Archive: Nobody’s Perfect, Right?

What Wesley taught about Christian Perfection

by William B. Coker

John Wesley referred to the doctrine of Christian perfection as “the grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called Methodists.” Some have called it “Wesley’s heresy.”

The difficulty is with the word perfection. Understood as the state of being without fault or defect (according to Webster), the term is one that can only be applied truthfully to God.

When Wesley used the term perfection to describe a state of grace possible for fallen humanity, it was more than most could accept. In fact, it was more than Wesley himself could allow. So he modified it by explaining that the perfection he preached is not absolute perfection, or angelic perfection, or sinless perfection; rather, it is Christian perfection. Still, many remain uncomfortable with the word.

So why use it? Why not abandon it for some better, less antagonizing term? Because, for Wesley, the word is Scriptural. “Therefore,” he wrote in 1763, “neither you nor I can in conscience object against it, unless we would send the Holy Ghost to school, and teach Him to speak who made the tongue.” Also, the Church has had no qualms about using the word in its liturgy. We pray, “Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee ….”

Nonetheless, Wesley did use other terms to speak of this work, such as perfect love, entire sanctification, and holiness. Whatever the term, Wesley’s teaching emphasized a state of grace beyond justification or the new birth.

It is a level of Christian experience made possible, first, by discovering the depths of carnality in the human heart through the convincing ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is an experience received by the gift of faith through which one believes for the purifying of the heart as a benefit of Christ’s atonement. It is the possibility and the privilege of grace extended to every child of God.

Unrealistic?

Surely, many object, this Wesleyan teaching is unrealistic. Only in the “perfection of burial” (as Calvin would say), only in the holiness of heaven can we be free from carnality!

Much of today’s fundamentalism or evangelicalism is adamant about the unresolved depravity of human nature in this life. And what these theologies have to say about holiness can be understood in terms of unobtainable pursuits. Anyone claiming to have found the grace of God to achieve such a state is either spiritually naive or guilty of spiritual pride.

But for all of-the protests, Wesley’s teaching continues to call us back to what the Scriptures plainly declare: Jesus told His disciples to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). The promise of the new covenant is “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness” (Ezekiel 36:25). The standard that God set for His people in both the Old and New Testaments is “be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44; I Peter 1:16).

In his Plain Account of Christian Perfection Wesley outlined the spiritual results which characterize this experience:

• purity of intention, dedicating all the life to God;
• all the mind which was in Christ, enabling us to walk as Christ walked;
• the circumcision of the heart from all filthiness, all inward as well as outward pollution;
• a renewal of the heart in the whole image of God, the full likeness of Him that created it;
• loving God with all our heart, and our neighbors as ourselves.

To those who take issue with such a standard, Wesley declared that this doctrine was not his. “It is the doctrine of St. Paul, the doctrine of St. James, of St. Peter, and St. John … I tell you, as plain as I can speak, where and when I found this. I found it in the oracles of God, in the Old and New Testaments; when I read them with no other view or desire but to save my own soul” (Plain Account).

The experience of Christian perfection, as Wesley understood it, was not simultaneous with the new birth, though he agreed there is nothing in the Bible which precludes that. In every person claiming such a state of grace whom he had interviewed, the experience was subsequent to the experience of salvation.

Only having been reconciled to God through Christ “do they see the ground of their heart, which God would not disclose unto them, lest the soul should fail before Him” (Plain Account). Psychologically and spiritually, the new birth seems to be a prerequisite for this deeper working of the Holy Spirit.

To understand Wesley’s teaching at least three factors must be clearly perceived. The first is that Wesley agrees with Luther and Calvin that the problem of inbred sin, or carnality, remains in the born-again Christian. But he disagrees that the child of God must remain a carnal Christian until death.

Believers may, in fact, not avail themselves of the provisions of grace and may not be entirely sanctified until death. Nevertheless, sanctification before death is not only possible but ought to be sought.

Seek it now

Christ died to accomplish our sanctification (Ephesians 5:25-27). He prayed that it might be done (John 17:17-23). The Apostle Paul likewise prayed that it might be so (I Thessalonians 5:23). And the Bible teaches that it may be received through faith (Acts 26:18). Since these things are clearly established, one should seek it now.

A second factor is that this subsequent experience which Wesley called entire sanctification or Christian perfection is a gradual process, usually over a number of years, culminating in an instantaneous cleansing. Though Wesley never tried to prescribe how God must effect His work in the human heart, he did not believe in assembly-line saints or instant perfection. Both the new birth and Christian perfection involve the process of divine/human interaction.

