fire appear
For a glory and a covering showing that the Lord is near!
Thus deriving from our banner light by night and shade by day,
Safe we feed upon the manna which God gives us when we pray.

OPENING PRAYER (In Unison)

Compassionate God, when we contemplate the self-giving love of Jesus, it makes us realize how much we need to grow. Come to us, and purify us with the fire of your spirit, that we may praise you forever and walk in your ways, through Jesus Christ, the Sovereign One. Amen.

MOMENTS OF SILENCE

PERSONAL PRAYER (In Silence)

HYMN #112                                              “Let Us Sing to God”

Psalm 75
Dwight Armstrong

Let us sing to God and praise His name, Unto Him shall we give thanks!
For His wondrous works His name declare; Let us tell of His great deeds!
The Eternal says that He will judge, When the proper time is come;
Tho’ the earth and all totters and dissolves, He will make its pillars stand.

The Eternal says unto the proud, do not boast nor flaunt your pow’r;
And unto the wicked He has said, do not lift your horn on high.
Neither from the east, nor from the west, Comes the lifting up of men.
It is God who lifts and who lowers men; For He righteously will judge.

In the hand of God there is a cup, And the wine therein is red;
It is full of wrath from which He pours; Wicked men must drain its dregs.
But I shall declare and praise my God; To the God of Jacob sing!
For the Lord shall lift up the righteous man; And shall cut off wicked men.

PRESENTATIONS BEFORE GOD (Not monetary offerings)

Time for any in attendance to offer a musical or instrument musical piece, a reading, comments, or anything they would like to present before God.

If no one is prepared or if you want more, the link below will open a full choral anthem for your listening enjoyment.

“The Carpenter’s Son”

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Time for groups to make any necessary announcements relating to their own group.

COLLECT (Preparing for the lesson. In Unison)

Lead us, loving Father, through the confusion and pain of Jesus’ last hours. Reveal your purposes once more through the silent witness before wrongful accusers and the nonviolent response to pretensions of power. Help us to see ourselves among the secret admirers, the jealous religious leaders, and the fearful crowds. Grant us strength, that in our own day we may avoid denial, betrayal, and desertion. Keep us from choosing easy avoidance of controversy or danger. Give us assurance that we are not forsaken, even when there is no one left to put in a good word for us. Speak to us now of triumphant faithfulness. Amen.

THE LESSON

(Use the lesson provided here, or conduct a study of your own selection.)

Today’s lesson might be considered controversial by some. We have been taught for a number of years that the cross was a pagan symbol and that we should have nothing to do with it. This sermon was presented in 1999 at the Church of God in Williamstown and suggests a different approach to the subject.

Lessons from the Cross
Symbols of the Crucifixion

© Hubert Krause
The Church of God in Williamstown
Web Site: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~sanhub/index_.htm

INTRODUCTION

Historically, crucifixion is the act of putting to death by nailing or binding the victim to a cross, or sometimes, to a tree. The cruelty of this punishment lay in the public shame involved and in its slow torture. Victims usually took several days to die, as a result of fatigue, cramped muscles, hunger, and thirst. Originally practiced by the Phoenicians and Persians, crucifixion was later used by the Romans on slaves and foreigners. Cicero called crucifixion the most extreme form of punishment. It was not only used as a form of execution, but also served as a public spectacle for deterrence purposes. This extreme punishment was Rome’s method of subjugation, as Josephus’ account of troubled Palestine repeatedly demonstrates. For instance, when rebellion arose in Jerusalem after the death of Herod the Great, the governor of Syria marched his legions through Galilee to Jerusalem and ordered 2,000 rebels to the cross. (Antiquities 17:295)
Crucifixion was also the instrument of death for our Lord and Saviour.

As we approach another Passover season, the opportunity is presented to us to again contemplate a little more soberly the sacrifice of the Son of God. The commemoration of the Lord’s Supper, which initiates the entire period, especially affords us the occasion to reflect upon Christ’s last few hours on earth and upon His sufferings on the cross.

When looking at the meaning of the crucifixion, we have over the years in the churches of God gone through periods when the very mention of the cross of Christ was equated with paganism, or where the debate raged as to whether it was indeed a cross, a tree, or a pole, to the present time where the traditional worldly symbolism of the cross is beginning to be more wholeheartedly and erroneously embraced.

Yet the Bible does use the metaphor of the cross to depict the Gospel:

1Co 1:17 (NIV) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power (cf. Gal 6:12; Phil 3:18).

