by Steve | Aug 18, 2025 | Juloy-August 2025
Grace-fueled Discipleship —
By Tammie Grimm —
Did you know John Wesley never used the word “disciple” to refer to persons who seek to follow Jesus? It’s true. Yes, he did use the word “disciple,” however, it was only in reference to the persons who were companions of Jesus during his earthly ministry and then carried on after Pentecost to help build and grow the church. He simply never used the term “disciple” in reference to himself or any of the “people called Methodist “ of his day. Rather, he referred to his contemporaries who were dedicated followers of Christ as either “Methodist” or “Christian.” When pressed to describe what it meant to be a “Methodist” or a “Christian” Wesley turned to scripture and created the turn of phrase by mashing up Philippians 2:5 with I John 2:6 to describe a Christian (or a Methodist) as one who has the mind that was in Christ so that they walk in the way Christ also walked (emphasis added). It’s a definition that still tracks today having resonance with contemporary descriptions of a disciple as one who is a follower of Jesus or is a friend to or companion with Jesus.
What is so great about Wesley’s description of a disciple (beyond the realization that he was mashing up verses long before DJ’s thought they were cool by doing it to recording artists) is that his provides nuance, reminding us that a Christian disciple is about engaging in doing things just like Jesus did and that their interior lives (thoughts, feelings, and impulses) were also consistent with Jesus. Actually, Wesley gives priority to Christlike desires and motivations (thinking and being like Jesus) that orders outward behavior. This description of a Christian disciple leaves room for mutual reinforcement between the two, that in doing things like Jesus we can become more like him in character and disposition as well.
Similarly, while Wesley didn’t use the term “spiritual disciplines” or “Christian practices” he didn’t neglect teaching or preaching about them. Instead, he used a term popular in his day, “means of grace,” to describe those everyday actions that persons participate in out of the desire that participation in them will help them grow in faith and Christlike character. And just as Wesley’s description of a disciple spans the ages, so too, does “means of grace” transcend time. By ascribing the means — whether they be signs, words, actions, or even practices, disciplines, and experiences — to be “of grace,” that is belonging to God, we can understand God often and regularly uses particular activities such as prayer, worshipping together, volunteering at the homeless shelter, etc. to help us grow and mature in Christian faith. Furthermore, we are offered the opportunity to realize that God could use just about any event or circumstance in our lives to convey his love that we might grow in Christlike character if we are so attuned.
Typically, we may call certain things we do as Christians, whether it be prayer, Bible study, worshipping and taking communion with others, volunteering at the local food bank or supporting a Christian missionary a spiritual disciplines or Christian practice. And by that, we mean that we do these things in order that we might grow closer to God. More often than not, our motivations might are not completely pure. We might engage in these actions in order to please others or for any range of selfish reasons. Thankfully, God is patient and wise and does not object to using our mixed motivations for his good! Through our continued and regular participation over extended periods of time, we can begin to understand that we’ve come to love God in newer and deeper ways. These actions become life-giving in ways that we may not have expected. It might be a challenge for many of us to articulate what these actions do within us. Richard Foster offers help when he says that the spiritual disciplines bring us joy as they liberate us from fear and self-absorption.
In considering Wesley’s chosen words and phrases, we discover that our participation in the spiritual disciplines, like our faithful discipleship, is — at some level — divinely inspired. It must be if we are to grow in Christlike character. Our human frailties don’t have staying power on their own. If we are to grow in Christlike character, we need to respond to God’s grace already present in our lives and be responsible with it through loving deed, word and action. Our faithful discipleship depends upon it.
Tammie Grimm is Associate Professor at Wesley Seminary in Marion, Indiana.
by Steve | Aug 18, 2025 | Juloy-August 2025
The Grace that Awakens —
By Bill Ury —
A beloved mentor of mine would shake up a room when he would talk about the free grace of God and the sinner’s response by saying, “God has a problem!” He would go on to discuss the fact that Jesus would not misuse his love to bribe us or force us to recognize or accept him. How then could we come to any spiritual perception without losing our freedom? Salvation is always pure gift and yet he will not save us without ourselves. How is this paradox dealt with to preserve both God’s sovereignty and a real human responsiveness? The answer begins with prevenient grace.
It changes everything when grace is viewed as the life of God. Grace is much more than an attitude or disposition. Salvation is only possible through the life-giving power of the God of grace. Grace originates in the heart of the Holy One who is Love. This powerful self-giving permeates all of our human existence, even when we have refused it. Our gracious God never forces any one to receive him. But he always extends life to our death, light to our darkness.
