Special Article - Grace and Responsibility

Grace and Responsibility
A Brief Exposition of John Wesley's Theology of Grace
--- Part 2 ---
By Dr Roland Chia

[ Justifying Grace ]

Unlike much of the Western tradition's understanding of justification, Wesley's conception focuses more on the therapeutic aspects rather than the juridical. That is to say, his concern was not so much the means of justification, but how man can recover the moral Image of God in his life. Wesley believes that justification is part of the process by which this restoration can take place because justifying grace to him restores man to God, thereby enabling him to participate in God's gracious and empowering Presence. Thus justifying grace is understood in continuum with prevenient grace. Both are understood very much in relational terms. This makes the twin concepts of repentance and forgiveness absolutely crucial to Wesley defines repentance simply as knowledge of self, that is, the knowledge of one's sinfulness: 'Know thyself to be a sinner, and what manner of sinner thou art' ¹. Repentance is the turning away from sin towards God, who alone can restore man to spiritual health. Thus repentance is the outcome of God's prevenient grace upon one's life. But although repentance is prior and necessary² step in the process towards justification, Wesley makes it clear that it is not the condition for justification. Faith alone, according to Wesley, is the condition for justification. Thus, although Wesley can say that 'both repentance, and fruits meet for repentance, are, in sense necessary to justification', yet a man is 'not justified until he believes'. Repentance, Wesley asserts, is 'remotely' necessary for justification, whereas faith is 'immediately' and 'directly' necessary. Although his explanation of the exact relationship of repentance and faith to justification is not crystal clear, both are deemed in their own ways to be integral to justification.

'Justification' Wesley defines simply as pardon. 'Justification is another word for pardon. It is the forgiveness of our sins; and, what is necessarily implied therein, our acceptance with God' ³. God justifies man not on the basis of the latter's works, bit rather on the basis of the 'blood and righteousness of Christ'. Spiritual regeneration and the beginning of sanctification are contemporaneous justification: 'And at the same time that we are justified, yea, in that very moment, sanctification begins. In that instant we are born again, born from above, born of the Spirit' ⁴. Sanctification is quite impossible without regeneration. Wesley embraced fully the traditional Augustinian doctrine of original sin and its consequences on human nature: '…in Adam all died, all human kind, all the children of men who were then in Adam's loins'. Thus apart from the miracle of the new birth, sanctification would be impossible: 'this holiness can have no existence till we are renewed in the image of our mind. It cannot commence in the soul till that change be wrought; till, by the power of the Highest overshadowing us, we are "brought from the darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God"; that is, till we are born again; which, therefore, is absolutely necessary in order to holiness' ⁵. As he expands his description of justification, Biblical concepts like regeneration, sanctification, emancipation, deliverance are all commandeered to bring to expression the miracle that takes place when the sinner is pardoned and be found once again to God's covenantal embrace⁶. Wesley sometimes, although rather infrequently, uses the concept of 'adoption' to speak of the believer's participation in the divine presence. Adoption for him, then, is more closely related to faith than to justification per se. He describes the connection thus: 'By this faith of the operation of God, which was the very substance, or subsistence, of things hoped for (Heb 11:1) the demonstrative evidence of invisible things, he instantly received the Spirit of Adoption, whereby he now cried, "Abba Father" (Rom 8:15)' ⁷. The adoption which grace brings about on the basis of faith restores the relationship between God and man by 'uniting for ever the tender Father, and the grateful son; the great Lord of all, and the faithful servant; doing not his own will, but the will of him that sent him' ⁸.

Wesley understands justification both as an instantaneous event and a process. In this regard his doctrine of justification and ipso facto his understanding of justifying grace is different from the majority of the theologians of the Protestant tradition, including Luther and Calvin. Wesley could therefore speak of initial and final justification. The sinner according to Wesley is instantaneously forgiven and saved when he places his faith (with Wesley calls 'justifying faith') in the finished work of Christ on the cross: "And as soon as his pardon or justification is witnessed to him by the Holy Spirit, he is saved. He loves God and all mankind. He has 'the mind that was in Christ', and power to 'walk as he also walked.'" ⁹ But the transformative aspect of justifying grace is never far from Wesley's mind, for he insists that this new life in Christ must be a life of holiness. Thus he emphatically stresses that 'when we say, "believe, and thou shat be saved", we do not mean, "Believe, and thou shalt step from sin to heaven, without any holiness coming between; faith supplying the place of holiness''; but, "Believe, and thou shalt be holy"' ¹⁰. Wesley could say that from the time the believer experience new birth, 'salvation gradually increases in his soul' ¹¹. Wesley therefore understands initial justification to be the starting point of the Christian life, made possible by justifying grace. The regenerated believer continues to grow in holiness as he walks in obedience until he receives final justification from God at death. This emphasis on holiness Wesley deemed to be very important, especially in the light of antinomian tendencies to which the Calvinistic tradition is more prone. Here again we see Wesley's emphasis of grace and responsibility. Justifying grace must have that transformative power which enables the believer to live responsibly before God. The antinomian idea of imputed righteousness is by and large rejected by Wesley. The Christian life must be characterised by inner and outer good works which is the 'condition' for final salvation¹².

The foregoing discussion has now enabled us to understand Wesley's distinction between relative change and real change in the believer, or, put differently, the relationship between justification and sanctification. Justification, according to Wesley, effects a relative change in the believer through the divine pardon based on the virtue of Christ, while new birth effects a real change, forming and moulding the believer into the divine image. 'God in justifying us does something for us; in begetting us again, he does the work in us. The former changes our outward relation to God, so that of enemies we become children; by the latter our inmost souls are changed, so that sinners become saints¹³.' This brings us very naturally to the question of the relationship between justification and sanctification, which we must touch on briefly before we examine the latter in greater detail. Wesley cautions at the outset that proper biblical balance must be maintained so that just as we do not 'think or speak of justification so as to supersede sanctification¹⁴, so neither do [we] think of speak of sanctification so as to supersede justification '. Wesley's understanding of the place of justification and sanctification in the scheme of salvation may be encapsulated in this way. The prevenient grace of God draws the sinner to respond out of his own volition. This response in faith results in the initial justification of the sinner - divine pardon of his sin and regeneration. Grace enables him to grow in holiness and Christ-likeness leading to final justification. Thus the believer's growth in holiness (sanctification) is contingent upon God's pardoning prevenience (initial justification). And his final acceptance by God (final justification) is contingent upon his growth in holiness (sanctification). All are undergirded by divine grace, although human responsibility places a significant role.