So in Paul’s preaching, the cross of Christ is a central theme. It is equated with power. In essence, the cross, picturing the sufferings and agony of the crucified Christ, depicts the spiritual healing available to all mankind:

Isa 53:4-6 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

The cross of Christ is therefore a powerful symbol carrying many important spiritual lessons for us. It is this symbolism I would like, at least in part, to consider today.

CHRIST CRUCIFIED

How important is this symbolism of the cross? Can we separate the true biblical imagery from any false notions we may have inherited from our previous religious experience?

1Co 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.

Christ crucified, or nailed to a cross, was a stumbling-block—a trap, a snare—to the Jews who expected, not a crucified Messiah, but a triumphant, political one with a world empire. Similarly, Greek speculation could not accept a doctrine of salvation based on the “foolishness” of the crucified Nazarene; after all, only criminals were crucified, and it was unacceptable that a criminal could be the Saviour of the world! Roman historians like Tacitus and Suetonius looked upon the idea of a crucified God with contempt. For these groups to accept such an image to symbolize their Redeemer would mean the abandonment of all their cherished concepts. Yet to know Christ is to indeed abandon our own concepts and come to understand the symbolism of His cross:

1Co 2:2 For I determined not to know anything among you [the context is Paul’s comments about human wisdom] except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Paul is telling the Corinthians that he has decided to use the message of the cross of Christ as his main emphasis, even to the point of avoiding more scholarly arguments or fine points. The perfect tense of the Greek—Christ crucified—indicates that Christ cannot be separated from the cross. The effects of Christ’s experience on the cross are enduring and potent in their meaning for us. Notice the language of the apostle Paul in his admonition and rebuke of the Church in Galatia for their drift into error:

Gal 3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

The sense of the Greek for the words “clearly portrayed” is ‘placarded up, as on a public poster’. As he begins to correct the Galatians who have lapsed into a gospel of error (Gal 1:6), Paul recounts to them their initial experience of the true Gospel, which is grounded upon this imagery of the crucified Christ, as a focal point of reference; not, as we have seen happen in our experience, to make an idolatrous concept out of the symbolism of the cross of Christ, but because the correct symbolism carries vitally-important spiritual lessons for the Christian.

1Co 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

The power of God is illustrated by the preaching of the cross of Christ. How? What are we to learn from this imagery?

FREEDOM FROM THE CURSE OF SIN

Dt 21:22-23 “If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God.”

Although the reference is not to crucifixion, which was not an Israelite punishment, but rather to exhibiting a corpse after execution, the hanging, or impaling, of the offender did symbolize the judgment of God and His rejection of the evil-doer. The curse was for the violation of the Law of God, not solely for this specific offence.

The breaking of the Law of God brings a curse upon all: the death penalty, for “the wages of sin is death” (Ro 6:23)

Gal 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse [because of sin resulting from the violation of the Law]; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them [—and everyone will fall short!]”

This is why there is no more curse in the New Jerusalem: because there is no more sin—not because there is no more law!

Rev 22:3 And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him.

We might wonder why this practice, to demonstrate that the land has been purged of evil, should defile it. Perhaps the sight was a witness to the sin of which the wrong-doer was guilty. Nonetheless, the apostle Paul made use of this Deuteronomic curse on the hanged man—a curse, incidentally, much quoted by those Jews who rejected Christ—to refer to Christ’s crucifixion:

Gal 3:13 Christ has redeemed us [while we were slaves to the world and to sin] from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”).

Christ was not cursed by God. As was mentioned, the allusion was to exposure of dead bodies on stakes or crosses (Jos 10:26-27). The curse which we were all under Christ took upon Himself; it therefore fell upon Him instead of on us. Christ became a curse for us because He paid the death penalty demanded by the Law for our sins. On the cross, He absorbed the curse which is upon all mankind because of sin and which, like the penalty for murder referred to, would otherwise also incur the penalty of death. The capital punishment demanded by the Law of God has been executed, but executed in the body of Jesus Christ. What we are therefore freed, or redeemed, from is this penalty of death, not the obligation to keep the Law, as falsely claimed by some.

Notice how the apostle Paul goes on to illustrate this:

Col 2:13-14 (NIV) When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having cancelled [or “blotted out”] the written code [the certificate of indebtedness, our spiritual debt or note of guilt because of our violation of the Law of God] with its regulations [decrees or ordinances, no doubt also including the ritualistic law], that was against us [for who can keep the law faultlessly?] and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

The picture here, in business terminology, is of the canceling of a legal debt, much like an X which crosses out or renders invalid the written contents of a piece of paper. Our heavenly record of sin and evil is wiped clean. The bond has been paid, and the debt has thus been cancelled and removed. The cross of Christ therefore also pictures our freedom from death, the curse of sin.

