For David Rolf: On Sanctification

The Apostle Paul

This hymn is for my brother David, who taught me the hymn, "In Hope My Soul, Redeemed to Bliss unending."

The tune has haunted me for quite some time now, in its Nordic beauty, and I've been thinking what kind of a hymn would fit it.  I've been preparing a Bible Class on Romans 7, and in order to organize my thoughts, I turned them to poetry, and they found this tune in my heart.  The meter is difficult, with all the trochees (lines that end on a non-stress syllable), but I enjoyed the challenge.

Our justification leads us naturally to our sanctification.  We receive God's love in justification, and we practice it in sanctification, as we present ourselves to God as alive from the dead.  This holiness in us will always be imperfect and our struggle for it always leads us back to our justification, i.e. to Christ and his work for us, with the hope of the resurrection always in faith's eyes.

Absolved and freed from sin and works of evil,

I trust in Christ who crushed my foe, the devil;

The sins that bound me,

The death around me

Must die before my Lord who sought and found me.

The life that I in this poor flesh am living

I live by faith in Christ who is forgiving

Each sinful passion

With his redemption

Where by his blood he blot out my transgression.

Now freely can I love and serve my neighbor -

God works in me to use my mind and labor;

Though my behavior

Will often waver

I bring my sins again to Christ my Savior.

And so, baptized, I die and rise contented;

To God's good will by grace I have consented;

In hope I ponder

Those mansions yonder,

My home when I this earth no more must wander.