The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled, and pardoned from his sin.

Oh love of God how rich and pure! How measureless and strong!
It shall forever more endure – the Saints’ and angels’ song.

When hoary time shall pass away, and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall
When men who here refuse to pray, on rocks and hills and mountains call
God’s love so sure, shall still endure, all measureless and strong
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race – the saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.

Those words were penned by a man named Frederick Lehman in 1917. The first two verses he came up with on his own. The third verse Lehman said was actually first found scratched on the wall of a patient’s room in an insane asylum.

The patient had died and when the workers went in to get rid of the body they found these words on the wall. It was assumed that the patient had written them during his few periods of sanity. Lehman later heard those words quoted and added them to his song.

It was later discovered that the patient in the asylum had actually taken his words from a Jewish poem that was written around 1000 AD.

The words of that poem run thus: Were the sky of parchment made, a quill each reed, each twig and blade,
Could we with ink the oceans fill, were every man a scribe of skill,
The marvelous story of God’s great glory, would still remain untold;
For He most high, the earth and sky created alone of old.

This Jewish poem is 90 lines long and is mainly focused on the enduring love of God for His people.

A Gentile believer
A person who struggled with his sanity
A Jewish man from over 1000 years ago

They all had one thing in common – their complete assurance in God’s love for His people.

Believer, may you never doubt God’s love. It is unending. It is unconditional, and it is blazing for you. Stronger than the sun, bigger than the universe, more consistent than the law of gravity.

Or to put it better “to write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.”