Our Wesleyan tradition has agreed with the interpretation of sin as originating in Adam and which has affected all of humanity (Romans 5:12). The withering, yet indisputable, conclusion is that we are deprived of the presence of God and totally depraved. This devastating rejection of God touches every area of our lives — body, spirit, will, and mind. John Wesley described our fallen nature as the loss of our Breath, the Spirit. Without the Breath of God, we are devoid of Life. Yet, he comes to dry bones and offers revivifying power. (Wesley, “The Circumcision of the Heart”). Human nature alone, without grace, is a dead nature. Grace issues from the heart of God to offer himself to our self-imposed destruction. He enters every place of our blindness with light. The Wesleys used the phrase, “Wake up, sleeper” to indicate the indefatigable love of God for us in our darkened and deadly state (Ephesians 5:14).
Paul calls human nature apart from saving grace the “natural man” (I Corinthians 2:14). Our nature apart from the Spirit’s presence and work in our hearts is spiritually lifeless. The normal emphasis on John 3:16 often misses what must come before we believe, the eternal love of God and the sending of the Son decided before the foundation of the world. This means that no one is totally “natural.” In our benighted state we are never left abandoned by God, without the choice to either receive him or reject him. Wesley compared us to an unborn child, surrounded by life yet without perception of it (Wesley’s sermon, “The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God”).
So, grace is more than merely divine concern. It is the dynamic life-giving essence of our Creator and Redeemer who will not let us go. The Church has struggled to explain how the grace of God intercepts lifeless hearts without stacking the deck. Our Savior will not save us against our will. So how does he enable spiritually blind and dead persons a real offer of conviction, confession, and new birth? All of us need to be awakened, given spiritual sight in order to be able to respond to the self-offering of God. This spiritual capacity initiated and enabled by the Holy Spirit brings enough light to an unredeemed person so that any response to grace is truly free (see Herbert McGonigle’s volume, Sufficient Saving Grace, 2001).
Some have said that our wills are bound and our fallenness so severe that only sovereign irresistible grace is the solution. In this view, our sinfulness is entrenched to such a level that only supernatural determination and selection of a few for salvation makes sense. The intensity of total depravity requires that salvation only works one way. They advocate “monergism” (monos ‘one’ + ergon ‘works’) a term to assure that God alone saves without sinful human involvement. On reflection, this view is not totally wrong. For every cell, breath, or thought originates and is sustained by the providential goodness of God. No life, despite its spiritual destruction, is totally divorced from grace. Unless he gives himself, life is impossible.
The Wesleyan tradition rejects the perspective that God alone works in salvation because it is impersonal. As creatures made in the image of God who are enabled to respond as persons before the Fall, we assert that true freedom is central to what it means to be a person. While never delimiting the freedom of God to graciously offer himself we recognize at every point God coming to each person in self-giving love.
In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis once reflected that if we were truly totally depraved, we would not know it. God is so good to us that even though we have all gone into a far country he gifts us with the possibility of coming to ourselves. Everything he ever offers enables personal relationship. The concept of his undeserved engagement with our fallen nature has been called, “synergism” (sun ‘together’ + ergon ‘works’). We never receive his good grace as inert substances, like rocks. He desires to recreate us into the full image in which we were made. What we de-personalized he can re-personalize. The absolute bondage of sin is countered by the personal love of God who bestows a liberating grace so that we might regain our “native freedom” (Wesley, “One Thing Needful”).
That is why the Bible is full of pictures of grace impacting our stony hearts: light in our darkness, water pouring over our dust, life for our death. No matter how deep our pit, our Savior has gone deeper (Psalms 139:1-12). That astounding fact is brilliantly revealed in the term, “prevenient” (pre ‘before’ + venire ‘come’) grace. Our salvation from beginning to end is sustained by God. At no point do we ever command or earn his life in us. Out of his overwhelming love he gives grace to enable the first inkling of response.
At this point many have said “See, grace is irresistible!” Our response is yes. He does offer grace to us whether we know it or not. But salvation is impossible without a personal reception of saving grace. This “coming-before” grace initiates the possibility of relationship without ever coercing our response. Eternal love, God’s essential nature, pours over our lives in countless ways. He gives, calls, invites, and provides without manipulating one false response.
So how does the Scripture reveal to us this grace which precedes?
Recognition of God in creation – Even though our corrupt lives threaten to keep the barriers up in defiance to our Maker, we are inextricably surrounded by the majesty of Creation. The universe reveals the grandeur of his character traits: beauty, order and goodness (Psalms 145:9; 19:1, Romans 1:19-20, James 1:17). The cosmos is a brilliant portrayal of objective grace. All of us are under the selfless avalanche of loving invitation to know the One who made the stars and formed us for himself.
