What is Christian perfection then?
Wesley begins by saying that, "Indeed, it [Christian perfection] is only another term for holiness. They are two names for the same thing. Thus everyone that is perfect is holy, and everyone that is holy is, in the Scripture sense, perfect."
Part of this holiness was the restoration of our power not to sin. Christians do not continue in sin. They are freed from the power of sin. The power of sin has been destroyed and therefore no longer has dominion over them. Wesley does not mean that all Christians will not sin, but he does insist that "whosoever is tempted to any sin need not yield; for no man [or woman] is tempted above that he [or she] is able to bear." After all, what would it mean for God to give us a command and then not give us the power and grace to obey that command? Wesley refuses to believe in such a God and consequently takes seriously Jesus's words to go and sin no more. Of course, what does Wesley mean by sin? I do not mean to play with words; however, I do agree with Colin Williams who states:
It is clear that Wesley's view of perfection depends upon a distinction between two kinds of sin. In terms of sin in the absolute sense, as measured by the "perfect law," there is no such thing as perfection in believers. It is in terms of the sin of conscious separation from Christ that there can be perfection--a perfection of unbroken conscious dependence upon Christ.
This tension and twofold distinction of sin illustrates how Wesley could be asked if those who are entirely sanctified are sinners and respond, "Explain the term [sinner] one way, and I say, Yes; another, and I say, No."
Ultimately, Christian perfection is more a category of love than a category of sin. It involves an intense focus on the love of God and neighbor, these two being always linked for Wesley. Entire sanctification means a reordering of our desires where we participate in loving the right things, doing so only by the grace of the One who loved us first. Wesley said this love is "the love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto them." This quote is from The Marks of the New Birth (1748). Eight years earlier Charles Wesley employed the exact same language when he wrote:
Jesus, thine all victorious love shed in my heart abroad; then shall my feet no longer rove, rooted and fixed in God. O that in me the sacred fire might now begin to glow; burn up the dross of base desire and make the mountains flow! O that it now from heaven might fall and all my sins consume! Come, Holy Ghost, for thee I call, Spirit of burning, come! Refining fire, go through my heart, illumine my soul; scatter they life through every part and sanctify the whole.
Christian perfection makes love of God and neighbor a natural response. The entirely sanctified are transformed in such a way "that whosoever desires may look into their hearts and see that only love and God are there." Needless to say, a heart that contains only love and God has no room for sin.
Christian perfection is a gift from God. Entire sanctification is something God does in us. Holiness "never becomes our possession." This is why it can happen either gradually or instantaneously if God decides to pull a Divine shortcut. Wesley comments that, "what God hath promised He [God] is able to perform and tht He [God] is able and willing to do it now." We, like God, have a role to play in Christian perfection. Christians are to "seek it earnestly so that they might find it speedily." When Wesley was asked if entire sanctification is ordinarily not given until a little before death he replied, "It is not to those who expect it no sooner nor probably ask for it." In other words, if you do not expect Christian perfection or ask for it, you will not get it. We are to be continually striving after it. Our waiting for Christian perfection is active, for "God does not, will not, give that faith, unless we seek it with all diligence."
Could this, expecting to be made perfect in love in this life, happen to the whole of creation? Eschatology might be the only thing harder to get agreement upon than Christian perfection. When the World Council of Churches met in Evanston they admitted that, "We are not agreed on the relationship between the Christian's hope here and now and his [and her] ultimate hope." For Wesley, Randy Maddox is convinced that, "a growing insistence on the redemption of all creation runs through Wesley's late writings." Williams agrees that"
The 'whole animated creation' will share in this new creation, being delivered from its present bondage to evil occasioned by the Fall, and sharing in 'the glorious liberty of the children of God' so that there shall be truly 'a new heaven and a new earth.'
Truly, Wesley envisioned a Christian world. Wesley saw the petition "Thy kingdom come" as:
Offered up for the whole intelligent creation, who are all interested in this grand event, the final renovation of all things by God's putting an end to misery and sin, to infirmity and death, taking all things into his own hands, and setting up the kingdom which endureth throughout all ages.
I have a hard time reconciling Wesley's eschatology where all of creation is made perfect in love with Wesley's belief in a real Hell with people in it. Wesley describes Hell as a place:
Where they [the wicked] will 'gnaw their tongues' for anguish and pain...there the dogs of hell--pride, malice, revenge, rage, horror, despair--continually devour them. There 'they have no rest day or night, but the smoke of their torment ascendeth for ever and ever.'
