Wesley

by John R. Tyson

On the last Sunday in October, many Protestant denominations—particularly those descending from Luther and Calvin—pause to look back to the 16^th century and celebrate Reformation Sunday and the roots of their tradition. Where are Wesleyans in this picture?

In the 16^th century, our denominational roots were still connected to the Church of England. John and Charles Wesley began their evangelical revival 221 years after Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. So, do Wesleyans have any inheritance in Luther? Yes, the same one we share with all other Protestants. However, it was further refined for us by the role that Luther played in the Wesleys’ own faith pilgrimage and theological reflection.

By faith alone

The most famous connection between Martin Luther and John Wesley came during the father of Methodism’s (1738) “Aldersgate experience,” in which Wesley felt his “heart was strangely warmed” while listening to someone read from Luther’s Romans commentary. What Wesley learned from Luther was his emphasis upon justification by faith alone. As Wesley would write many years later, “Who has written more ably than Martin Luther on justification by faith alone?”

After 1738, Luther became Wesley’s poster child for the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Twice Wesley quotes Luther, from the Latin, that this is the doctrine upon which “the Christian church stands or falls.” That is to say, justification by faith is the watershed between real Christianity and its pale imitations; if we lose sight of this doctrine, we lose everything. Three times during his controversial writings Wesley defended himself against learned opponents by arguing that he agreed wholeheartedly with Luther’s hallmark doctrine.

Wesley had other positive things to say about Luther and his theology. Three times, as the Wesleyan revival seemed destined to run out of spiritual energy, Wesley consoled himself by remembering that Luther predicted that a “revival of religion seldom continues above thirty years.” On at least one of those occasions Wesley encouraged himself with the fact that the Wesleyan revival had already shown more durability. John wrote: “A revival of religion never lasts above a generation— that is, thirty years, (whereas the current revival continued above fifty).” In his sermon on “The Repentance of Sinners,” Wesley quoted Luther favorably against covetousness. When explaining why he remained within the Church of England while enduring so much persecution, Wesley again pointed to the example of Luther (and also Calvin), who refused to leave the Church until “they were violently thrust out of it.” When writing on the “witness of the Spirit,” Wesley turned to Luther and Melancthon as supporters of the notion that those who are justified by faith have a consciousness of acceptance before God. Wesley also quoted Luther approvingly on the nature of Christian theology: “Divinity is nothing but the grammar of the language of the Holy Ghost.”

Wesley and sanctification

Yet Wesley also wrote disparagingly of some of Luther’s views. For example, he bewailed “the fury of his sola fidianism” (salvation-by-faith-alone-ism) during which Luther argued that “St. James is an epistle of straw.” Wesley met the practical outcome of the reformer’s apparent disparagement of any role for good works in the Christian’s life, as it was incarnated in the “Stillness” of the English Moravians: “They follow Luther, for better or worse,” Wesley wrote. Caught up in the mystery of waiting upon God in “stillness,” the Moravians refused to see prayer, Bible reading, or even going to church as being necessary aids to a person’s salvation. Because they embraced justification by faith alone, they believed they did not need to embrace the good “works” of spiritual formation that lead to sanctification.

The Wesleyan approach to sanctification viewed Christian works, subsequent to justification, and being a necessary “means of grace” for our spiritual growth. Things like prayer, Bible reading, or going to church do not save a person, but they certainly are important aids to living a holy life. Hence, in his sermon “On God’s Vineyard,” Wesley criticized what he considered to be Luther’s extreme emphasis upon justification by faith alone because it seemed to lead to a neglect of sanctification: “Who has wrote [sic.] more ably than Martin Luther on justification by faith alone? And who was more ignorant of the doctrine of sanctification, or more confused in his conception of it? In order to be thoroughly convince of this, of his total ignorance with regard to sanctification, there needs no more than to read over, without prejudice, his celebrated comment on the Epistle to the Galatians.” Wesley went on to criticize Roman Catholics (such as St. Francis de Sales) who “wrote strongly and scripturally on sanctification,” [but] who, nevertheless, “were entirely unacquainted with the nature of justification.”

That Wesley did not want to follow Luther down the road to extreme sola fidainism was evident in his recollection of the great reformer’s dying words: “I have spent my strength for nought! Those who are called by my name are, it is true, reformed more in opinions and modes of worship but in their hearts and lives, in their tempers and practice, they are not a jot better than the Papists.” Justification, without inner transformation, and a discerning path towards sanctification looked like a dead-end to John Wesley.

The middle ground

Hence, Wesley sought to locate his followers in that middle ground between Protestants who stressed justification by faith but knew nothing about sanctification, and Roman Catholics who stressed sanctification but knew nothing about justification by faith. This location was well explained in one of Charles Wesley’s hymns. Entitled “The Means of Grace,” it was written in the midst of the “Stillness” controversy, and delineates this middle ground by urging the singer to use the spiritual disciplines which God has provided for our sanctification (“I do the thing Thy laws enjoin”), without trusting in them as the basis of one’s salvation. Advocating a Christ-centered approach to the dilemma of faith and works, Jesus (in verse 20) is proclaimed as the only “mean” of salvation:

16. I wait my vigour to renew,

Thine image to retrieve,

The veil of outward things pass through,

And gasp in Thee to live.

17. I work, and own the labour vain;

And thus from works I cease:

I strive, and see my fruitless pain,

Till God create my peace.

18. Fruitless, till Thou Thyself impart,

Must all my efforts prove;

They cannot change a sinful heart.

They cannot purchase love.

19. I do the thing Thy laws enjoy,

And then the strife give o’er:

To Thee I then the whole resign;

I trust in means no more.

20. I trust in Him who stands between

The Father’s wrath and me;

JESU! Thou great eternal Mean,

I look for all from Thee. ....

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