New Life Baptist Church, College Station Texas

One may make the appli­ca­tion that this song should lead us to ces­sa­tion and sub­se­quent avoid­ance of boast­ing. The thought there is that “I boast no more” can mean, “I will no longer boast”. The elim­i­na­tion of all boast­ing in our own efforts is desir­able and cer­tainly drawn from Scrip­ture as in Eph­esians 2:8–9, where Paul speaks of sav­ing faith com­ing by grace so that “no one may boast.” Also, in 1 Corinthi­ans 1:28–29 Paul says that God chose the things that are “low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to noth­ing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the pres­ence of God.” Clearly, there is an agenda to remind pride­ful, self-sufficient man that God desires us to not make much of our­selves. But, it does not stop there. Avoid­ing and pre­vent­ing mis­placed boast­ing is just step 1. We glo­rify God when we make our boast in Him and His accom­plish­ments. We are to boast, to glory in, to pub­li­cize, the mer­its of Christ, namely His life of per­fect obe­di­ence to the Father, death, and res­ur­rec­tion, which demon­strated God the Father’s approval of the sac­ri­fice through which the right­eous­ness of the One, jus­ti­fies the sins of the many.

This month’s hymn is inex­tri­ca­bly linked to Gala­tians 6:14, where Paul declares, “but far be it from me to boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been cru­ci­fied to me, and I to the world.”

No more my God, I boast no more
Of all the duties I have done
I quit my hopes I held before
To trust the mer­its of Your Son

The first verse begins with the dec­la­ra­tion of the end of boast­ing in our own good works. I will no longer boast about all that I have done. After all, as Titus 3:4–5 says, “but when the good­ness and lov­ing kind­ness of God our Sav­ior appeared, He saved us, not because of any works done by us in right­eous­ness…” His sav­ing us had noth­ing to do with even the works of right­eous­ness we per­formed. There­fore, “I quit my hopes I held before”…presumably those hopes in our own efforts toward earn­ing God’s favor. In place of those futile hopes, we sub­sti­tute a supe­rior hope by plac­ing our trust in the mer­its of Christ.

No more my God
No more my God
No more my God
I boast no more

And now by grace I bear His name
What was my gain I count my loss
My for­mer pride I call my shame
And nail my glory to His cross

This verse is seem­ingly para­dox­i­cal as it recounts the words of Paul from Philip­pi­ans 3:8, “I count every­thing as loss because of the sur­pass­ing worth of know­ing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Paul repeat­edly teaches us that our weak­ness reveals the glory and power of God. He even speaks of His own past worldly hon­ors in near sar­cas­tic tones, recall­ing what He once thought to be gain.

Yes and I must, I will esteem
All things but loss for Jesus’ sake
Oh that my soul be found in Him
And of His right­eous­ness par­take, Amen, Amen

Verse 3, which in this arrange­ment is sung like a bridge between verses 2 and 4, is a con­tin­u­a­tion of Philip­pi­ans 3: “For his sake I have suf­fered the loss of all things and count them as rub­bish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not hav­ing a right­eous­ness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ…”

The best obe­di­ence of my hand
Dares not appear before the throne
But faith can answer His demands
By plead­ing what my Lord has done

Finally, lest we con­clude that any of our efforts, even some of our good works for the glory of Christ, might be enough to earn the favor of God, we sing that that very best we could pos­si­bly do does not even dare to appear before the throne. This is talk­ing about God as judge, sit­ting on the throne. His judg­ment of us can­not be based on any of our own mer­its or we per­ish. The only answer, and our only hope, that is suf­fi­cient in response to His demand for the right­eous­ness required to enter into His pres­ence, is faith in the fin­ished work of Jesus Christ. Our plea that we enter before the judg­ment seat of God must be humbly, yet boast­fully to pro­claim that we belong to the Lord Jesus who has granted us repen­tance and faith and accom­plished for us all that we could not. The Right­eous Judge will look upon us and see His Son’s work, and be pleased.

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