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"A Present Salvation" Ephesians 4:17-24 17Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord; you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. 18They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. 19They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20That is not the way you learned Christ! 21For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. 22You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, 23and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. In 1771 John Wesley sent a 26 year old former blacksmith to America to promote the Methodist revival in the colonies. Five feet nine inches tall with flaming fair hair and bright blue eyes, Francis Asbury was an introspective man who carried himself with dignity. Wearing light blue clothing he traveled up and down the East Coast preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ with its distinctive Methodist emphases. Asbury noted in his journal that the main thing that distinguished the Methodists’ message from the message of other kinds of evangelists was that the Methodists preached "a present salvation." In the beginning of the Methodist movement the phrase "a present salvation" was a kind of slogan that indicated what was distinctive about the Methodists’ interpretation of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ. What the Methodists emphasized was the experience of God’s saving power here and now. The phrase "a present salvation" came from John Wesley. In one of Mr. Wesley’s essays, "A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion," he gives the definition of salvation: "By salvation I mean, not barely, according to the vulgar notion, deliverance from hell, or going to heaven; but a present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity; a recovery of the divine nature; the renewal of our souls after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, in justice, mercy, and truth. This implies all holy and heavenly tempers, and, by consequence, all holiness of conversation. Now, if by salvation we mean a present salvation from sin, we cannot say, holiness is the condition of it; for [holiness] is the thing itself. Salvation, in this sense, and holiness, are synonymous terms. We must therefore say, ‘we are saved by faith.’ Faith is the sole condition of this salvation. For without faith we cannot be saved. But whoever [believes] is saved already." In this theologically thick, but lucid, explication Mr. Wesley has given us his understanding of salvation as a present work of God in our lives. The Wesleyan emphasis upon salvation as being present is needed today as much as ever. If you ask a person on the street what it means to be saved, then she or he is likely to think of going to heaven after you die. The controversy in the Christian community over whether or not we should believe in "universal salvation" indicates a preoccupation with salvation as our future destiny beyond death. It never occurs to many to think of salvation as a present reality. The famed biblical scholar of the 19th century, B.F. Wescott, was once accosted by a young woman in the Salvation Army. She asked him in the street, "Are you saved?" He replied, "Do you mean sōzomenos, sōtheis, or sesōmenos?” I don’t know what she must have thought, but I am sure she had never gotten an answer like that! Wescott was referring to the different ways salvation is described in the Greek New Testament. He was asking her, “Well, do you mean ‘Am I being saved?’ or ‘Am I saved?’ or ‘Shall I be saved’?" In the New Testament all references to salvation are essential: Salvation by Jesus Christ is described as being past, future, and present. Salvation may be understood as past if we think of what God has done for us in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Salvation may be understood as future if we think of the promise of resurrection to eternal life to those who believe in Christ. And, salvation may be understood as being present for all of us who participate in a new creation now by our faith in Jesus Christ through the energy of the Holy Spirit. Surely, it is the case that in the preaching and teaching of many Christian churches there is far more emphasis upon salvation as being present. In the Epistle to the Ephesians there is a decided emphasis upon a present salvation. The author of the Epistle exclaims that we who are Christians are no longer like the pagans who are ignorant of God’s truth and will. No, the author exclaims, we were taught to put away our old self and to be renewed in our minds and to put on a new self now. We are to become the persons we were created to be, those created to be like God in righteousness and holiness. In his commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians in his "Notes on the New Testament" Mr. Wesley described the church as "the theatre of divine wisdom; right now we are playing our role in the drama of God’s salvation of the human race in the theatre of the church." In order to put Mr. Wesley’s emphasis upon present salvation in context, we need to remember what he called "the analogy of faith." He discusses "the analogy of faith" in his "Notes on the Authorized Translations of Romans" 12:6 where the apostle Paul says, "let us prophesy according to the analogy of faith." For Mr. Wesley the analogy of faith is a framework for interpreting Scriptures in our preaching and teaching. Wesley understands the analogy of faith to be a correspondence among three of the great themes of Christian doctrine. The three themes of doctrine are original sin, justification by faith, and present, inward salvation. These three themes in "the grand scheme of doctrine" are all interrelated. Original sin is the doctrine that all human beings have fallen from the glory of God, or all human beings need to be restored to the image and likeness of God in which we are created. Justification by faith is the doctrine that we human beings are unable to recover the image and likeness of God, but we can receive from God forgiveness and power to be restored to the image and likeness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Through faith in Christ we are justified or made right in our relationship with God. Present, inward salvation, then, is the actual recovery of true nature as persons created in the image of God. If salvation corresponds to original sin and justification by faith, then it is about something happening to us right now, what Mr. Wesley described as "a present deliverance from sin," "the renewal of our souls after the image of God," and a holiness of life. A present salvation assumes that the Christian life is a dynamic process. It is the experience of always being transformed by the grace of God as the Holy Spirit works within us. The transformation of our lives begins with a new birth. According to Mr. Wesley, when we are justified by faith we are also regenerated. Justification is what God does for us; because of Christ’s death on the cross, we who trust in him are forgiven our sins and reconciled to God. Regeneration is what God does in us. We begin to receive the power of God to be restored to the image of God. Mr. Wesley calls the beginning of regeneration a new birth. This new birth is "a vast inward change" that takes place in the soul. The new birth consists of the awakening of our spiritual senses so that we can know God and the things of God. In one of his sermons on the new birth Mr. Wesley compares the new birth with natural birth. He says before a child is born, when it is still in the womb, it has no senses. It cannot feel the air, it cannot hear much, it cannot see anything in the darkness of the womb. But when the child is born into the world, all of its sense are awakened. Now it can feel the air which surrounds it. It can perceive the light which discloses an infinite number of wonders. It can hear all the different sounds which rush into its ears. In the same manner, when we repent of our sin and put our trust in Christ, through the power of the Spirit we experience the awakening of our spiritual senses. We feel the presence of God in whom we live and move and have our being. We see the light of God’s truth. We hear the call of God in our hearts as the direct impact of God’s Word to us. This new birth is necessary because without it we are not sensible of God and the things of God. Is this experience of new birth instantaneous or gradual? It may be either, but in any case it is definite. If a child is to be born, then it must actually come into the world to live. If a person is to be born anew spiritually, then she or he must actually be awakened by faith. According to Mr. Wesley, the question is not how we are born anew but whether we are born of God now. The question is, he said, "What are you now?" Inviting people to experience a new birth now was a major emphasis of the preaching of Mr. Wesley and the early Methodist preachers. I doubt that it is a major emphasis in our preaching today, but our preaching is deficient if we do not show people the door into the Christian life. Those who are not yet Christians may be inspired by our description of what it means to live the Christian life, but they will not know how to enter it unless we regularly show the door to enter the Christian life. That door is the experience of a new birth through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. I call the new birth an ontological possibility. By that I mean that the living God has so structured our relationship to God that it is really possible for anyone to become a new being, a new self, a new person. Through what God has done for the human race in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has changed the nature of our relationship to God. Moreover, God has given the Holy Spirit so that anyone who believes in Jesus Christ will receive power to enter into the new relationship between God and us. When we trust in Christ, we receive the Spirit who gives us a birth into a new being. When we show people that a new birth is an ontological possibility and teach them to expect it, many will say, "If it is really possible to experience a new birth as a person, then that is what I want. I do not want to miss receiving this mysterious and marvelous gift of God." The transformation of our lives begins with the new birth, but it continues in a growth toward maturity. We are born anew in order to live anew! Indeed, Mr. Wesley said that the goal of our new life is Christian