Stories Behind Popular Hymns: Gaither HomecomingParaugs

Rock of Ages

Local tradition in Burrington Combe, England, holds that Reverend Augustus M. Toplady was inspired to write the famous hymn “Rock of Ages” when he physically experienced the shelter of his God. As he was traversing through the gorge in the Mendip Hills, a storm pounded the landscape. Toplady sought protection in a break in the rocks and jotted down the prayer, “Let me hide myself in Thee.” That rock is now called “The Rock of Ages” and is a popular tourist attraction.

But the hymn may not have even been known had it not been included in an angry letter to John Wesley by Toplady that appeared in The Gospel Magazine. Toplady was a staunch Calvinist and John Wesley was a revered Arminian. Toplady boldly proclaimed that in the same way England could not pay her national debt, man could not by his own efforts pay his insurmountable debt to a just and holy God. “Rock of Ages” appeared at the end of his article, almost as if when finished Toplady burst into song. The irony of his including his poem is that John Wesley, himself, had written something strikingly similar years before, “O Rock of Salvation, Rock struck and cleft for me, let those two Streams of Blood and Water which gushed from thy side, bring down Pardon and Holiness into my soul.”

The truth is, we can debate with one another about the way God works, but His ways are exactly that—His. He explained it to Moses, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Ex. 33:19). And then, in His grace, He showed Himself to Moses, and in His mercy, He placed him in the cleft of the rock to spare him—“for no man shall see Me, and live” (v. 20). Praise our all-knowing God, whose ways are beyond our comprehension, that He chose to show compassion by sending His Son, “For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father”(Eph. 2:18)!