Conscience – The Creator who spoke the universe into being did so in order that we might have conversation with him. From the glory of the galaxies, God’s gracious self-revelation comes to each of us in the form of our conscience. Each of us has an inner moral capacity when something wrong occurs (Matthew 7:11, Romans 2:15-16). The most anarchic and violent gangs have strict codes for loyalty. He has made us with an indelible sense of the wrongness of lying, abuse, and disrespect. To be immoral is not to be amoral. We are not so depraved that everything goes. Those standards in our conscience point to the Righteous One who made us for righteousness.
Freedom of the Will – To be a person entails freedom. I heard a theologian interviewed who irritably asked why Wesleyans were, as he put it, so in love with freedom. I retorted out loud, because we are created as persons. Without freedom of the will, we are not whole. Sin has shackled our wills to sin. God’s undergirding grace ensures freedom of responsiveness to him. A measure of self-determination is his continued gift (Ezekiel 18:20). Thus, we are given the capacity to hear and respond to him. Scripture itself is proof that God is speaking and empowers us to be able to listen, understand and apply his truth. The Gospel of grace is always personally and restoratively freeing.
Conviction and Believing – Conviction of sin without the preceding grace of the Word who whispers his holiness and mercy does not originate in us. So, the Knower of our hearts has carefully retained a sense of our need for him. Only a fool comes to an insurmountable crisis and refuses to call out to God. Every Christian can testify to a time when they were dead in sin and a glimmer of hope came into their purview. It was a real choice to trust Christ. The precursory working of grace makes turning to and depending on Jesus possible (Romans 2:4, Acts 5:31, Ephesians 2:8-9, 2 Timothy 2:25-26). At every point of our lives his grace-life enables, prepares, strengthens, and bears us.
The Drawing of the Trinity’s Self-Giving – Wesleyanism affirms both the sovereign freedom of God’s self-bestowing grace and the enabled and unforced response of persons made in the image of God. Each person of the Trinity is involved in this marvelous dynamic of relational restoration. The Father is “drawing all humanity” to himself (John 6:44, 65). The Son is calling and drawing to himself all who would be saved (John 10:3, 12:32, 15:5). The Spirit enables every aspect of grace before salvation (John 16:8-9).
The Light of God – John describes this prevenient grace in Jesus as “the true light that gives light to everyone” (John 1:9). John Wesley spoke of “the first dawning of grace in the soul” (Wesley, “The Scripture Way of Salvation”). The Love in God seeks to awaken all by the revealed light needed to make possible the recognition that they are made for Another. But that illumination is only the precursor to meeting and receiving the One who is the Light of the World (John 8:12, 9:5). This light luminates both radical sinner and blind, self-righteously secure religionist who is “asleep in darkness” as a “horrid light” and “awful providence” which shakes one out of sleep. This grace “touches the heart” enabling the “the eyes of understanding to be opened” (“The Spirit of Bondage and Adoption).
The apostles affirmed that God “has not left himself without a witness” (Acts 14:17). He is always there before we are. Every conversation, act of ministry or service in Christ’s name is established, in what Dr. Dennis Kinlaw called, “the law of the second witness” (Preaching in the Spirit). Prevenient grace assures us that the Holy Spirit is working in every person’s heart at all times. What joyful freedom it brings to know that the God who is Love precedes, pervades, enables, draws, awakens, convicts, and saves each of us. He asks us to join his prevenient self-bestowal in offering witness to his personalizing grace in every person’s life.
Finally, the dynamic of grace as God’s self-giving to us means that he has a goal. Prevenient grace has a trajectory which comprises the way of salvation. (Wesley, “Awake, Thou That Sleepest.” Dr. Ken Collins succinctly articulates the distinctiveness of the Wesleyan doctrine of prevenient grace in “Introduction to a Wesleyan Theological Orientation” in Wesley One Volume Commentary).
In the hymn “And Can It Be, That I Should Gain,” Charles Wesley eloquently described this telos or goal-orientation of the Holy One. In the description of a grace which invades our prison-like estate he wrote, “Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night” which is met with grace-filled enabling glory, “Thine eye diffused a quickening ray” and the resultant awakening, “I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.” But note, this must be followed with “I rose, went forth and followed Thee.” Not only alive but clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
There is in the heart of God the unrelenting desire for each of us to be free of the bondage of sin. But prevenient grace points to much more. He wants us to become his children who bear a strong family likeness to him. Grace is not a transaction or a substance. It is the life of the Holy One which is not satisfied until the one who wholly trusts him is made like him in holiness of heart and life.
Bill Ury was raised in Taiwan, the son of United Methodist missionaries. He taught Systematic and Historical Theology at Wesley Biblical Seminary for 24 years. Dr. Ury and his wife, the Rev. Diane Ury, are the National Ambassadors of Holiness for the Salvation Army. Dr. Ury’s books include: Trinitarian Personhood, The Bearer: Forgiveness from the Heart, Christology as Theology, and has co-written with Diane, Conversations on Holiness.
by Steve | Aug 18, 2025 | Juloy-August 2025
Growth in Grace —
By Stephen Rankin —
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).
