Archive: Sweet Songs of Salvation

By J. Ellsworth Kalas (1923-2015)

May/June 1985

 

We Methodists make much of John Wesley’s dramatic religious experience one evening on Aldersgate Street, but he almost forget that his brother Charles Wesley had an equally transforming experience three days earlier. In fact, John and Charles followed quite similar paths in their spiritual journeys.

For example, both went to Georgia as missionaries and both were disappointed there. Back in England, things went well for Charles outwardly. He was chosen to present the Oxford Address to King George II, and then to dine with the king the following day. But Charles’ soul remained distressed.

Like John, he had been influenced by the writings of William Law and by the Moravian, Peter Böhler. Böhler described both John and Charles in a letter to the Moravian leader, Zinzendorf: “Of faith in Jesus, they have no other idea than the generality of people have. They justify themselves; therefore they always take it for granted that they believe already and would prove their faith by their works, and thus so plague and torment themselves that they are at heart very miserable.”

Then on Sunday, May 21, 1738, Charles and John and some friends sang a hymn together. Charles prayed earnestly and at length. He heard a voice saying, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise, and believe, and thou shalt be healed of all thy infirmities.” A young woman, Miss Bray, had spoken the words, but she insisted that she had done so by order of Christ. Charles received the words as a message from God. Suddenly, his struggling ceased. “I found myself at peace with God, and rejoiced in hope of loving Christ. … I saw that by faith I stood; by the continual support of faith, which kept me from falling.”

On Tuesday, Charles began to write a hymn about his conversion. He had done some things with poetry before, but now he had a new and urgent impulse to write. On the day of his conversion he had been impressed with the Scripture, “I will put a new song into thy mouth.” Nevertheless, as he began to write that Tuesday, he “was persuaded to break off for fear of pride.” But a friend convinced him that these feelings were from Satan, and encouraged Charles to finish the hymn. The opening line shows the grand awe of a newborn soul:

Where shall my wondering soul begin?
How shall I all to heaven aspire?
A slave redeemed from death and sin,
A brand plucked from eternal fire,
How shall I equal triumphs raise,
Or sing my great deliverer’s praise?
O how shall I the goodness tell,

Father, which thou to me hast showed?
That I, a child of wrath and hell,
I should be called a child of God,
Should know, should feel my sins forgiven,
Blest with this antepast of heaven.

The following evening, May 24, 1738, “Towards ten, my brother was  brought in triumph by a troop of our friends, and declared, ‘I believe: We sang the hymn with great joy, and parted with prayer.” This is an auspicious hymn indeed – the first written by Charles after his conversion, and sung “publicly” for the first time in celebration of John’s Aldersgate experience.

Charles eventually wrote about hundreds of subjects, but one theme surfaces again and again: redemption of the human soul through Jesus Christ. It isn’t surprising that it should be the subject matter in this first expression of his new faith in Christ, but it is impressive that it continued to be his song all through the years. In this emphasis, too, Charles was like John. No doubt they reinforced one another in their conviction.

In 1772, for example, after the Methodist revival had been going on for a full generation, John wrote to Charles, “Your business, as well as mine, is to save  souls …. I think every day lost, which is not (mainly at least) employed in this thing.” By then their movement had reached what some analysts might call a new level of development, a point at which they could easily have shifted to a different emphasis. But the Wesleys never forgot their reason for existence, perhaps because they never lost the sense of wonder at their own salvation.

Those who know the pious backgrounds of John and Charles Wesley may question why Charles felt such an exceeding sense of personal sin. In this first hymn he describes himself as “a slave redeemed from death and sin, a brand plucked from eternal fire … a child of wrath and hell.” Later in this same hymn he addresses himself to the most obviously lost:

Outcasts of men, to you I call;
Harlots and publicans and thieves:
He spreads his arms to embrace you all;
Sinners alone His grace receive.

And it is evident that Charles numbers himself with this motley crew.

How is it that Wesley could have such a sense of sin and need for a Savior? He knew virtually nothing, in his own life, of gross and vulgar sins. He did not come to Christ through drunkenness and lechery, or theft, murder, and drug addiction. His life had been lived in a rectory and in the scholar’s chambers. Yet he sings as if Christ had intercepted his journey at the very gate of hell.

