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Wesleyan Theological Journal Wesleyan Theological Journal Volume 21 — Spring-Fall — 1986 Justification by Faith and Wesley’s Evangelistic Message David Lowes Watson 7 John Wesley as Church Growth Strategist George G. Hunter 25 Egocentric Evangelism Richard E. Howard 34 The Holy Spirit in the Dead Sea Scrolls Alex R. G. Deasley 45 Pneumatology in Romans 8 Roger L. Hahn 74 John Wesley’s Doctrine of the Holy Spirit Rob L. Staples 91 Wesley’s Platonic Conception of the Moral Law Kenneth J. Collins 116 Wesley’s Views on the Uses of History Joseph W. Seaborn 129 John Wesley and the Second Blessing Timothy L. Smith 137 The Trajectory of Wesleyan Theology R. Larry Shelton 159 Holiness, Technology and Personhood H. Ray Dunning 176 Fellowship in Ferment: A History of the Wesleyan Theological Society, 1965-84 John G. Merritt 185 Book Reviews 204 Editor Paul Merritt Bassett Digital texts copyright 2008 Wesley Center Online http://wesley.nnu.edu THE "MUCH-CONTROVERTED POINT OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH" AND THE SHAPING OF WESLEY'S EVANGELISTIC MESSAGE by David Lowes Watson By Wesley's own account, the watershed of his involvement in the Eighteenth Century Revival was his decision to go to Bristol at the invitation of George Whitefield. As Whitefield put it, a "glorious door" had opened among the colliers, and what God had enabled him to plant now required watering.1 Wesley's experience with the nurturing ministry of societies and bands was badly needed. Yet his decision to go was not a spontaneous response; so much so, that the final outcome, as we have it recorded in the published Journal, was decided by lot.2 Immediately following this account, Wesley includes in the Journal a letter which he had sent to his father in 1734.3 The letter had been written, painstakingly and with much heart searching, to explain to Samuel Wesley why his son did not feel it his calling to accept the living at Epworth. The arguments fall into two categories: those which "conduce to [his] own self-improvement"; and those which concern the application of his God-given talents to the "social life, to which academic studies are only preparatory."4 While the arguments on both counts read well enough, and evince an objectivity, which, in a late twentieth century context, might provide a quite passable self evaluation of skills, goals and objectives, this is not Wesley's purpose in reproducing such a letter. He makes clear that, with his response to Whitefield's request, he was entering into a "new period" in his life, and that the reasons which led him to decline a parish living five years earlier remained no less compelling. He found the academic life stimulating and fulfilling in every way, and he wanted to make the point forcefully that his venture into field preaching, with all that followed from it, was nothing less than an irresistible call from God to take the gospel "into the highway and hedges, which none else will do;" to "go out in God's name into the most public places, and call on all to repent and believe the gospel."5 The evangelistic question which immediately follows from this confes- 7 sion is, What made him do it? And following close on this is the corollary, Why did he continue to do it? The answer does not lie in the Aldersgate Street experience. Not only do we have instances before May 24th, 1738, of his preaching the gospel in such a way as to be banned from pulpits for so doing.6 We also have, in the weeks and months following Aldersgate Street, a clear demonstration that he was not sufficiently sure of what had happened that evening to make it the center of a message which he could take to the keel men of Newcastle, the harlots of Drury Lane, to say nothing of the mobs which were soon to threaten him and his assistants.7 However much the assurance he received that evening might have empowered him as a leader of the eighteenth century Revival, it does not explain his particular strength as an evangelist, nor that of the early Methodist societies. If we are to learn from Wesley the evangelist, we must take the word evangelism at its face value, and ask what was the good news which God commissioned him to take to the people of eighteenth century England. For of one thing all true evangelists quickly become convinced: that the only sustaining motivation for reaching out to people with the gospel is the impelling power of the Holy Spirit. And this comes most readily when the evangelist fulfills the proper role of messenger, handing over to the world that which has been entrusted to all evangelists from the very beginning. By thus honoring the proper evangelistic calling, the evangelist is in turn honored by the God who has commissioned the task. Put differently, when the true gospel is truly proclaimed, the evangelist