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THE THEME OF “GRACE ALONE” (SOLA GRATIA)
In the three chapters of this final section I suggest that John Wesley has made a major contribution not merely by the effect of his preaching and teaching on the lived experience of the Christian faith by millions of people, but also by developing a clear and balanced articulation of the key aspects of Christian theology which are especially relevant at the present time. I do so by focusing on three main themes, to each of which I devote a chapter: (1) “sola gratia” (grace alone), (2) sanctification, and (3) assurance. It is the particular combination of these three aspects which ensures, firstly, that Wesley had a true understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, secondly, that his message has proved to be so attractive to millions of people over nearly three centuries, and thirdly that his theology is one which remains very relevant in the present-day Church. I begin in the present chapter by focusing attention on the theme of grace alone.
The central insight of the Reformation was, and is, that humans are saved by grace alone, through faith. As an Anglican, faithful to the doctrines of his Church (including the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican Church) Wesley would never, even prior to 1738, have denied that a person is saved by grace through faith. But there is no indication that he experienced or preached it with total conviction as the bedrock of the Christian faith. The core of his conversion-experience, however, was his acceptance of this truth, not just as something to be believed as part of a creed, but as something to be experienced and emphasized as the anchor-point of his faith. After 1738, all of his life and work were devoted to preaching and teaching this central point. Even in the course of his quite acrimonious disputes with some of the Calvinists of his time, when he was at times accused of abandoning or watering down this core belief and adopting a “papist” position, he never wavered on this point.
In fact Wesley insisted on the gratuity of God’s initiative at two distinct levels. First of all, creation is a pure gift of God. This means that human nature in all its aspects, and every human action, are all possible only because of the free initiative of God. Every human action must be underpinned by God’s prior and on-going creative power (cf. chapter 3 above).
Secondly—and far more immediately relevant for fallen humankind—all humans are utterly dependent on the grace of Christ’s atonement. Without the merits of Christ we would be lost in sin. At every stage of the spiritual journey we are utterly dependent on the prior initiative of God. God’s prevenient grace is what makes it possible for humans to begin to turn to God. God’s awakening grace makes it possible for the sinner to become aware of being enslaved to sin. God’s justifying and regenerating grace is what brings about the conversion by which the person begins a new life as a child of God: the person is justified by the merits of Christ and the love of God is shed abroad in the person’s heart. After conversion, the good actions performed by the Christian are made possible only by the grace of God. A further special grace is required to enable the Christian to become “entirely sanctified”.
The Word “Merit”
To say, as Wesley always did, that human salvation is by grace alone is to say that nobody can merit it by any human action (by “works”). However, Wesley also insisted that humans are bound to respond to God’s initiative at each stage of the spiritual journey. Christians are called and enabled to perform good actions; and even prior to conversion the sinner must cooperate with God’s prevenient grace, in so far as that is possible in the fallen state. Wesley did not hesitate to say that people are rewarded by God when they perform good works. This raises the major issue of whether a person can be said to merit God’s favor.
Much of the bitter controversy between Protestants and Catholics at the time of the Reformation and in later centuries centered on this word “merit”. So Wesley was exceptionally courageous—perhaps even rash—in venturing to explore this concept. He was quite unwilling to accept that the human response to God’s gracious initiatives is of no significance. He insisted that God’s grace will be withdrawn if the person does not cooperate. As I noted in chapter 10 above, he said in 1754 that fulfilling Christ’s command is a condition for being his friend. Eventually, in the controversial Minutes of 1770 he went so far as to say that we are pleasing or displeasing to God according to our works. He did not back off from this statement but he clarified it a little later by saying that it applied to retaining justification rather than to attaining it. He also said that good works are a condition for final salvation.
As I pointed out in chapter 10, Wesley said that the Christian is rewarded according to his works. He defended himself against the accusation that he had adopted a “papist” view by distinguishing between what is “rewardable” and what is “merited”. But late in life he suggested that if the word “merit” were used in a rather loose sense it could be equivalent to “rewardable”; and he noted that the word was frequently used in the Bible in this loose sense. The key point is that in all the years after 1738 Wesley steadfastly refused to accept that any human action can merit a reward from God, taking the word “merit” in its strict, proper, and normal sense.
