For ourselves we do not live

For ourselves we do not live,

Nor to ourselves do we die; 

If we die or if we live,

We belong to God on high.

 

To this end our Jesus died,

And yet also lives again.

Why then do you judge and chide

As if you were without sin?

 

God alone will judge us all, 

And before God we will be.

To our knees then shall we fall,

There to praise eternally.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, August 2023, after Romans 14:7-12.

MUSIC: Tune AUS DER TIEFE RUFE ICH, attr. Martin Herbst, 1676.

 

 

For this final hymn in the Romans cycle, the latter half of the reading bears the weight of song; a hymn about eating or not eating meat was frankly beyond me. The warning against judgment, not turning non-essential matters into "essential" tests of faith, and the like quite wanted to be sung, so to speak. Plus, I have now used the word "chide" in a hymn text.