DUTY AND SELF-DENIAL

As Christ was sacrificed on the cross, so are we to be sacrifices to God:

Ro 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present [as in offering a sacrifice] your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

The self must be sacrificed, as Christ offered Himself—freely—as a sacrifice for sin. This, too, is symbolised by the cross.

Mk 8:34-35 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself [say no to himself—what can be harder to do?], and take up his cross [‘at once’ is the sense of the Greek], and follow Me [Gk: keep on following Me]. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

The follower of Christ, must, like a condemned man, also bear his own cross, just as Christ did, and follow in His Master’s footsteps. The self must die, self-centeredness must be abandoned. This is our Christian duty. Do we view our discipleship in such terms?

So far as it is known, the expression “to take up one’s cross” is one of Jesus’ own coining, meaning to take up the position of a condemned criminal. A criminal bearing his cross to the place of execution was no unfamiliar sight in Christ’s day. No doubt Christ’s use of this turn of phrase reflected this common practice under the Romans, where convicted felons were compelled to carry the traverse beam of their crosses to the place of their execution, but Christ was well aware that He, too, would be forced to do just this (Jn 19:17). The imagery is a very powerful one—of suffering, of indignity, of shame—and it meant a lot to Christ. His hearers would also have been very familiar with the graphic imagery depicted by the language. Yet how easily is this imagery—of Christians being likened to condemned criminals—lost on us today? How well does it sit with us? Do we take it to heart? Are we willing to suffer and die for our Lord? Are we condemned by the world because our Christianity distinguishes us from it, or are we friends with the world?

Matthew’s account of these words of Christ adds a little more:

Mt 10:38-39 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me [J.B. Phillips: “does not deserve to be Mine”] 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”

This is the first time the word “cross” appears in Matthew’s Gospel. A disciple of Jesus Christ must be totally committed. We each have our own cross to meet and our own cross to bear.

Luke adds the word “daily” in his account of Christ’s instructions for His followers to bear their own cross: the self-denial, the dedication, is to be complete and continued:

Lk 9:23-24 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. 24 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.”

Lk 14:27 “And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”

These verses therefore provide us with the definition of what it means to be “worthy” of Jesus Christ.

DEAD TO SIN

Christ’s crucifixion and death is a dramatic depiction of the Christian’s baptism and death to sin through a new life:

Ro 6:1-12 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified [willingly, when we died to sin] with Him, that the body of sin [the body marked by sin] might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin [from the power of sin and from death, the curse of sin]. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died [again, willingly], He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves [strive to live up to the ideal pictured here] to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 Therefore do not let [a choice we have] sin [continue to] reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.

Baptism as a picture of death and burial symbolizes our likeness to Christ in his death. We are one in Christ through our death to sin. We die with Christ to the power of sin over us and live as a new creation. Are we refusing to allow sin to reign in our lives? Are we renewed?

Ro 8:3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh.

On the cross, Jesus absorbed the worst that sin could do and drained it of its power. Sin, the enemy—the sin of men, not of Christ—was thereby condemned and overcome in the flesh of the Son of God. Sin has now lost its control over the new man in Christ, the new creation.

Do we, in a similar manner, also “condemn sin in the flesh”, by overcoming it?

Gal 2:20 I have been crucified [referring to the “old man”—see Ro 6:6] with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

For us, too, the sentence of death has been executed—but in the body of Jesus Christ on the cross. If we live now, it can only be through Christ, and our new lives can now be nothing but the life of Christ in us. This identification with the physical body of Christ is symbolic of the Church as the spiritual Body of Christ.

Paul often uses the idea of dying with Christ (Gal 5:24; 6:14; Ro 6:8; Col 2:20) and also of being buried with Christ (Ro 6:4; Col 2:12). We might want to consider this symbolism more deeply. The crucifixion of Christ on the cross is re-enacted in our lives when we crucify our fleshly desires, and we should be doing this to ourselves daily.

Gal 5:24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires [have put to death its passions and disposition towards evil].

CRUCIFIED TO THE WORLD

The follower of Jesus Christ bears his own cross as one condemned by the world.

Gal 6:14 But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified [stands crucified] to me, and I to the world.

The antithesis of this is to be involved in an adulterous relationship of having befriended the world:

Jas 4:4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Which are we: a friend of the world or a suffering servant of Jesus Christ?

1Jn 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

RECONCILIATION, PEACE AND UNITY

The crucifixion is also a powerful symbol of reconciliation.

