Today I was at a Reformed church and we sang a hymn called “In Christ Alone”, I used to play that song for worship at my church and at bible school. It is an encouraging and uplifting song, and it is effective in teaching St. Anselm’s satisfaction theory of the atonement, however, it is truly theologically inept in my opinion. As is the whole idea of “Solus Christus”. It’s not wrong because Jesus is bad or anything, it’s just wrong because it denies the true Trinitarian nature of God and the theological understanding that Scripture and the Traditions of the Church teach.
“In Christ alone, my hope is found, he is my light, my strength, my song…my comforter” – Actually the role of the Holy Ghost is to strengthen believers. In John’s gospel in the upper room discourse Jesus calls the Holy Spirit ‘the comforter’, not himself. And truly without the grace given to us by the Holy Ghost, none of us would find hope in Christ. St. Paul teaches in Romans that the Spirit gives us life, and that His special role in the Godhead is this, and the evangelistic role of convicting the world of sin, and drawing people to Christ in the first place. So by singing “In Christ Alone” we’re actually dismissing the role of the Holy Ghost.
Without God the Father, we couldn’t have been created, and the song says “Jesus commands my destiny” and correct me if I’m wrong, but God the Father actually chooses to elect some and not others. So again it confuses Jesus’ role with that of God the Father.
“in the death of Christ I live” – St. Paul says that “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” (Rm 6:4) It is in the resurrection that we live, we are raised with him, we are Baptized into his death (Rm 6:3).
That’s about all I feel like nitpicking at for now. But basically Christians try to sound good by saying “Jesus only” but really that’s not even what Jesus wanted. He said that he was only concerned with doing the will of the Father. He also said that it was good for Him to leave so that the Holy Spirit could come and be with us. So while it makes for a good attempt at appearing Christo-centric, it is really a mutation of true Christo-centrism, which grasps the real Trinitarian nature of God.