1. "Years I spent in vanity and pride, Caring not my Lord was crucified, Knowing not it was for me He died On Calvary. [Refrain]
  2. "By God's grace at last my sin I learned, Then I trembled at the law I'd spurned, Till my guilty soul imploring turned To Calvary. [Refrain]
  3. "Now I've giv'n to Jesus ev'rything; Now I gladly own Him as my King; Now my raptured soul can only sing Of Calvary. [Refrain]
  4. "O the love that drew salvation's plan! O the grace that brought it down to man! O the mighty gulf that God did span At Calvary."
Refrain-- "Mercy there was great, and grace was free; Pardon there was multiplied to me; There my burdened soul found liberty, At Calvary."
(Words by William R. Newell; Music by Daniel B. Towner)
Once again, as we begin with our Prime Directive "checkoff list", this seems to be a song of testimony ["Years I spent in vanity and pride..."], so it is making known that deposition (speaking) through the song.  We can see also that this is a psalm of praise to God giving high praise for His work as well as a hymn teaching about His willingness to bless.

The words of the song were written by William R. Newell in 1895.  They came to him on his way to teach a class at the Moody's Bible Institute in Chicago, IL.  When he arrived, he slipped into a vacant class room and quickly penned them on the back of an envelope.  The music was written by Daniel B. Towner who studied music at the feet of some renowned teachers and musicians including John Howard and James Webb.  He was music director for many organizations including Moody's Bible Institute where he likely got to see the lyrical work from this song.

 I wish to try something a little different with THIS commentary and hope it will be less confusing.  Before, I would ramble on about each verse and each line of each verse in many paragraphs; THIS time I want to attempt doing this in more of an outline form in the hopes of being more succinct and clear with the lyrics on which I'm commenting.
<Also, this is the first commentary I am doing by request. Somebody told me they had been approached that this song was unscriptural. She didn't remember what specific part of the song made it that way, but hopefully by analyzing this song thoroughly we can ascertain what would make the song unsound OR be able to allay those fears and be better able to sing the song "with the spirit" as well as "with the understanding" (1 Corinthians 14:15).>

