What is it that gives Christians their greatest joy, their greatest confidence, their greatest amazement, their greatest hope? It is the precious blood of Jesus, the blood shed at Calvary as a substitute for guilty sinners, the blood that secured their salvation, the blood that satisfied divine justice, the blood that covered all their sins, the blood that has washed them and made them clean.
The precious blood of Jesus is the subject of many of our most beloved hymns. These include:
- There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood (drawn from Immanuel’s veins)
- Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed (and did my Sovereign die)
- There Is Power in the Blood (wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb)
- Not All the Blood of Beasts (a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they)
- Man of Sorrows! What a Name (sealed my pardon with His blood)
- There Is a Green Hill Far Away (saved by His precious blood)
- Hark! The Voice of Love and Mercy (glory to the bleeding Lamb!)
- The Old Rugged Cross (stained with blood so divine)
- Are You Washed in the Blood (in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb)
- The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power (the blood that gives me strength)
- Cross of Jesus, Cross of Sorrow (where the blood of Christ was shed)
- Marvelous Grace of Our Loving Lord (there is flowing a crimson tide)
- Christ Has for Sin Atonement Made (I praise Him for the cleansing blood)
- I Stand Amazed in the Presence (sweat drops of blood for mine)
- Victory in Jesus (His precious blood’s atoning)
- Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It (redeemed by the blood of the Lamb)
- O for a Thousand Tongues to sing (His blood availed for me)
What an impressive list! And we could add so many more hymns to this list that, while they don’t specifically mention the “blood” of Jesus, hymns which speak very directly about the centrality of His death in the grand scheme of redemption, and how vital it is to keep this at the center of our life and ministry. And of course, this is why the cross has always been the dominant and most recognizable symbol for the Christian faith, the cross where the Savior shed His precious blood.
How sad that there are those who consider themselves to be Christians but who not only do not believe the “blood” of Jesus to be “precious,” but who speak very disdainfully of that, expressing the fact that they are “sick and tired of hearing about all this blood stuff!” They loathe any attention to the blood of Jesus, regarding believing in the blood of Jesus not only to be unnecessary, but actually to be something which ought to be discarded. They say, “I’m not interested in all this talk about the blood of Jesus; let’s have a Christianity that’s been cleaned up from those old-fashioned, primitive, embarrassing ideas.” Some even go so far as to claim blasphemously that to speak of Jesus shedding His blood under the Father’s wrath (as Isaiah 53 describes) to be a case of brutal child abuse.
But to those of us who believe the Bible’s testimony about the purity of God’s holiness and the vileness of our own sinfulness, to speak and sing of the precious blood of Jesus stirs the deepest joy and greatest gratitude and highest worship from our hearts. There is nothing in all the world that is more precious to us than the Lord Jesus, and nothing of His is more precious to us than His blood. How amazing that something as horrible as the shed blood of a crucified Redeemer should be regarded as precious. That’s a word we are accustomed to using for things like precious gems, or precious moments, or our precious children and grandchildren. But Jesus’ blood is truly precious for those of us who know Him!
That’s what we sing in the hymn “What Can Wash Away My Sin?” And then we answer that question in the next phrase, “Nothing but the blood Jesus,” reaffirming it in the refrain “O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow; no other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.” Another sad thing about this matter, musically, is the way some regard gospel songs like this too simplistic to be fit for corporate worship, too unsophisticated for well-trained musicians and theologians. They criticize it as unacceptable because the words are so repetitive and the music so common-place and ordinary, and even (some would say) boring, since it only contains two chords in the entire four lines!
But those arguments ring hollow to the soul that has been delivered from the guilt and power of sin by that precious blood of Jesus. And so we delight to include it among the finest resources of grateful praise that God has given to us for our worship. “What Can Wash Away My Sin?” is a question every human needs to face, and needs to find an answer that works, something that will actually wash away my sin. The imagery has a connection to Psalm 51, which King David wrote out of the depths of repentance after his adultery and murder conspiracy left him crushed by guilt. He is our model, a model that the Holy Spirit replicates in the heart of every believer who faces the reality and dirtiness and filthiness of sin within.
This hymn was first published in 1877, having been written by Robert Lowry (1826-1899). He has provided us with many of the most venerable nineteenth-century texts and tunes from the United States. The Philadelphia-born author and composer of this hymn was a popular Baptist preacher and educator who served churches in Pennsylvania, New York City, Brooklyn, and Plainfield, New Jersey. Lowry, a graduate of Bucknell University, received an honorary doctorate from that institution in 1875. He became known for his gospel songs while ministering in Brooklyn, collaborating often with William H. Doane in producing some of the most popular Sunday School song collections of his day.
