Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

Key Verse: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV)

Faith (pistis) cannot be limited to mental assent or to believing certain ideas. The Greek noun can mean “faith,” “faithfulness,” “reliability,” “promise,” “pledge,” “proof,” “trust,” and “confidence.” In addition, it can be used of the act of believing, the content of what is believed, or as a word that encapsulates all the gospel stands for—in essence, “the faith religion” (cf. Gal. 3:23; Eph. 4:5). The verb pisteuo can mean “trust,” “give credence to,” “be convinced that,” “entrust,” and “have confidence.” Primarily, this word group treats that on which one may rely or the act of relying on something believed reliable. Both sides of the coin are present—relying on something or someone believed reliable. As always, context—not a catalogue of possibilities—determines meaning. Paul assumes this two-sided nature of faith in his discussions of salvation. Faith is relational, describing reliance on a reliable God. Faith is a covenant word, expressing the commitment and trust that bind two parties together. Throughout Scripture, God by his grace makes promises and commits himself to his people. They in turn are to trust those promises and live in light of them. God shows himself faithful and people are to respond in faithfulness. To say “I have faith” does not so much say anything about oneself; rather it says, “God is a trustworthy God.”1 Questions:  Does the meaning of “faith” change for you realizing that it is a “covenant word”?

 What does it mean to you that faith is relational?

1 https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/nivac-sample/Eph.2.8-Eph.2.10 (Taken from the NIV Commentary at biblegateway.com) 1 | P a g e

Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

We Are Saved2

What does it mean to be saved and to be assured of salvation? It's to know that after feeling lost and alone, we've been found by God. It's to know that after feeling worthless, we've been redeemed. It's to experience a reunion with God, others, the natural world, and our own best selves. It's a healing of the alienation—the estrangement—we've experienced. In salvation we become whole. Salvation happens to us both now and for the future. It's "eternal life," that new quality of life in unity with God of which the Gospel of John speak—-a life that begins not at death, but in the present. But how does salvation happen?

By grace through faith

Salvation cannot be earned. There's no behavior, no matter how holy or righteous, by which we can achieve salvation. Rather, it's the gift of a gracious God.

By grace we mean God's extraordinary love for us. In most of life we're accustomed to earning approval from others. This is true at school, at work, in society, even at home—to a degree. We may feel that we have to act "just so" to be liked or loved. But God's love, or grace, is given without any regard for our goodness. It's unmerited, unconditional, and unending love.

As we come to accept this love, to entrust ourselves to it, and to ground our lives in it, we discover the wholeness that God has promised. This trust, as we've seen, is called faith. God takes the initiative in grace; but only as we respond through faith is the change wrought in us.

This is the great theme of the Protestant Reformers, as well as and the Methodists who followed: We're saved by grace alone through faith alone. We're made whole and reconciled by the love of God as we receive it and trust in it.

Conversion

This process of salvation involves a change in us that we call conversion. Conversion is a turning around, leaving one orientation for another. It may be sudden and dramatic, or gradual and cumulative. But in any case it's a new beginning. Following

2 From United Methodist Member's Handbook, Revised by George Koehler (Discipleship Resources, 2006), pp. 78-79. (http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/we-are-saved) 2 | P a g e

Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

Jesus' words to Nicodemus, "You must be born anew" (John 3:7 RSV), we speak of this conversion as rebirth, new life in Christ, or regeneration.

Following Paul and Luther, John Wesley called this process . Justification is what happens when Christians abandon all those vain attempts to justify themselves before God, to be seen as "just" in God's eyes through religious and moral practices. It's a time when God's "justifying grace" is experienced and accepted, a time of pardon and forgiveness, of new peace and joy and love. Indeed, we're justified by God's grace through faith.

Justification is also a time of repentance -- turning away from behaviors rooted in sin and toward actions that express God's love. In this conversion we can expect to receive of our present salvation through the Holy Spirit "bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (Romans 8:16).

Growing in grace

Conversion is but the beginning of the new life of wholeness. Through what Wesley called God's "sanctifying grace," we can continue to grow. In fact, Wesley affirmed, we're to press on, with God's help, in the path of , the gift of . The goal of the sanctified life is to be perfected in love, to experience the pure love of God and others, a holiness of heart and life, a total death to sin. We're not there yet; but by God's grace, as we United Methodists say, "We’re going on to perfection!"

Questions:  How do you describe salvation? o Did your definition or description of salvation change after reading Believe, Chapter 3? o Did your definition or description of salvation change after reading the above article from the United Methodist Member's Handbook?

 What does it mean that “Salvation cannot be earned”?