In our home, affixed to the wall of the entryway from our garage into the kitchen, hangs an oversized yardstick that our son-in-law made for us to measure the heights of all our grandchildren as they grow. As you might imagine, it is full of marks that climb ever higher and higher on the numbered hash marks. Joni, my spouse and family matriarch, marches each grandchild to that board every year as close to her or his birthday as possible. Each grandchild is as excited as we are to see how much she or he has grown. One grandson, now five inches taller than my smallish 5’9”, towers over me. Those of you who do something similar know the feeling. The mystery of human growth is amazing.
Measuring biological growth is a straightforward, understandable process. Gauging spiritual growth? Not so much. Most Christians recognize the need for growth. Most of us have some general, but probably too vague a notion that God expects us to grow. We know that being a mature Christian is obviously better than being an immature one, but do we have any way of making an honest and accurate assessment so that we can tell the difference? Candidly, I think the answers to these questions for most believers is no. We need to remedy this situation.
The author of the book of Hebrews hits this point hard. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food … but solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore, let us go on toward perfection…” (Hebrews 5:12-6:1a, NRSV).
According to Albert Outler’s introductory note in the new edition of The Works of John Wesley, Mr. Wesley preached on Hebrews 6:1, “Let us go on to perfection,” more than fifty times in his long ministry. We’ll return to the idea of “going on” in relation to growth in a moment, but, first, let’s deal with that most intimidating word, “perfection.”
Most people, including many in the Wesleyan tradition, struggle with perfection because it seems to point to a flawlessness that no human can reach. True, and Hebrews isn’t asking us to hit this mark. Similarly, perfection smacks of perfectionism. Biblical perfection in Christianity is not the perfection we are called to seek. What, then, is it?
It’s a call to grow into the fullness of adult, mature discipleship. In other words, to aim at, yes, Christlikeness; that is, to have the mind of Christ and to walk as Christ walked. The Bible doesn’t mess around. It doesn’t soften this call. It is only possible by God’s grace, and God makes this very grace available to us all.
As many scholars of Wesley have pointed out, going on to perfection (or entire sanctification, or being made perfect in love, or several other expressions Wesley used) is the chief reason for the existence of Methodism. It’s especially important for us in the Wesleyan tradition to hold fast to this vision.
What is Grace and How Does It Work?
People in the Wesleyan tradition have learned from numerous sources about prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace. We know the words and some perhaps have some basic understanding as to how these different expressions of grace work. If you already know what I’m talking about, then consider this little exposition a refresher. If you don’t know, then I hope it inspires you. Either way, may it provoke you to action.
John Wesley, in his sermon, “The Witness of Our Own Spirit,” helps us see the needed perspective for growing in grace:
“‘By the grace of God’ is sometimes to be understood that free love, that unmerited mercy, by which I, a sinner, through the merits of Christ am now reconciled to God. But in this place it rather means that power of God the Holy Ghost which ‘worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure.’ As soon as ever the grace of God (in the former sense, his pardoning love) is manifested to our soul, the grace of God (in the latter sense, the power of his Spirit) takes place therein. And now we can perform, through God, what to [humanity] was impossible.”
Most Christians have a decent grasp on the first part of this description. We know that grace means God’s gift, God’s unmerited favor in forgiving and adopting us as his children through faith in Christ. But awareness of the second part — the part that Mr. Wesley emphasizes — pales by comparison.
To be sure, the Bible is consistently clear regarding God’s unmerited favor, and we thank God for it. What if, however, we also grasped further that God’s grace is God’s action for our full salvation, like the actions of a great coach who has a purpose in our training and a goal for our growth? Who is totally committed to our becoming, so to speak, an outstanding athlete? Who guides and corrects and insists and inspires? The coach metaphor falls short, of course, because God does more than teach and correct. He also literally provides what a coach cannot. God’s very own Spirit supplies the energy, the power, to grow us into Christlikeness. And here I think of another of Mr. Wesley’s sermons, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” based on Philippians 2:12-13. This text reads in part, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you…” As Wesley says in this sermon, because God works in us, we can work. But also, because God works in us, we must work, that is, engage our energies to grow and to serve.
What Does Growth Look Like?
Let’s assume that you have committed to this vision of becoming a fully-grown, spiritually mature, on-to-perfection disciple. How do you gauge whether you are actually growing?
Assuming the desire to grow, the process starts with appropriate self-awareness. I stress that word, appropriate. The kind of self-awareness we need follows Jesus’ first Beatitude in Matthew 5: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” To recognize our spiritual poverty, our tendency toward self-indulgence, therefore our need for grace, is the place to start.
