Yesterday, I mentioned John Wesley's three grand scriptural doctrines. So what have they to do with sanctification? The last of the three is 'Holiness', which is another name for the same thing, although often referred to as scriptural holiness. A third alternative name is Christian Perfection.
One of the fascinations of 18th century theology is the view at the time that any word with less than three syllables was hardly worth bothering about. Today we're less patient with this type of language, we prefer 5 minute sermons and our theology offered to us as soundbites. So, what is this phenomenon and why is it so controversial? Let's start with this paragraph from 'The New Creation', where Runyon tries to show the relationship between the three doctrines:
According to Wesley's metaphor of a house, we are advancing from the porch of prevenient grace, through the door of justification and new birth, and into the welcoming rooms of sanctification wherein we are called to the fullness of faith. (Page 82)
I don't intend to spend a lot of time on the first two but note here that sanctification is the third of three steps. These grand doctrines are a progression. The controversy is that in Wesley's view too much evangelism stops at justification. 'Get them through the door and they're in, saved, born again. Nothing more to worry about.' Indeed there is nothing more to worry about in the sense that the Christian justified is saved. But Wesley argued there is so much more to God's promises.
The word 'perfection' is helpful here because it does not refer so much to an end-point where the Christian is somehow perfected, as a process called perfection where the Christian is in a state of somehow continually becoming perfect. As the Christian grows in faith, they know God's love better and as a result God's love flows through the Christian into the world. The perfected Christian is known for their love for others; for putting the welfare of others before their own. Consequently, the world is perfected through the perfection of Christians; indeed it becomes a New Creation.
I remember Jenny who was a peace activist and in her 70s went to Bosnia during the war. She was shot at but put the welfare of her companions before herself, risking her life to smuggle refugees over the border. Even with Altzeimers in a nursing home she still put those around her first. I remember Florrie in her late 80s and bent double. She woke during the night to find a young man in her room. He took her wedding ring from her finger (her husband was long dead). She made the front page of the Sheffield Star. When they caught the young man she said he reminded her of her grandson and wrote to him in prison.
Perfection is real and often unremarked. The miracles God performs through his people are generally hardly noticed or valued. Wesley sought transformation in the here and now unlike Luther. Here's Runyon again, a page later:
... God has more in store for us. God not only justifies, thereby providing the foundation for the new life, but opens up hitherto unimagined possibilities for growth in grace. God's goal is to create us anew, to transform us, to restore us to health and to our role as the image of God.
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