It Really Is Amazing Grace

There’s something disarmingly honest and jubilant about Phil Wickham’s “It Really Is Amazing Grace.” It takes the familiar truths of the gospel and sings them with a childlike awe and a battle-scarred joy—“I once was lost, but now I’m found…there’s no chains on me”—and those lines point us straight into Scripture. When we slow down and listen to the words alongside the Bible, the song becomes a mirror that shows how the gospel reshapes identity, fear, and freedom.

Take the opening line, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” That sentiment is deeply biblical. Paul’s blunt honesty about human brokenness—“all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)—sets the stage for grace. But the Bible doesn’t stop there: Ephesians 2:1–5 traces the trajectory the song sings—“you were dead in your trespasses…but God, being rich in mercy…made us alive together with Christ.” The wonder isn’t just that we needed saving; it’s that God reached down despite our state. Romans 5:8 puts the same point plainly: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That is the “sweet sound” the song celebrates.

When the lyric says, “I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see,” my mind goes to the prodigal joy of Luke 15—the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one lost sheep and rejoices when it’s found. Jesus’ ministry is full of those recoveries: literal healings like John 9 (the man born blind who, when healed, testifies, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see”) and spiritual recoveries where lost people are returned to life. The gospel language of being found and seeing again also echoes Ephesians 1:18 and 2 Corinthians 4:6—God opens eyes of heart and mind so we grasp hope and glory. The song’s testimony “I was blind but now I see” is both a personal memory and a biblical pattern: grace restores perception and place.

The chorus, “There’s no chains on me…Thank you, Jesus, you have set me free,” sings of liberation that Scripture repeatedly proclaims. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36) is a short, powerful promise. Paul writes of freedom multiple times—Romans 8:1–2’s “no condemnation” and Galatians 5:1’s “stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery”—both frame salvation as emancipation. Isaiah 61:1, quoted by Jesus, ties freedom to the arrival of the good news: “He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives.” The song’s exultation is the faithful echo of these texts: grace breaks the chains sin and shame once had around us.

The verse “‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved” balances reverence and comfort. Scripture calls for a healthy, reverent fear before God (Philippians 2:12’s “work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” and Hebrews 12:28’s “let us worship God acceptably with reverence and awe”), yet grace is the very thing that removes crippling fear. 2 Timothy 1:7—“God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control”—and Psalm 34:4’s testimony about being delivered from fears show how grace both humbles and heals. The hour of first believing—“How precious did that grace appear”—reminds us that the gospel both convicts and comforts: it teaches awe and then transforms it into peace.

The bridge—“He gave me life, I’m born again; my heart is free, my soul is saved”—is explicit New Testament language. Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3 that one must be “born again” (or “from above”), and Titus 3:5 emphasizes that it’s God’s mercy that regenerates us, “not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.” “My soul is saved” resonates with words like John 5:24 (“whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and will not be condemned”) and 2 Corinthians 5:17’s “new creation” language.

What makes this song particularly helpful as a devotional is how it moves from confession to testimony to celebration. It models a spiritual rhythm: admit the need (wretch, lost, blind), receive and name the gift (saved, called by name, born again), and then live in the freedom and gratitude that follows (no chains, dancing on that grave, testimony). The biblical passages behind each of those steps don’t simply inform the lyrics; they deepen them. Scripture gives us categories (sin, repentance, grace, new life) and stories (the prodigal, the healed blind man, Christ’s death and resurrection) that help us understand what our experience feels like from God’s perspective.

A question to sit with today: If you truly believed that God has called you by name, set you free, and given you new life, what practical change would you start making this week to live as someone who’s already dancing on that grave?