Entire sanctification? I think Wesleyan-holiness types use that terminology more than Methodists would. I think they would use “Christian perfection” or “perfect love” or something like that. I think Wesley used all of these terms, but the Wesleyan-holiness churches have given “entire sanctification” a meaning that was somewhat different than what Wesley meant.
Wesley also stated in a letter to his brother that he, quote, “never loved God.” See this from Wesley’s biography.
It’s a good thing our assurance of salvation does not rest on how we feel from day to day. I have certainly had times in my life where I felt like I didn’t love God and never did. And at other times, I have shared Wesley’s “Aldersgate Experience”:
Well, unless ‘you’ and Charles Wesley have somehow divorced Christ [Jesus] from the rest of the Divinity, ‘your’ feelings and his [in the ‘Aldersgate Experience’] does not make sense at all.
People experience highs and lows in their walk with God. Sometimes we climb the mountain, sometimes we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. People go through depressed states. Our feelings overwhelm us. We can sometimes say overconfident things, and we can at other times say overly depressed things. The point is that no matter how distant from God we feel at any point in our lives or how horrible we feel for the many sins of commission and omission we have done in our lives those feelings are not the barometer by which we measure our standing in Christ. If we are truly in Christ and he in us, then our assurance comes from his faithfulness and not from within ourselves.
Thank you for thinking about my “comfort.” But next time, note that I really despise Elizabethan English and would much rather prefer my Bible translations in more up to date English, such as the ESV translation.
Me, Wesley, and Mother Teresa. I thank God that you have never felt moments like this. You have been truly gifted a profound measure and degree of God’s abiding presence and overflowing goodness. For that I rejoice.
Why do you privilege his letter to his brother over his account of his “Aldersgate Experience” when he felt the love of God? Why must you take one account where Wesley states in the strongest terms possible the depths of his spiritual dryness and say that account rules out every other account where Wesley testified to loving God and knowing that God loved him?
OK, here is the deal. Either we take John Wesley at his word when he writes of both his conversion experience and his never loving God or we disqualify one of these as being disingenuous or we disqualify both of these as being disingenuous. So either John Wesley:
You left out some other possibilities, such as:
I’m not seeing how those are relevant to the situation at hand. In the letter, John Wesley denied ever loving God. This occurred after his conversion experience. So, rather than rejecting any evidence of God’s grace after a conversion experience, what Wesley did was say that he had never had a conversion experience or any inward witness that he was a child of God. This denial of ever having loved God contradicts his earlier statements about having his heart warmed and knowing that Christ had saved him by grace.
People experience highs and lows in their walk with God. Sometimes we climb the mountain, sometimes we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. People go through depressed states. Our feelings overwhelm us. We can sometimes say overconfident things, and we can at other times say overly depressed things. The point is that no matter how distant from God we feel at any point in our lives or how horrible we feel for the many sins of commission and omission we have done in our lives those feelings are not the barometer by which we measure our standing in Christ. If we are truly in Christ and he in us, then our assurance comes from his faithfulness and not from within ourselves.
Did not even Mother Teresa express doubts about God’s existence at the end of her life, and yet the Catholic Church has not seen fit to question the sincerity of her faith. They have even beatified her.
I agree with you. We all go through periods of doubt. To say that we don’t is just being dishonest. I think Wesley was a very honest man. Besides, he was writing to his brother, who was his most trusted confident.
Thank you for thinking about my “comfort.” But next time, note that I really despise Elizabethan English and would much rather prefer my Bible translations in more up to date English, such as the ESV translation.
Me, Wesley, and Mother Teresa. I thank God that you have never felt moments like this. You have been truly gifted a profound measure and degree of God’s abiding presence and overflowing goodness. For that I rejoice.
I never said I wasn’t open to a “TWO-Way love with God.” All I said was that we need not take one moment of despair and spiritual frustration to define someone’s entire spiritual life. Wesley is not God. He is human, and he is entitled to express human emotions, fears and doubts. Who are any of us to judge him for being honest about how he felt at one point in his life? Have we not all felt discouraged or distant from God at some point in our lives?
The statement that Wesley denied ever loving God to begin with sounds like the result of having faith based in emotion and feeling…the proverbial house built on sand. No wonder it all came crashing down in the difficult portions of his life, if all it took for him to “know he was saved by grace” was to “have his heart warmed.”
Lochias–I don’t have time for a longer response, but that’s a pretty ignorant judgment of a remarkable person’s faith on your part.
Amen. John Wesley was a very honest and holy man. Anyone who says they don’t struggle with their faith at times is a liar in my book.