For Wesley, judgment is lasting. If some are punished forever, how then is all of creation redeemed? Despite a few possible inconsistencies such as the one just mentioned, Wesley held fast to his teaching that:
To crown all, there will be a deep, an intimate, an uninterrupted union with God; a constant communion with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ, through the Spirit; a continual enjoyment of the Three-One God, and of all the creatures in him!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Wednesdays with Wesley: What Christian Perfection is Not...
"Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as God is, so are we in this world." - 1st Jn. 4:17
"Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? Are you earnestly striving after it?" I find these questions unavoidable, for they are part of the historic examination that awaits any clergy person seeking admission into full connection within The United Methodist Church. This should not be taken as a monastic like move that limits perfection to an elite group of Christians called clergy, for Wesley came to think, "that propagation of this very teaching [Christian perfection] was the chief reason for which God had raised up the Methodists." Entire sanctification was both a consistent theme and a controversial doctrine for Wesley. It not only caused opponents of Wesley to argue that his ideas on Christian perfection were "confusing, erratic, or simply incompatible," but also was the subject of passionate debate within the early Methodist movement. In fact, the timing and attainment of entire sanctification even divided John and Charles Wesley. Being unable to dismiss Christian perfection as either unimportant or universally accepted, it seems fitting to explore the topics of entire sanctification and eschatology. What would it mean to "expect to be made perfect in love in this life" according to Wesley? Could this happen to the whole of creation?
Wesley approached the issue of Christian perfection with some caution. He believed, "That consequently it behooves us to speak almost continually of the state of justification, but rarely, at least in full and explicit terms, concerning entire sanctification." When Wesley was questioned about the practical task of preaching Christian perfection he said it should be done "scarce at all to those who are not pressing forward." Young preachers are to talk about entire sanctification "not too minutely or circumstantially, but rather in general and scriptural terms." Wesley was once asked if an entirely sanctified person would be capable of marriage. He responded, "We cannot well judge. But supposing he [or she] were not, the number of those in that state is so small, it would produce no inconvenience." Later Wesley added to his remarks on this matter by nothing that, "Marriage is honorable in all (Hebrews 13:4)." It is important to remember that Christian perfection is not one of the seven essentials for Wesley, at least according to Dr. Ted Campbell.
This is not to say that entire sanctification was unimportant for Wesley. Wesley firmly thought that Christian perfection was the intention of God. The Great Commandment lets believers know that what God desires is that we should love God entirely (Matthew 22:37-38). Wesley's belief in entire sanctification was also connected to his ideas on the power of God. He was willing to admit that you cannot perfect yourself, but vehemently questioned those who contended that God is not capable of accomplishing what God intends.
So, what is Christian perfection? Perhaps it is more appropriate to start with what Christian perfection is not. Kenneth J. Collins and Colin Williams make the same move. They may do this, as I do, in an intentional attempt to follow in the footsteps of John Wesley himself. His sermon Christian Perfection was written in 1741. Surprisingly, there is no account of Wesley actually preaching this sermon, which raises the question of if it can actually be called a sermon then. Whatever one's personal theology may be about what does and does not consitute a sermon, Christian Perfection as a written work does communicate Wesley's desire "to show, First, in what sense Christians are not, and Secondly, in what sense they are, perfect."
Wesley's first observation is that:
And both from experience and Scripture it appears, first, that they are not perfect in knowledge: they are not so perfect in this life as to be free from ignorance.
There are so many things for Wesley that Christians do not know. He lists examples of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and eschatology. Wesley's second point flows from his first. He writes:
Nor, secondly, from mistake, which indeed is almost an unavoidable consequence of it; seeing those who "know but in part" are ever liable to err touching the things which they know not. Tis true the children of God do not mistake as to the things essential to salvation...But in things unessential to salvation they do err, and that frequently.
Wesley continues, "It is a proof that we are no more to expect any living man [or woman] to be infallible than to be omniscient." Thirdly, Christian perfection does not mean freedom from infirmities. What are infirmities? Wesley wants us to "not give that soft title to known sins, as the manner of some is." He clarifies his view by stating:
But I mean hereby not only those which are properly termed "bodily infirmities," but all those inward or outward imperfections which are not of a moral nature.
Examples of these infirmities include slow understanding, ungraceful pronunciations, or incoherent thoughts. Fourthly, Christian perfection does not entail being wholly free from temptation. The fifth and last point Wesley makes about Christian perfection is this:
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 [or woman] hath attained, or in how high a degree soever he [or she] is perfect, he [or she] hath still need to "grow in grace," and daily to advance in the knowledge and love of God his Saviour.