Then, avail yourself of the means of grace. They are indispensable aids to growth. We can call them spiritual disciplines, as many traditions do, but recognizing them as means of grace helps us remember that God supplies the energy we need. Prayer (public and private), searching the scriptures, fasting, receiving the sacrament, meeting together in small groups for mutual edification (watching over one another in love), and serving others in Christ’s love all serve as means of God’s grace to grow us into mature Christians.
Next, develop a useful way of measuring growth. This process does not need to be overly formal. It simply needs to help you see what is actually happening in your efforts to grow. Make a list of ways that you sense the need to grow. You can modify the list as you give more thought to this work. Keep some notes for future reference. Do this work with trusted fellow travelers. You could start with any of several spiritual maturity assessments available online (do an internet search for “spiritual maturity assessment” and choose one that seems appropriate). A tool like this one gives you some food for thought.
In your assessment, while you consider attitudes, dispositions, and behaviors (in other words, character), don’t overlook the critical category of knowledge. For example, one area of serious concern has to do with discerning sound from unsound doctrine. To be sure, mere conceptual knowledge does not make one a mature Christian, but neither does ignorance! Sound doctrine leads you into deeper union with Christ. If you want to grow in grace, do not overlook serious study. Again, if you search online, you can find tools for helping you assess doctrinal and scriptural knowledge. Remember, it’s just a way to get started, it’s not the final judgment.
Christian character flows from the heart and the heart is made up of thoughts, feelings (desires, affections) and actions. So, do the same inventory with character qualities. Consider how, for example, the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 provides a template. Start with a study of each of the virtues listed there. Again, it’s best to do this work with a group committed to the same goal. Think about situations where you feel vulnerable or afraid or frustrated or angry or hurt. Conversely, where might you be a little too comfortable, too self-assured? Think of relationships in which you need to exhibit Christlikeness in your demeanor.
Finally, consider whether or not you regularly give away your time and love to others in service. In what ways do you show that you love your neighbor? Once more, let me cite John Wesley. In his sermon, “On Visiting the Sick,” he makes it clear that engaging in this ministry (all Christians, not just pastors) is a means a grace for the visitor every bit as much as the visited.
And, with friends in Christ, stop every six months or year (not too often) and look back. Have I grown? Can I testify to real victory in certain areas of my life? What changes does my small group see in me? Am I gaining ground in feeling the love of God and showing Christ’s love toward others?
In getting practical, I want to stress that you need more than a checklist of behaviors. We’re good at checking boxes. Did I read my Bible? (Check) Did I attend worship? (Check) Did I tithe this month? (Check) And so on. But checking boxes, merely going through the motions of behaviors does not a mature Christian make. Once more, thinking of these actions as means of grace keeps them in the framework of God’s goal of our growing to maturity
Keep in Mind
Finally, a couple of cautions. First, God doesn’t walk on and override our agency. We’re not little automatons that God manipulates. In The Faith Once Delivered, a good resource for growth in grace, you’ll find reference to the “cooperant grace, of God and humanity working together with God by grace.” God won’t run over your desires and prerogatives to get you where he wants you, but you can receive his grace and he will work with you to grow you up.
Second, we don’t need to feel strong to be strong in Christ. It’s the same with growth. We don’t always feel like we’re growing when we’re growing. Don’t wait around until you feel inspired or somehow adequate to the task. I repeat, you don’t have to feel strong to be strong in Christ. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul testifies about his weakness and what Christ said to his request for healing: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.” Therefore, Paul could boast, “When I am weak, then I am strong.”
Spiritual growth is often an up-and-down experience. It’s not a straight line. It’s not automatic. It takes effort. We hit plateaus. We grow listless. We get tired. A season of difficulty can cause us to doubt. But we press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ! We don’t settle for anything less than Christlikeness. This is the goal of the Christian life, and, by God’s grace, we can arrive at the goal.
Stephen Rankin pastors Arkansas City United Methodist Church in Kansas. He also serves as executive director of Spiritual Maturity Project. He is author of Aiming at Maturity: the Goal of the Christian Life.
by Steve | Aug 18, 2025 | Front Page News, Home Page Hero Slider, Juloy-August 2025
Unfolding Salvation —
By Ryan Danker —
This issue of Good News is dedicated to the work of God in Christ to make us whole, otherwise known as salvation. It is my hope that the articles contained here will help us to better understand the process, or order, or even way by which God calls each and every one of us to new life in him.
God’s saving work has always been at the heart of the Wesleyan revival. The early Methodist leaders weren’t launching revivals wherever they went. They were trying to keep up with the outbursts of revival, the restorative work of God. God was at work and they wanted to catch up with what he was doing. And his work involved the salvation of souls. He who created us, loves us, and wants us to live victorious lives. And ever since we turned from him, God has gone out of his way to bring about our restoration.