His fondness for music was exhibited in his earliest years. As a child he amused himself with the various musical instruments that came into his hands. At the age of seventeen he joined the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, and soon became an active worker in the Sunday School as a teacher and chorister. At the age of twenty-two he gave himself to the work of the ministry, and entered upon a course of study at the University of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. At the age of twenty-eight he graduated with the highest honors of his class. In the same year of his graduation, he entered upon the work of the ministry. In the year 1880, he took a four year rest, visiting Europe. In 1885 he felt that he needed more rest, and resigned his pastorate at Plainfield, and visited in the South and West, also spending some time in Mexico. He returned, much improved in health, and again took up his work in Plainfield.
When he saw that the obligations of musical editorship were laid upon him, he began the study of music in earnest, and sought the best musical text-books and works on the highest forms of musical composition. He possessed one of the finest musical libraries in the country at the time. It abounded in works on the philosophy and science of musical sounds. He even had some musical works in his possession that were over one hundred and fifty years old.
A Christian meeting ground called Ocean Grove on the coast of New Jersey came especially alive in the summer of 1876. It continues today as a very popular summer resort community and Methodist conference site. It was in that summer that one of history’s greatest hymnists traveled there with a Bible in his hand and a new hymn in his heart. Ocean Grove was born on July 31, 1869. A group of Methodist ministers was looking for a spot to escape the summer heat and study the Word. They found a well-shaded, well-drained piece of land on the seashore of New Jersey. Twenty tents were pitched, and the ministers enjoyed their campsite so much that they decided to make it a permanent meeting site in years to come; not only for themselves, but for other Christians too. No time was wasted, and by next summer, the piece of land was being transformed into a little town. Shelters were constructed, paths were made, and a water well was dug and appropriately named Beersheba, alluding to Genesis 21:33, “And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God.”
This has grown to be a popular summer resort community, and has in its open air auditorium one of the largest pipe organs in the country! During the 1870s, the campsite grew rapidly in popularity. It especially boomed in 1877 when over 710,000 train tickets were sold for the Ocean Grove – Asbury Park train station. What caused this boom in attendance? It is no coincidence that this was the year directly after Robert Lowry had introduced his hymn “What Can Wash Away My Sin?” to the summer visitors of Ocean Grove in 1876, having written both words and music, causing a revival within the camp, and word to spread far beyond.
Lowry was a well-known preacher in the nineteenth century, and took notice of the booming popularity of Ocean Grove. He famously wanted to be known for his sermons rather than his hymns. He loved music, but thought it to be of lower importance than putting a sermon together and delivering it. Nevertheless, Lowry thought up a new hymn for the occasion. He thought it would be a nice add on to the main event of preaching. He was not prepared for the impact that particular “add on” would have in Ocean Grove that year.
His hymn rang out from every corner of Ocean Grove that summer. Another famous composer, Ira Sankey (Dwight Moody’s famous song leader), was in attendance that year, and claimed that Lowry’s hymn “immediately took possession of the people.” Perhaps Lowry would be amazed at his legacy, since he put such emphasis on his sermons. Yet hymns written in his spare time are what have lived on so strongly through the ages. It was no different in that summer of 1876, for it was not Lowry’s sermons that spread like fire through the little town, but the simple hymn he introduced to the people.
We remember Lowry for quite a few hymns that have become staples for evangelical worship. He frequently said that he regarded “Weeping Will Not Save Me” as the best and most evangelistic hymn he ever wrote. The following are some of his most popular and sweetest gospel melodies: “One More Day’s Work for Jesus,” “Where is My Wandering Boy Tonight?,” “I Need Thee Every Hour,” “The Mistakes of My Life,” “How Can I Keep from Singing?,” “All the Way My Savior Leads Me,” “Savior, Thy Dying Love,” and “We’re Marching to Zion.”
“Shall We Gather At the River?” is perhaps, without question, the most widely popular of all his songs. Of this Mr. Lowry said: “It is brass band music, has a march movement, and for that reason has become popular, though for myself I do not think much of it.” Yet he tells us how, on several occasions, he had been deeply moved by the singing of that hymn. “Going from Harrisburg to Lewisburg once I got into a car filled with half-drunken lumbermen. Suddenly one of them struck up, ‘Shall We Gather at the River?’ and they sang it over and over again, repeating the chorus in a wild, boisterous way. I did not think so much of the music then as I listened to those singers, but I did think that perhaps the spirit of the hymn, the words so flippantly uttered, might somehow survive and be carried forward into the lives of those careless men, and ultimately lift them upward to the realization of the hope expressed in my hymn.”
