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Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Elizabeth Clephane's Cross

Yesterday I did my overview on the Cross. I mentioned Elizabeth Clephane's Beneath the Cross of Jesus. We'll look at that one more closely today.
Beneath The Cross Of Jesus
Elizabeth Clephane

Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty Rock within a weary land;
A home within the wilderness, a rest along the way
From the burning of the noonday heat and the burden of the day.

Upon that cross of Jesus, mine eye can sometimes see
The very dying form of One who suffered there for me;
And from my smitten heart with tears two wonders I confess -
The wonders of His glorious love and my own worthlessness.

I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place -
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face;
Content to let the world go by, to know no gain nor loss,
My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.
Elizabeth Clephane was born in 1830. She was the frail daughter of a county sheriff in Abbotsford, Scotland. The hymn, published anonymously in 1872, was written one year before her death in 1868. It reflects her deep affection for God as well as her love for the Word of God. In the first verse alone there are seven references from Scripture.

The hymn focuses on the cross. Many today see the cross as an offensive thing. They would rather concentrate on the Resurrection or the life of Christ. It just seems like the cross is such an unpleasant and past event. But Elizabeth saw it as a place to abide. That is where she would gladly take her stand. ("Fain" is a Scottish word meaning "gladly.") Look at her view of the cross. She saw it as "the shadow of a mighty Rock within a weary land, a home within the wilderness, a rest along the way."

"The mighty Rock" is a reference to the Messiah taken from Isa. 32:2. We see this same Rock in Exo. 33-34 when Moses wanted to see God and in Isaac Watts' hymn "Rock of Ages." Scripture refers to Jesus as the Rock of my salvation, the chief cornerstone, a rock of offense. (Psa. 89:26; 95:1; Isa. 28:16; Rom. 9:33) David calls God the "Rock of my strength." (Psa. 31:2, 3; 62:7; 71:3) There are, in fact over 25 references in Scripture to God as "Rock." In the shadow of the cross we can see that unyielding Rock who walked all the way to Calvary to die for me and to become the basis -- the foundation -- of my salvation.

"A home within the wilderness" is a phrase from Jer. 9:2. It depicts the personal nature of my relationship with God, portraying His sufficiency and protection. The phrase also illustrates the separation from the world we live in - "the wilderness." We are called to "come out from among them and be separate." (2 Cor. 6:17) "What fellowship has light with darkness?" Paul asks the Corinthians. (2 Cor. 6:14) ("This world is not my home; I'm just passing through.") Our citizenship is not earthly. (Phil. 3:20) Yet we try with all our might to incorporate as much of our world as we can into our spiritual viewpoints. We have so blended the two that they have become nearly indistinguishable. The morality, the divorce rates, the lifestyles, the attitudes of most evangelical Christians are almost no different than those of the world around them. But God calls to us, "Come home. My grace is sufficient for you." James warns us that friendship with the world is hostility toward God. "Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." (James 4:4)

"A rest along the way," from Isa. 28:12, is a reference to the peace of God that passes understanding. God ordained rest in the Sabbath. He refers to our ultimate rest as the sabbath rest. (Heb. 4:9-11; see 4:1-16) Unrest was never God's intention for our lives. So Paul exhorts us to "let the peace of God rule in your hearts." (Col. 3:15)

Clephane takes a very personal look at the cross in the second verse. She visualizes Christ Himself hanging on that tree. And she sees clearly the truth of the crucifixion. Two truths stand when she looks at Jesus' death: His glorious love and her worthlessness.

Today's therapeutic society would have Elizabeth in counseling in a heartbeat. Her Christian friends might have urged her to go. Our modern hymnals have so protested her comment that they have changed it. Our hymnals now read "my unworthiness." No one should consider themselves worthless. But, then, Paul would have had the earlier appointment with the therapist after his unpopular claim that he was chief among sinners and that no one was good. Now what kind of a self-image is that for a believer?