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 What is your understanding of grace?

 Why do you think Martin Luther and John Wesley placed such an emphasis on “We're saved by grace alone through faith alone”?

Grace3

Grace is central to our understanding of Christian faith and life.

Grace can be defined as the love and mercy given to us by God because God wants us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it. We read in the Letter to the Ephesians: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Our United Methodist heritage is rooted in a deep and profound understanding of God’s grace. This incredible grace flows from God’s great love for us. Did you have to memorize John 3:16 in Sunday school when you were a child? There was a good reason. This one verse summarizes the gospel: “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.” The ability to call to mind God’s love and God’s gift of Jesus Christ is a rich resource for theology and faith.”

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, described God’s grace as threefold:

 justifying grace  sanctifying grace

3 http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/our-wesleyan-heritage 4 | P a g e

Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

Prevenient Grace

Wesley understood grace as God’s active presence in our lives. This presence is not dependent on human actions or human response. It is a gift — a gift that is always available, but that can be refused.

God’s grace stirs up within us a desire to know God and empowers us to respond to God’s invitation to be in relationship with God. God’s grace enables us to discern differences between good and evil and makes it possible for us to choose good….

God takes the initiative in relating to humanity. We do not have to beg and plead for God’s love and grace. God actively seeks us!1

Justifying Grace

Paul wrote to the church in Corinth: “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). And in his letter to the Roman Christians, Paul wrote: “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

These verses demonstrate the justifying grace of God. They point to reconciliation, pardon, and restoration. Through the work of God in Christ our sins are forgiven, and our relationship with God is restored. According to John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, the image of God — which has been distorted by sin — is renewed within us through Christ’s death.

Again, this dimension of God’s grace is a gift. God’s grace alone brings us into relationship with God. There are no hoops through which we have to jump in order to please God and to be loved by God. God has acted in Jesus Christ. We need only to respond in faith.1

Conversion

This process of salvation involves a change in us that we call conversion. Conversion is a turning around, leaving one orientation for another. It may be sudden and dramatic, or gradual and cumulative. But in any case, it’s a new beginning. Following Jesus’ words to Nicodemus, “You must be born anew” (John 3:7 RSV), we speak of this conversion as rebirth, new life in Christ, or regeneration.

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Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

Following Paul and Luther, John Wesley called this process justification. Justification is what happens when Christians abandon all those vain attempts to justify themselves before God, to be seen as “just” in God’s eyes through religious and moral practices. It’s a time when God’s “justifying grace” is experienced and accepted, a time of pardon and forgiveness, of new peace and joy and love. Indeed, we’re justified by God’s grace through faith.

Justification is also a time of repentance — turning away from behaviors rooted in sin and toward actions that express God’s love. In this conversion we can expect to receive assurance of our present salvation through the Holy Spirit “bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16).2

Sanctifying Grace

Salvation is not a static, one-time event in our lives. It is the ongoing experience of God’s gracious presence transforming us into whom God intends us to be. John Wesley described this dimension of God’s grace as sanctification, or holiness.1

Through God’s sanctifying grace, we grow and mature in our ability to live as Jesus lived. As we pray, study the Scriptures, fast, worship, and share in fellowship with other Christians, we deepen our knowledge of and love for God. As we respond with compassion to human need and work for justice in our communities, we strengthen our capacity to love neighbor. Our inner thoughts and motives, as well as our outer actions and behavior, are aligned with God’s will and testify to our union with God. 1

We’re to press on, with God’s help, in the path of sanctification toward perfection. By perfection, Wesley did not mean that we would not make mistakes or have weaknesses. Rather, he understood it to be a continual process of being made perfect in our love of God and each other and of removing our desire to sin.

Questions:  As the article above states “Grace is central to our understanding of Christian faith and life.” Why do you think John Wesley placed such an emphasis on grace?

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Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

 John Wesley “understood grace as God’s active presence in our lives.” What does this really mean for us today?

 What are the types of grace? What is your understanding of each type?

 Do we move from one type of grace to another in a linear fashion or can each type of grace be part faith journey or can you experience one type at one moment and another type of grace at the same time?

The following pages include additional reading material that was found on the website. These articles can be used for further individual study and reflection.

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Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

Distinctive Wesleyan Emphases4

Although Wesley shared with many other Christians a belief in grace, justification, assurance, and sanctification, he combined them in a powerful manner to create distinctive emphases for living the full Christian life. The Evangelical United Brethren tradition, particularly as expressed by Phillip William Otterbein from a Reformed background, gave similar distinctive emphases.

