Journey Through the Hymns: Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy (Part Five)

Lo! th’ incarnate God ascended,
Pleads the merit of His blood:
Venture on Him, venture wholly,
Let no other trust intrude

It’s easy to forget or even overlook how incredible that first statement is.

Lo! th’ incarnate God ascended,
Pleads the merit of His blood:

Maybe Job had a better understanding of this. In Job chapter nine, he laments that there is no mediator between God and men.

For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,
that we should come to trial together.

There is no arbiter between us,
who might lay his hand on us both.

Job 9:32-33 (ESV)

Job understands that there is no man who can approach God to speak with him, for even the most honorable man would be consumed because of his own iniquity. The most moral person among us still has moral failures. And God cannot come down to man, for His very being, His holiness and perfection, would annihilate Adam’s sinful race within a nanosecond. To Job, a mediator who could bring God and man together into a covenant of reconciliation seemed an impossibility. And it is — unless the Mediator is both God and man.

For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. 

1 Timothy 2:5-6 (NASB)

Because Christ was born of a woman, yet without sin (Heb. 4:14-15, 1 John 3:5, Romans 8:3), He was qualified to go to God on the behalf of humanity. And because Christ didn’t lay aside His Divine nature, but remained fully God, He was qualified to actively reconcile man to Himself through His preordained work on the cross.

For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. For they could not bear the command, “IF EVEN A BEAST TOUCHES THE MOUNTAIN, IT WILL BE STONED.” And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, “I AM FULL OF FEAR and trembling.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

Hebrews 12:18-24 (NASB)

Christ became the mediator of a new covenant, a new covenant that would reconcile God and man through the cross. And as our resurrected Lord and Savior, Christ pleads His shed blood as the forgiveness of our sins (Ephesians 1:7-8). This is why we not only can, but must,

Venture on Him, venture wholly,
Let no other trust intrude

Because Christ is the only Mediator between God and man, and the only, once-for-all sacrifice given for our salvation, there is no other to whom we can turn for redemption. As the old hymn says,

On Christ the solid rock I stand

All other ground is sinking sand

We must venture on Christ wholly and only, because there is no other Anchor for our souls. Every other hope we may have for salvation is a false hope, a lifeline made of spider webs, a foundation set on quicksand. Our only hope is in Christ alone.

If we attempt to put our trust in Christ and another, we have lost the meaning of Christ alone. Trusting in another for any part of salvation is a blatant declaration to the world that we do not believe that Christ is sufficient.

…let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by this name this man stands here before you in good health. “He is the STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, but WHICH BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone. “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

Acts 4: 10-12 (NASB)

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Top Photo by il vano on Unsplash

Bottom Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash