Reflections on Wesley :: Sermon 1, "Salvation by Faith"

This essay is the first in a series on the sermons of John Wesley, inspired by Andrew Conard and Matt Lipan, who are guiding others in an eight week conversation concerning the continued importance of Wesley's Sermons for today. You can follow that conversation on Twitter each Monday night by searching the hashtag, #jwchat. These essays will be long-form, and are my attempt to draw out Wesley's primary themes, offer critiques of Wesley's theology in classical expression and modern adaptations, and to explain the implications these writings may have for the practice of Christianity going forward. This essay is written in response to John Wesley's Sermon 1, Salvation by Faith. In this sermon, Wesley makes the case that grace is in fact freely given in Jesus Christ, and the implications for its acceptance include freedom from the guilt of sin, the power of sin, and a motivation to preach this same gospel to all peoples, both in word and deed.

A sermon beginning, "All the blessings which God hath bestowed upon man are of his mere grace, bounty, or favour; his free, undeserved favour; favour altogether undeserved; man having no claim to the least of his mercies", should be as water to the thirsty soul. But for most Christians, and most people whom I know, Wesley could have placed a period in place of his first semicolon, and omitted the rest of his statement altogether. 

The grace of God has become an expectation, but the thirst which that grace does quench, is too often overlooked. Both the grace of salvation and the sin of humankind are indispensable to the announcement of the Christian gospel, and for this reason, John Wesley’s “Salvation by Faith” holds relevance, not only due to his depiction of the grace of God, but the boldness with which he names the depravity of the human condition.

The ongoing Pelagian/Augustinian controversy, and the accusations that are wrongly levied against the Wesleyan tradition, are baseless when one returns to Wesley’s Sermons themselves. Wesley is so bold as to say, "whatever righteousness may be found in man, this is also the gift of God", and he is right.  Wesley further observes that the heart of each person, "is altogether corrupt and abominable; being ‘come short of the glory of God,’ the glorious righteousness at first impressed on his soul, after the image of his great Creator."  

If one learns anything from reading Wesley himself, it is that those who have come after him and sought to further his theology have been guilty of neglecting this crucial aspect, either through ignorance or denial. Serious thinking and preaching about sin, as well as serious thinking and preaching about grace, are vital for the church. Grace abounding apart from bravely facing our depravity leads to sentimentality, while naming every sin and ignoring the boundlessness of grace leads to legalism and a culture of spiritual death.

Returning to the wellspring of belief and the necessity of grace as agent, Wesley writes, "Grace is the source, faith the condition, of salvation." Even the impetus of our believing in Jesus Christ is the work of divine grace. But this does not render Wesley a determinist, for elsewhere in his writings he emphasizes the freedom of the will to exercise faith, in so far as the will has been set free by virtue of Christ’s work on the cross, and the grace which leads to repentance “goes before” to lead the sinful man or woman to a place of confession and full reliance on God’s grace for salvation.

Concerning this faith that brings salvation, Wesley argues in I.4-5:

What faith is it then through which we are saved? It may be answered, first, in general, it is a faith in Christ: Christ, and God through Christ, are the proper objects of it. Herein, therefore, it is sufficiently, absolutely distinguished from the faith either of ancient or modern heathens. And from the faith of a devil it is fully distinguished by this: it is not barely a speculative, rational thing, a cold, lifeless assent, a train of ideas in the head; but also a disposition of the heart. For thus saith the Scripture, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness;" and, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

[ . . . ]

Christian faith is then, not only an assent to the whole gospel of Christ, but also a full reliance on the blood of Christ; a trust in the merits of his life, death, and resurrection; a recumbency upon him as our atonement and our life, as given for us, and living in us; and, in consequence hereof, a closing with him, and cleaving to him, as our "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," or, in one word, our salvation.

Wesley is clear: the faith that is spoken of here is a trust or reliance on Christ--God is the proper object of our faith. This faith is not simply a cognitive assent, a confession of right doctrine or a declaration of right belief, but is “a disposition of the heart.” It appears that true faith, as described in the Bible, presupposes a relationship of affection and love toward the object of trust and reliance. Wesley makes this plain by saying the “assent” is only one aspect of faith; “full reliance” is the true mark, which brings us in to communion with Christ himself, “closing with him, and cleaving to him” as the source of our salvation. Christ, if we are in close fellowship with him, not only justifies us and allows us to stand righteous before God, but also instructs us in wisdom, makes us holy, and rescues us from eternal as well as temporal pitfalls.

