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.

Come Thou Fount - Verse 4

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!

Every day, I am forced by the Spirit of God, and by the truth of His word, to see how great a debt I owe to the grace of God. Were it not for His Amazing Grace, I'd be lost and undone. Daily, He reminds me, "I love you. I forgive you. I look at you and see the righteousness of my dear Son." I owe Him everything!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

What a picture! God's goodness is like a chain around my leg that keeps me from wandering. I cannot leave, because He keeps me.

John 10:27 "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me,1 is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand."

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;

Romans 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. My heart is deceitful above all things. God knows I am prone to idolatry, to selfishness, to pride. I don't like the discipline of the Lord at times. I've spent months in the "wilderness", in rebellion against a Holy God. Yet, like the Hound of Heaven that He is, He would not let me go.

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

The Holy Spirit is an earnest, a seal... a promise given to us to assure us that we will be praising God in His courts. Even though we're prone to wander, God keeps us by His grace and seals His promise with the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will: 12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
13 In whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory.

Praise God!

Come Thou Fount - Verse 3

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

There's no doubt that this hymn was written by a person who understood that salvation is a work of God in the heart of man.


Jesus sought me when a stranger,

The Christian life is often depicted as a journey; we are sojourners, strangers in the land. As strangers here, we hold the things of this world loosely, because we look forward to our real home in heaven.

Psalm 39:12 “Hear my prayer, O LORD,
And give ear to my cry;
Do not be silent at my tears;
For I am a stranger with You,
A sojourner, as all my fathers were.

Matthew Henry comments,

Afflictions are sent to stir up prayer. If they have that effect, we may hope that God will hear our prayer. The believer expects weariness and ill treatment on his way to heaven; but he shall not stay here long : walking with God by faith, he goes forward on his journey, not diverted from his course, nor cast down by the difficulties he meets. How blessed it is to sit loose from things here below, that while going home to our Father's house, we may use the world as not abusing it! May we always look for that city, whose Builder and Maker is God.

Wandering from the fold of God

We're like sheep who have gone astray. Yet Jesus, the good Shepherd, goes after His sheep, those strangers who would prefer to go their own way. He seeks them until He finds them, then He rejoices.

Isaiah 53:6
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

John 10:11
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Matthew 18:12
"What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?

He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;

It is a rescue! We are heading in the wrong direction, bent on destroying ourselves through selfish pursuits and idolatry, and Jesus swoops in and rescues us. That's what He did when He came to earth - it was a rescue mission! That's why He is called the Saviour - He saved us from our sin and its wages, death.

He did it by becoming the Lamb without spot or blemish. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. God required that an atonement be made, and Jesus willingly did it. That means I don't have to pay the price I owe for my sin. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

1 Peter 1:18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

Jesus is the Hound of Heaven who pursues relentlessly. Go here to read a story of a soldier, pursued by God.

Yet my mortal tongue cannot explain the glories of His grace well. That's why the hymn-writer asked in the first verse that God would tune his heart to sing His praise. I am clothed in flesh, and as such I am limited.

Romans 7:24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Thanks be to God, indeed. Thanks be to Jesus, who sought me when I was a stranger, who rescued me from certain danger, who pursued me even though I purposely tried to hide from Him, and who has showed me kindness, even though I never deserved it.

Thanks be to God, indeed.