A third factor is that Wesley’s understanding of Christian perfection is a matter of the heart and not of the humanity. He used the Scriptural metaphor of the circumcision of the heart and spoke of perfection in terms of love and intention.

He conceived of no state of grace in which the effects of man’s fallenness in terms of knowledge or judgment or emotions would be eradicated. In speaking of those whose hearts had been circumcised by grace Wesley said, “Even these souls dwell in a shattered body, and are so pressed down thereby, that they cannot exert themselves as they would, by thinking, speaking, and acting precisely right” (Plain Account).

Ignorance and mistakes

Because there is no cleansing from ignorance, mistakes, and the infirmities of the flesh, those whose hearts are made perfect in love continually need Christ as their High Priest. Though Wesley differentiated between mistakes and “sin rightly so called,” he believed that all transgressions of God’s holiness need atonement. Therefore, even the perfect must pray for themselves, “Forgive us our trespasses.”

Furthermore, because perfect love is not absolute perfect love, it should “abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment” (Philippians 1:9). Such growth and development, Wesley anticipated, will continue into eternity.

The question remains: Did Wesley allow his idealism to obscure his perception of reality? Did this “man of one Book” develop a theology of Christian experience which is not “according to the book”?

I find three crucial areas in which Wesley speaks to my need in harmony with God’s revealed truth. The first is in the matter of sin. That which separates us from God and hides His face from us (Isaiah 59:1-2) is both a matter of our actions and of the disposition of our hearts. In my case, as I expect is true of all of us, the Holy Spirit first confronted me with my sinful acts. Then it was not until I had repented of my sins and had been brought into a personal relationship with Christ that I began to understand the real problem lay much deeper.

Bishop R.S. Foster described such an awakening in his book Christian Purity. Speaking of one genuinely converted he wrote: “But at length a new occasion for disquiet arises. The purified spiritual vision discovers a great depth of iniquity within; and the quickened and tender conscience is convicted of and pained by deep, inwrought pollution.” As Bill Bright and Campus Crusade acknowledged, the “Four Spiritual Laws” must have a sequel in “The Spirit-filled Life” if we are to be more than carnal Christians.

Idle words

Many of God’s people have discovered that His promise to “forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9) is more than idle words. Clean hands and pure hearts are still the Biblical standard.

A second Wesleyan emphasis which I find to be thoroughly Scriptural is that of holiness. It sounds impressively humble to disclaim holiness as a present reality and to affirm one’s unending quest for such a state of grace. But an unbiased reading of the Bible will reveal that God’s commands and promises for holiness are not wistful words about the sweet by and by. God clearly instructed Israel that they were to be a holy people.

Paul told the Thessalonians he was anxious to return to their city that he might supply what was lacking in their faith. He prayed that the Lord would “establish [their] hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father” (I Thessalonians 3:13).

Peter instructed the temporary residents of the Dispersion to whom he was writing that they were not to “be conformed to [their] former lusts,” but rather they were to “be holy … in all [their] behavior” as the One who had called them is holy (I Peter 1:14, 15). In spite of all arguments of our unworthiness, holiness is not only God’s expectation for His people, it is His expressly commanded purpose. And that in the context of our humanity!

God’s standard for holiness is demanding, for sure. Some Christians have even described it so loftily that it is beyond reality. But perhaps we should ask whether our portrayal of an unreal, angelic sanctity might not be a camouflage for second-rate commitment and third-rate spiritual disciplines.

The third Scriptural emphasis for which I am indebted to Wesley is that of Christian perfection. Wesley cannot be ignored when he points out that the term is Biblical. Even our attempts to translate the idea as “maturity” do not cover the Biblical occurrences. What version reads, “Be mature as your Father in heaven is mature”?

Without defect

Our problem is that we are functioning with a philosophical definition of perfection, that is, “without flaw or defect ” when in truth such a definition does not fit the Biblical usage. The idea of “completeness” more adequately interprets Scriptural use. That is why Wesley could say that all he meant by Christian perfection is “to love God with all one’s heart, mind, soul, and strength.”

Wesley’s plan for the Methodist societies was to thrust the newly converted Christians immediately into the quest for wholeness of heart—to assist them to believe that God could and to pray that God would cleanse their hearts so they might perfectly love Him. Then, if by faith they came into the blessing of a pure heart, they were to understand that only by a moment-by-moment relationship with their Lord, living in complete dependence upon His grace, could they be sustained in such a holy oneness.

Who is to say that such a Biblical standard of grace is not really possible? The founder of Methodism certainly believed that it is.