Musical Notes

Hello OCBC family,
“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you.” (Jeremiah 31:3).

This passage from Jeremiah shows us the everlasting love that the Lord has for His people; in this context, He is talking to Israel, but this everlasting love is for those who are now in Christ. God’s love was always based on grace. And that is why the phrase "The Love of God" is both sweet and powerful. It is something that cannot be fully described or understood but is received with humility. And this is Frederick Lehman's message.

Frederick Lehaman was from Germany, but he and his family moved to America when he was four years old, settling down in Iowa. At the age of eleven he became a Christian, went to seminary and became pastor. But his greatest love was gospel music. He was able to create five songbooks.

In 1917, his financials were bad and he went to work for a packing factory in Pasadena, California, packing oranges and lemons. On day, while he was working, during the break, an inspiration came and some words came to him and he started to write them down, which became the famous hymn, “The Love of God.”

“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.”

He arrived home that evening, sat at the piano and composed the familiar melody that we know and love. Just one little problem, gospel hymns at that time “must” have three stanzas, and Frederick only had two for this particular hymn.

“When years of 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 pure shall still endure,
all measureless and strong;
redeeming grace to Adam's race--
the saints’ and angels’ song.”

What did Frederick do to complete his hymn with a third stanza? He remembers a verse that a pastor used in an illustration, anonymous lyrics founded on the wall of an insane asylum, written by an unknown inmate. Some people might say that the author of this last verse was an eleventh-century Jewish poet in Germany named Meir Ben Isaac.

“Could we with ink the ocean fill
and were the skies of parchment made,
were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill
and ev’ry man a scribe by trade,
to write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry;
nor could the scroll contain the whole,
tho' stretched from sky to sky.”

Frederick Lehman dies in 1953 in California, but he never forgot about the love of God, rich and pure.

“O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure:
the saints’ and angels’ song!”
​
In His service,
Israel