In my last article I reflected on Paul’s emotional struggle as he wrote his letter to the Ephesians.

He was filled with emotion as he thought of these new Christians, and in his mind, probably rehearsing his own Damascus Road experience. How could he say what he was feeling and thinking? What did he need to say? All he had was words and words are never enough. He sounded his deep prayerful desires for them: So may you attain to fullness of being, the fullness of God himself.

The Call to Walk in Love

That struggle continues as he continues his letter to these new Christians. Paul calls them and us to our Christian walk in an unforgettable way: “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Going on to salvation means living a life of love that was expressed in its ultimate meaning in Christ’s giving of himself for us. Paul called that “a fragrant offering.”

Living in Christ Means Living in Love

We need to keep reminding ourselves of the overarching gospel principle for our Christian Walk: we are persons in Christ. If we are in Christ, we exist in love. God is love and manifested his love to us in that he sent Jesus into the world, “that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). And what is the sign that we live through him? “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11 ESV). And then there’s that remarkable message, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (1 John 4:12).

Love that Hangs Tough

To walk in love as Christians, to be that fragrant offering to others that Christ would have us be, is to practice a love that hangs tough.

Two scripture passages related to love standing strong are, first, John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” That’s tough, demanding, serious business. God’s love is deep enough that God is willing to die for us. It is described in Paul’s marvelous hymn of love: “Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1Cor: 13:7). That’s tough love, demanding an almost slavish perseverance.

Love hangs tough because it wills the well-being and the wholeness of the person loved.

When Love Must Do the Painful Thing

Because love hangs tough, sometimes it has to do the painful thing. It may have to speak the painful truth in order to save a person from living a lie and betraying himself or herself.

We also need to remember this: when love doesn’t hang tough, all sorts of destructive things happen:

• Marriage vows are trivialized and made the brunt of humor.
• Respect for individual worth and strength of character that Jesus honored are quickly traded for the limelight or the next pleasure.
• Many persons who have great promise are never called to maturity and fulfillment because they are betrayed by a love that has no demanding edge to it.

The Fragrance of Understanding

But not only does Christian love hang tough, it expresses itself in understanding. Is there a more fragrant offering of ourselves than to make the effort to understand others?

Martin Buber, the renowned Jewish philosopher, talked about the I and Thou relationship to express the meaning of being human and the meaning of human relationships. He says that secretly and bashfully, we watch for a yes which allows us to be, and which can come to us only from one person to another: To understand another is to say yes to the other, confirming that person in their very being.

I don’t know why it is so, but our being and living as full human beings depends upon our being accepted by others. That acceptance requires understanding and trust.

Isn’t it true that one of the surest experiences of God’s presence is the love of another person? We become a fragrant offering to another when we love them enough to accept them nonjudgmentally and seek to understand them.

Join me in your imagination. We are a part of a Christian congregation in Ephesus. At one of our gatherings, a fellow member reads a letter written by the great apostle, Paul. He is seeking to shepherd the new emerging Christian movement and he is praying for us. Hear him, now.

I kneel in prayer to the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name, that out of the treasures of his glory he may grant you strength and power through his Spirit in your inner being, that through faith Christ may dwell in your hearts in love. With deep roots and firm foundations, may you be strong to grasp, with all God’s people, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ, and to know it, though it is beyond knowledge. So may you attain to fullness of being, the fullness of God himself. (Ephesians 3:14-19) 

The Essence of Paul’s Prayer for the Ephesians

The prayer is packed with meaning that should leave us somewhat breathless. Paul was filled with emotion as he thought of these new Christians, in his mind probably rehearsing  his own Damascus Road experience. How could he say what he was feeling and thinking? What did he need to say?  All he had was words and words are never enough.

He sounded his deep prayerful desires for them: So may you attain the fullness of being, the fullness of God himself.  Take a moment to ponder some of his words leading up to that blurt of deep passion:

• “strength and power …in your inner being”
• “grasp… the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ”
• “through faith Christ may dwell in your hearts in love”

Then what feels climatic: So may you attain to fullness of being, the fullness of God himself.

Personal Reflections on Spiritual Formation

I recall a particularly trying time early in my ministry which led me to passionately pursue being alive in Christ. I discovered that the indwelling Christ, along with justification by grace through faith, were Paul’s two major themes, and that the indwelling Christ is as prominent in his writing as justification. No theme has occupied my thinking and ministry more. Fullness of being, the fullness of God himself, is ours through Christ who dwells in us. It was in this reality of the indwelling Christ that prayer as a specific act and prayerful living took on vibrant and powerful meaning for me. It is in this reality of the indwelling Christ that my understanding of spiritual formation and growing on in full salvation is rooted.

