A Wretch Like Me and John Newton

Amazing grace,

how sweet the sound,

that saved a wretch like me.

I've just started a biography by Jonathan Aitken titled, John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace. I was addicted from the get to. If you enjoy Christian history/biography, I highly recommend checking this one out. (And for any Kindle/iPhone users out there, Amazon is offering the Kindle version for free right now. Just search for it in the Kindle app.)

I've been fairly familiar with Newton's story through his connections with other people I've read about: William Cowper, William Wilberforce, George Whitefield, etc. But thus far, it has been a delight to my soul to read his story.

He grew up with a ship captain for a father. It was natural that he himself soon gravitated toward the same industry. And despite his mother loving him with biblical truth for the first six years of his life (at which time she died), Newton grew up as a royal "wretch". He jumped headlong into the life of a degenerate sailor. He had no qualms disobeying his superiors, blaspheming, fighting, deserting his post, and raping slave women. Soon he would be a captain himself, and he would move on from trading vessels to running slave ships from the west coast of Africa to the West Indies. This entailed hunting down Africans, kidnapping them, enslaving them in the hold of the boat for horrendously long periods of time (where many of them would die of disease), and then transferring them across the Atlantic to be sold to the highest bidder into slavery.

By all accounts, John Newton was a lying, thieving, kidnapping, murdering, raping wretch.

And then, the Gospel began to take root. By the grace of God and through a series of providential deliverances, Newton found himself suddenly believing in the Word and slowly trusting in the grace of God in Jesus Christ. And he became a new man.

He was slowly self-educated, teaching himself Greek and Hebrew. He began reading voluminous theological works. He asked wise people good questions. And the next time you turn around, he is contemplating a call to the ministry. Extraordinary!

Newton would go on to be one of the most influential 18th century English pastors. His autobiography became an international best-seller. He is perhaps the reason William Wilberforce so courageously shut down the African slave-trade. And of course, he was a prolific hymn-writer, leaving us the single most recorded hymn "Amazing Grace".

One of the reasons I love this hymn is because I can resonate so deeply with the wretch, the lying, thieving, kidnapping, murdering, raping wretch. And I can therefore appreciate so marvelously the amazingness of that free, sovereign grace.