He went on to write, “A different appreciation of it was evinced during the Robert Raikes’ Centennial. I was in London, and had gone to meeting in the Old Bailey to see some of the most famous Sunday School workers in the world. They were present from Europe, Asia, and America. I sat in a rear seat alone. After there had been a number of addresses delivered in various languages, I was preparing to leave, when the chairman of the meeting announced that the author of ‘Shall We Gather at the River?’ was present, and I was requested by name to come forward. Men applauded and women waved their handkerchiefs as I went to the platform. It was a tribute to the hymn; but I felt, when it was over, that, after all, I had perhaps done some little good in the world, and I felt more than ever content to die when God called.” On Children’s Day in Brooklyn, in 1865, this song was sung by over forty thousand voices.
His hymns have gone on and on, translated into many languages, preaching to and comforting thousands upon thousands of souls, furnishing them expression for their deepest feelings of praise and gratitude to God for His goodness to the children of men. What he had thought in his inmost soul has become a part of the emotions of the whole Christian world. We are all his debtors. Rev. Robert Lowry, D. D., died at his residence in Plainfield, New Jersey, on November 25, 1899. Dead, yet he lives and his sermons in gospel song are still heard and are doing good. “Dr. Lowry was a great and good man, and his life, well spent, is highly worthy of a place among the world’s greatest gospel song and hymn writers.”
“What Can Wash Away My Sin” has all the earmarks of a classic gospel song. It focuses on a single theme and hammers it home. The singer will repeat the text, “Nothing but the blood of Jesus” eighteen times if he or she sings all six stanzas. The refrain is succinct and reinforces the theme. The language is direct and obvious, with all one- or two-syllable words. The theme of cleansing from sin is prominent in gospel song literature. Hebrews 9:22 appeared originally above the hymn in the original publication by Lowry and William H. Doane and was entitled “Gospel Music” (1876). The passage reads: “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.”
Lowry adapted a call-and-response pattern in the stanzas that immediately engages the singer. Stanza one begins with a question: “What can wash away my sin?” The answer is resounding and definitive: “Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” This is followed by a second question: “What can make me whole again?” Once more, the answer is unequivocal, “Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” This call-and-response pattern, along with the sturdy, somewhat martial rhythms of the music, almost gives the singing of the hymn the effect of cheerleading!
It is immediately obvious that this hymn is all about the blood of Jesus. We have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:14). That blood is very precious to the person who has been awakened by the Holy Spirit to realize just how dirty sin has made us, and how much we need the Lord to wash and cleanse us of that terrible condition.
The refrain maintains the focus on the blood of Jesus. Here we have the allusion to Isaiah 1:18, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” How ironic, might we say, that the red blood of Jesus makes the scarlet stain of our hearts turn white as snow! There is a mysterious divine chemistry at work here, using red on red to make white!
Oh! precious is the flow That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know, Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Stanza 1 talks about its power to take away sin, washing us of our filth. More than that, it makes us whole, repairing what sin has damaged beyond human repair. We cannot think or chose righteously and cannot desire righteous things until we have been spiritually fixed.
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Stanza 2 talks about its power to provide pardon. It’s easy for modern man to think that guilt is just a feeling we need to overcome (as Freud suggested). But no, guilt is very real, and pardon is not possible without the shedding of blood (Hebrews 9:22).
For my pardon, this I see, Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
For my cleansing this my plea, Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Stanza 3 talks about its power to atone. One of Satan’s most effective lies over the millennia has been that human beings can atone for their sins by good deeds or religious rituals. In this stanza, we reaffirm the Bible’s clear teaching that “nothing in my hand I bring,” but “simply to Thy cross I cling.”
Nothing can for sin atone, Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
Naught of good that I have done, Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Stanza 4 talks about its power to bring righteousness. We can’t be allowed into God’s presence now or on the day of judgment unless we are righteous. Since we are all unrighteous, our only and sufficient hope is that the blood of Jesus enables us to receive Jesus’ righteousness as our own.
This is all my hope and peace, Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
This is all my righteousness, Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Stanza 5 talks about its power to help us overcome. We face enormous obstacles between the world, the flesh, and the devil. We cannot overcome any of these in our own strength. But the blood of Jesus unites us to the one who has promised to bring us all the way home.
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.
Stanza 6 talks about its power to produce joy in our lives. In this world in which there is so much misery, how wonderful that we can have not only peace, but also exuberant joy, singing “Glory!” And we have access to that joy when we remember what Jesus has done for us by His blood.
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 can serve as a good invitation song, to encourage those who need to respond to the gospel call to come for cleansing in the blood of Christ upon their compliance with His terms of pardon revealed in the scripture. It can also serve as a hymn of praise to the Lord on the part of Christians for the blessings that we have as a result of the blood of Jesus. But whenever we sing the song, we need to remember that insofar as atonement for our sins is concerned, our salvation is grounded upon “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus.”
Here is a link to the singing of this classic gospel song, performed in an Irish music version from the Getty Music team.