I’m still working my way through Brian Boniwell’s fascinating collection “People of the Resurrection”. If you only know his hits, it is worth digging though the rest of his canon.
Here he sets one of the oldest Christian hymns from Phillipians 2:6-11. He again uses repetition effectively in his paraphrase. He does push a higher Christology than the original – it doesn’t say he was God, just that he had “the nature of God”. This hymn is quoted by Paul and therefore precedes him and as you would expect has an early low Christology.
You can hear an extract of the song at Apple Music. You can find out how to get his sheet music here.
Refrain
Jesus you are Lord of life,
Raised to share the Father’s glory.
Jesus you have come to us,
Giving us your life.
1
And though he was God,
He came from the Father to live as a man, to be like us.
Not claiming his rights as the Son of the Father,
He emptied himself to give us his life.
2
And though he was God,
He came as a servant, to share in our joys, to share in our pain.
Though living as man, he became yet more lowly,
Accepting death, death on a tree.
3
The father raised him high above all creation,
To give him the name above other names.
And so every knee on earth and in heaven,
Must bow to the name of Jesus the Lord.
© Brian Boniwell 1997.