1900s

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.

Chorus: 
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song

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.

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.

Background: Frederick M. Lehman was a Californian businessman who had just lost everything in the early 1900s. He was forced to spend his days doing manual labor, packing fruit into wooden crates. However, he was always known as a Christian who rejoiced in his salvation. One Sunday night, after a sermon about God’s love so moved his heart, he could barely sleep. The next morning, whilst he was packing lemons and oranges into crates, the words of a song began to piece together in his head. He went home to an old piano and started arranging words and composing a melody. He wrote out the first two stanzas of “The Love of God”.

However, back in those days, a song had to be three stanzas in order to be considered complete. Frederick tried his hardest to come up with another verse, but nothing was working. Then, he remembered a poem that was written in a card someone had once sent him.

The note underneath it read: “These words were found written on a cell wall in a prison some 200 years ago. It is not known why the prisoner was incarcerated; neither is it known if the words were original or if he had heard them somewhere and had decided to put them in a place where he could be reminded of the greatness of God’s love. Whatever the circumstances, he wrote them on the wall of his prison cell. In due time, he died, and the men who had the job of repainting his cell were impressed by the words. Before their paint brushes obliterated them, one of the men jotted them down, and thus they were preserved.”

Frederick immediately incorporated the poem as the third stanza of the song, and it fit the melody perfectly. It was a miracle!

Reflection: 

I like this hymn for two main reasons. Firstly, I love the imagery used, and secondly, I like finding the Biblical references throughout the hymn. A lot of the imagery used is superlative through vocabulary such as “greater far”, “highest”, “lowest”, and more. It reminds me of God’s greatness and how, as noted in the chorus, His love is measureless and strong. He loves us more than we could possibly love Him, so much so as to sacrifice His Son on the cross to redeem us of our sins. The third stanza shows the inability of human effort to compare to God’s boundless love. It dares us to try, even though nothing we do could ever come remotely close to His love. “To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry.” This is another example of the superlative vocabulary used, as we don’t know the expanse of the ocean, yet it is certain that trying to write the love of God would drain the oceans dry. Similarly with the next line, the sky and space is a completely uncharted area, yet trying to write of God’s love would cover it all. 

There are many Biblical references throughout the hymn as well. “The guilty pair, bowed down with care,” refers to Adam and Eve after they ate the fruit of the Garden of Eden. “His erring child He reconciled,” refers to the prodigal son who was reconciled back to his family. All he had to do was come home, and he was accepted back with open arms. “When men who here refuse to pray, On rocks and hills and mountains call,” refers to Luke 19:40 which states, “He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” The last stanza is a beautiful rendition of John 21:25, “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” These are just a few, and I’m sure there are more that I don’t recognize. What all these have in common is that they involve us as humans failing, and God’s love being greater than our failures. His love is greater than all our human efforts, even the hypothetical ones. 

Rather than discourage, I hope this uplifts you. It can be rather discouraging to know that none of your efforts could possibly live up to what God has done for you. However, I think all we can do is to continue to love and serve Him while asking and listening to what He wants from us. Similarly to the prodigal son, let us not be those who refuse to pray but be those who are reconciled to Him. Let us come to God, for He will accept us with open arms.