Zechariah 13: A fountain will be opened…for washing away their sins.

By pastorscott

God’s prophet describes a wonderful day of hope when the last battle has been fought and the last foothold of sin has been purged from the people the Lord claims as his own. Zechariah envisions a cleansing fountain where people can come to have their sins washed away, their lives made clean. It was in 1772 that William Cowper penned a poem based on Zechariah’s words. Cowper had not enjoyed an easy life. He suffered severe depression and had at one time attempted suicide. Even after coming to Christ he struggled with depression. At the same time, he wrote the words to many songs of faith. His hymn based on the passage before us today is his best known. Cowper realizes that the fountain Zechariah describes flows, not with cleansing water, but with the blood of Christ. The fountain that makes “soiled lives clean” was opened at Calvary and the blood spilt there continues to wash away sins to this day. “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.”