Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
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, I come!
Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need, in Thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
Just as I am, Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
Public domain hymn text (published 1835). Words by Charlotte Elliott.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Charlotte Elliott was the daughter of an English clergyman and granddaughter of a well-known evangelical preacher, and for much of her adult life she suffered from chronic ill health that eventually left her a lifelong invalid, largely confined to her home in Brighton, England. Unable to take part in the active charitable and evangelistic work that occupied much of her extended family, she experienced real and recurring seasons of spiritual doubt, at times wondering whether her physical weakness and enforced idleness somehow made her faith less genuine or less valuable than that of people who could serve more visibly.
The most widely told account of this hymn's origin centers on a visit from a Swiss evangelist named Cesar Malan, who was staying with the Elliott family and who reportedly asked Charlotte directly whether she was at peace with God. When she admitted her uncertainty, and confessed that she felt she first needed to become better or more spiritually prepared before she could properly come to Christ, Malan told her plainly that she needed to come to God exactly as she already was, bringing nothing but her own need. The words stayed with her.
Elliott is said to have written this hymn some years later, in 1835, during a period of particular physical suffering, working through that same earlier conversation in verse — each stanza repeating the phrase 'just as I am' as both an honest confession of her own inadequacy and a settled invitation to trust regardless of it. She went on to edit an annual religious publication for invalids for many years, believing strongly that people confined by illness, as she was, still had real and valuable spiritual work to do through prayer and writing even when unable to act publicly.
The hymn went on to become one of the most widely used invitation hymns in the history of evangelical Christianity, closing thousands upon thousands of revival meetings and worship services over the following two centuries. It became most famously associated in the twentieth century with the crusades of evangelist Billy Graham, whose team used it as the standard closing hymn during the public altar call at nearly every one of his crusades across six decades of ministry, meaning a hymn written by a bedridden Englishwoman in the 1830s ultimately became the soundtrack to some of the largest evangelistic gatherings in modern history.