Some might argue that Wesley’s sensitivity to sin was because he lived in times which were violent and corrupt. But that explanation is doubtful. With our current level of crime, alcoholism, and drug addiction, we ought to be as conscious of the exceeding sinfulness of our sin as any generation. Besides, Wesley could have responded in quite the opposite way, feeling self-righteous rather than remorseful as he viewed the world around him.

Instead, Wesley seemed to understand the ulterior motives behind his moral conduct. In one hymn he thanked God that he had escaped being one of the “young corrupters,” and confessed that it was because of his “sacred cowardice.” That’s a telling insight into human nature. Many of us might acknowledge that we would have been more crude in our conduct if we hadn’t feared public opinion and were not so concerned about our community standing. Wesley knew that his cowardice was sacred in that it kept him free from more obviously sinful acts, but it was cowardice nevertheless.

I think also that Wesley’s sense of the seriousness of sin (and thus, the glory of redemption) came because he had a theology rather than a sociology or a psychology. Our broader learning has, perhaps. blurred our vision.

That is, with our sociological emphasis, we speak much of corporate sin. This is a valid concept, of course. Some of the elements of international conflict, pervasive hunger, and poverty are the products of society in general.

But while this is a true concept. it is also a diverting one. It is easy, when confessing corporate sin, to project the burden or guilt upon others. The idea of corporate sin is likely to dull our realization of personal responsibility. We are then prone to see sin as something which is wrong with the system – as a matter of fact, we call it “systemic sin” – rather than an issue which we must confront directly, in ourselves.

Psychology, too, has had its impact on our conception of sin; and even more, on our expectation of salvation. So we think of ourselves as having personality disorders rather than as individuals in need of a Savior.

These disorders may, as a matter of fact, spring from self-centeredness and selfishness. and they may express themselves in indifference or unkindness to others. Nevertheless, the intellectual climate of our times helps us avoid facing ourselves as we are. Our culture has an intricate system of euphemisms to prevent our seeing things in their true light, and nowhere is this system of euphemisms so well developed as in the matter of sin.

If we moderns sense that we have a problem, we are offered any number of possible saviors. When Paul walked the streets of Athens he discovered that there were almost as many gods as there were people. Our times are somewhat like that. Every day, it seems, someone is offering a new way of salvation.

Mind you, not many of these new gospels claim to be eternal, because not many recognize that our need is for the eternal. Most of the salvations which are offered come in smaller packages, ranging all the way from plastic surgery to psychoanalysis.

We may never know how many people embark upon a new diet regimen, another night course at the community college, or a new hobby, romance, discussion group, or personality cult in the hope that it will bring a special excitement to life or fill some indefinable void. Understand me – such matters are OK in their place, but they are poor substitutes for a Savior. And when one sees the expectation with which many of our contemporaries embark upon some of these pursuits, one feels an aching pathos. God made us for more substantial fare.

This crowd of secular saviors has affected the confidence with which the task of preaching is approached. We are so often tentative in our claims for the Gospel. Consider, for instance, the matter of chemical addiction, whether alcoholism or drugs. I grew up in a little Methodist downtown mission, where any number of people had been saved from addictions. Frank Satterlee, one of my boyhood Sunday school teachers. told our class often of the night, in his lostness, when he was headed toward the Missouri River and suicide. He had stopped at the mission, caught by the music, and that night his life was changed. “I never wanted another drop,” he told us so often.

Not many of us nowadays are ready to deal directly with the chemically addicted person. We refer him or her to Alcoholics Anonymous or to a counseling center. I do not mean to discredit these aids: I only ask if we have lost our faith in the Lord of redemption. Are we afraid to confront addiction?

The 18th-century world of John and Charles Wesley must have had at least as much alcoholism as ours. Their class meetings included any number of persons who had been so addicted. How did the early Methodists manage without AA, treatment centers, and expert counseling? I do not condemn; I only ask, in pain, if we have lost faith in the redeeming work.

Sir William Blackstone, the first professor of English law and perhaps the most memorable name in legal education, said that he went to hear every noted cleric in 18^th-century London, and “did not hear a single discourse which had more Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero.” It would have been impossible, Blackstone said, to discover from what he heard “whether the teacher were a follower of Confucius, or Mohammed, or of Christ.” One wonders if a modern seeker might make a similar complaint, after tasting a variety of sermons discussing pop psychology and the most recent fads in self-help. Is there any salvation, the modern seeker might ask.

