Just As I Am, part 2: Come to the Gentle Lamb

This is a simple hymn but it reminds us of wonderful truth. I use the word wonderful in its original sense—something that produces wonder. After many years of familiarity with what the Bible teaches, it's possible for a person to become desensitized to how counterintuitive the good news of salvation is.

If you recall from the first part of this series, Charlotte Elliott wrote these words at a very low time in life. Her life-long physical weakness and illness often brought about mental dismay and spiritual depression. The occasion for this hymn was one of those times. After feeling completely useless and unable to help in her local church, she began to doubt the reality of her relationship to God. This is a fear that many people who have come to God for salvation have known. Charlotte wrote these words to remind herself of the compassion of Jesus and his willingness and ability to save everyone who comes to him.

Just as I am—without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee—
O Lamb of God, I come!

A repeated phrase in this song is “just as I am." God does not want us to try to clean ourselves up first. A person who tries to reform himself in his own strength is like a child trying to wipe chocolate frosting from his face in an attempt to hide his theft of cake—he only makes it worse. No, Jesus said “the one who comes to me I will not cast off." (John 6:37) There are no preconditions. We do not need to attend church for 90 days or begin to act a certain way before we come. At those moments when we feel our guilt most strongly, we still can come.

When we do come, we can come with the full expectation that we will not be turned away. This is not because God looks at us and considers us worthy of salvation, or even because his great love just washes away our sin. Our only plea—the only valid reason we have for God's acceptance—is that the blood of Jesus was shed for us. It is here that one of the great wonders of the good news (gospel) of salvation appears.

In modern society we don't really use the word “shed" in the way that Elliott does. This is a word that appears in Christian hymns because the English Bible translators have used it that way. The idea is that his blood was “poured out" for us. Here is where we should be shocked and amazed. Our only hope of forgiveness and acceptance by God is because Jesus bled so much that he died. Throughout the hymn Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God, and it is in this picture that we see his compassionate nature.

In the Old Testament, lambs were used as sacrifices for sin. This isn't something that humans would make up; it is something that God in his perfect plan had commanded. The Israelites saw a lot of blood in their worship of God. This is an unpleasant reality, but it was a picture to them of the coming Lamb of God. Those animal sacrifices could not take away sin; they just covered it for a while. But Jesus was the final sacrifice. When we consider him in his role as a Lamb, it makes it easier for us to understand that he will receive sinners. A Lamb has asked us to come to him.

Just as I am—and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot—
O Lamb of God, I come!

In verse two, Elliott speaks of not waiting to come to the Lamb. When she has felt that burden of sin, she knows there is no need nor reason to delay. After feeling a similar weight, we sometimes feel that we must let some time go by before we can come to Jesus. But she was resolved, there in the despondency of her disability, to come to him without delay. Whatever “dark blot" was most plaguing her conscience that day, she knew the remedy and she knew not to delay.

How is she to get rid of that dark blot? Again, it is the blood of Jesus that cleanses each spot. And again we should be in wonder. How can blood cleanse anything? What human would have come up with that idea? Usually after a crime, blood is the one thing that people are trying to cover up. Shakespeare's Lady MacBeth has famously speaks of the blood that can never be removed from her murderous hands. Blood stains. But in God's plan, blood cleanses.

God told ancient Israel that even though their sins were like scarlet, they could be made as white as snow. How is blood able to take scarlet sins and make them white as wool? This is amazing!

When Adam first sinned in the garden, the punishment was death. Sin against a perfect God requires it. We may not like or understand that fact, our humanity might feel the punishment does not fit the crime, but it does not change the reality. We didn't make this world. God did. And he has determined the way that it will operate. But God did not leave Adam helpless. He gave even Adam a way of escape from the consequences he brought on himself. If death follows sin, then something has to die.

For Adam, God made clothing from animal skins. We can reasonably assume that an animal died in order to provide these skins—within chapters of this story we see Adam's descendants making animal sacrifices for sin. Scripture teaches that the life of man is in his blood. Blood is both a symbol and the reality of what sustains life. If sin brings death, then only death can bring payment for sin. Only death can restore us to a state of innocence and purity.

The many lambs of the Old Testament were not sufficient to take away the sin of humanity. Lambs are lesser creatures, not made in the image of God. But they could point to the ultimate Lamb, God himself in human form. This Lamb's blood could take the full penalty for sin and it did. But more than that, this Lamb lived a perfect life and his perfection was applied to the balance sheet of all who come to him. Not only restored to a state of innocence, those who come have been credited with his perfection.

Let us not despair nor delay in coming to this Lamb. The time will come when Jesus the Messiah will return as the judge of all. But today he still offers himself to us as the gentle Lamb who has paid the price for our sin and will not turn us away. Whether you have never come to him before or whether you have come many times and drifted away, come to him today.