When I Survey The Wondrous Cross

Michael W. Smith's second recording of Isaac Watts' hymn strips away the modern chorus his own "Wonderful Cross" arrangement added elsewhere, leaving just the original four verses to carry the whole song. "My richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride" opens with the same demotion of everything else that made the hymn famous nearly three centuries ago.

The unadorned version lets the second verse's vow stand without interruption: "forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ, my God." Nothing gets added to soften how total that claim actually is.

Paul's refusal to boast in anything except the cross of Christ, by which the world was crucified to him, gives the hymn's second verse its exact wording, and his willingness to count everything else as loss for the sake of knowing Christ backs up the opening line directly. Watts' closing math still lands the same way it always has — even "the whole realm of nature" would be "an offering far too small" for what the hymn is describing.