The Wesleys perceived sin to be something more than a personality disorder, and more than a society which was out of joint. They saw sin as an eternal malady, the kind of illness which could afflict only eternal creatures, the human race. It could not be healed lightly. The remedy would have to be as drastic as the illness demanded. and the redemption must be strong enough to confront hell. So they sang:

He breaks the power of cancell’d sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood avail’d for me.

The peculiar glory of these salvation hymns is that they were so surely a personal testimony. Halford Luccock and Paul Hutchinson suggested a test. Compare the hymns of Isaac Watts, Addison, Cowper, or Doddridge with those of Wesley. The hymns of Wesley are not necessarily better poetry, nor is their content always better, for these other poets were also skilled theologians. “But note the pronouns! Wesley started the Methodists singing personal pronouns, and that was what made his hymns a turning point in English history.” Wesley sang from the wrestlings and the victories of his personal experience of salvation.

When one says that Charles Wesley’s hymns were so often songs of salvation, we’re likely to think of rollicking tunes with words that require no intellectual involvement. Not so. He managed the nearly impossible; he wrote with emotion of his love for Christ, yet with the kind of theological content that makes a thoughtful reader want to savor the words. Take this magnificent passion hymn:

O Love divine. what hast thine done!
Th’incarnate God hath died for me!
The Father’s co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree!
The Son of God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified.

And again, in a communion hymn:

Victim Divine, thy grace we claim
While thus thy precious death we show:
Once offer’d up, a spotless lamb.
In thy great temple here below,
Thou didst for all mankind atone,
And standest now before the throne.

 

The smoke of thy atonement here
Darken’d the sun and rent the veil.
Made the new way to heaven appear,
And show’d the great Invisible:
Well pleased in thee our God look’d down,
And call’d his rebels to a crown.

The substantial content in Wesley’s hymns played a great role in the nurture of the first generation of the people called Methodists. Whatever other books they had, or whatever other training, one could be sure that every time they sang one of Charles’ hymnsespecially those dealing with salvation-they would get some solid theology. The text encouraged analysis, thought, meditation, and growth.

And of course it was classic theology. There is nothing trendy in Wesley’s theology. His doctrine was ancient and catholic. It was never incidental or peripheral.

One often has a feeling that much contemporary theology is aimed for the marketplace, either in the scholarly journals or perhaps, at the extreme, something popular enough to get a sensational book review. Wesley was always sensitive to his times, but his theology was classical and catholic. He worried not so much about what was currently popular in the universities as what was needed on the streets and in the mines.

The most impressive factor in Charles Wesley’s hymns of salvation, however (and in his work in general), is the massive Biblical content. J. Ernest Rattenbury contends that a skillful person, if the Bible were lost, “might extract much of it from Wesley’s hymns.”

Very few contemporary congregations can do full justice to the singing of Wesley’s hymns. This is because relatively few church members have the Biblical knowledge to appreciate what they are singing. Rattenbury says the Holy Scripture was Wesley’s “sole literary inspiration,” because even when he took phrases from other authors, they were generally nothing other than a recasting of some Biblical truth. Yet Wesley’s weaving of Biblical phrases, allusions, and insights is so masterful that even a careful reader will find it hard to catch them all.

The salvation of which Wesley sang, it should also be said, was no one-night experience. He rejoiced more than anyone in the wonder of the moment of awakening, but he was never content to stop there. He would look askance at the kind of evangelism which makes its final count at the altar call or the receiving into church membership. His evangelism didn’t stop that soon. He knew there would be struggles, for the adversary was not likely to release a soul without resistance, and Wesley knew that the soul must go on growing.

Wesley’s personal struggles no doubt colored his conception of the Christian life. Perhaps one must have such capacity for self-doubt if he is to experience so large a measure of God’s grace. At any rate, Charles struggled.

On June 3, 1738, within two weeks of his conversion, he wrote in his Journal, “I could not help asking myself, ‘Where is the difference between what I am now, and what I was before believing?’ I immediately answered, ‘That the darkness was not like the former darkness, because I was satisfied there was no guilt in it; because I was assured it would be dispersed; and because, though I could not find I loved God, or feel that he loved me, yet I did and would believe he loved me notwithstanding.’ “

Charles’ insight into himself and his struggle was beautifully expressed in a hymn of celebration that he wrote on his birthday in either 1740 or 1741.