Early on, as I immersed myself in the dynamic of the indwelling Christ, abiding in him, I developed a working definition of spiritual formation: that dynamic process of receiving through faith and appropriating through commitment, discipline, and action the living Christ into our own life to the end that our life will conform to and manifest the reality of Christ’s presence in the world.

The definition encompasses the full measure of prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace. It also calls for discipline and witness. Three disciplines are essential for recognizing, cultivating awareness of, and giving expression to the indwelling Christ. One, not only is the presence of God in Jesus Christ to be experienced on occasion, but the indwelling Christ is also to become the shaping power of our lives.  Two, what Christ has been and done in our lives we must be and do for others. Three, we allow the working power of God in the past to be brought into the present. 

In my study, reflection, and experience, this has been made clear to me: the indwelling Christ in an affirming presence, a forgiving and healing presence, a guiding and creating presence, and a converting presence.1 

The indwelling Christ as a converting presence is the dynamic we claim for going on and growing on to full salvation.

Reclaiming the Concept of Conversion

When I was writing the book Alive in Christ, I struggled with the word that best communicated the shaping dynamic of the indwelling Christ. I confessed that though converting and conversion are common words in religious language, I hesitated using those words because of how narrow fundamentalists had distorted their meaning. I confessed, “Not being willing to be squeezed into that mold we have given up one of our powerful and descriptive words: conversion.” 

We have gone even further in many quarters of the church. Not only have we given up the word, we have diminished a cardinal principle of the gospel which the words describe. We simply do not think much about conversion.

But think! In our Wesley understanding, we are “going on’ to salvation.” We are not finished, but you could say we are “under construction,” maturing into the measure of the fullness of Christ, believing the extravagant possibility of attaining to fullness of being, the fullness of God himself.

The purpose of spiritual disciplines is to keep alive the conversion process, Paul’s prayer being answered in us: So may you attain to fullness of being, the fullness of God himself.

Two-thirds of the world’s population now lives in countries where the birth rate has dropped to or below 2.1 babies per woman, the number needed to keep the population constant.

When I first read that I was shocked by the language: 2.1 babies per woman.  However, it was the concern that really got my attention. Experts are concerned that the fertility rate has dropped below the so-called “replacement rate” of the population. Persons who study issues like this are concerned about what is described as the “coming demographic winter.”

Maybe because I will soon be 90 years old, all sorts of questions began to whirl in my mind. Who is going to replace me? Can I be replaced? But the important personal question is, do I need to be replaced?

The experts are concerned because shrinking population means more jobs will go unfilled, economic growth will slow, programs like Social Security—which depend upon the working-aged to pay in and support the growing ranks of the aged – may become bankrupt.

As one who seeks to be a responsible citizen, I’m happy “experts” are working on those issues, but there are questions and concerns we all need to personally consider.

• Am I sharing and caring for others in ways that need to be replaced?
• Am I filling a place in my family or community which someone else will need to be charged and equipped to fill?
• Is there a person that I am allowing to be dependent on me that I need to “set free”?
• Who are persons I consider “irreplaceable” that I need to thank and offer support?

The question presses, Who is going to replace me? As a minister,  I remember a word Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like undertakers.” What kind of image have I communicated?  

Will anyone who looks at my years, my efforts, and my call recognize a life which needs to be replaced?

The same can be asked of our communities. Will the next generation want to replace them or rid themselves of them?  A question many church consultants often ask is, “What impact would there be in this community if this church closed up today?” How we wrestle with that question sheds a remarkable light on how we each reflect God’s image.

There remains time for us all to address these questions, to alter the perceptions others have of us – to answer the God has for us.  For we all have a call on our lives.

Christ ordained his church to carry the good news of Jesus to all the nations, and by extension, all the generations.  My time is passing on and another’s will come. My prayer is that I have done well to live into the psalmist’s cry, 

We will not hide them from their descendants;

we will tell the next generation

the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,

his power, and the wonders he has done.

Psalm 78:4

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. May we never forget that claim.  Every generation which replaces the prior has a right to hear the good news and see God’s people making shalom in the communities where they gather.  And if we do that faithfully, we can trust in the Holy Spirit’s continued movement rather than our own deeds as we answer the pressing question, ‘will there be anyone to replace me?’

