Christ My Song - 803
From the glory and the gladness - The gospel according to Paul
(Frances Bevan/Johannes Thomas Rüegg)
The gospel according to Paul.
Acts 26,16.
1. From the glory and the gladness,
from his secret place;
from the rapture of his presence
from his radiant Face – (PDF - Midi)
2. Christ, the Son of God, hath sent me
through the midnight lands;
mine the mighty ordination
of the piercèd Hands.
3. Mine the message grand and glorious
strange unsealed surprise –
that the goal is God's Beloved,
Christ in Paradise.
4. Hear me, weary men and women,
sinners dead in sin;
I am come from heaven to tell you
of the love within;
5. not alone of God's great pathway
leading up to heaven;
not alone how you may enter
stainless and forgiven –
6. not alone of rest and gladness
tears and sighing fled –
not alone of life eternal
breathed into the dead –
7. but I tell you I have seen him,
God's belovèd Son,
from his lips have learnt the mystery
he and his are one.
8. There, as knit into the body
every joint and limb,
we, his ransomed, his belovèd,
we are one in him.
9. All in marvellous completeness
added to the Lord,
there to be his crown of glory,
his supreme reward.
10. Wondrous prize of our high calling!
speed we on to this,
past the cities of the angels
farther into bliss;
11. on into the depths eternal
of the love and song,
where in God the Father's glory
Christ has waited long;
12. there to find that none beside him
God's delight can be –
n o t b e s i d e h i m, n a y, b u t i n h i m,
O b e l o v e d a r e w e.
(1,4 orig.: from the radiance of his Face –)
Frances Bevan, Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso and others 1, 1899, 142-144.