Salvation, then, is both more simple and more complex than it appears. Yes, salvation is rescue from the coming wrath of God and from the prospect of hell. But Wesley has a more robust understanding of salvation, and for the Christian to discover and revel in the fullness of life, he must explain how the salvation Christ brings is both freedom from the guilt of sin and a freedom from the power of sin. There is both eternal peace and temporal victory, a progression toward the city of God that has a determinative starting point, accomplished on Calvary, enacted in the present, and carrying us forward on our way to the Celestial City, where if we receive what Christ offers, we will see our vices burn away, and our virtues increase, day by day as we advance in holiness.

Freedom from the Guilt of Sin

It is my impression that Wesley's examination of present freedom, particularly pertaining to guilt, may seem quaint to the modern reader. David F. Wells, among other critics of contemporary Christianity, has noted that the guilt and shame that has traditionally been associated with the afflictions of conscience has eroded and fallen out vogue. In its place, a moral neutrality has taken hold in our collective imagination, and the Christian gospel, then, has been reduced to the therapeutic. Jesus can help us “Become a Better You,” can instruct us concerning how we lead a business, can offer a veneer of peace, cohesion, and serenity in your marriage, and, in general, affirm you as you are. But a return to the Bible itself, and to the greater overall testimony of the history of Christian theology, should enable us to see this is a modern error, or, in what should convict us more deeply, a return to Pelagianism.

The language Wesley employs, then, may be archaic or even passé. That does not make it less valuable, nor less true. The God of the Bible is a God to be feared, not in the sense that this God is malicious and vengeful, fickle and indiscriminate in judgment, but instead in the sense that this God is perfectly righteousness and holy, aware of our shortcomings and our wrongdoings, fully cognizant of our sins of omission and commission. Who can stand before such a God? The question, “What must I do to be saved?” remains a relevant question, and in one manner or another, human beings have sought to answer it ever since its first utterance.

Wesley sees that if we do feel guilty before God, we are also right to feel fear, but being released from guilt, we are then released from fear. Wesley writes, "being saved from guilt, they are saved from fear. Not indeed from a filial fear of offending; but from all servile fear; from that fear which hath torment; from fear of punishment; from fear of the wrath of God, whom they now no longer regard as a severe Master, but as an indulgent Father."

The last sentence is powerful, yet dangerous, if not read with caution. There is a subtle declaration made concerning our perception of God and the reality of God as God truly may be experienced in light of the work of Christ. The sermon is entitled “Salvation by Faith”, and in it Wesley intends to invite people to believe through an embrace of the love of God. Outside the bounds of faith, we are right to fear God if we believe that God is in fact angered by sin, both our own sins and the sins we see committed in our world, such as the genocide in Rwanda, or the alleged abuse of children at Penn State University. 

If God is not angry at such things, possessing a character that perfectly and justly punishes sin, would that be a God worthy of worship? Thus, sinners who have not been set right with the True Judge are right to feel anxiety, fear of punishment and wrath, concerned with living up to a standard in service of a “severe Master.” 

But the gospel, as Wesley has explained it in this sermon, is an announcement that this felt experience, this anxiety, has been alleviated by the blood of Christ. We need no longer fear God, for the punishment we rightly deserved, Christ took upon himself on the cross of Calvary. And it is by that work we have been redeemed, given a status by which we can stand confident before God, receiving his love not because of our own work, as Wesley declares in his first sentence, but because in Christ, when God looks upon us, he sees those to whom, by virtue of Christ, the status as sons and daughters has been conferred.

Freedom from the Power of Sin

It is within this status then, and this release from guilt and fear, that Wesley then moves to the implications for this release. The grace of God unveiled and unleashed in Jesus Christ has not only given us the assurance of salvation from an unfavorable eternal judgment, but has set us free in this life from the reign and power of sin in our lives. Wesley writes:

He that is, by faith, born of God sinneth not (1.) by any habitual sin; for all habitual sin is sin reigning: But sin cannot reign in any that believeth. Nor (2.) by any wilful sin: for his will, while he abideth in the faith, is utterly set against all sin, and abhorreth it as deadly poison. Nor (3.) By any sinful desire; for he continually desireth the holy and perfect will of God. and any tendency to an unholy desire, he by the grace of God, stifleth in the birth. Nor (4.) Doth he sin by infirmities, whether in act, word, or thought; for his infirmities have no concurrence of his will; and without this they are not properly sins. Thus, "he that is born of God doth not commit sin": and though he cannot say he hath not sinned, yet now "he sinneth not."