    • "Years I spent in vanity and pride, Caring not my Lord was crucified,
      •  Again, this is testimony, rather subjective; since it says nothing that is out-rightly unscriptural [e.g.-- The Lord sent the Spirit upon me and I spoke in tongues], I find nothing against it.
    • "Knowing not it was for me He died On Calvary.
      • Since vanity and pride are marks of ungodliness, one can say that the one giving the testimony was ungodly.  Fortunately for him (as for all of us), "while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (Rom 5:6)."
      • As is written in Luke 23:33, "[W]hen they came to the place that is called The Skull [referred to as "Calvary" in many translations], there they crucified him...."
    • "By God's grace at last my sin I learned, Then I trembled at the law I'd spurned,
      • We can see examples of this being played out many times, where people learn of their sinful state, are thus in fear, and want to know what to do to avoid condemnation for spurning the Law of God (Acts 2:37; 16:29-30).
      • The only part of this I find potentially questionable about this hymn is where the song writer says that he learned of his sin by the grace of God.  One could view that as sounding a little Calvinist.  And if we take the phrase literally, it may sound like "Unconditional Election" and "Limited Atonement", that the writer would only have learned of his error by God's grace.  However, as I will point out in my comments on the refrain, God's desire is for no one to perish but that all would come to repentance.
      • On the other hand, it is by His grace that any of us learn of our (once) sinful conditions.  He gives us whatever chance we can get, whether it be providing Peter on the Day of Pentecost (or sending him to see Cornelius)(Acts 2 & 10 respectively), whether it be sending Philip to Gaza to meet the treasury official from Ethiopia (Acts 8), whether it be stopping Saul (later to be known as Paul) on the way to Damascus and sending Ananias to teach him (Acts 9), or even using Paul to prevent Elymus Bar-Jesus from speaking lies to proconsul Sergius Paulus so that he would hear the Word and eventually believe (Acts 13:4-12).  But it is still up to us to either send or be sent to make sure the Word is preached that they may believe (Roman 10:14-15).
    • "Till my guilty soul imploring turned To Calvary." 
      •  I'd like to think it obvious that this is poetic license since turning to a "place of the Skull" for salvation would be pointless.  It is what Jesus did on Calvary that saves us.  No, He did not simply go there and get killed; besides the fact that He fulfilled a LOT of prophecy while being taken to and while hanging on the cross (John 19:28), He allowed Himself to be taken, giving Himself freely, so as to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins (John 10:14-17), thus demonstrating such a love for us that can not be paralleled or surpassed (John 15:13)!
    •  "Now I've giv'n to Jesus ev'rything; Now I gladly own Him as my King; Now my raptured soul can only sing Of Calvary."
      •  This does not ascribe to the Rapture (the removal of the faithful from the world), but refers to a religious ecstasy resulting from one's faith (see definition of "raptured").  With that clarification, the rest of the verse can be considered testimonial and poetic license on the writer's part.
    • "O the love that drew salvation's plan!"
      •  As was mentioned before, there is no greater love that one can demonstrate than that One gives His life for His friends (John 15:13) (and we are His friends if we do what He commands, John 15:14)
    • "O the grace that brought it down to man!"
      •  Also as I mentioned before, it is by His grace that we learn of our sinful conditions, not in the Calvinistic sense, but that He wants us all to be saved and will provide a way that we may hear His word and come to repentance (as mentioned in the second verse and the refrain).
    • "O the mighty gulf that God did span At Calvary."
      •  Considering that we were enemies of God as sinners before He imparted His grace to us, it was a considerable gulf (even metaphorically speaking) that God traversed when He did make the way of reconciliation to Him possible (Romans 5:7-11)
  • Refrain
    • "Mercy there was great, and grace was free;"
      •  Paul talks a great deal about mercy and grace in his letters, but he has a good focus on both in Ephesians 2:1-10.  As he points out,
        we "were dead in the trespasses and sins in which [we] once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us" [remember how Jesus was quoted by the disciple whom He loved: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16)], "even when we were dead in our trespasses, [He] made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" [again, it is good to remember Romans 5:8 where we are reminded that "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."], "so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
      • As I've dealt with Calvinism in some previous commentaries (and even in this one already), it seems good I should revisit it now.  I want to ensure how clear it is that I do believe we are saved by the grace of God and not because of works we might attempt.  That being said, if I am to be saved there is something I must do to receive this grace; after all, as Paul says here, we have been saved by grace through faith.  That does not mean that a simple mental assertion of His existence will bring Him to impart His grace to me; even demons believe that God exists, and that strikes them with fear (James 2:19).  If I truly believe in God, if I have true faith, I will act accordingly.  It is impossible to demonstrate faith without action of some sort (James 2:18).  But those actions must be in accordance to what He commands us to do (John 14:15).  Those actions in and of themselves will not save us, thus the grace is the gift of God and not the result of works (Ephesians 2:9).  God would have it that every soul was saved from perishing, but we must reach repentance first (2 Peter 3:9) and one is rather unlikely to repent if one does not believe, worse yet one can not believe if they have not heard; after all, faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Rom 10:17).
    • "Pardon there was multiplied to me;"
      •  One can see through the prophet's writings that wicked people must forsake their wicked ways and unrighteous people must forsake their unrighteous thoughts in order to return to the Lord (so that He may have compassion on them) and to our God ("for He will abundantly pardon", Isaiah 55:6-7).
    • "There my burdened soul found liberty, At Calvary."
      •  Paul tells us to "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage (Galatians 5:1, NKJV)."

I hope this allays any fears about the song being unsound and demonstrates its scriptural integrity.  As always, though, I welcome your thoughts.