In my last article I focused on the notion of mission as “making disciples who make disciples.” I introduced the term “discipleship evangelism”, as the essence of evangelism. I hinted at the claim that there is “no great commission without the great commandment”. We must nurture and cherish the bond between word and deed, ideas and consequences, beliefs and actions. Good works do not save us but are the evidence of the transforming work of the Holy Spirit and the fundamental nature of practical Christianity.

Faith Working Through Love

One of the best definitions of practical Christianity that you will find comes from the apostle Paul. It is this: faith working through love. In Galatians 5:6, Paul makes the case for the essentials of the Christian life, over and against the superficial claims of religious preference: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.” J. B. Phillips translates this “faith which expresses itself in love.” The New English Bible reads “faith active in love.” Paul is saying that, in God’s judgment according to Christ, the question is not whether we are obedient to the law, whether we are circumcised or uncircumcised, whether we are Methodist or Baptist. The question is whether in faith we have been shaped according to the reality of God’s love expressed ultimately in his crucified Son. And when there is a testing of that faith, it will involve not the doctrinal positions to which we have given intellectual ascent, not even the doctrine of the uniqueness of Christ, but whether our faith has expressed itself in love.

The goal of every church should be to have a congregation of disciples who are on a mission of discipleship. Disciples making disciples, that is the essence of evangelism.

An Example to Follow: Pauline Hord

At the last congregation I served as lead pastor, we didn’t have a church-full of disciples making disciples but we had some, and the number was growing.

Let me tell you about one of our prize examples, Pauline Hord. She has now passed on to glory. What a remarkable woman. She is the most unique blending of prayer and personal piety, with servant ministry and social concern, I know. When grave needs arose in my life, Pauline was one of the first persons I called, inviting her to pray with me.

Pauline was always going to someone or some group to give herself in prayer. Hardly a week passed that I did not receive a call from Pauline, telling me about some particular need in our congregation or in our city – a need that may call for emergency housing, or transportation, or medical attention. I don’t know how she was in touch with all of this, but she was.

Pauline’s primary passion was literacy and prison ministry. Our state, Tennessee, had and has a tremendous literacy problem. Thousands of people in our city can’t read and write well enough to function adequately in society. Pauline  worked with our public schools, training teachers in a new literacy method. She gave three days a week, four or five hours a day, to teaching this new method of literacy through model programs.

But, also, once a week she drove over a hundred miles one way to Parchman State Prison down in Mississippi, to teach prisoners how to read and write. Along with this, she ministered to them in a more encompassing way as she shared her love and faith, and witnessed to the power of the gospel. Think about this, She was eighty-five years old.

During those years, then President Geoge Bush started a program, called “Points of Light,” calling for citizens to exercise positive and creative influence and service in the communities where they lived. I nominated Pauline and she was chosen and written up in the daily newspaper. 

A few months later, President Bush came to Memphis and wanted to recognize the seven “Points of Light” there at a luncheon.

But he made a mistake. He set the luncheon on a Wednesday. That’s the day Pauline spent at Parchman Prison, teaching prisoners to read and write, and witnessing to them the love of Christ. She would not give that up to have lunch with the President.

That says it, doesn’t it? 

The Essence of Evangelism

Disciples making disciples: this is the essence of evangelism. Real evangelism cannot happen except where disciples are being made. And those who are growing in discipleship become bearers of real evangelism. As I have claimed, all this takes place primarily in the local congregation.

Many local churches I know have as a part of their mission statement, We need to be deliberate in our churches in “making disciples  who will make disciples.” It rolls off our tongues so easily, but is demanding in actualizing. As I insisted in my last article, we must nurture and cherish the bond between word and deed, ideas and consequences, beliefs and actions. And I’m certain that the primary place where this kind of evangelizing can and must take place is the local congregation.

Engaging with a ‘Generic Christian’

Sometime ago, I was driving on Poplar Avenue, a main street in Memphis  on which the church I served for 13 years as lead pastor is located. The car ahead of me had a bumper sticker. The bumper sticker is a way for a lot of people to sow whatever seeds they want to sow in the minds of other people. Also, it is one of our dominant means of communication, to say to the world around us that we’d “rather be sailing,” or that we “love our dog.” When I got close enough to the car ahead of me to read the bumper sticker, I saw, in big letters, “I am a generic Christian.” That attracted me. I wanted to know what that meant. So, I got closer to the car, knowing that there were some smaller letters written beneath those large ones. I got dangerously close to the back of the car to read the words: “Ask me what I mean.” Well, that intrigued me even more.