It is a biblical one. The essence of God's saving grace is that I don't deserve it. By that, I mean we have no intrinsic reason to receive salvation. We have no inborn value, no innate goodness, no inherent lovableness. Paul told the Romans that God chose (not by force) to save us for His glory. (Romans 9:22, 23) God is not obligated by our weighty value to provide for us a means of escaping judgment or a way to know Him. But today's churches largely operate as a cult of self-esteem. We need to feel better about ourselves. We are people of value.

Elizabeth Clephane disagrees. The cross shows me my sin condition. In the third verse she states the only form of value she possesses. Her only value is Christ. Paul concurs - repeatedly. "For me to live is Christ." "I count all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ." Jeremiah quotes God as saying, "Let him who boasts boast in this, that he knows Me." (Jeremiah 9:24) By nature, we are worthless. The only real value to be found in us is Christ in us. The only way that can happen is His redeeming work on the cross.

Clephane isn't done with her survey of the cross yet. In the final verse, her goal is to make that her dwelling place. "I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place - I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face." This is where we need to live. It is here, in the presence of the crucified Lord, that we see most clearly His unfathomable love and our utter depravity. It is here that we see the seriousness of God's demand for obedience and the consequence of our failure. It is here that we can see our worthlessness and His surpassing value. From the cross comes the strongest call to Christ-like character rather than self-serving ambition. At the cross we learn to endure suffering, a given for each Christian's life. At the cross, husbands learn to love their wives. At the cross, children learn to obey their parents. At the cross, Christians learn to love each other and bear one another's burdens. It is in the shadow of the cross that we all need to abide.

5 comments:

AutumnStar said...

I happened to stumble upon your blog after typing 'what beneath of the cross mean' on Google. I praise God for this straightforward, yet profound writing! This particular hymn never fails to bring tears to my eyes. I especially love ''to know no gain nor loss''.. To remember that there is a prize for faithful and humble people - heaven!

Stan said...

Glad to be of service. I, too, can't sing that hymn without tears. The lyrics, the tune, the entire message -- they really strike home to me. It serves as a reminder to keep my eyes off me and on Him.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful blog post. In this hymn, Sister Clephane left us a gem of faith, that speaks of the depth of Christian experience that few have any clue about today.

Elizabeth Clephane might also have had a deepened understanding of human worthlessness as it would appear that she did not believe in the immortality of the soul, thus denying any worthiness in man to innately live forever, for example.

Here is another verse:

There lies beneath its shadow,
But on the farther side,
The darkness of an awful grave
That gapes both deep and wide;
And there between us stands the cross
Two arms outstretched to save,
Like a watchman set to guard the way
From that eternal grave.

Blessings, David Lawrence Wilson

Stan said...

Interesting. I've been unable to find anything about Clephane's theology. I wonder where you got the claim that she didn't believe in the immortality of the soul.

The claim of "worthlessness" echoes Bildad's characterization of humans as maggots and worms (Job 25:6) and David's "I am a worm" (Psa 22:6). It is a comparison of value, where you lay God beside Man and Man comes up severely wanting instead of the "ultimate value" that humans place on him, even over God.

Unknown said...

I tend to agree with you in accepting the original words, but think you were too harsh on those who edited it. "Unworthy" is hardly Optimistic Humanism. Whether our value is "intrinsic" depends on whether you mean "as created" or "as fallen". I think their motive was good; they feared a kind of Manicheism. But as I said, on balance I prefer the original. (Incidentally, in this case even Hymntime.org has the Bowdlerised version, and they usually seem very authentic, but maybe I have not checked enough.)

Btw, I guess DLW's comment about immortality was based on the stanza he posted ("eternal grave" taken as oblivion) rather than separate research. For what it's worth, I suppose she meant "spiritual death" or Gehenna, not oblivion, and that DLW got the wrong end of the stick.

If you have any further thoughts on this I would be glad of an email at "Vid.Auty@Gmail.com". Thanks.