Text · full lyrics
Arise, my soul, arise,
Shake off thy guilty fears;
The bleeding sacrifice
In my behalf appears;
Before the throne my surety stands;
Before the throne my surety stands;
My name is written on his hands.
He ever lives above
For me to intercede;
His all-redeeming love
His precious blood to plead;
His blood atoned for ev'ry race
His blood atoned for ev'ry race
And sprinkles now the throne of grace.
Five bleeding wounds he bears,
Received on Calvary;
They pour effectual prayers,
They strongly plead for me;
Forgive him, oh forgive, they cry,
Forgive him, oh forgive, they cry,
Nor let that ransomed sinner die.
My God is reconciled,
His pard’ning voice I hear;
He owns me for his child;
I can no longer fear;
With confidence I now draw nigh,
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And Father, Abba Father, cry!
And Father, Abba Father, cry!
The lyricist
Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley was an Anglican clergyman who, with his older brother John, set the Methodist revival in motion — though his lasting work was the writing, more than six thousand hymns over a single life. He composed "And Can It Be" in the days around his evangelical conversion in May 1738; the astonishment in its opening question, that grace could reach the one writing it, reads as freshly felt rather than rehearsed. For decades he rode the Methodist preaching circuits alongside his brother, and was known to work out verses on horseback and fix them to paper at the next stop.