Eph 2:13-16 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, 15 having abolished [made null and void] in His flesh [through the crucifixion] the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, 16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body [the body of Christ on the cross as well as the Body of believers, the Church: Eph 1:23] through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

Just as by Christ’s death on the cross the barrier between Jews and Gentiles, as well as the barrier between them both and God, was taken away and both are able, in Christ, to become one, so also is the cross of the Son of God symbolic of the unity of the Body of the Church, of the removal of all barriers, of the end to all hostilities. The “middle wall of separation” or the “dividing wall of hostility (NIV)”, alludes to the balustrade which surrounded the Temple proper in Jerusalem, the partition wall which divided the court of the Gentiles from the court of Israel, with an inscription forbidding a Gentile from going further, barring the entrance of Gentiles (Acts 21:28). Human commandments, regulations and decrees which separate us from God and from one another, just as they separated Jews and Gentiles, are abolished. And can we, given the culture of the churches of God from which we have come, really grasp what this means?

Paul also describes Christ as being our Peace, our peace with God and so with each other, and he continues with this theme in his letter to the Colossians:

Col 1:20-22 and by Him to reconcile all things [all things that are willing to be reconciled] to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.

Christ’s death on the cross symbolizes the reconciliation, peace and harmony now possible between God, man and creation. This reconciliation was accomplished by means of Christ's death on the cross.

So are we reconciled to and at peace with God, and with one another, especially as we enter into the coming early Holy Day season?

SUFFERING AND ENDURANCE

Let is return briefly to the picture of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53:

Isa 53:3,7,10-11 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. 11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

Psalm 22 offers a similar picture of the suffering of the Messiah. It is fitting that we dwell upon this as the Passover again approaches. This prophecy of the sufferings of Jesus Christ is brought home to us by the imagery of the cross. The word “excruciate” comes from the Latin for “from, or out of, the cross”.

Crucifixion was the most degrading of executions, and Christ’s humiliation was heightened as He suffered in agony on the cross. Yet He despised the shame and submitted to the will of His Father.

Heb 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Php 2:8 (NIV) And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

We are called upon to bear the same reproach Christ bore for us on the cross, to share in the sufferings of Christ (Php 3:10; 1Pe 4:13), and the cross is a powerful symbol of Christian suffering and persecution. Taking up our cross as Christ instructs us to do therefore also includes the readiness to suffer as He did, including persecution if necessary. This was Paul’s experience:

Gal 5:11 And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense [Gk: snare, stumbling-block] of the cross [which brought persecution his way] has ceased.

As Christ had His own shame to bear (Heb 12:2), so did His followers bear reproach, and so do we as Christians today.

Heb 11:26 [speaking of Moses] esteeming the reproach of Christ [the same reproach Christ bore for us on the cross] greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.

We read earlier how Paul boasted in the cross of Christ (Gal 6:14). He was not ashamed of the Gospel powered by the symbolism and imagery of a crucified Messiah.

Ro 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

Are we ashamed to declare our faith, do we perhaps hide our Christianity under a bushel, or forego opportunities that present themselves to profess what we believe? What did Jesus Christ say?

Mk 8:38 “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Mt 10:32-33 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.”

SYMBOL OF TRIUMPH

As we saw in Gal 6:14, the apostle Paul boasted in the cross of Christ. He gloried in the symbol of the cross as a sign of victory, not shame, humiliation or defeat.

Rather than being something we feel we would prefer to keep concealed in the background of our minds, the metaphor of the cross is, and should so be for us, finally, a symbol of triumph, of victory, of anticipating the fruits of conquest, just as it was for Christ:

Col 2:15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

On the cross was won complete victory over every opposing power and authority.

Heb 13:13 Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.

Yes, as followers of the Son of God, let us go out to Christ “outside the camp” and take our stand with him there on Golgotha, bearing the reproach of the cross.

CLOSING HYMN #89                               “I Love To Tell The Story”

Katherine Hankey
William G. Fischer

I love to tell the story of unseen things above
of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love.
I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true;
It satisfies my longings as nothing else could do.
I love to tell the story; ’will be my theme in glory
to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

I love to tell the story; More wonderful it seems
Than all the golden fancies Of all our golden dreams.
I love to tell the story, It did so much for me;
And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee.
I love to tell the story; ’twill be my theme in glory
to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

I love to tell the story; ’Tis pleasant to repeat
what seems, each time I tell it, more wonderfully sweet.
I love to tell the story, for some have never heard
the message of salvation from God’s own holy Word.
I love to tell the story; ’twill be my theme in glory
to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

I love to tell the story for those who know it best
seem hungering and thirsting to hear it, like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song,
’twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.
I love to tell the story; ’twill be my theme in glory
to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

CLOSING WORDS (In Unison)

Jesus said: Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Go in peace: Christ is with you. You are a dearly loved child of God. Rejoice!