The tyranny of sin is past:
And though the carnal mind remains,
My guiltless soul on Thee is cast,
I neither hug, nor bite my chains.

He is a man at peace, albeit a struggling peace, with his redeemed humanness.

The Wesleys did not believe in a cheap salvation. One section of their hymnbook was for “Believers Struggling.” The Wesleys never promised their converts that life would be one continual victory once they accepted Christ as Lord. They only knew that in the end there would be victory.

A favorite hymn with modern congregations, and perhaps especially with those who look upon religion mainly as a source of comfort, is “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” Charles didn’t offer it for easy comfort, though. It was originally titled “In Temptation,” and it was meant to lend strength to the soul in struggle. A verse not usually included in modern hymnals reads:

Wilt Thou not regard my call?
Wilt Thou not accept my prayer?
Lo, I sink, I faint, I fall!
Lo! on Thee I cast my care!

The concluding verse, so familiar to those seeking comfort, is actually a cry for restoration in the hour of temptation. Wesley  rejoiced, even as he appealed:

Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
Grace to cover all my sin:
let the healing streams abound;
Make and keep me pure within!

Members of the early Methodist societies were expected to grow. Their spiritual struggles were supposed to lead to new heights and depths in Christ. And they were never to be content with the initial experience of grace. The new birth was for the purpose of maturity.

Modern congregations probably think of “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” as a hymn emphasizing the love of God, even though our hymnal editors put it in the section on “Christian Perfection.” Wesley himself classified it as “For Believers Seeking Perfect Love.” So he prayed:

Take away our bent to sinning:
Alpha and Omega be:
End of faith. as its beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.

Christ was the Alpha, with whom our salvation has begun; now He must be the Omega, bringing it to a victorious end. The fourth verse is the finest of prayers for those seeking Christian perfection:

Finish, then, thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be. let us see thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in thee:
Changed from glory into glory.
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love. and praise.

Charles was looking forward to a finished, spotless life, worthy of an adoring appearance before Christ. And while Wesley knew so well that the Christian life can sometimes be described as “from struggle to struggle,” he identified it now from the side of God’s action: as He works in our lives, we are “changed from glory into glory.”

Wesley had an entire section of hymns under the classification, “For Mature Believers.” These hymns underline the expectations the Wesleys had for the people in their societies. The goal was maturity, perfection. The Wesleys gladly accepted all who desired to flee from the wrath to come, but they expected them to go on to perfection. They hoped to present to God a people who had grown into the fullness of Christ. Charles was confident that this was God’s will for all His people:

Lord, I believe a rest remains
To all thy people known:
A rest, where pure enjoyment reigns,
And thou art loved alone.

The stage manager in Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town temporarily takes the part of the parish minister. In that role he says, “Everybody knows Nature’s interested in quantity. I believe she’s interested in quality too. That’s why I’m a minister.” John and Charles would have agreed. They were looking for quality in their people, because they believed that was God’s goal for those redeemed by Christ.

Finally, the most notable quality in Wesley’s song-theme of salvation is this, that his songs not only described salvation, they conveyed it. The hymns were instruments of salvation, drawing the lost to Christ. Wesley rejoiced in his salvation. He had tasted and seen that the Lord is good. And as he sang of what God had done for him and for the growing host of miners, prostitutes, ne’er-do-wells, and wandering souls, Wesley was sure He could do it for all.

It is our privilege, in this Wesleyan heritage, to offer the same salvation. One wonders why we so easily neglect it. Our message is so exciting, why don’t we exploit it?

Vance Havner has been an evangelist, in one of the non-Wesleyan traditions, for more than 60 years. One day he quoted the lines from our Methodist theme song:

Hear him, ye deaf. his praise, ye dumb,
Your loosened tongues employ,
Ye blind, behold your Savior come,
And leap, ye lame, for joy.

And picturing such a sad and motley body of the world’s needy, Havner said, “Every Sunday we should say to a crippled world, ‘Look Who’s here! Look Who’s here!’“

We have redemption to offer, and the Savior. We can tell the world with all its need, “Look Who’s here!” That ought to stir the evangel in every Wesleyan heart.

Reprinted by permission from Our First Song by J. Ellsworth Kalas (1923-2015). © 1984 by Discipleship Resources. Used by permission.