I suppose my interest was whetted further by the fact that the car on which that bumper sticker was displayed was a $85,000 Mercedes. I wondered how any driver of a Mercedes could be considered a generic anything. The car turned into the carwash. I had no intention of getting a car wash that day, but my interest had so peaked that I couldn’t pass it up. So, I turned in to get my car washed also – but really to engage that fellow in conversation.

He told me that, while he was a member of a local congregation in our city, he was so tired of the denominational emphasis in so many churches that he wanted to proclaim a different kind of message that the important message was to be Christian in the generic sense, not a “brand-name Christian.”

The Need for True Discipleship

Well, he had a point. But I wonder, don’t we have too many generic Christians and not enough disciples? Sometimes the reaction to “denominationalism” can become an excuse for refusing to be involved in any actual congregation. Still, to merit the faithfulness of erstwhile generic Christians, congregations must be prepared to get deeply and truly involved in the privilege and challenge of making disciples.

Too many congregations slink into the pattern of offering episodic programs emphasizing the mission statement. I believe the more desperate need in most congregations is deliberate consistent training in the “core” of the Christian faith and what it means to be a disciple, an intentional follower of Jesus Christ. We must have a “design” for that which will move folks along in a deliberate way in their discipleship growth. Our goal is simple, but requires comment and consistency. We want our congregational members, as Christians, to be reasonably informed, reasonably inspired, and reasonably equipped.

Understanding Discipleship Evangelism

I don’t know who coined the term “discipleship evangelism.” I believe it is a good one because it names the nature of evangelism: discipleship evangelism. Reflect on what that means.

First, it means that we can’t claim Jesus as Savior without a willingness to surrender to him as Lord.

Second, it means that an emphasis on a faith which does not include fidelity to Christ’s call to walk in newness of life and to share that life with others is a distortion of the gospel. Faith which does not give attention to holy living and ethical issues, telling the truth, seeking to live morally clean lives, shunning evil, fighting personal immorality and social injustice, feeding the hungry, caring for the needy, seeking the lost, suffering for those to whom the world has said no– that kind of faith, a faith which does not give attention to holy living and ethical issues, and does not care for others, is dead (James 2:26).

Third, it means that a faith which emphasizes holy living, ethics, and good works as a saving way of life is a false faith. Does that sound contradictory to what I have just been saying? What do I mean? I mean that holy living, ethics, and good works do not save us, but rather are the evidence of the transforming work of the Spirit within us.

Designing for Discipleship Growth

Along with owning the meaning of discipleship evangelism, I repeat, we. must have a “design’ for that which will move folks along in a deliberate way in their discipleship growth. That’s the way we will move to accomplish our mission of “making disciples who make disciples.”

Georgia Harkness was once considered one of our most outstanding theologians.

She was certainly a brilliant thinker and spoke prophetically to the church. Here is such a word: “We must rescue evangelism from the red-light district of the ecclesiastical community.” That’s putting it unquestionably straight.

Evangelism has been prostituted for money and personal gain. That’s the reason we need to remind ourselves that the focus of evangelism must be the local congregation, not primarily the street corner, the storefront, or the television. What may be most helpful is to think of evangelism and discipleship together.

Jesus’ Charge to His Disciples

In his parting word to the disciples, Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

He spoke this word to the persons he had chosen, trained, tested, and nurtured. His charge to them was not a heavy command, “you ought to” or “you must”; not even “you should.” It was a simple statement of fact, “You will be my witnesses.”

The Great Commission

In another setting, Jesus gave his call to the early church: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and remember, l am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). There’s no room for confusion about direction in this explicit instruction of our Lord. Spreading the gospel was to be top priority. No Christian was exempted from the task of disciple-making, and no aspect of life was excluded.

While the so-called great commission has been used as a foundation in evangelistic literature, and a challenge to churches to fulfill their missionary and evangelistic responsibility, it is more than that. It is a definition of the nature of mission itself. The resurrected Lord calls his disciples to “make disciples of all nations; baptizing and teaching them.”

Discipleship in Modern Evangelism

In the past three or four decades, there has been a renewed emphasis on discipleship in evangelism. One of the chief promoters of this emphasis, according to Mortimer Arias, has been the Church Growth school under the leadership of Donald McGavran; so much so that they have coined the term discipling as the verbal form to describe the evangelistic task. According to Arias, making disciples is for McGavran the specific evangelistic mission, and teaching and baptizing are left to other ministries in the church, and for a later stage in the life of the convert or disciple.

