Come Thou Fount - Verse 5

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

So here we come to the last verse. This hymn was written by Robert Robinson, who lived from 1735-1790. According to the brief bio on the link I provided, the latter part of his life was difficult. Oh, how he wished in his later years to be the man who penned those words! He died young, at 55.

I went searching, and found this more extensive biography. I love how he wrote his conversion story in the flyleaf of one of his books in Latin:

"Robertus Michaelis Mariaeque Robinson filius, natus Swaffham, comitatu Norfolkiae, Saturni Die Sept 27.1735. Renatus Sabbati Die, Maii 24, 1752 per predicationem potentem Georgii Whitefield, et gustatis Doloribus renovationis duos annosque septem absolutionem plenam gratuitamque, per sanguinem pretiosum Jesu Christi, inveni (Tuesday, December 10, 1755) Cui sit honor et gloria in secula seculoru, Amen".

I also discovered alternate words for the last verse:

Rescued thus from sin and danger,
Purchased by the Saviour's blood,
May I walk on earth a stranger,
As a son and heir of God.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;

Like me, Robert Robinson seems to have gone through times of depression due to his own sin. The thought that one day there'll be no more sin, and it will be removed as far as the east is from the west and cast into the deepest sea gives me great joy.

Believers still struggle with sin, but they have hope that one day they will be completely free. Meanwhile, they press on with joy, knowing that Christ in us is the hope of glory.

John MacArthur expands on this in his sermon, Free From Sin, Part 1:

"Being, then, made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness."

The apostle Paul was not saying that Christians are free from sinning or the temptation of sin. He was saying that those who are truly saved are free from the tyranny of sin. We are for the first time in our lives, slaves of righteousness. Before a person comes to Christ, he can do nothing but sin. Even an unbeliever's good deeds fall into the category of sin because they're not done for the glory of God. When men do good deeds just because they want to be good men, that's tantamount to pride. Sinful men don't even know they are slaves to sin.

Believers, however, have been made free from sin, and have become the servants of righteousness. Only those who believe in Jesus Christ are truly free from sin, for only Christians can choose whether to sin or not. We are free to do right for the first time in our lives. That's the essence of Christian liberty. Those who contend Christian liberty gives us the freedom to sin don't understand true Christian liberty. The servant of sin has no choice but to sin, while the servant of righteousness is the only human being who has the freedom to do right for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).

So, we press on, struggling against the temptation to sin. We have the freedom to do right for the glory of God!

One day, all this will be behind me, and I will gaze on the lovely face of Jesus. I'll stand there, clothed in righteousness, in linens white as snow, singing about the grace and the glory of God.

Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

John MacArthur, in Part Two of his sermon, Free From Sin, wrote:

There is nothing else to say to the world other than to offer them the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. To be made free from sin and guilt and to inherit eternal life, that is true freedom. Instead of having things to be ashamed of, a saved person is filled with thanksgiving to God. Instead of anticipating eternal death, a believer anticipates eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Result of Grace

German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that cheap grace "amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.... [Costly grace] is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.... When [Martin Luther] spoke of grace, [he] always implied as a corollary that it cost him his own life, the life which was now subjected to the absolute obedience of Christ.... Happy are they who, knowing that grace, can live in the world without being of it, who by following Jesus Christ, are so assured of their heavenly citizenship that they are truly free to live their lives in this world" (The Cost of Discipleship [N.Y.: Macmillian, 1959], pp. 47, 53, 60).

Amen, Lord. Come quickly! But while you tarry, let me live a sanctified life. Let me not fall into a pattern of cheap grace, but let me walk on earth a stranger, as a son and heir of God.

Rescued thus from sin and danger,
Purchased by the Saviour's blood,
May I walk on earth a stranger,
As a son and heir of God.