Just think of Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son. It has many meanings, but one of them is that the parable is a picture of God’s constant desire for us to return home, to return to him, even when we’ve insulted him, squandered our inheritance, and lived self-centered lives. In the parable we learn that when the father, even after all that the son had done, sees him from a distance, he runs to him and takes him into his arms. This is the loving embrace that awaits each of us. This is a picture of salvation.
From the moment of the Fall, when humanity sinned and brought death and corruption into the world, from that very moment, we begin to see God’s plan of salvation unfold. Look at the account of the Fall in Genesis, even there we catch small glimpses of God’s plan of salvation. Adam and Eve had broken the covenant that they had with God and the repercussions were disastrous for them and for the creation itself. God responded to their faithlessness by sending them away from the life that they were intended to live, a life that sin made no longer possible. But when God cursed the serpent that had beguiled them he spoke of the “seed” of the woman who will ultimately “bruise” the serpent’s head. The church fathers read this as a reference to Christ, born of Mary, the second Adam and the second Eve, from whom and through whom salvation would come.
The plan of salvation unfolds throughout the rest of Scripture. Even after the Fall, God continued to walk with his people, ultimately calling on Abram to become Abraham and Sarai to become Sarah, whose decedents would be a chosen people, a holy people set apart as a beacon of God’s work of restoration. He called the people of Israel to be his own so that they might cooperate with his work to bring wholeness and healing to the world.
Only in Christ, though, do we see the work come to fulfillment and completion. Only God incarnate, God with us, God as one of us, would the full healing begin, a new creation. Made one of us, he lived and died as one of us, saving us by his full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice on the cross.
Sin entered the world through our disobedience, but Christ’s death conquered sin. And the same victory that he won on the cross can be applied to your life and to mine. Sin doesn’t have the last word, even on this side of death. Christ’s resurrection by the Spirit of God, a new life, can also be ours as we receive a share of that ultimate life awaiting the general resurrection when we will be made fully like him.
The beauty of the Wesleyan tradition can be seen in its hope-fullness. Wesleyans have a sure hope that we can experience the saving work of God in our lives now. In fact the word “now” is a very Wesleyan word — and arguably a scriptural one. Once when writing to an early Methodist, Wesley — who was talking about the fullness of salvation — said, “Be a Methodist still! Expect perfection now!” The promise of salvation is not just a promise for a future time, but a promise that can be fulfilled and experienced now. Holy love, the life God intended for us from the beginning, can reign in our hearts now.
We can see this in the words of Charles Wesley in one of his striking hymns,
“O for a heart to praise my God
A heart from sin set free!
A heart that always feels thy blood
So freely spilt for me!”
Salvation is something that we can experience in this life and expect now, but it is also a process. There are certainly moments of great change within that process, but wholeness in Christ is a work that we must dedicate ourselves to, by grace, for our entire lives. We are to grow from grace to grace.
Wesley once talked about the process of salvation by using a house as an analogy, a picture of God’s work. He said, “Our main doctrines, which include all the rest, are three, that of repentance, of faith, and of holiness. The first of these we account, as it were, the porch of religion; the next, the door, the third, religion itself.” Salvation is driven by grace — the power of the Holy Spirit — and faith, our response to God’s offer of love.
What we describe as prevenient grace — which means the grace that goes before — is in reality God’s desire to be in relationship with all people. He calls to us like one seeking the lost. He is constantly seeking a loving relationship with each and every one of us, even when we’re not seeking him. This call or grace awakens us, takes the blinders from our eyes, and we begin to see our present situation, a situation where sin has the upper hand. This is sometimes called an awakening. One of the earliest names of people in the Evangelical Revival was actually “the awakened.” They knew that they needed God, and that only in him could they find true wholeness and peace.
When we are awakened to our need for salvation, seeing the depths of our sin and the mess we have made, we experience the need for God’s mercy and we are given a desire for God. And so by grace we turn to him in faith, which can also be understood as trust. Faith is the key, even as grace is the engine. In justifying grace we receive by faith the pardon of God who justifies us, forgives us, placing our trust in what Christ has done for us on the cross. And we’re not just seen to be justified, we are justified as the life of God becomes our own.
The Book of Common Prayer describes God as one “whose property [character] is always to have mercy.” He longs to set us free. And once we receive God’s pardon, we begin to experience the power of God’s cleansing work. The past is gone and we start anew. This is called the new birth and it is when we first experience the freedom we have in Christ. Its name alone should tell us how vital this is as a new beginning, a new life. It’s not just a name, though; it’s an actual change. We are born again by the power of God.