In our ongoing conversation we should note that Leslie Newbigin has charged that McGavran’s exegesis of the text will not stand scrutiny. It is clear in the original Greek that disciple the nations is the main verb, and that baptizing and teaching define what discipling’ is.(1) 

Thus, while we can agree with McGavran that discipling is the heart of evangelism, we can also agree with Newbigin, against McGavran, that discipling, and thus evangelism, includes “baptizing and teaching”.

Evangelism in Practice

This was our Lord’s definition. All too often, however, it has not been the practice of those who claim to evangelize. The evangelism of the electronic church, for example, does not seem to be too concerned about making disciples. Further, I doubt if these “trans-national corporations of evangelism,” as Mortimer Arias calls them, are taking seriously the call to make disciples, which in Jesus’ own words means “teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you.”

We can’t explore here the depth of all this means, but we can at least register the direction of what is implied for the local church. The Great Commission sends us back to everything Jesus taught. Certainly if we wanted a summary of the content of everything Jesus taught, it would be Jesus’ own summary of the law and the prophets and the great commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).

The Great Commandment and the Great Commission

John R. W. Stott, the British evangelical leader, was right when he declared at the 1974 Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization: “There is no Great Commission without the Great Commandment” 

We can’t talk about evangelism in and through the local church without talking about discipleship. And we can’t talk about discipleship without talking about evangelism.

Future Reflections

I will be writing a series of reflections on discipleship and evangelism in the weeks to come. Though I may not be thorough and systematic in these articles, I will seek to underscore the core of the Christian faith and way from a Wesleyan perspective. If you have wondered, that’s the reason we are publishing on WESLEYAN ACCENT.

(1) Mission in Christ’s Way: Bible Studies (Geneva: WC C, 1987) quoted  in Arias “The Great Commision” p. 17

It may not be good writing or even good grammar, but I deliberately put a question mark after the title of this article, Falling from Grace? This is a follow-up to my last article where I also put a question mark in the title Once saved always saved? Oh! Both, “falling from grace,” and “once saved always saved,” have to be questioned.

I closed my last article by suggesting that whether we can or can’t fall is not as important a question as whether we do or don’t. I continue the discussion here because the issue is important.

In our Wesleyan Methodist tradition, we talk about going on to salvation, because Salvation is a journey – the climax of which is being saved to the utmost, which comes through sanctifying grace, giving us power over sin. But that raises an opposite point: that there may be sin in the life of the believer.

That thought calls for a clear understanding of what we mean by sin. Wesley meant by sin “an actual, voluntary transgression of the law;… acknowledged to be such at the time it is transgressed.” Wesley always left open the possibility of involuntary sin, which he felt did not bring God’s condemnation. But to sin willfully in a continuous way certainly jeopardizes our salvation, for it separates us from God.

With that understanding the case was clear for Wesley. We may “fall from grace” and forfeit our justification, but we don’t have to. Whether we can or can’t fall is not as important a question as whether we do or don’t.

It helps our understanding to stay aware of two major principles. First, there is the principle of the abiding potential of evil within our lives – the old way of sin, which remains latent even in regenerated persons. Second, there is the principle of our absolute dependence on God. Even after we have been converted, we can do no good by ourselves, but must rely completely on the Spirit of God which performs the good in us and through us.

That means we must give ourselves to moral and spiritual discipline. As Christians, we repent daily, and cast ourselves on God’s grace. We grow in that grace and move from the threshold of faith – our justification by God – toward the fullness of grace, our sanctification. And all along that journey, we can be kept from falling from grace, kept from forfeiting our justification by the glorious assurance of which, with Fanny Crosby, we sing,

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God
Born of his Spirit, washed in His blood.

In my last three articles I have discussed assurance and sanctification. These aspects of salvation lead us to think about what separates a Methodist understanding from those who believe in eternal security. Once saved, always saved was a theme I was asked often about in the first churches I served in rural Mississippi.

We Methodist Wesleyans believe that it is possible to return to sin in our lives to the point that we forfeit our salvation. According to Wesley, this is not easy to do, but it is possible.

We must not allow the question to be centered on whether God is able to keep us from falling. Of course God is able! It is a matter of whether we are vigilant in responding to God’s grace. If we cultivate and stay alive to the Holy Spirit we can be aware when the temptation to fall back into old patterns of sin is gaining power. We also recognize and not allow the seeds of “new sins” to germinate and spring up in our lives.

Being always saved depends on whether we continually listen to God’s voice and not allow that divine love to grow cold within us.

