Just as I am!
(Octavius Winslow, “The King in His Beauty! A Tribute to the Memory of Miss Charlotte Elliott)
I will take the liberty to simply and briefly paraphrase the main idea of Miss Elliott’s timeless hymn:
“Just as I am,” a sinner bankrupt of all righteousness, vile, self-destroyed, lost–I come!
“Just as I am,” my soul steeped in the deepest guilt, laden with sins as innumerable as the sands, and red like crimson–I come!
“Just as I am,” with all my atheistic thoughts and infidel principles, and rebellious opposition, and carnal lusts, and worldly attachments–I come!
“Just as I am,” a wreck tossed to and fro upon life’s murky waters, and ready to perish–I come!
“Just as I am,” a moral parricide, having broken a pious mother’s heart, and bowed a godly father’s grey hairs in sorrow to the grave, beggared of all, bereft of all, abandoned of all–I come!
“Just as I am,” without one atom of worthiness, or one plea of merit, or one ray of hope springing from myself, and with nothing to pay–I come!
“Just as I am,” reeking from the swine’s trough, starving, bankrupt, covered with guilt and poverty and shame–“I come, O Lamb of God, to You!”
Could Gabriel, “standing in the presence of God,” awaken his trumpet to a sentiment more sublime, a truth more precious, a hope more glorious–than is embodied in the very first stanzas of this magnificent hymn? Impossible!
Are you desiring to reach the Savior? Are you struggling through a crowd of opposition and temptation and difficulty–so that you might but touch the fringe of His flowing robe descending to His feet, and within the reach of the lowliest penitent and the weakest faith, and be saved?
Oh, let the voice of the dear departed one, speaking as from the tomb, aid and encourage you in your blessed and holy endeavor to get to Christ, “just as you are!”
Jesus has done all, suffered all, paid all, and invites all!
With a nature full of grace,
and with a heart overflowing with love,
and with outstretched hands pierced for your sins
–He is prepared to receive and save you, to wash your sin-soiled, guilt-stained soul in His all-cleansing blood; and to cover your spiritual nakedness with the robe of His all-justifying and imputed Righteousness, “which is unto all and upon all those who believe.”
Oh, then, take up the last stanza of this inimitable hymn, and in its glowing language proclaim, as from the house-top–your deliberate and solemn vow of dedication to King Jesus:
“Just as I am! Your LOVE alone
Has broken every barrier down;
Now to be Thine, and Thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come!”