This paragraph will not sit well with many of my Reformed friends. Could it be that the salvation Christ brings, once entered in to by faith, truly leads the one who believes to “sinneth not?” The distinction, again, is fine. Wesley here addresses habitual sin, willful sin, sinful desire, and finally, failings of character, which he calls infirmities, that do not have “the concurrence of the will.”

I, too, struggle with these assertions, and with the accompanying logic Wesley employs. I have faith that Christ has indeed set me free from the power of sin, yet sin I do. Does this mean that I do not believe? Has the desire for “the holy and perfect will of God” come to hold a firm place in my heart, and if not, do I remain “in sin”, rather than entering in to God’s fellowship “by faith”? Are not “infirmities” a cop-out, a catch all category within which my failings could be classified “not properly sins”, thus allowing for my status as a true believer to be maintained? Do these categories result in a different kind of anxiety? Has Wesley offered with one hand what he has taken away with the other, freedom from the fear arising from guilt, and replacing it with the fear arising from a burden of perfect obedience?

I hope Wesleyan theologians more skilled than I will help me resolve this tension. When Christ commands us to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, I believe that Christ does not command us to do anything which he himself will not provide us with the grace to in fact do. I believe that the salvation offered in Christ is full and complete, while at the same time it is being made complete through the perfecting of the saints. I believe it is true that we have been set free from the power of sin, and now have laid before us the possibility of being a person who “sinneth not” if we truly abide in Christ. But the possibility is itself different from the reality.

Does the Offer of Free Grace Empty us of Our Motivation for Good Works?

Any cursory reading of Scripture will reveal that the tension between faith and works has been there all along, from the life of Abraham through the writings of James. And the preaching of free grace, as Paul discovered, would inevitably lead to abuse. It is my contention, and that of many others throughout church history as well, that any understanding of grace that does not result in complete peace before God apart from works and as a catalyst for action as a citizen of Christ's Kingdom is reflective of a deep misunderstanding of both grace and works. Wesley writes:

The first usual objection to this is, that to preach salvation or justification, by faith only, is to preach against holiness and good works. To which a short answer might be given: "It would be so, if we spake, as some do, of a faith which was separate from these; but we speak of a faith which is not so, but productive of all good works, and all holiness."

Wesley also states, "for none can trust in the merits of Christ, till he has utterly renounced his own." This is itself a remarkable statement, and a stumbling block for many. What Wesley is saying is this: you must not only repent of your sins, but your righteousness. Your righteousness must be claimed as a gift from God, and the source of that gift must never be forgotten. The moment you begin to believe that your desire to do good works, to pray, to read the Bible, etc. did not first arise from the work of God’s grace in your life, you will begin to believe that you are your own savior. You will then place salvation by works before and above salvation by grace. And for this reason, we must renounce even our good works as deserving of merit before God, and instead place our good works before God’s throne as a testament to his grace and glory.

This kind of grace is scandalous, and has been since it was first announced in the life of Jesus Christ, and furthered in the ministry of Paul. Reading between the lines of Wesley’s sermon, there is a somewhat humorous undercurrent: grace as the pervasive and dominating theme of the preaching of Jesus Christ is being discouraged by Wesley’s opponents because, it is supposed, it will demotivate others from doing the good works we are commanded to do. But Wesley himself accused the Anglicanism of his day of being lukewarm, and apathetic toward care of the poor, orphan, and widow, the work of evangelism and commitment to piety, while the people to whom Wesley preached and discipled were accused of excessive fervency for those very things the established church had ignored. It was the evangelicals, like Wesley, who were accused of being nut-jobs, yet they were the people truly working for the good of society as well as the up-building of the saints.