For further reflection, I make the case by coming at it from a different direction. There are two widely held notions about sin in the believer that are different in the way Wesley thought and taught. One thought is that, “Yes, sin continues in the life of the believer, but it is not possible for sin to separate a person eternally from God. One may backslide, but still be saved – if ever saved in the first place.” The “if ever saved in the first place” is a common escape hatch. I’ve never had a discussion about the issue where the conclusion, “The person was never saved anyway!” did not sound. How can we make that judgment?

The second thought is that in our justification, and certainly in our sanctification, sin is completely eradicated from the believer’s life. The error in this position is that it treats sin as a “thing” we do. Sin is a relation. The question is not one of removal of sin from our lives, but of reconciliation with God which overcomes the estrangement of sin.

Separated from God by our sin, justifying grace brings us together again. Grace continues to work, sanctifying us, restoring us, until we are so at one in relationship with God. In that at-one in relationship with God our intentions are centered on doing God’s will, and our love is perfected to love as Christ loves.

Once saved, always saved? Oh! The discussion will continue. If we are a part of the discussion it is helpful to remember we may “fall from grace” and forfeit our justification, but we don’t have to. Whether we can or can’t fall is not as important a question as whether we do or don’t.

In an earlier article, we reflected on Wesley’s insistence on perfection being an essential dimension of our going on to salvation. He came from his Aldersgate experience convinced that all could be saved, and all could be saved to the uttermost. Thus assurance and perfection became essential in his understanding of grace working for our full salvation.

As I wrote in my last article, for Wesley, the terms Christian perfection, sanctification, and holiness carried the same meaning. Holiness is not optional for Christians. Jesus was forthright: “You shall be perfect, your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48 NJKV). The Holy Spirit, through Inspiration given to Peter, confirms the call: “As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” (1 Peter 1:15 NKJV)

Wesley’s concern about holiness/perfection did not begin at Aldersgate. He preached a sermon on it, using the verse, “Real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal,” as the text for the  sermon, “Circumcision of the heart,” which he preached at Oxford University on January 1, 1733. This is the only sermon Wesley preached before his conversion at Aldersgate in 1738 that he kept in its original form and used throughout his life in teaching Methodists. This consistency underscores a distinctively Wesleyan view of the Christian way: holiness of the heart and life, or personal and social holiness.

In 1725 he had a conversion to the ideal of holy living. He never abandoned that ideal, though it was cast in a different framework after his Aldersgate conversion.

Between 1725 and his Aldersgate experience in 1738, he consistently misplaced holiness. He was driven by the idea that one must be holy in order to be justified. That was the futile process which drove Wesley to the deep despondency that eventually brought him to Aldersgate. One of the decisive shifts that came in his conversion at Aldersgate was a reversal of the order of salvation-justification preceded holiness, not vice versa.

Howard Snyder reminds us that a part of Wesley’s genius, under God, lay in developing and maintaining a synthesis in doctrine and practice that kept biblical paradoxes paired and powerful. He held together faith and works, doctrine and experience, the individual and the social, the concerns of time and eternity.  So is the synthesis of personal and social holiness, holiness of heart and life (Howard A. Snyder, The Radical Wesley, p. 143).

It is important to keep a perspective on at least a skeletal outline of Wesley’s thought, especially about our need for salvation. For Wesley, it was a matter of the circumcision of the heart which was issued in love of God and love of neighbor-holiness of heart and life.

This was captured clearly and succinctly at the formal establishment of Methodism in America at the 1784 Christmas Conference in Baltimore. The question was asked, “What can we rightly expect to be the task of Methodists in America?” The answer came clear and strong: “To reform a continent and spread scriptural holiness across the land.” That’s personal and social holiness.

But what does all this mean? Simply put, it means that we as Christians are to be holy as God is holy, that the church is to be that demonstration plot of holiness set down in an unholy world. Jesus said it means that we are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. And Paul said it means that faith without works is dead, and the work of faith is love.

Wesley would affirm this as the sum of Christian perfection – loving God, and loving our neighbor. He spoke of “inward holiness,”that is love of God and the assurance of God’s love for us. And he spoke of “outward holiness,” that is, love of neighbor and deeds of kindness. He was fond of speaking of persons being “happy and holy.” For him the two experiences were not opposites, but actually one reality.

“Why are not you happy?” Wesley frequently asked. Then he would answer, “Other circumstances may concur, but the main reason is because you are not holy.”

That’s enough for us to go on. I want to be happy and holy, don’t you?