Nothing But
I have a confession to make.
This hymn has always bothered me.
And it isn’t because it is bad theology.
I think it’s good theology.
But it still bothers me.
Perhaps it comes out of my secular past. Or it might be its bluntness.
It has to do with blood.
Blood outside the body is messy. It is a part of crime scenes. And yet nothing but the blood can wash away my sins, says the hymn.
It’s unnatural. How can blood make me white as snow?
Blood in fabrics stains. It isn’t in this natural world ever used as a detergent. It’s what we use detergents to remove. This is a reversal of the natural order of things.
And what to me is even worse is I am singing about someone else’s blood.
It doesn’t seem right or fair.
It’s terrible.
But it’s also true.
I am made clean by another who sacrificed himself for me.
I don’t deserve it.
He didn’t deserve it.
It’s all wrong.
And yet I realize it was necessary. There was no other option. I was in trouble with no way out.
Jesus asked if this cup, meaning this sacrifice he was to offer, could be skipped. He understood completely what he was facing before his arrest and execution. “Never the less,” he said in the garden “not my will,” but his Father’s be done.
So he went to the cross to shed his blood as the necessary atonement, once and for all, for my corruption and selfishness (aka sins), which opened a way for me to access the bright white unreachable holiness of God right now and forever.
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.Refrain:
Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.For my pardon, this I see,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
For my cleansing this my plea,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.Nothing can for sin atone,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
Naught of good that I have done,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.This is all my hope and peace,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
This is all my righteousness,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.Now by this I’ll overcome—
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
Now by this I’ll reach my home—
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.Glory! Glory! This I sing—
Nothing but the blood of Jesus,
All my praise for this I bring—
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This hymn was written in 1876 by the American Baptist minister and hymn writer Robert Lowry.
He based it on this passage in New Testament book of Hebrews.
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Hebrews 9:11-14 (ESV)
I have grown to love this hymn because now I understand.