Reading through Wesley’s elaborate sermons, crucial conclusions can be ascertained about the founder of the Methodist movement. First, Wesley was a sincerely devoted man of God and the scriptures. Second, Wesley was an admirable and capable biblical scholar. Third, his life experiences certainly shaped his approach to life and theology, although Wesley seemed perpetually in the refiner’s fire.
This personal approach to the Way can be seen in his understanding of the Christian life process. A healthy and whole relationship with God begins with confession of one’s sinfulness and a repentant heart. Instantly, the sinner is justified by his or her faith, and enjoys a regeneration of the soul. This bright flame of newfound spiritual recovery is fanned brighter through the nurturing of fellow believers (and former sinners) in smaller, intimate groups. As members work to achieve greater sanctification, their maturity grows as does their effectiveness as true, confident children of God. With a willing heart and the inseparable assistance of the Holy Spirit, he or she who was once lost can experience the perfect love of God and neighbor. Such a conclusion may seem impossible to some (particularly to staunch Augustinians or Calvinists), but Wesley would gently remind them, “With men, this is impossible; but with God, all things are possible” (Matt 19:26).
In reading Wesley’s words, it is easy to be both drawn and confused by his assertions. Wesley is spot-on in his conviction that there is no place or value for hypocrisy and contrivance in genuine Christianity. A person who professes to love God should respond to God in ways that clearly demonstrate positive personal feelings for Him. Likewise, if believers are to take on the name of Christ, then purity of heart, mind, and soul should be permanently at the top of every Christian’s to-do list (especially with Jesus as our model). As Wesley writes in From Almost to Altogether, “And he [a Believer] has power over both outward and inward sin, even from the moment he is justified.”[1] In Wesley’s mind, if one could totally devote oneself to God, he or she could attain the perfected Christian spiritual state.
On the other hand, many consider Wesley’s expectations for Christian holiness unrealistic (at least as so far experienced and perceived in Christian history) and dangerous, theologically. In A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1777), Wesley plainly states, “Christians are saved in this world from all sin, from all unrighteousness; that they are now in such a sense perfect, as not to commit sin, and to be freed from evil thoughts and evil tempers.”[2] Such a proclamation invites critical inspection and poignant questions, both in Wesley’s time and into the postmodern era.
If one can become perfected, is there anymore need for Jesus? And, furthermore, through simple observation, it seems that no flawless Christians exist or have existed, except “perfected” in the saving love and sacrifice of Christ. Even the Apostle John, in his first epistle, seems to challenge Wesley’s suggestion of Christian Perfection—“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Of course, John’s message is clear and concise. People who claim to be Christians but do not reflect the light or love or truth of God are simply not Christians, but those walk with/in the love and truth of God have a perfected relationship with God and each other.
Wesley would whole-heartedly agree that “. . . a person filled with the love of God is still liable to these involuntary transgressions.”[3] Such concerns and questions are important, but Wesley would argue that perfect sanctification is in the will and not in the performance. He carefully writes in A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, “Therefore, it is as natural for a man to mistake as to breathe; and he can no more live without the one than without the other: consequently, no man is able to perform the service which the Adamic law requires.”[4] Yet, he then goes on to state,
I know many that love God with all their heart. He is their one desire; and they are continually happy in Him. They love their neighbor as themselves. They feel as sincere, fervent, constant a desire for the happiness of every man, good or bad, friend or enemy, as for their own. They rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks. Their souls are continually streaming up to God, in holy joy, prayer, and praise. This is a point of fact; and this is plain, sound, Scripture experience.[5]
In other words, people are permitted to be fallible, although as Christians, they are exhorted to follow Christ’s example of perfect love.
Holiness and perfection must be characteristics to be theoretically strived for in the Christian life—for not only do they please God, they also show sincere devotion to Him and heart-felt commitment to His good and holy ways. As Rebekah Miles states,
Religion and happiness, then, are always one; their two parts or branches—love of God and love of neighbor—are indivisible. To choose half of this one religion and one happiness, either the love of God or love of neighbor, is to lose the whole. This one happiness is the heart of Wesley’s ethic.[6]
The success of Wesley’s assertions rested upon the possibility of an undivided heart, though, of total desire to dwell in God’s love; moreover, Wesley makes it clear that there are no “half-Christians.”[7]
Once saved, followers of Christ are fundamentally changed and, therefore, faithful lives should demonstrate it. Total adoration and total surrendering of our will to God can bring about “Christian Perfection,” although humanity’s fallen nature frequently limits righteous performance. As Vickers writes,
Although Wesley believed that humans were created in the moral image of God, so that holiness, justice, and goodness reigned in their hearts, he also taught that humans were made in the natural image of God. By this he meant that God created individuals with a liberty to choose whether they would go on obeying the moral law within or whether they would reject it.[8]
Such limitations, however, are one-sided based on Wesleyan thought (and many Calvinists would agree with this conclusion).
Through human efforts, loving God and loving one’s neighbor is difficult, but with the enabling power that comes by being filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and with surrender to trust and obey in God, Christian Perfection is attainable. Thus, Maddox states, “The enduring stress of Wesley’s doctrine of Christian perfection, drawn from . . . various sources, was the potential triumph of God’s grace and the power of a wholehearted love of God and neighbor to displace all lesser loves and to overcome the remains of sin.”[9] Believers can live and respond as Jesus did in the Bible (and as the Bible encourages its readers to do, numerous times).
Such a conclusion not only is Wesleyan; it is also quite evidential. Wesley was, to the end, a man of one book—the Bible, and one message—the Good News. In his sermons, Wesley clarified this position, stating,
Thus, everyone that is holy is, in the Scripture sense, perfect. Yet, we may, lastly, observe, that neither in this respect is there any absolute perfection on earth. There is no perfection of degrees, as it is termed; none which does not admit of a continual increase. So that how much soever any man has attained, or in how high a degree soever he is perfect, he hath still need to “grown in grace,” and daily to advance in the knowledge and love of God his Saviour.[10]
Bibliography
Maddox, Randy and Paul W. Chilcote, eds. A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 2015.
Miles, Rebekah L. “Happiness, Holiness, and the Moral Life in John Wesley.” In The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley, Randy Maddox and Jason Vickers, eds. 207–224. New York: Cambridge, 2010.
Vickers, Jason. “Wesley’s Theological Emphases.” In The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley, Randy Maddox and Jason Vickers, eds. 190–206. New York: Cambridge, 2010.
Wesley, John. A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 1966.
Wesley, John. From Almost to Altogether: Sermons on Christian Discipleship. USA: Seedbed, 2015.
Wesley, John.Wesley’s 52 Standard Sermons: as He Approved Them. Salem: Schmul, 1988.
End Notes
[1] Wesley, From Almost to Altogether, 80.
[2] Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, 27–28.
[3] Ibid., 54.
[4] Ibid., 79.
[5] Ibid., 84.
[6] Miles, “Happiness, Holiness, and the Moral Life,” 208.
[7] Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, 10.
[8] Vickers, 194.
[9] Maddox and Chilcote, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, 21.
[10] Wesley, “Sermon XL—On Christian Perfection,” 408.