New birth is the beginning of the process of sanctification; a process propelled by the means of grace such as prayer, fasting, meditating on Scripture, partaking of Holy Communion, and serving one another in love. A true Christian life should be filled with these opportunities to encounter God’s grace. In the process of sanctification, walking hand and hand with Christ, we learn his ways. For a moment, think of it just as you would any relationship. It takes time to get to know another person. But after spending enough time with someone, you know what that person likes, what they think about things, even some of their better, or lesser qualities. Now apply that to Christ. And unlike a relationship with another person like ourselves —even one we love deeply — Christ has no lesser qualities. He is the very embodiment of perfect love, or as Charles Wesley wrote “pure unbounded love.” To walk with him is to walk with God. And no one who spends time with God remains unchanged.
This walk, or process, enables us to experience what Wesley called Christian perfection. Don’t be frightened by the word “perfect.” The word is used regularly in Scripture such as in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus commands us to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” As with any command of Scripture, it is also a promise. God doesn’t just give us commands from on high; he gives us the grace to actually live this way. His commandments are promises of his grace.
But what does Scripture mean by “perfect”? Scriptural perfection is not static as though any change would undermine it; it’s actually dynamic. It is perfection in love (think of that loving father from the parable again) that breaks the power of sin and enables us to live a life of holy love that looks and sounds and is a life shaped by Christ’s own life. The point is to be like Christ, because in him we see God’s vision fulfilled and he wants to see that vision fulfilled in us. Salvation, in so many words, is the freedom to be who God always intended us to be.
The hymns of early Methodism were organized by Wesley in a hymnal to describe this ordering of salvation. The hymnal has a wonderfully long title — very common at the time — A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists. It was published in 1780 and until the recent publication of Our Great Redeemer’s Praise in 2024, this hymnal was the only truly pan-Wesleyan hymnal, one that the whole family can use.
My doctoral advisor, David Hempton, has said of the 1780 hymnal: “If one were to choose one single artifact of Methodism somehow to capture its essence, the most defensible choice probably would be the ‘Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists.’”
And the hymnal is organized according to the Scripture way of Salvation taught by the early Methodists. We can see in it sections “for those groaning for full salvation,” for “those backsliding,” for those who are walking with Christ and one another in the early Methodist bands (small groups), and for those who have reached perfection in love.
Poetry has a unique way of communicating the faith. And so I leave you with one of Charles Wesley’s hymns from the 1780 collection.
“Saviour of my soul, draw nigh
In mercy haste to me;
At the point of death I lie
And cannot come to thee;
Now thy kind relief afford
The wine and oil of grace pour in;
Good Physician, speak the word
And heal my soul of sin.”
Let us pray for this blessing in our own day, in our churches, our communities, and in our own lives.
Ryan Danker is the publisher of Good News.
by Steve | Jul 22, 2025 | May/June 2025
An Anglican Reflection on the Nicene Creed for Fellow Wesleyans —
By W. Brian Shelton –
Among the many types of Wesleyans who commemorate the 1700th anniversary of Nicaea this year, those in the Anglican Church may be easy to overlook. The emergence of Methodism within the eighteenth-century Church of England led to a swelling of its ranks and a separation from its original church. However, their common roots meant that these two branches would share theological similarities and ensured that they could always be closely connected.
Methodism was a renewal movement within Anglicanism, bringing a new energy centered on personal repentance, salvation, and sanctification to the established church. As a Methodist in my youth and my middle age, I now find myself Anglican, having here experienced a form of personal renewal that reverberates with the energy of the eighteenth century. Central to this experience has been worship steeped in theology, including the Nicene Creed. While it is not surprising that a theology professor at worship would appreciate this quality, the creed offers a theological experience that can remind Wesleyans everywhere of our core beliefs, such as the Trinity, incarnation, salvation, church, and an eternal hope. These common beliefs orient us, inspire us, and unite us, and when they are appropriated to the heart, they can renew us. As a Wesleyan in the Anglican Church of North America, an Anglican appreciation of the Nicene Creed in the life of the church is offered here.
Article 8 of the Thirty-Nine Articles states that the Nicene Creed is one of three creeds that “ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.” The phrase “received and believed” embodies how all Christians treat this ancient creed — accepting it from a historic church (received) and professing it for our generation (believed). This very act of saying the creed together is akin to the Wesleys’ vision to practice faith in community. Before striking out into good works, we begin with this foundation for belief that motivates and justifies our own spiritual formation, as well as the ministries to one another and to the world. Three reasons strike me for why an Anglican view of the Nicene Creed has been valuable to me and can be to Wesleyans everywhere.
