Come, You Sinners
As part of leading worship at Open Arms, I’m working my way through the songs we sing in order to explain them and promote thoughtfulness in our worship. One of the ways that I’m doing that is by doing commentaries on the songs. This’ll hopefully be the first installment in quite a large number of posts commentating on the songs we sing.
Theme
The theme of this song is clearly seen in the title and chorus. The song bids sinners, those poor, needy, weak, wounded, sick, sore, incapable of achieving salvation, to come. Come to what? To Jesus’s saving power. Jesus stands ready to save all who come to him, full of pity, love, and power. We respond to the summons, joyously arising and going to Jesus who has paid our debt completely through his atoning sacrifice. We go in great boldness, for there is no condemnation through the blood of Jesus. We can do this by no other means than the blood.
Observations
“Come” is the most frequently used word in this song. It is the chief aim of the song to both invite and to tear down every argument against responding to the call.
This song pulls no punches describing the sinner. However, it is easy for those who are self-righteous (saved and unsaved) to feel that they are simply calling others, sinners unlike themselves. This couldn’t be further from the case. This song glories in the reality that we are, this side of eternity, nothing more than beggars telling other beggars where to find bread.
The chorus of this song attempts to transition from the verses which are what makes the song so easy to not identify with for the self-righteous into an explicit call to identification with what you’re singing. “Let us arise and go to Jesus. His sacrifice our debt has paid…” The repetition of this should temper the strong tendency to sound simply like we’re calling people who aren’t like us. We are all still in desperate need of mercy for and grace to overcome sin.
This song glories in the work and character of Jesus. Jesus is portrayed as ready (eager?) to save us, full of pity, love, and power. His work of atoning and propitiatory sacrifice is displayed in detail. “View him prostrate in the garden, bloodied on the tree.” It is this in which we come!
Verses
The Garden Account (Luke 22.29-46):
And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
Come, I will give you rest (Matthew 11.25-30):
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Self-righteousness (Luke 18.9-14):
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt; “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collecter. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
God’s great love (Ephesians 2.1-10):
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you 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, even when we were dead in our trespasses, 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, 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.
Method
By far the most extensive discussion of the sinner, the opening verse relentlessly attacks all honest consciences with a knowledge of their absolute poverty before the holy and righteous judge of all the earth. It moves quickly though, to the lamb who was slain to make a way for us. He stands ready to save you from your pitiful state, recognizing the very pity of it, loving you in it with his great love, and full of the very power by which to effect it.
View the wonder of his atoning work. The maker of the universe, the Lord of heaven and earth, the omnipotent, the omniscient, the all sufficient, Holy, Holy, Holy one, weeps tears of anguish and sweats drops of blood as he faces the cup his father has set for him. The price of our infinite offense against God is an infinitely worthy sacrifice. The Son made a way for us. Yes! This does for all suffice!
Though an honest conscience will feel nothing but shame and condemnation facing the weight of the sacrifice that was needed to save him, though the self-righteous may dream that the sacrifice was not for him, and though a weary sinner may think longingly of an imagined state in which it would be appropriate for him to begin his pilgrimage toward God, all is foolishness. Jesus’s sacrifice made a way for us through which God’s requirement at the start is simply our ‘weak yes’. Our realization that we have no hope apart from him. And our hearty faith towards the work he did.
We express faith in Jesus work by joyously moving towards him. We joyfully glory in his sacrifice which paid all our debt and made a way for us to glorify him and glory in him. There is no more condemnation through his blood!
Commentary
Come, you sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore.
We begin by calling all sinners to come. We sinners are poor, needy, weak, wounded, sick and sore. Poor in that we come with nothing to offer to God; needy in that our predicament before God is desperate without every grace that God pours out to us; weak in that we are unable to bridge this gap, to present ourselves to God, to enact any saving activity on our own; wounded by sin to the point of death, weakening daily as we bleed out; sick mortally with our sin; sore, continually buffeted by the reality of sin, beaten by the accusations of the devil, condemned by our own consciences before this holy God.
Jesus, ready, stands to save you,
Jesus, though, is ready to save us. Not only from the first when we realize our adoption but to the last, when we step into the glories of our full adoption and our unmarred, radiant reflection of the glories of Christ.
Full of pity, love, and power.
He is full of pity, understanding our state having experienced it personally upon the adding of humanity to his divinity, being a good high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses, love, expressed perfectly on the cross, making us to be of infinite worth through his suffering an infinite punishment through no merit of our own at all, and power, able to save to the uttermost.
Chorus
View Him prostrate in the garden;
On the ground your maker lies.
See this terrifying beauty of Christ’s passion! The maker of heaven and earth, unknown of sin, possessor of infinite power, worth, magnificence, glory, union with the Father and Spirit, wisdom, lies weeping on the ground. Crying tears of anguish at the cup that’s being passed to him. Sweating great drops of blood as his disciples sleep a stone’s throw away, unable to stay awake despite his groaning. This one who’d never known pain or indecision struggles in his humanity to own the will of God for himself. Everyone has abandoned him, and will abandon him still more before the end.
On the bloody tree behold him;
Remember the cross! Never forget the cross! It is the matter of first importance. If Christ had not died and risen, our faith is in vain and we are still in our sins! We are to be pitied above all men for having such a ridiculous hope. Our end would still be to burn in hell for ever, never knowing the joy of the Father in the face of the Son through the power of the Spirit. We commit a grave error when we relegate the cross to the beginning of our lives as Christians instead of realizing its overwhelming pride of place in every day of now and eternity. God’s justice and mercy perfectly displayed once and for all; his glory finally vindicated; his justice fully exonerated; his great love for us perfectly known.
O Sinners, this does for all suffice.
Praise God! For yes, this does for all suffice!
Chorus
Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
Come boldly to this mercy seat. Not because your conscience is clear, for all honest sinners are condemned continually by their conscience. Nor because you believe you have a right to be there, as the dishonest sinner is prone to do, believing somehow that they have been good enough to relate to God. Do not commit the error of believing that you’re too bad for God to save you, or that you’re too good to need God’s salvation. On the one hand, you make God a weakling, too impotent to overcome your sins. On the other, you make God’s worth paltry, and you make the sacrifice of his Son overkill.
All the fitness he requires
Is to feel your need of him.
This is all! Know your state. We are all on a level playing field before this holy God. The best of us, the worst of us, the mediocre; all stand condemned on our own and yet justified by his Son.
Chorus:
Let us arise and go to Jesus.
His sacrifice our debts has paid.
We respond to all these things by arising and joyfully going to Jesus! What greater news is this, knowing our state, that our state is covered and washed and that we now have boldness of access to our Father’s throne. In fact, with Jesus, we approach the very bosom of God and lay our head on his breast, like John at the table with Jesus, listening to his secrets, exchanging our affections. Our debt is paid! Hallelujah!
And there is now no condemnation
Through his blood. Only through his blood!
By this, through this, and only this do we come uncondemned. Jesus, thank you for the blood!
- On October 28, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
- In Commentary, Worship Music
- Tagged church, come ye sinners, come you sinners, methodist, music, Norristown, open arms, songs, united, Worship
I never thought how much the “come ye sinners” line could be sung while thinking of other sinners, not myself. I’m trying to think of what I do when I sing the song and to be honest I think it’s a mix. Thanks for pointing that out :-)