Thus, having dismissed all objections to the preaching of salvation by grace through faith, Wesley declares with passion:

When no more objections occur, then we are simply told that salvation by faith only ought not to be preached as the first doctrine, or, at least, not to be preached at all. But what saith the Holy Ghost? "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ." So then, that "whosoever believeth on him shall be saved," is, and must be, the foundation of all our preaching; that is, must be preached first. "Well, but not to all." To whom, then are we not to preach it? Whom shall we except? The poor? Nay; they have a peculiar right to have the gospel preached unto them. The unlearned? No. God hath revealed these things unto unlearned and ignorant men from the beginning. The young? By no means. "Suffer these," in any wise, "to come unto Christ, and forbid them not." The sinners? Least of all. "He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Why then, if any, we are to except the rich, the learned, the reputable, the moral men. And, it is true, they too often except themselves from hearing; yet we must speak the words of our Lord. For thus the tenor of our commission runs, "Go and preach the gospel to every creature." If any man wrest it, or any part of it, to his destruction, he must bear his own burden. But still, "as the Lord liveth, whatsoever the Lord saith unto us, that we will speak."

The same calling remains today. For Wesleyans, and for all Christians, the gospel of free grace is to be preached. But it is to be preached with the same robusticity and boldness of Wesley himself, and, before him, so many others who were faithful to the gospel. Grace is preached in light of the depth of sin, and is thus amplified by contrast. The implications then, of grace, and the salvation it brings are vast, both in the fact that Christ has redeemed us so that we might experience loving communion with God, and so that we might be free from sin. And, then having been freed from guilt and sin, we are called to preach this gospel to every creature, inviting all to experience that very same love of Christ, to the blessing and transformation of the whole world.

Reading John Wesley :: Matt Lipan, Andrew Conard, and an Experiment in Wesleyan Holiness

My friends Matt Lipan and Andrew Conard have birthed an interesting project: reading through a handful of Wesley sermons and discussing them online with others. Here are the basic guidelines and prevailing format:

• A Twitter chat each Monday night at 8:30pm cst/9:30pm est starting on June 4th.
• Utilization of the hashtag #jwchat for Twitter conversations. 
• Read and discuss Wesley's first 8 sermons over an 8 week period, reading & discussing one sermon a week.

Lipan provides links to the sermons as well as their titles, and three questions to guide discussion on his blog.

Here are direct links to the eight sermons they will be discussing:

1. Salvation by Faith (6/4)
2. The Almost Christian (6/11)
3. Awake, Thou That Sleepest (6/18)
4. Scriptural Christianity (6/25)
5. Justification by Faith (7/2)
6. The Righteousness of Faith (7/9)
7. The Way to the Kingdom (7/16)
8. The First Fruits of the Spirit (7/23)

I have joked with Methodist friends that the reason I have felt compelled to read John Wesley is to help Methodists remember who they are. The gulf between Wesley's preaching and my contemporary experience of Wesleyan theological exposition and practical holiness is too wide, in my opinion. Lipan and Conard's reading experiment will help address lack, or so I hope.

I'm not sure if I'll be joining in each Monday for the Twitter conversation, but I am considering a response in the form of essays. We shall see.

Check out the project and join, if you are so inclined.

Friendship and Ministry :: Ryan Pelton and New City Church (KC)

The Stack BBQ is tasty. How do I know? I met Ryan Pelton there for lunch last week.

Ryan is the pastor of New City Church in Kansas City, Missouri. We discussed life, ministry, good books, a little bit of theology, writing, and family.

At some point in the future I hope to visit New City on a Sunday morning.

Following our visit, Ryan posted a new entry to his blog suggesting there are things Christians mistakenly believe, and asked for responses.  He also asked for things Christians should believe, but do not. You can check out the post here, "Dumb Things Christians Believe."

Scrolling through the comments I found a couple of suggestions compelling, and a couple of others worthy of a smile. I'm anticipating what Ryan has to say about how to properly "judge" as a Christian without being judgmental or condemnatory, and wondering if Ryan will take up the Reformed position on sanctification and argue against the possibility of Christian perfection--a touchstone Wesleyan doctrine--and though this is not necessarily my position, John Wesley's Plain Account of Christian Perfection just might be the most important document on sanctification (the process or enactment of the Christian believer becoming a holy person) I have ever read.

I'm glad to meet other Christian leaders in Kansas City. I'm hoping that Ryan is but one of a number of Kansas City area pastors and church leaders who love the city and love Jesus Christ whom I will come to know and befriend.

