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Fanny Crosby was blind from infancy and wrote somewhere around eight thousand hymns. Blessed Assurance is the one people know, and the story of how it arrived says a great deal about her.
Her friend Phoebe Knapp had composed a tune and played it for her, asking what it said. Crosby listened and answered: “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.” The words came to the music, not the other way round.
Listen: Blessed Assurance
Blessed Assurance — Full Lyrics
Verse 1
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
Chorus
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Saviour all the day long.
Verse 2
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Verse 3
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Saviour am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
What “assurance” actually means here
In ordinary speech, assurance means confidence — feeling sure. That is not quite what the hymn is claiming. In the theological sense Crosby is using, assurance is the settled knowledge that you belong to God, held independently of how convinced you happen to feel this morning.
The distinction matters because feelings move and the hymn does not. Notice what the first verse rests on: heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood. Four claims, none of them about the singer’s emotional state. The assurance is blessed because of what it rests on, not because of how strongly it is felt.
“O what a foretaste of glory divine”
A foretaste is a sample eaten before the meal — enough to tell you what is coming, and not nearly enough to satisfy. It is a carefully modest word. Crosby is not claiming to have arrived anywhere; she is claiming to have tasted something.
For a woman who had been blind since she was a few weeks old, “visions of rapture now burst on my sight” in the second verse is not a throwaway line. She wrote about sight often, and without self-pity. Asked once about her blindness, she said she thought it a mercy, because the first face she would ever see would be her Saviour’s.
About this recording
The recording above is our own traditional gospel arrangement of Crosby’s public-domain text, produced with AI-assisted music generation. The words are unchanged. The setting is new, so if you grew up singing Knapp’s tune, this will sound like the hymn you know in different clothes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who wrote Blessed Assurance?
The words were written by Fanny Crosby in 1873. The tune, usually called ASSURANCE, was composed by her friend Phoebe Palmer Knapp in the same year. Knapp wrote the music first and played it for Crosby, who was blind, and asked what it said — Crosby replied with the opening line.
Is Blessed Assurance in the public domain?
Yes. Both Crosby’s text and Knapp’s tune date from 1873, far earlier than the 1930 US public-domain cutoff, so both may be printed, projected, sung and recorded freely. A modern choral arrangement of the hymn can still carry its own copyright, so licence the arrangement you are using rather than the hymn itself. You can hear our public-domain arrangement here.
How many hymns did Fanny Crosby write?
Estimates run to around 8,000, published under her own name and more than a hundred pen names — publishers did not want one writer’s name filling their hymnals. Besides Blessed Assurance she wrote To God Be the Glory, Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior, All the Way My Savior Leads Me and Near the Cross.
What does “foretaste of glory divine” mean?
A foretaste is a small sample taken before the meal itself. The line claims present experience of something still largely ahead — enough to know what is coming, not enough to satisfy. It is a deliberately modest word rather than a claim of arrival.
What Bible verse is Blessed Assurance based on?
Hebrews 10:22 is the usual reference — “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” The hymn also leans on Romans 8:16-17 for “heir of salvation,” and 1 John 5:13, which says its purpose is that believers “may know” they have eternal life.
Was Fanny Crosby blind from birth?
Not quite from birth. She lost her sight as an infant, at around six weeks old, and was effectively blind for the rest of her life. She lived to 94 and never treated her blindness as the defining fact about her.
What does “this is my story, this is my song” mean?
The chorus claims the hymn as personal testimony rather than general doctrine. Story and song are set side by side deliberately — what she believes and what she sings are the same thing, and the repetition through the day (“all the day long”) makes it a habit rather than a moment.
