Verse 7
For the martyrs’ crown of light,
For thy prophets’ eagle eye,
For thy bold confessors’ might,
For the lips of infancy,
This verse is left out of the modern version of the hymn and that is a shame. It talks about the Christian walk, about taking up our cross daily, seeing with the eyes of Jesus, taking hold of Jesus’ victory with our words and trusting with the purity of a child. These things too are things to thank and praise Jesus for.
The martyrs’ crown of light is something to value in our lives. James tells us in James 1:12 that we are blessed to persevere under trial because when we have stood the test we will receive the crown of life promised by Jesus. In Revelation 2:10 we are told not to be afraid of suffering. This is part of the address to the ekklesia in Smyrna. This was a city with a strong allegiance to Rome. Emperor worship was practised here and the Jewish population was extremely hostile to the followers of Jesus. The ekklesia here suffered great persecution. There is reference to Daniel 1 where the persecuted were tested for ten days (a symbol of completeness) and triumphed. The people of Smyrna were likewise to be tested.
In Matthew 10:22 Jesus told His disciples they would be hated because of Him, but would be saved if they persevered in their faith. Later in verse 38 He told His disciples that whoever would not take up his cross daily was not worthy of Jesus. In Matthew 16:24-25 Jesus again said that to follow Him we must deny ourselves and take up our crosses daily. Taking up our crosses means we are willing to put following Jesus ahead of everything else in our lives. For some, following Jesus will involve terrible persecution and death but for the rest of us that Martyrs’ Crown will just involve obeying Jesus. It is the act of obedience, despite the opposition and the refusal to deny Jesus that gives us the Martyrs’ Crown.
The prophets’ eagle eye sees things as Jesus sees them. She is willing to deny self and choose to see the world through Jesus’ eyes. It is a desire to see the wonderful things of God as revealed in His Word (Psalm 119:118). It is the willingness to declare that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead. (Romans 10:9-10) It is the willingness to see Jesus and proclaim that. This confession is also the bold confessors’ might of the third line. Jesus has claimed the victory over sin and death and we stand in that victory when we are willing to confess that Jesus is Lord. We offer God a continuous sacrifice of praise as fruit of lips that openly call the name of Jesus (Hebrews 13:15). The fearful person will not openly acknowledge Jesus because of fear of the consequences as in the time of Jesus when the leaders who believed kept silent to avoid being put out of the synagogue (John 12:42). Remember when we acknowledge Jesus before others, he will acknowledge us to God (Matthew 10:32).
In the power of the Holy Spirit we openly confess Jesus before men and face persecution but we stand in the victory with the vision given by the Holy Spirit and we are full of praise for the gift of the Spirit that allows us to do this. We also are thankful for the pure trusting faith that allows us to receive these great revelations (Matthew 11:25, Luke 10:21). It is the pure trust of a child that allows us to stand before God, to receive the gift of faith and to enter into the salvation Jesus has won for us (Matthew 18:3, Mark 10:14-16).
As the psalmist wrote in 8:2 the praise of children and infants is a stronghold against the enemy and will silence him. This praise is the martyr who has won the Crown of light, the prophet with the vision and the bold confessor. We are full of praise and thankfulness to Jesus our Lord for this beautiful gift.

Verse 6 continued.

In the last blog I discussed the different meaning of Ekklesia and Church, and that the use of the word Church was about religious groups wanting to build their power.
In 1 Timothy 3 Paul sets down guidelines for overseers and deacons. These men were administrators who collected the money people donated to the Ekklesia and ensured its fair distribution. They also handled the logistics to do with the times the Ekklesia met together. Did they need to hire a venue? What format was the meeting taking? These were local administrative positions. In Acts 6 we see the Apostles appointing 7 men to oversee the distribution of food to the needy so that the Apostles could devote their time to prayer and studying the word of God. They needed to do this so that they could teach the new believers about Jesus. So the structures of the Ekklesias were administrative. If God had intended an international Ekklesia where are the instructions for its establishment?
I am not saying that Churches are wrong, but we need to be careful how to interpret verses in the Bible. The problem with a church is that people can become lazy in their relationships with God. They allow church leaders to interpret God for them. Remember that faith does not come by hearing man’s opinion of God’s word, it comes from hearing the word of God yourself. If someone is reading and interpreting the Bible for you and you are not spending your own time reading and seeking God to understand what you are reading then how can you know when the person preaching is correct in his or her interpretation of God’s word? So many people are taught to blindly believe what their pastor tells them but that is wrong. Pastors are not perfect and they can get it wrong or deliberately twist something to suit themselves.
Leviticus 4 instructs the Israelites how to deal with community sin (13-21), priestly sin (22-26) and individual sin (27-31). This continues on in chapter 5 and following chapters. Our relationship with God is individual. We are the bride, just as every other follower of Jesus is the bride. In Genesis 17:1-8 God made an individual covenant with Abraham. In 37-50 we read about Joseph who had an individual relationship with God, even when his entire family had a relationship with God. His relationship was with God, not through his family. In Matthew 22:1-14 we read that we are invited into individual relationship with Jesus and if we do not accept that relationship then we are out. The call in Ephesians 5:22-24 is to submit to Jesus as an individual. The Ekklesia you worship in are also called as individuals to submit to Jesus. If as a group this submission does not happen and you are called on to submit to the group ahead of Christ then reject that group and follow Jesus.
Pierpoint used Bride not church or Ekklesia. The word Bride does not occur very often in the Bible and has a different meaning to the word Ekklesia. There are those who decided it means the Church but I believe it represents all individuals who love and follow Jesus. If you read Isaiah 61:10 it refers to the bride as the individual, not an international group. Again in 62:5 we read that God rejoices over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride. In Revelation 19:7 the wedding of the Lamb expresses the intimate individual relationship between God and his people as prophesied in Isaiah 54:5-7. Which refers to our Maker as our husband. Our maker is the Lord Almighty the Holy One of Israel who is our Redeemer and God of all the earth. In John 15:4 Jesus instructs us to abide in Him and He will abide in you.
Whether you are a member of a church group or not, you are solely responsible for your relationship to God. You, the bride, must lift your hands in worship to God and offer your pure sacrifice of Love to Him.