So, Wesley summarizes his discussion of what Christian perfection is not in this way:
Christian perfection therefore does not imply (as some men seem to have imagined) an exemption either from ignorance or mistake, or infirmities or temptations.
What is Christian perfection then? Tune in next time...
"Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? Are you earnestly striving after it?" I find these questions unavoidable, for they are part of the historic examination that awaits any clergy person seeking admission into full connection within The United Methodist Church. This should not be taken as a monastic like move that limits perfection to an elite group of Christians called clergy, for Wesley came to think, "that propagation of this very teaching [Christian perfection] was the chief reason for which God had raised up the Methodists." Entire sanctification was both a consistent theme and a controversial doctrine for Wesley. It not only caused opponents of Wesley to argue that his ideas on Christian perfection were "confusing, erratic, or simply incompatible," but also was the subject of passionate debate within the early Methodist movement. In fact, the timing and attainment of entire sanctification even divided John and Charles Wesley. Being unable to dismiss Christian perfection as either unimportant or universally accepted, it seems fitting to explore the topics of entire sanctification and eschatology. What would it mean to "expect to be made perfect in love in this life" according to Wesley? Could this happen to the whole of creation?
Wesley approached the issue of Christian perfection with some caution. He believed, "That consequently it behooves us to speak almost continually of the state of justification, but rarely, at least in full and explicit terms, concerning entire sanctification." When Wesley was questioned about the practical task of preaching Christian perfection he said it should be done "scarce at all to those who are not pressing forward." Young preachers are to talk about entire sanctification "not too minutely or circumstantially, but rather in general and scriptural terms." Wesley was once asked if an entirely sanctified person would be capable of marriage. He responded, "We cannot well judge. But supposing he [or she] were not, the number of those in that state is so small, it would produce no inconvenience." Later Wesley added to his remarks on this matter by nothing that, "Marriage is honorable in all (Hebrews 13:4)." It is important to remember that Christian perfection is not one of the seven essentials for Wesley, at least according to Dr. Ted Campbell.
This is not to say that entire sanctification was unimportant for Wesley. Wesley firmly thought that Christian perfection was the intention of God. The Great Commandment lets believers know that what God desires is that we should love God entirely (Matthew 22:37-38). Wesley's belief in entire sanctification was also connected to his ideas on the power of God. He was willing to admit that you cannot perfect yourself, but vehemently questioned those who contended that God is not capable of accomplishing what God intends.
So, what is Christian perfection? Perhaps it is more appropriate to start with what Christian perfection is not. Kenneth J. Collins and Colin Williams make the same move. They may do this, as I do, in an intentional attempt to follow in the footsteps of John Wesley himself. His sermon Christian Perfection was written in 1741. Surprisingly, there is no account of Wesley actually preaching this sermon, which raises the question of if it can actually be called a sermon then. Whatever one's personal theology may be about what does and does not consitute a sermon, Christian Perfection as a written work does communicate Wesley's desire "to show, First, in what sense Christians are not, and Secondly, in what sense they are, perfect."
Wesley's first observation is that:
And both from experience and Scripture it appears, first, that they are not perfect in knowledge: they are not so perfect in this life as to be free from ignorance.
There are so many things for Wesley that Christians do not know. He lists examples of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and eschatology. Wesley's second point flows from his first. He writes:
Nor, secondly, from mistake, which indeed is almost an unavoidable consequence of it; seeing those who "know but in part" are ever liable to err touching the things which they know not. Tis true the children of God do not mistake as to the things essential to salvation...But in things unessential to salvation they do err, and that frequently.
Wesley continues, "It is a proof that we are no more to expect any living man [or woman] to be infallible than to be omniscient." Thirdly, Christian perfection does not mean freedom from infirmities. What are infirmities? Wesley wants us to "not give that soft title to known sins, as the manner of some is." He clarifies his view by stating:
But I mean hereby not only those which are properly termed "bodily infirmities," but all those inward or outward imperfections which are not of a moral nature.
Examples of these infirmities include slow understanding, ungraceful pronunciations, or incoherent thoughts. Fourthly, Christian perfection does not entail being wholly free from temptation. The fifth and last point Wesley makes about Christian perfection is this:
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 [or woman] hath attained, or in how high a degree soever he [or she] is perfect, he [or she] hath still need to "grow in grace," and daily to advance in the knowledge and love of God his Saviour.
So, Wesley summarizes his discussion of what Christian perfection is not in this way:
Christian perfection therefore does not imply (as some men seem to have imagined) an exemption either from ignorance or mistake, or infirmities or temptations.
What is Christian perfection then? Tune in next time...
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