Grace pervades our understanding of Christian faith and life. By grace we mean the undeserved, unmerited, and loving action of God in human existence through the ever-present Holy Spirit. While the grace of God is undivided, it precedes salvation as "prevenient grace," continues in "justifying grace," and is brought to fruition in "sanctifying grace."

We assert that God's grace is manifest in all creation even though suffering, violence, and evil are everywhere present. The goodness of creation is fulfilled in human beings, who are called to covenant partnership with God. God has endowed us with dignity and freedom and has summoned us to responsibility for our lives and the life of the world.

In God's self-revelation, Jesus Christ, we see the splendor of our true humanity. Even our sin, with its destructive consequences for all creation, does not alter God's intention for us—holiness and happiness of heart. Nor does it diminish our accountability for the way we live.

Despite our brokenness, we remain creatures brought into being by a just and merciful God. The restoration of God's image in our lives requires divine grace to renew our fallen nature.

Prevenient Grace

We acknowledge God's prevenient grace, the divine love that surrounds all humanity and precedes any and all of our conscious impulses. This grace prompts our first wish to please God, our first glimmer of understanding concerning God's will, and our "first slight transient conviction" of having sinned against God.

4 http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/distinctive-wesleyan-emphases1 (Taken from The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church -— 2012. Copyright 2012 by The United Methodist Publishing House.) 8 | P a g e

Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

God's grace also awakens in us an earnest longing for deliverance from sin and death and moves us toward repentance and faith.

Justification and Assurance

We believe God reaches out to the repentant believer in justifying grace with accepting and pardoning love. stresses that a decisive change in the human heart can and does occur under the prompting of grace and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

In justification we are, through faith, forgiven our sin and restored to God's favor. This righting of relationships by God through Christ calls forth our faith and trust as we experience regeneration, by which we are made new creatures in Christ.

This process of justification and new birth is often referred to as conversion. Such a change may be sudden and dramatic, or gradual and cumulative. It marks a new beginning, yet it is part of an ongoing process. Christian experience as personal transformation always expresses itself as faith working by love.

Our Wesleyan theology also embraces the scriptural promise that we can expect to receive assurance of our present salvation as the Spirit "bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God."

Sanctification and Perfection

We hold that the wonder of God's acceptance and pardon does not end God's saving work, which continues to nurture our growth in grace. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to increase in the knowledge and love of God and in love for our neighbor.

New birth is the first step in this process of sanctification. Sanctifying grace draws us toward the gift of Christian perfection, which Wesley described as a heart "habitually filled with the love of God and neighbor" and as "having the mind of Christ and walking as he walked."

This gracious gift of God's power and love, the hope and expectation of the faithful, is neither warranted by our efforts nor limited by our frailties.

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Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

Faith and

We see God's grace and human activity working together in the relationship of faith and good works. God's grace calls forth human response and discipline.

Faith is the only response essential for salvation. However, the General Rules remind us that salvation evidences itself in good works. For Wesley, even repentance should be accompanied by "fruits meet for repentance," or works of piety and mercy.

Both faith and good works belong within an all-encompassing theology of grace, since they stem from God's gracious love "shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit."

Mission and Service

We insist that personal salvation always involves Christian mission and service to the world. By joining heart and hand, we assert that personal religion, evangelical witness, and Christian social action are reciprocal and mutually reinforcing.

Scriptural holiness entails more than personal piety; love of God is always linked with love of neighbor, a passion for justice and renewal in the life of the world.

The General Rules represent one traditional expression of the intrinsic relationship between Christian life and thought as understood within the Wesleyan tradition. Theology is the servant of piety, which in turn is the ground of social conscience and the impetus for social action and global interaction, always in the empowering context of the reign of God.

Nurture and Mission of the Church

Finally, we emphasize the nurturing and serving function of Christian fellowship in the Church. The personal experience of faith is nourished by the worshiping community.

For Wesley there is no religion but social religion, no holiness but social holiness. The communal forms of faith in the Wesleyan tradition not only promote personal growth; they also equip and mobilize us for mission and service to the world.

The outreach of the church springs from the working of the Spirit. As United Methodists, we respond to that working through a connectional polity based upon

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Believe Chapter 3: Salvation mutual responsiveness and accountability. Connectional ties bind us together in faith and service in our global witness, enabling faith to become active in love and intensifying our desire for peace and justice in the world.

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Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

Do United Methodists believe “once saved, always saved” or can we “lose our salvation”?5

A short, but very incomplete answer, is that our Church teaches we can end up "losing" the salvation God has begun in us, and the consequence of this in the age to come is our eternal destruction in Hell. God freely grants us new birth and initiates us into the body of Christ in baptism. The profession of our faith and growth in holiness are necessary for God's saving grace to continue its work in us, and both of these are things we must do for our love to be genuine and not compelled. We thus remain free to resist God's grace, to revert to spiritual torpor, and possibly experience spiritual death and Hell as its consequence.

