Transformational Love of God: Christian Perfection

By Wendi. J. Deichmann

For centuries Methodists have enthusiastically sung the hymn, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” the lyrics of which poetically articulate the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian perfection. Composed by Charles Wesley in 1847, this hymn doubles as a teaching primer for a doctrine that is often neglected or misunderstood, even by fervent Methodists. It is simple enough to understand the concept underlying the title. Love divine, God’s love, surpasses all other loves. After all, to quote well-known Bible verses, “God is love” (1 John 4:8); “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16); and “greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” as Jesus himself has done for us (John 15:13).

Believers can readily agree, then, based upon Scriptural revelation, that God’s “divine love” excels in comparison with all other loves. It is what we sing in the rest of the hymn that takes us further down the path toward the sometimes perplexing Wesleyan doctrine of Christian perfection. Phrases like: “fix in us thy humble dwelling” (verse 1), “take away our bent to sinning” (verse 2), and “finish, then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be” beckon us to wrap our hearts, minds, and voices around the full meaning of Christian perfection. The purpose of this article is to explore and explain this central biblical doctrine as it was understood and taught by both John and Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism.

For John Wesley, the doctrine of Christian perfection was so important that he believed its propagation was the main reason the Holy Spirit had raised up the people called Methodists. He came to this conclusion through his study of Scripture, when he compared what was written in the Bible about the extent of God’s love and the Holy Spirit’s work within believers, with the less than holy attitudes and behaviors exhibited by many “so-called Christians” of his day. Wesley clarified in great detail his conclusions concerning this doctrine in several widely read publications still available today. These included a lengthy treatise entitled “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection,” “Thoughts on Christian Perfection,” and a sermon entitled, “Christian Perfection.”

In these documents Wesley grappled with promises he found in scripture that were the basis not only for his belief in God’s work of grace in sanctification, but also in entire sanctification, an expression he used interchangeably with Christian perfection. These Biblical promises included for example, “He shall redeem Israel from all his sins” (Psalm 103:8) and “let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).

Likewise, Wesley pondered seriously the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from evil” and Jesus’ prayer for his followers (John 17:20-23): “that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.” Similarly in Ephesians 3:16-19, “that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend, with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge; that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God.” Finally, in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God, your whole spirit, soul, and body, may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In Holy Scripture, moreover, Wesley encountered explicit commands about perfection from Jesus himself: “Be ye perfect, as your Father who is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) and “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37). If the heart is full of the love of God as commanded, he concluded, there is no room for sin to reside there. Thus, for Wesley there was no denying that entire sanctification is possible in this life. Based upon his reading of Scripture, it should be expected. In fact, it would be unconscionable to truncate the desired, sanctifying work of God in the believer short of Christian perfection.

When Wesley’s detractors demanded proof in the form of a living example of Christian perfection, he replied that to identify one or more would be imprudent and unfair as it would only “set a mark for all to shoot at.” Furthermore, it would do no good, he argued, mirroring the words of Jesus in Luke 16:31: “’For if they hear not Moses and the Prophets,’ Christ and his Apostles, ‘neither would they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.’”

Wesley began both his treatise and his sermon on perfection by describing what it is not, namely, those very things that many assume that it is. In “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection,” he characterized those who are on the path of perfection, as not being perfect in knowledge. Nor are they free from ignorance, mistakes, infirmities, temptations, irregularities, ungracefulness of speech, or other “defects” in this life.

If Christian perfection is not all these things, what exactly, according to John Wesley, is it? Again, drawing directly from Scripture, he stated simply that it is “The loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. This implies, that no wrong temper, none contrary to love, remains in the soul; and that all the thoughts, words, and actions, are governed by pure love.”

But how is this kind of perfection possible in mere humans who are chronically plagued by ignorance, error, and weakness? Only by the perfecting grace of God, Wesley was quick to state. He explained that those characterized by Christian perfection not only need Christ and his forgiveness; but they are keenly aware of their constant need for Christ and his merits. In fact, in Wesley’s thinking Christian perfection is intimately dependent upon one’s relationship with Christ, who “does not give life to the soul separate from, but in and with, himself.” Again, drawing directly from Scripture, Wesley wrote that the words of Jesus are “equally true of all . . . in whatsoever state of grace they are: ‘As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. Without (or separate from) me ye can do nothing.’” (John 15:5)

Wesley reminded the reader that it is only through God’s grace that any progress can be made on the path of salvation. In “every state,” Wesley wrote, the believer needs Christ (1) for the gift of grace that Christ gives freely to us, (2) because of the debt of gratitude we always owe to him, (3) because we receive this grace “not only from Christ, but in him,” (4) because we are dependent daily upon his intercession on our behalf,” and (5) even the best of Christians need Christ to atone for our shortcomings and our mistakes in judgment and practice. Even if no wrong was intended, these are deviations from God’s perfect law.

Christian perfection is not dependent upon our own righteousness, then, and it is never our possession. Rather, like the air we breathe and the light by which we see and move, Christian perfection is a gift of God’s unsurpassable love received daily from Christ through his grace, effected through the power of the Holy Spirit.

This brief foray into John Wesley’s teachings about the doctrine of Christian perfection provides a context for understanding the lyrics in the Charles Wesley hymn referenced earlier. It is exactly because of the atoning and sanctifying nature of God’s “all loves excelling” love that the faithful believer moves from praising love divine in the first stanza, to a prayer for finishing then “thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be” in the last stanza.

Magnificent and popular as is this Charles Wesley hymn, even more significant is the doctrine of Christian perfection it expresses. Not only biblical, this particular core doctrine of Wesleyanism is also eminently worshipful, hopeful and practical. It puts the spotlight on the unceasing love of God that is both for us and in us. It teaches about the limitless power of a love strong enough not only to human forgive sin, but also to change believers’ lives, to cultivate holy relationships, and to propel disciples into the world as witnesses to the good news of Jesus Christ. In other words, when the pure love of God toward us also resides in us, we are already being transformed in our capacity to love others with the same purity of transformational love with which God loves us.

John Wesley believed this doctrine was a gift of God given especially to Methodists in the 18th century to undergird their God-given, audacious mission “to spread scriptural holiness” across the land. But Christian perfection is not solely the preserve of the Methodists. Rather, it is a biblical doctrine that depicts a divine love so powerful and pure that it readily transcends denominational, theological, cultural, and a host of other human-made distinctions and barriers.

Ironically, our own time is characterized by intense, theological squabbling and division over the meaning of holiness. Can it be that the biblical doctrine of Christian perfection, in concert with the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst, has the capacity to help us rediscover the pure love of God for us and in us, the practice of sincere Christian unity beyond denominational lines, and a wonderful season of revival within the body of Christ?

Wendy J. Deichmann is President Emerita and Professor of History and Theology at United Theological Seminary.   An ordained elder of The United Methodist Church, Dr. Diechman is Director of the Center for the Evangelical United Brethren Heritage; Academic Dean (2005-2008).