Agreement about a Misunderstanding
It is quite ironic—but also very encouraging—to find that this whole issue about the acceptance or rejection of the word “merit” as a crucial source of division between Protestants and Roman Catholics has now come to be seen to have been due to a misunderstanding about the exact meaning of the word. On July 18, 2006 delegates to the World Methodist Conference voted unanimously to adopt the joint declaration on justification, which was approved in 1999 by the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation. This 1999 declaration said, "By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping us and calling us to good works." In adopting this joint declaration the Methodists’ resolution said that the agreement “corresponds to Methodist doctrine” and “expresses a far-reaching consensus in regard to the theological controversy which was a major cause of the split in Western churches in the 16th century.”[1]
The agreement of the three Churches was a very significant ecumenical breakthrough. It meant that the highest authority in the Roman Catholic Church had accepted the validity of the fundamental principle of the Reformation, the principle on which Wesley as well as Luther had always stood firm. At first sight it looks as though the Roman Catholic authorities had at long last abandoned their defense of the concept of merit. On closer inspection, however, it emerges that official Catholic teaching, as articulated by its most respected theologians, had not in fact maintained that humans can merit justification. In defending the use of the word “merit” they were using the word in what Wesley called “a loose sense”. They did not intend to deny that salvation is by grace alone. They only wanted to insist that humans are bound to cooperate with God’s grace—a point which they feared could be neglected by the use of the formulas “salvation by grace alone” and “by faith alone”.
What this indicates is that the dispute between the Churches on this central issue of the Reformation had no solid theological basis. It was due to a misunderstanding about the exact meaning of the word “merit”, exacerbated by distrust on both sides and by political tensions which had no religious or theological dimension. One could scarcely doubt that Wesley would have been greatly encouraged by this overcoming of a centuries-old dispute. He might even have felt that his own exploration of the meaning of the word “merit” and his distinction between its strict use and its use in a more loose sense, may have contributed to some extent to the ecumenical breakthrough.
This agreement at the doctrinal level is of course really important. But it is well to remember that Wesley’s main emphasis was not on just formal acceptance of doctrines but rather on taking this doctrine of sola gratia very seriously in his own life and in his preaching and teaching. For this reason, his stance poses quite a challenge to the way the Christian faith is preached and lived in some of our mainstream Churches at the present time. There one finds at times a tendency to reduce Christianity to a respectable moralism which is not at all what Wesley would want.
The Significance of Suddenness
In Wesley’s view the suddenness of the conversion breakthrough was the most striking proof that justification and regeneration come from grace alone. It is clear that he first came to believe in the importance of such an instantaneous conversion as a result of his contact with the Moravians, and especially through the influence of Peter Böhler. Even when he distanced himself from the Moravians he continued to link sola gratia with suddenness. There were three reasons for this. The first reason was based on his experience: he found that very many people were in fact experiencing sudden conversions as a result of his preaching and that of his colleagues and followers. Secondly, he put forward what one might call rational arguments: a person is either forgiven or not forgiven by God, with no room for a halfway situation; and just as the birth of a child takes place at once or over a very short time, so also the new birth must come in a similar manner (cf. Chapter 8 above). Thirdly, there was a theological basis for his view: he believed that in a sudden conversion there is no need and no room for human involvement, apart from the crucial role played by faith in responding to God’s call—and, for Wesley, this faith is itself a grace.
In Wesley’s time there was little or no awareness of what the science of psychology has revealed about how a process can be taking place at an unconscious level and can then suddenly burst into consciousness. The understanding of unconscious processes which has emerged over the past century has important theological implications. It suggests that in an apparently sudden conversion there may after all be more human involvement—more human response to the grace of God—than Wesley had realized. This undoubtedly weakens the argument that suddenness is a “proof” that the conversion is due to God alone. It does not, however, undermine the fundamental religious truth that it is only by the grace of God that one can be converted. Ultimately this is a truth accepted in faith, and authenticated by the inner spiritual experience of millions of Christians, rather than “proved” by external evidence. As I have noted in the concluding paragraphs to chapter 8 above, Wesley came in his later life to a point where he was less rigid in insisting on the link between suddenness and sola gratia.
