2016 Holiness Series #5: John Wesley and Christian Perfection

            You may not remember, but we are in a series on holiness.  We have dealt with some other matters for the last several months, but now we are ready to take up again the issue of holiness.

            You may need to look back at previous posts, to remind yourself of what we have covered.  First, we defined holiness not as primarily being good, but being wholly devoted and completely set apart for God.  Then, talked about holiness in the Old Testament and how God created people to be holy, set apart for him, and how he called the nation of Israel to be holy.  Next, we looked at the call to holiness in the New Testament.  Finally, we saw how the early church maintained its holiness under pressure of persecution by the Roman Empire and how holiness was maintained by the monastic movement, monks and nuns, in the midst of the corruption of the church of the Middle Ages. 

Now, we turn our attention to John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, and his view of holiness.  Wesley took seriously the call to holiness found in the Bible and all the verses we have looked at in previous articles.

Never one to beat around the bush, Wesley wrote and preached a sermon with the provocative title: “Christian Perfection” which you can read at http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-40-christian-perfection/.  Wesley, however defines Christian perfection very carefully. 

First, Wesley says that Christians are not so perfect as to be free from imperfections that arise from illness and disability, ignorance, error, or temptation.  As human beings, we will always be limited in these ways.  All of this is a result of what is called original sin, the sin and brokenness we are all born with and that is in the world we are born into.

Next, Wesley talks about how Christians are perfect.  According to Wesley, each and every individual Christian can, by the grace of God working in us and by the power of the Holy Spirit, avoid all willful sin.  To understand this, we need to understand Wesley’s definition of sin, which may be different than the one many of you are carrying around.  For Wesley, as sin is a willful violation of a known law of God.  In order to be a sin, an action has to both be known to be wrong and done on purpose. 

So, here is the good news: You cannot sin by accident.  The bad news is that this raises our level of responsibility and our need for God’s forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ.  We all have physical and mental limitations, but those limitations are not sins. We all make mistakes, but mistakes are not sins, and sins are not mistakes.  We all face temptations, but temptations are not sins, unless we give into them.

Next time we will talk about how to get to holiness, or at least begin the journey to it.