perfection. As was said about another theologian, when Mr. Wesley started talking about Christian perfection it was like dropping a bomb on the playground of the theologians! "What do you mean?" they asked, "Do you believe that Christians can actually become perfect?" Let’s admit it: Wesley’s idea of Christian perfection is hard to explain. But before we explain it, let’s be aware that Mr. Wesley’s talk about Christian perfection would not have been unusual to Eastern Orthodox Christians. The spiritual literature of Eastern Christianity is filled with the language of perfection. Scholars today argue about just exactly how much Mr. Wesley learned from the Fathers of the Eastern Church about perfection. Whether or not he learned his views from the Eastern Church, one of the most creative contributions Mr. Wesley made to the Western Church was to re-introduce the concept of Christian perfection. By "perfection" Mr. Wesley did not mean that a person can be free from ignorance, mistakes, natural weaknesses or temptation. What he meant is that the goal of our lives is to love God and our neighbors in all that we feel, think, say and do. Mr. Wesley, said, Christian perfection "is nothing higher and nothing lower than this: the pure love of God and man – the loving God with all our heart and soul and our neighbors as ourselves. It is love governing the heart and life, running through all our tempers, words, and actions." He believed that it was possible to become perfect in this sense right now. Yet if one experiences this state of perfection by the power of the Holy Spirit, then it will not last. The Spirit will begin to reveal some sin in the depths of our consciousness, and then we shall have to continue to grow again. As Albert Outler put it, Mr. Wesley did not teach that Christian perfection means "fulfilled and finished," but it means "up to par thus far." Clearly, Wesley was using a very nuanced meaning of the word "perfection." Yet it is an apt word, a challenging word, and an attractive word because it points to the goal toward which we are called by the Spirit of God in a dynamic process of present salvation. The key to understanding Christian perfection is to keep our focus upon love. Growing toward perfection is loving God and loving our neighbors. Love is the sum of holiness that is salvation. Because love is the substance of salvation, our holiness must be both inner and outer, personal and social. We are growing in our love of God, which involves worship, contemplation and prayer, and the practice of spiritual disciplines. We are growing in love of others, which involves kind attitudes, respectful speech, and works of service. It also requires us to engage in actions in the public arena of ministering to the poor, witnessing to justice in the economic, political and judicial spheres. It involves working to make peace in a world of ethnic hatreds and war. In his book on Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion, Marshall B. Rosenberg explains how we can learn to practice what he calls NVC or nonviolent communication. (Mr. Wesley would like this book because he emphasized the importance of holy conversation, and he warned against "evil-speaking.") Rosenberg described an experience he had while he was leading a seminar in a refugee camp for 170 Palestinian Muslim men. As he was speaking, he became distracted by a commotion among the men. His translator explained what was happening: "They are whispering that you are an American." One man jumped to his feet and began to holler at the top of his lungs, "Murderer!" Others joined in, calling him "Assassin!" "Child-killer!" "Murderer!" Rosenberg remembered seeing some tear gas canisters that had been shot into the camp the night before; clearly marked on each canister were the words "Made in the U.S.A." Then he realized these refugees harbored a lot of anger for the U.S. for supplying tear gas and other weapons to Israel. Rosenberg began to address the man who had called him a murderer. He asked him some questions to let the man express his pain and his anger. They dialogued for about 20 minutes. Rosenberg simply listened for the feeling and need behind every statement the man made. He didn’t agree or disagree. Rosenberg said, "I received his words, not as attacks, but as gifts from a fellow human willing to share his soul and vulnerabilities with me." Once the man felt understood, he was able to hear Rosenberg explain the purpose for being at the camp. An hour later, the same man who called him a murderer was inviting Rosenberg to his home for a Ramadan dinner. This little vignette is a reminder of how much this present world needs to experience a present salvation of love of God and of neighbors. As Theodore Runyan stated in his book on Mr. Wesley’s theology, The New Creation, "Perfection is not so much for the self or for our sakes as for the fulfillment of the vocation to which we are called, to image and to reflect to others that we have received and are receiving from God." Let us pray for the present salvation in the words of Charles Wesley’s hymn: "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling":
Reprinted from the May 2003 Virginia United Methodist Advocate
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