John Newton was born in London in 1725, the son of a sea captain. At age eleven, his mother dead and his life unmoored, he followed his father to sea. For twenty years he lived the worst of that life: captured by slavers, enslaved himself, brutal, and unregenerate.
In 1748, serving as a slave ship captain, Newton was caught in a violent Atlantic storm. Facing death and drowning, he called on God for mercy. He lived. That moment shattered him open to grace.
Newton left the slave trade and entered the ministry. Late in life, when his sight was nearly gone, he would say: "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour."
Amazing Grace was born from that conversion. It is not a hymn about a sinner's reformation; it is a hymn about undeserved rescue, written by a man who knew exactly how undeserved his was.