First, it is said. I have been a member of Methodist churches that say no creed. My own formative years as a teenage Christian saw me thrive spiritually without any creedal element. I have been a member of one Methodist church that regularly said the Apostles Creed. This habit grew on me as a congregational member, as I joined fellow-believers in worship to confess what we all believed. However, the Nicene Creed is rare in Methodist circles. Now, I am a member of an Anglican Church that faithfully says this confession every Sunday. Like saying other parts of the liturgy with regularity, such as the Lord’s Prayer and “the peace of Christ to you,” one can become immune to its significance by uttering the same words, time after time. However, for the one who thinks on the words, internalizes them and lifts them up in a confession of praise, the Nicene Creed remains powerfully inspirational. By stating out loud, “I believe” in the person and work of God, one joins a profession of believers throughout time that uttered this same profession. By stating out loud, “I believe” in the qualities and accomplishments of God, one gets refamiliarized and reoriented to the One we worship. We can become amazed when spoken words make a claim about something more wonderful and epic than ourselves.
Second, it is profound. The words of the Nicene Creed describe the nature of God and the work, summarizing the narrative of the biblical story that makes application across all sectors of worship practices. It tells of the Father creating “all things visible and invisible.” It tells of the Son being sent by the Father, “God from God.” It tells of the purpose of this wonderful work for sinners, “For us and for our salvation, he came down to earth.” It tells of “the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life,” reminding us of our created status and our reliance on the Creator for life itself. Finally, it tells of our place on this great timeline, participating in “one holy, catholic and apostolic church,” a place in which we “look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” The Nicene Creed captures the dynamics of the Trinity who delivered for us the promise of a new life. It offers an intellectual dimension that accompanies the affectual experience so common to contemporary evangelical churches. In saying the creed, one is confronted with the profound story of a limitless God who accepted limits to free a sinful people from their limits—those very people saying the creed. The profundity of this reality is almost too hard to believe.
Third, it is renewing. This element may be the most surprising, as the same words are professed in Anglican churches week after week until they engrain habitually into the mind. In fact, the same words have been professed, over and over, leading up to the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea this year. Just as the wonder of God continues to bless us in life, the profound reality of the creedal words continues to inspire us to realize and hope for such blessings. The creed holds a promise that the God of the bible, with all the miracle stories, all the stories of changed lives, and all the stories of hope are available to us. A reminder of that biblical promise gets delivered in the saying of the Nicene Creed, where we recite words that can be renewing to us. This is no truer than in the prayers of the people in the Anglican service: “For the peace of the world, for the welfare of the Holy Church of God, and for the unity of all peoples, let us pray to the Lord.” The God of the Nicene Creed can unite his people in common belief, renewing them individually even as they say together, “I believe in one…Church.” After all, spiritual renewal is an important component of worshipping on the Lord’s day.
An Anglican perspective on the Nicene Creed offers still more. This confession is a boundary to human teaching. It is no surprise that in our worship service, the Nicene Creed and the reading of scripture surround the homily. The scripture and its creed bracket the sermon—the only part of the worship service that risks being humanly manufactured. This confession is also a contemporary profession of faith, stated in the present but also grounded in a historical reality. It offers a connection to the past, reorienting our generationally-centered “us” and “now” to a historic participation with believers who went before us. In turn, this invites us to join something bigger than just our church in our present lives. This confession also invites all to believe its contents, welcoming a diversity of denominations without allowing any diversity of unorthodox beliefs to corrode its foundation. This confession thus allows Wesleyans to find a synthesis with their own distinctives on universal salvation, the pursuit of holy living, and a focus on community service in a context of a deeper, precise, and historic Christianity.
However, all this optimism around an Anglican appreciation for the Nicene Creed along Wesleyan lines does not come without two concessions. First, in guiding American Methodists along the Anglican-Methodist way, John Wesley omitted Article 8 of Thirty-Nine Articles cited above and he removed the Nicene Creed in his condensed service for communion. Scholars often speak of his unsystematic writings and his propensity for a lived faith. In Methodists in Dialog, Geoffrey Wainwright describes how Wesley had “no quarrel with the substance of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed” (191) and that orthodox doctrine was “not so much unnecessary as insufficient — if it was not believed, experienced, and lived” (195). Second, saying the creed weekly can take some conditioning for Wesleyans who may not be used to consistent liturgical patterns of worship. Appreciating both its contents and the power of a united confessions can require some exposure. As Anglicans live in such a worship culture, that conditioning is developed to appreciate the value of the Nicene Creed in worship.
With such a confessional commitment comes a chance for personal and corporate renewal. Perhaps one of the best ways to discover and anchor a renewal movement like Methodism — whether in the eighteenth century or as its renewal is underway these days — is in the profession of the Nicene Creed. After all, the God worshipped there is the one who enables us to live as “one, holy” church of God, renewed by “the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.”
W. Brian Shelton, PhD is Dean of the School of Christian Studies, Professor of Theology, and Wesley Scholar in Residence at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky.