Verse 6
For thy Bride that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Offering up on every shore
This pure sacrifice of love,
There is much to discuss about this verse, one is the substitution of the original word Bride for Church and the other is the meaning of Bride. So I will be dividing this verse into two blogs. This blog will discuss the word Church. The following blog will conclude the discussion on Church and look at the meaning of Bride.
In the modern version of this hymn, this is the last verse and thy Bride is replaced by the word Church. There is great controversy about the word Church and its use in the translations of the Bible. The argument is that in the original Greek the word Ekklesia was used where you now see the word Church, even though it has a different meaning. There are one or two places where the word Ekklesia is replaced with other words. One example is Acts 19 where reference is made to the local idol makers meeting to discuss what to do about the negative impact converted followers of Jesus were having on their business. The word Ekklesia is translated there as “assembly”. In Acts 7:38 reference is made to the Ekklesia of Israel gathered at Mt Sinai. The nation of Israel is not a church and the word Ekklesia is not translated as this. So why is Ekklesia translated as Church in some instances and not others? The meaning of the word as used in the New Testament Greek documents is “a called out assembly of citizens”. It is used to represent a group of people assembled together for a particular cause or purpose in a particular location. It was never used just to refer to a religious group. It also never refers to a building or a larger organisation. So how did this translation of Ekklesia to mean Church come about? By the time the Bible was translated into English there was a concept of a universal organisation because of the Roman Catholic Church and Empire and the Protestant churches claiming countries. In fact the word was first used in 1556 by a protestant leader to refer to a hierarchical form of government in a religious movement.
Just as we want to make our own choices in life, instead of trusting God, it is human nature to want to control what others do and believe. The reformation involved so much nastiness and killing because the different churches were vying for control of the people. Why? Because the more people who adhered to each religious movement, the more power that movement had. This was nothing to do with God and everything to do with human desire for power and control.
In the next blog I will continue this discussion and discuss the meaning of the word Bride.

Verse 5
“For each perfect gift of thine,
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of heaven,”
For each perfect gift of thine! What beautiful words. As Ecclesiastes 3:9-13 says, God makes everything beautiful in it time. He has set eternity in the human heart! We are made for greater than the earth can offer but we are still giving gifts of earthly bounty and beauty. While we are alive we have the gift of happiness and doing good to others. We take pleasure in eating and drinking and our work on this earth brings us satisfaction. This is a gift to the human race that is freely and perfectly given. As if that wasn’t enough, God has an even greater gift, Jesus Christ our Lord (John 4:10, Romans 6:23) and Jesus asked God to send a further gift, the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4). Then God gives us gifts and abilities to use to His glory. As James 1:17 NIV says:
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
Grace also comes from God, be it grace from a fellow human being or grace from God. Moses gave the law and Jesus gave grace and truth (John 1:17). God gives us grace to give to other people (2 Corinthians 9:8) and this is to allow “thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God”. 2 Corinthians 4:15 NIV. This is so true for this verse. God freely gives us perfect gifts, the greatest of which is grace. He causes grace to come from Him and from others so that we may be thankful to God. This is exactly what Pierpoint is saying in this verse.
To emphasise these words Pierpoint likens grace to flowers of earth and buds of heaven. Galatians 6:7-10 encourages us to accept that what we sow, we reap. If our aim in life is hedonistic pleasures then we will reap destruction. If our aim is to please God, then our harvest will be eternal life. We are encouraged to not tire of doing good, even when it seems to be a thankless task. Our harvest will come in God’s time. Galatians 5:22-23 also reminds us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (NIV). These are the flowers of earth and buds of heaven, the gifts and grace that come from God. For these I am truly thankful.
Christ our Lord, to Thee we raise this our sacrifice of praise.