I call this a very incomplete answer because it does not actually answer the question in the way it is usually framed, or the meaning of the terms in that framing.

There are several problems with the question itself from the perspective of Wesleyan and Arminian theology. Above all, "once saved, always saved" is simply not part of our theological vocabulary or world-view. It is a kind of Americanized short- hand for the fifth of the core theological principles of Calvinist theology (perseverance of the saints) articulated by the Synod of Dort (1618-1619). Those principles are often summarized in English under the acronym TULIP. They are:

Total Depravity: Humankind has been utterly ruined by the Fall to the point that there is no good and no possibility for redemption anywhere in us. We merit and can merit nothing but wrath and destruction. This means that only a Sovereign God acting in Sovereignty can deliver us from an eternal destiny in Hell. There is absolutely nothing we can do ourselves to contribute to or take away from God's activity to save us.

Unconditional Election: As such, God's decision to save us can be and is based on no conditions we can or

5 The Rev. Taylor Burton-Edwards is Director of Worship Resources with the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church, and an in the North Indiana Conference. (http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/do-united-methodists-believe-once-saved-always-saved) 12 | P a g e

Believe Chapter 3: Salvation could ever generate. God has chosen, based on God's own criteria, whom to save and whom not to save, long before we were ever born.

Limited Atonement: God created the means to deliver us from the merited consequences of our total depravity through the death of Jesus, his Son, on the cross. On the cross, Jesus suffered the consequences of God's just wrath and judgment on behalf of all whom God had elected for salvation, but only for these.

Irresistible Grace: Just as there is nothing humanity can to do change our depraved state, there is also nothing those who have been elect can do to resist the gracious initiative and power of God to bring them to salvation through what God had accomplished for them in the atonement.

Perseverance of the Saints: The result of all the above is that those whom God has elected to salvation and acted to save in the atonement and in the ongoing and irresistible work of the Spirit cannot but actually "persevere unto the end," that is, those who are elect cannot help but be faithful and thus experience the promised salvation.

To be sure, not everyone who has followed a "generally" Calvinist theology has followed all "five points" of the Synod of Dort. Perhaps the majority of Calvinists in the United States have adopted a modified version of this account of God's saving activity, most frequently by eliminating, de-emphasizing, or modifying "double predestination" (that is, that God had ordained both who would be saved and who would be damned), limited atonement (emphasizing that Christ had died for all, and that all thus potentially could be saved), and irresistible grace (opting for some limited role for free will).

Often, too, in making these accommodations, the understanding of salvation has been radically altered. In classic Calvinism, God saves and our participation is entirely in God's control, not in ours if at all. There is thus simply no way that one can speak coherently in such a framework of anyone either "gaining" or "losing" salvation, because salvation is simply not ours to possess or control in any way. We can in a very real sense neither gain nor lose it. But in many modified forms, salvation is indeed something we can possess by agreeing to or, more often, verbally confessing or offering prayers that confess certain beliefs at some point in our lives. If one has ever said such words, one is saved now and always.

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Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

The theology of John Wesley, however, follows more closely a different strand of theology in the Western and the Orthodox (Eastern) tradition that understands salvation is both something God does and in which we cooperate, though not as equals by any means. Only God can initiate salvation. But only by our ongoing, living relationship with God through faith can God's saving intention be fully realized in our lives.

John Wesley particularly identified his understanding of salvation with the theology and writings of the seventeenth century Dutch theologian, Jacob Arminius, against whose teaching the Synod of Dort was called and its Canons (the TULIP principles described above) were articulated. While Arminius was Reformed, he was far more convinced by the mainstream Roman Catholic theology which spoke of human free will and limited human cooperation in salvation, dissenting strongly from what was already becoming and later would become the standard of Reformed theology in his country.

Arminius, like Calvin and all of classical Christianity, affirmed that there is nothing humans can do to initiate salvation. Only God can do this, and God does so unconditionally, and for all, not just a limited number of the pre-selected. Christ's saving activity in his life, death and resurrection was thus potentially effective for all. Only faith, which is an exercise of our will, under the influence of divine grace, is required of us. Such faith and responsiveness to God grace, revealed in our works, but not caused by them, keeps us "in grace." This means it is possible for us to "fall from grace," a phrase he borrows from verses in Hebrews 6 and 10, by not sustaining our faith. A lapse in our works can be a sign, but again is not a cause, of such a fall from grace. The consequences, if our error is not corrected, can be spiritual death and eternity in Hell.

