GHS 80 : At The Cross Lyrics
GHS 80, “At The Cross,” is a hymn in two distinct parts that belong together. The stanzas come from Isaac Watts, written in 1707 and titled “Alas, And Did My Saviour Bleed,” and they carry the full weight of Watts’s contemplative wonder at the cross: did the Saviour really bleed? Did the Sovereign really die? For such a one as me? The questions are not rhetorical doubts but expressions of awe that the cross never ceases to produce in the believing heart. The refrain, added much later by Ralph Hudson, shifts the tone from wonder to testimony: at the cross, the burden rolled away, sight was received by faith, and joy came and has not left.
This hymn appears as number 80 in the Gospel Hymns and Songs (GHS) collection, used in Deeper Life Bible Church and related assemblies across West Africa. It is one of the most complete cross-centred hymns in the collection, holding awe and joy together in a single song.
Hymn Lyrics – GHS 80: At The Cross
- Alas, and did my Saviour bleed? And did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head For such a worm as I?
At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light, And the burden of my heart rolled away, It was there by faith I received my sight, And now I am happy all the day!
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Was it for crimes that I have done, He groaned upon the tree? Amazing pity! grace unknown! And love beyond degree!
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Well might the sun in darkness hide, And shut his glories in, When Christ, the mighty Maker, died For man the creature’s sin.
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But drops of grief can ne’er repay The debt of love I owe: Here, Lord, I gave myself away, ‘Tis all that I can do!
