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Crisis,
Process
by Jonathan Evans
John Wesley discovered righteousness not mystical quietism,
nor in work-righteousness but by encountering the Holy Spirit.
(Leslie R. Marsten, “The Crisis-Process Issue in Wesleyan
Thought” Wesleyan
Theological Journal (Vol. 3 Spring 1969), 3 - 4.
On May 24, 1738 John Welsey received an assurance of faith at
an Aldersgate society meeting, “I felt my heart strangely
warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for
salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken my
sin, even mine.” [John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley,
Journal May 24, 1738 (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson
Publishing House, 1986) 1:103.]
“The first sowing of this seed I cannot conceive to be other
than instantaneous; whether I consider experience, or the word
of God, or the very nature of the thing; however, I contend
not for a circumstance, but the substance: If you can attain
it another way, do. Only see that you do attain it; for if you
fall short, you perish everlastingly.” (Wesley, Works 8:48)
“And at the same time that we are justified, yea, in that very
moment, sanctification begins. In that instant we are born
again, born from above, born of the Spirit: there is a real
as well as a relative change. We are inwardly renewed
by the power of God. We feel "the love of God shed abroad in
our heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us"; producing
love to all mankind, and more especially to the children of
God; expelling the love of the world, the love of pleasure, of
ease, of honour, of money, together with pride, anger,
self-will, and every other evil temper; in a word, changing
the earthly, sensual, devilish mind, into "the mind which was
in Christ Jesus." (Wesley, Sermon 43, “The Scripture Way of
Salvation” Works
This experience became the initiation point of holiness in
Wesley’s “way of salvation,”
via salutis, also
referred to as the
order of salvation.
Somehow, he [Wesley] could
never grasp the fact that people, formed by the traditions of
Latin Christianity, were bound to understand “perfection” as
perfectus (perfected)—i.e., as a finished state of completed
growth, ne plus ultra! (nothing beyond). For him, certainly
since his own discoveries of the early fathers, “perfection”
meant “perfecting” (teleiosis [in Greek]), with further
horizons of love and participation in God always opening up
beyond any given level of spiritual progress. (Albert Outler,
Theology in the
Wesleyan Spirit pp73).
Wesleyan theology was
outworked in the participation in the means of grace and the
Methodist structures. Snyder observes that examining Wesley’s
organization, particularly class meetings of Methodists are
important in understanding his views on sanctification.
Snyder, The Radical
Wesley, 149.
From the time of our being born again, the
gradual work of
sanctification takes place. We are enabled “by the Spirit” to
“mortify the deeds of the body,” of our evil nature; and as we
are more and more dead to sin, we are more and more alive to
God. We go from grace to grace, while we are careful to
“abstain from all appearance of evil,” and are “zealous of
good works,” as we have opportunity, doing good to all men;
while we walk in all His ordinances blameless, therein
worshipping Him in Spirit and in truth; while we take up our
cross, and deny ourselves every pleasure that does not lead to
God. It is thus that we wait for entire sanctification; for a
full salvation from all our sins—from pride, self–will, anger,
unbelief; or, as the Apostle expresses it, “go on unto
perfection.” John Wesley Wesley, Works, 6:46.
Synthesize crisis and process:
"It need not, therefore, be affirmed over
and over, and proved by forty texts of Scripture, either that
most men are perfected in love at last, that there is a
gradual work of
God in the soul, or that, generally speaking, it is a long
time, even many years, before sin is destroyed. All this we
know: But we know likewise, that God may, with man's good
leave, `cut short his work,' in whatever degree he pleases,
and do the usual work of many years in a moment. He does so in
many instances; and yet there is a gradual work, both before
and after that moment: So that one may affirm the work is
gradual, another, it is instantaneous, without any manner of
contradiction. (John Wesley,
A Plain Account of
Christian Perfection
This is what he says in his sermon on “The Scripture Way of
Salvation”:
1 Thessalonians 5:11:
“Encourage one another and build each other up,” a
process of encouragement in the spiritual pilgrimage of
spiritual life development.
“Going
on to perfection” has a consistent and clear end in view: 1)
love (of God and neighbor), 2) trust (in Christ and the
sufficiency of His grace), and 3) joy (upwelling in the heart
from the “prevenience” of the indwelling Spirit). This is
“holy living”: to love God (inward holiness) and neighbor
(outward holiness) with all your heart, to trust securely in
Christ’s merits, and to live joyously
“in the Spirit” (Albert Outler,
Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit pp.72)
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