What about the more rational argument of Wesley that one is either justified or not justified, regenerated or not regenerated, with no room for a halfway situation? In this matter there is much to be said for following the approach adopted by Wesley on occasions when he was confronted by spiritual events or processes which did not seem to fit into the standard pattern worked out by himself or his colleagues. In these situations he was inclined to point out that God could do things that were beyond human understanding. Most Christians today would probably agree with Wesley that the ways in which God works in the individual’s soul are ultimately a mystery; so there is a limit to the extent to which we can understand them, or fit them into any pattern or system worked out by us. Consequently, Wesley’s use of the analogy of the birth of child to describe the nature of regeneration may not be valid in all respects.
This leaves us with the undoubted fact that thousands of people did experience a sudden conversion following on the preaching of Wesley and his colleagues. How does one account for the difference between that and the effect of the preaching of ministers in the mainstream Churches today? This calls for a twofold response:
—On the one hand, one must acknowledge that Wesley’s preaching took place at a time of great poverty and social disruption, a time when the mainstream Churches were failing to make effective contact with millions of very poor people. His open-air preaching was largely addressed to these people. It brought them a message of hope. Many of the poor who heard him came to believe that by turning to God according to the simple pattern he proclaimed they could find meaning in their lives; and in doing so they came to have a new sense of their own dignity. In this sense, his evangelical approach had elements of what would now be called “an option for the poor.” Given this situation it is not surprising that many responded to his call and that their spiritual experience fitted into the pattern of sudden conversion which he preached. And, of course, when people saw others being converted in this striking manner they were deeply affected by it and inclined to follow the same route. One sees a rather similar pattern today in the occasional evangelical crusades which attract large numbers, and also in some of the more Pentecostal Churches and the “healing Churches” which are common in developing countries and particularly among immigrants who come to the West from these developing countries.
—On the other hand, the fact that sudden conversion is not common in the mainstream Churches constitutes a challenge to the leadership and the members of these Churches. Have they toned down the Christian message or allowed its central focus to get blurred by an accretion of less essential features? Should they reach out to the unchurched masses through evangelical crusades? When asking themselves this question they need also to recall that the evangelizing strategy of Wesley did not focus exclusively on preaching to large audiences. He went to enormous trouble to organize his new converts into small supportive groups who prayed and studied together, and who practiced a quite strict discipline under the guidance of carefully trained leaders.[2] Crusades without adequate follow-up in nurturing communities are likely to be a mere “flash in the pan.”
Faith
An intriguing question about Wesley’s teaching on “salvation by grace alone” is the part played in it by human acceptance of God’s gift. As I noted in chapter 3 above, Wesley insists that justification and regeneration are not merited or “earned” by any human works. While he holds that repentance and the fruits of repentance are necessary, they are not the cause of justification. Furthermore, repentance and its fruits are not proximately necessary; only faith is proximately necessary. This raises the question why the faith of the convert should not be seen as another form of “works”.
Wesley did address this question to some extent. As I pointed out in chapter 5, he saw faith as both a faculty and an act. Both of these aspects of faith are a gift of God. But this still leaves the question of why the act of faith should be considered to be so significantly different from other human acts, that it is not considered to be a human “work”. I have not found any detailed treatment of this issue in Wesley’s works. This is quite understandable since it is a theological question which has come more to the fore since the development of our interest in, and knowledge of, human psychology.
Even though Wesley lived long before the development of modern psychology, he did have a great interest in, and facility for, examining his own inner experiences. He had great spiritual sensitivity. So I feel sure that he was not simply playing with words when he insisted that faith is necessary for adult justification, while at the same time insisting that no human “works” are involved. He was instead putting words on his own spiritual experience, as well as what had emerged in his deep sharing with others. In doing so he was using the conventional theological language of the Reformation, rescuing it from mere formalism and ensuring that it come alive as an articulation of the deep Christian experience of himself and his companions.
I venture to suggest that it would be in line with Wesley’s approach to see the act of faith at the time of justification not as a human action in the usual sense—and therefore not as an instance of “works”—but more as a particular kind of receptivity, an openness to God’s grace-ful action, including also a longing to receive it. This is not a matter of being passive. In fact it requires a certain effort, but one that is almost the opposite of the more usual effort to do something. Here one is making the effort not to do anything, but to wait with eager expectation for God to act.