Wisdom From Wesley

4. And it is as impossible to satisfy such a soul, a soul that is athirst for God, the living God, with what the world accounts religion, as with what they account happiness. The religion of the world implies three things: (1.) The doing no harm, the abstaining from outward sin; at least from such as is scandalous, as robbery, theft, common swearing, drunkenness: (2.) The doing good, the relieving the poor; the being charitable, as it is called: (3.) The using the means of grace; at least the going to church and to the Lord's Supper. He in whom these three marks are found is termed by the world a religious man. But will this satisfy him who hungers after God? No: It is not food for his soul. He wants a religion of a nobler kind, a religion higher and deeper than this. He can no more feed on this poor, shallow, formal thing, than he can "fill his belly with the east wind." True, he is careful to abstain from the very appearance of evil; he is zealous of good works; he attends all the ordinances of God: But all this is not what he longs for. This is only the outside of that religion, which he insatiably hungers after. The knowledge of God in Christ Jesus; "the life which is hid with Christ in God;" the being "joined unto the Lord in one Spirit;" the having "fellowship with the Father and the Son;" the "walking in the light as God is in the light;" the being "purified even as He is pure;" -- this is the religion, the righteousness, he thirsts after: Nor can he rest, till he thus rests in God.

-John Wesley, Sermon on the Mount -- II

Wisdom From Wesley

But in what sense is this righteousness imputed to believers? In this: all believers are forgiven and accepted, not for the sake of anything in them, or of anything that ever was, that is, or ever can be done by them, but wholly and solely for the sake of what Christ hath done and suffered for them. I say again, not for the sake of anything in them, or done by them, of their own righteousness or works: "Not for works of righteousness which we have done, but of his own mercy he saved us." "By grace ye are saved through faith, -- not of works, lest any man should boast;" but wholly and solely for the sake of what Christ hath done and suffered for us. We are "justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ." And this is not only the means of our obtaining the favour of God, but of our continuing therein. It is thus we come to God at first; it is by the same we come unto him ever after. We walk in one and the same new and living way, till our spirit returns to God.

-John Wesley, Sermon 20, "The Lord Our Righteousness"

Wisdom From Wesley

How dreadful and how innumerable are the contests which have arisen about religion! And not only among the children of this world, among those who knew not what true religion was, but even among the children of God; those who had experienced "the kingdom of God within them;" who had tasted of "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." How many of these, in all ages, instead of joining together against the common enemy, have turned their weapons against each other, and so not only wasted their precious time, but hurt one another's spirits, weakened each other's hands, and so hindered the great work of their common Master! How many of the weak have hereby been offended! -- How many of the lame turned out of the way! How many sinners confirmed in their disregard of all religion, and their contempt of those that profess it! And how many of "the excellent ones upon earth" have been constrained to "weep in secret places!"

-John Wesley, The Lord Our Righteousness, Sunday, November 24, 1765

Follow Up :: Teens and Three Simple Rules

A few weeks ago I posted an update stressing the importance of ministry to teenagers, noting my excitement concerning the opportunity to lead a group of young people through Rueben Job's Three Simple Rules.  This is an update on that venture.  The study wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, and the news is good.

After contacting a few key student leaders at RezWest, we began our three week journey with ten folks I really have enjoyed befriending.  Our objective was simple: pray together, read together, discuss together, and practice together.  Wesley's three simple rules, if you do not know them, are:

• Do no harm.
• Do good.
• Stay in love with God.

Simple.  Ten words.  Memorizable.  Challenging.

Rueben Job's book on the three simple rules is a contemporary treatment, but relies on both the biblical material and the writings of John Wesley.  The application of this material is difficult, yet profound.  And the biggest upside to moving through this material with teenagers is that they were presented with a rule of life, a way of following after Jesus that is clear, concise, historically rooted, communal, and challenging.  

Did I mention that applying these ten words is tough?

If you're looking for some small group material to explore with maturing minds, I'd recommend this book.

Yes. They Do Want to Learn.

Well, what do you know?  Teenagers do want to learn.  They want to be taken seriously.  They want to be invested in, invited to think, challenged.

I have a great deal of faith in young people to learn, grow, and lead.  I naively have operated from the assumption that if you take young people seriously intellectually, they will apply their minds and mature, gaining wisdom, growing their souls, taking next steps.  I have always expected my students to stretch, to apply themselves, to increase in knowledge.  Yet, even when I've expected these things, I've been both humbled and surprised when young people actually do it.  Success is something I consider pure gift.

Over the next three weeks I have another one of these occasions to be humbled and surprised.  I'll be leading ten high school students through Rueben P. Job's Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living.  I asked ten students to read and discuss this small text with me.  All ten agreed.

I'll write about our conversations, and let you know how it goes.