finds an indwelling and outpouring of spiritual power which render questions of evangelistic motivation — and method, for that matter — altogether secondary. Such, at least, is the inference we can draw from the formative years of Wesley's evangelistic ministry; for such is the implication of his own edited narrative of that period of his life. The Journal for these months leaves us with an overwhelming sense, not only of a personal search for faith, but also of a theological quest, which matched and then superseded his inward spiritual inquiry. With the true instinct of an evangelist, it quickly became his concern to render the gospel which had so changed his own life into plain truth for plain people, by discerning its essential message of good news, and then proclaiming it far and wide. Significantly, the question which occupied Wesley during this formative theological quest was the doctrine of justification by faith. It is interesting first of all to note that, in his conversations in Georgia with Spangenberg and Toltschig, and in the summary of his pilgrimage leading to May 24th, 1738, the word which is used almost exclusively to describe his spiritual quest is faith, not justification. Indeed, justification does not appear until the closing paragraphs of the Georgia Journal: This, then, I have learned in the ends of the earth — that I'm fallen short of the glory of God': that my whole heart is 'altogether corrupt and abominable'; and consequently my whole life (seeing it cannot be that an 'evil tree' should 'bring forth good fruit'): that, 'alienated' as I am from the life of God, I am 'a child of wrath,' an heir of hell: that my own works, my own sufferings, my own righteousness, are so far from reconciling me to an offended God. so far from making any atonement for the least 8 of those sins, which 'are more in number than the hairs of my head,' that the most specious of them need an atonement themselves, or they cannot abide His righteous judgment: that 'having the sentence of death' in my heart, and having nothing in or of myself to plead, I have no hope, but that of being justified freely, 'through the redemption that is in Jesus'; I have no hope, but that if I seek I shall find Christ, and 'be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.'8 As Martin Schmidt observes, the "problem of justification, having been 80 clearly stated, could not again be avoided."9 Not yet clear in Wesley's thinking, however, and not altogether clarified by Schmidt, is the distinction between justification as that which God does for us in Christ, and faith as the sole condition of that justification. At this juncture it was faith, defined in the words of the Anglican tradition as "a sure trust and confidence in God, that, through the merits of Christ, my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favor of God," which remained Wesley's primary concern. But we should note that, even as he described the anguish of his personal faith crisis, he stated the issue circumspectly: I want that faith which none can have without knowing that he hath it (though many imagine they have it, who have it not) . [by which] he is freed from doubt, 'having the love of God shed abroad in his heart, through the Holy Ghost which is given unto him'; which 'Spirit itself beareth witness with his spirit, that he is a child of God."10 As Albert Outler has suggested, Wesley's preoccupations with 'holy living' and 'the means of grace' before 1738 had probably obscured the priority of justifying faith as antecedent to, and the ground of, 'the faith that works by love.'11 What may further obscure the issue in viewing Wesley the evangelist, however, is that his understanding of this ordo salutis came initially through German Pietism rather than his own Anglican or Puritan traditions.12 He was searching for an inward assurance of faith which, when he finally received it, he rightly identified as a gracious work of divine initiative. But this faith, which was the condition of his justification, was not his justification per se, and as we follow his reflections through these early years, we shall observe that this was precisely the distinction he first had to establish for himself, and then make clear to his Anglican and Calvinist critics alike, in order for him to proclaim it with assurance as the good news of salvation for all. We receive the first indication that Wesley the theologian began to supersede Wesley the convert at an early point in the Moravian Journal, where he contrasts Zinzendorf's distinction between justification and the assurance of faith with Bohler's position that knowledge of justification is necessarily part of justification.13 The contrast is not labored; but, as with so much in the Journal, the words should be measured carefully.
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