Though perhaps the most popular publication John Wesley produced during his lifetime was called "The Arminian," he sharply disagreed with Arminius on one point. Arminius had concluded that if a person had fallen from grace and into a state of spiritual death after having had an experience of conversion (whether that was understood to have occurred through baptism or to be heightened or awakened in a personal experience or affirmation later in life) there was no further hope for salvation. Wesley rejected this. Both experience and scripture told him otherwise. He addressed this at greatest length in his sermon, "A Call to Backsliders."

In this sermon Wesley tackles the Arminian argument on the grounds of both scripture and experience.

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Believe Chapter 3: Salvation

Wesley notes that the penalty of eternal separation from God with no hope of return applies in scripture only in two cases-either, as in Hebrews 6 and 10, to persons who willfully, publically and explicitly reject Jesus as Savior after having confessed him, or, as in the gospels, to those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit by declaring that the works of Jesus were the works of the Evil one. He then turns the question to his hearers: "Now, which of you has thus fallen away? Which of you has thus 'crucified the Son of God afresh?' Not one: Nor has one of you thus 'put him to an open shame.'" The penalty of there being no more sacrifice for sins thus cannot apply to the vast majority of those who have indeed fallen into spiritual decline, and perhaps close to or even into spiritual death, but have not in fact committed these atrocities.

The first paragraph of Wesley's argument from experience is worth repeating in it’s entirely (emphasis added). Acting as his own interviewer, Wesley writes:

Do you know, have you seen, any instance of persons who found redemption in the blood of Jesus, and afterwards fell away, and yet were restored, -- 'renewed again to repentance?' “Yea, verily; and not one, or an hundred only, but, I am persuaded, several thousands. In every place where the arm of the Lord has been revealed, and many sinners converted to God, there are several found who "turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them." For a great part of these "it had been better never to have known the way of righteousness." It only increases their damnation, seeing they die in their sins. But others there are who "look unto him they have pierced, and mourn," refusing to be comforted. And, sooner or later, he surely lifts up the light of his countenance upon them; he strengthens the hands that hang down, and confirms the feeble knees; he teaches them again to say, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Savior." Innumerable are the instances of this kind, of those who had fallen, but now stand upright. Indeed, it is so far from being an uncommon thing for a believer to fall and be restored, that it is rather uncommon to find any believers who are not conscious of having been backsliders from God, in a higher or lower degree, and perhaps more than once, before they were established in faith.

Does this mean that it is impossible for persons to fall so far from grace once received that they will never end up in Hell? By no means. Hell is surely the potential destination for all who are not living into "that holiness without which no one can see God" (Hebrews 12:14, a phrase frequently quoted in the sermons and journals of John Wesley). His point is that despite whatever the condition of our souls may be, God is always calling, always wooing, always pleading, and always

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Believe Chapter 3: Salvation working and leaving the way open for our faith to be renewed, our hearts to be quickened by grace, and our souls to be brought to life and health again.

In our Wesleyan-Arminian theology, as in all mainstream Christian theology, salvation still isn't ours to possess. It is always and only God who saves. In that sense we cannot "lose" salvation. But we can "fall away" from it. Or to use another metaphor, we can move so far from the saving streams of God's love and power that we parch and spiritually die. The consistent focus of Wesley's teaching, however, is far less the warning about the possibility of such death and thus ultimately Hell (though he does not shrink from offering such warnings upon occasion, even as noted in the quote above), but rather upon the consistent, unfailing grace of the God revealed in Scripture and in the person of Jesus Christ, the God who is abounding in mercy and steadfast love.

Once saved, always saved? No. We're not Calvinists. We don't believe God has orchestrated the world and the universe to make that the necessary outcome for some limited number of the pre-selected. And we're not reducing salvation to a propositional transaction, as some forms of American Protestant proclamation has done, so that once we believe and say certain things, no matter what else happens, we "have" salvation and can never "lose" it.

Perhaps the better phrase, though one Wesley himself did not use, would be one that starts where Calvin starts-not with us (as once saved, always saved often seems to do), but with God. "God is out to save us, one and all." Though we have no faith we can articulate, God is out to save us, one and all. Though our faith may grow dim and our works disorderly, God is out to save us, one and all. Though we may lose our way and do terrible things to others, God is out to save us, one and all. And though for some God's efforts to save may still leave them in spiritual death and Hell, God is out to save us, one and all.

Once saved, always saved? No. But always, always called to the fullness of God's salvation. And always, always loved.

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