EVALUATION OF TIMOTHY SMITH'S INTERPRETATION OF WESLEY

by
J. Kenneth Grider

In the first number of the 1980 volume of the Wesleyan Theological Journal, Timothy L. Smith continues his reinterpretation of John Wesley-suggesting that Wesley associated being baptized or filled with the Spirit with entire sanctification, and not with justification.

In his article entitled, "How John Fletcher Became the Theologian of Wesleyan Perfectionism, 1770-1776"1 (which article, I feel, might well have been entitled, "Both Wesley and Fletcher Taught Entire Sanctification by Spirit Baptism"), Smith offers further support of the surprising interpretation he gave in the September-November 1979 issue of The Preacher's Magazine, in an article entitled, "The Doctrine of the Sanctifying Spirit in John Wesley and John Fletcher."2

While I myself appreciate the attention which our century's most distinguished Holiness historian has given to Wesley during the past three years or so, I do not read Wesley in the way the Hopkins professor does.

Actually, I wish I could find in Wesley what Smith feels that he finds. I would not at all mind finding that, after all, Wesley was a Wesleyan. Indeed, I would be most heartened to be able to enlist him in support of the Holiness movement teaching that entire sanctification is wrought by the baptism with the Holy Spirit.

Let me show what Smith's reinterpretation is and, in a general way, how he arrives at it-and why I find it unconvincing.

Smith's Reinterpretation

Professor Smith says that "after 1740" Wesley "held up the experience of the apostles at Pentecost as a model of it"-i.e., of "the second moment of sanctifying grace" (p. 70). Suggesting that Wesley may have preceded Fletcher in such an emphasis, Smith's full wording is as follows: "In his early writing and preaching, however, Fletcher may not have emphasized, as Wesley had after 1740, the second moment of sanctifying grace, nor held up the experience of the apostles at Pentecost as a model of it" (p. 70).

Discounting the understanding that "'baptized with,'" "'filled with,' " and " 'receiving' " the Holy Spirit are interchangeable in Acts (as I think they are), and saying that to view them as such is what, "Recently, several New Testament scholars have come to believe" (p. 71), Smith says that Wesley agreed with Benson and Fletcher's preaching that the 120 disciples of Christ experienced the grace of entire sanctification when they were " 'filled with the Holy Spirit' on the morning of Pentecost Day" (p. 72). Smith says that to understand, instead, that Wesley viewed what happened that day to the 120 as justification ". . . will not square at all with the long record of Wesley's teaching . . ." (p. 72). Smith says this in response to Wesley's quite apparent association of Pentecost with justification in a December 28, 1770 letter to Joseph Benson in which Wesley wrote: "If they [the students at Trevecca College] like to call this 'receiving the Holy Ghost,' they may: only the phrase in that sense is not scriptural and not quite proper, for they all 'received the Holy Ghost' when they were justified" (p. 71).

Smith disallows this clear statement of Wesley from meaning what it must surely mean, in great part because of another letter written to Benson three months later, in which Wesley, not now discussing whether Pentecost was the entire sanctification of the 120, but another subject altogether (the witness of the Spirit), says: " 'I believe that one that is perfected in love, or filled with the Holy Ghost, may be properly termed a father' " (p. 72). Since this is the only statement of Wesley that I know of in which Wesley seems to equate being "perfected in love" with being "filled with the Spirit," and since it is directly opposed to what he wrote to Benson earlier, and since it is directly opposed to Wesley's various comments on Acts passages in his Notes Upon the New Testament (and, actually, on other bases as well), 1 interpret this seeming equation differently from the way Smith does. I interpret the "perfected in love" to be Wesley's own way of referring to entire sanctification; and I see the phrase "or filled with the Holy Ghost" to be a courteous way of referring to entire sanctification in wording that Benson (and Fletcher) would use. It is as though he might well have added, for clarity, "or, as you and Mr. Fletcher would say, filled with the Holy Ghost. " In this, I am using a principle, in interpreting Wesley, which he and many others have properly used to interpret Scripture: that of bringing the possible isolated meaning into agreement with the evident general-tenor meaning-and interpreting the difficult passage in keeping with the passages whose meaning is clear.3

Wesley's Teaching in the Notes

Smith only barely refers to Wesley's comments in the Notes, preferring instead to approach from other standpoints the matter of whether Wesley taught that entire sanctification is wrought by the baptism with the Holy Spirit. This is so of both Smith's 1980 WTS Journal article, and the article which appeared in the Fall of 1979 in the Preacher's Magazine. The special problem with this kind of approach is that Smith is required to work almost exclusively with evidence that is not crystal-clear. It requires him especially to treat and to reinterpret Wesley and Fletcher's on-going discussion of their difference during a time when both men were doing their very best to be as congenial to each other as their integrity would allow. Wesley was anxious to be conciliating with Fletcher, in part, so that Fletcher might accept his oft-made request to be the founder's successor as leader of the Methodist movement. If Fletcher (who, as it turned out, died before Wesley did), never did show very much interest in becoming Wesley's successor, he did show much interest in writing serious theological treatises which would be sufficiently approved by Wes1ey to be published by him and commended by him to the Societies.

After Wesley read Fletcher's Last Check, he implied (as I see the matter) a slight deprecation of it by writing to Fletcher, as regards his just-earlier Scripture Scales, that that treatise was " 'as convincing as anything you have written' " (p. 78). Then, about the Last Check, Wesley says, " 'It seems our views of Christian Perfection are a little different, though not opposite. It is certain every babe in Christ has received the Holy Ghost, and the Spirit witnesses with his spirit that he is a child of God. But he has not obtained Christian perfection'" (p. 78). After receiving this evaluation, Fletcher did some re-writing so as to express himself in as much agreement with Wesley as was feasible. Then he sent it to Charles to have the hymn-writer evaluate it and even add to it-saying "I give you carte blanche to add; but to none but you" (p. 79)-as though, perhaps, not even John Wesley was permitted to do so (which Smith questions). Since Fletcher was quite sure that Charles, in various hymns, taught as he himself did on the theological significance of Pentecost (which I happen to question); and since Fletcher even says that the emphasis could as well be called Charles' instead of his own-I feel that Fletcher probably meant exactly what he said: that only Charles was given carte blanche to "add" to his treatment. Supportive of what I am suggesting is what Fletcher says to Charles in a letter of 24 November, 1771, regarding the third check which he was writing at the time (p. 73). He says:

I shall introduce my, why not your doctrine of the Holy Ghost and make it one with your brother's perfection. He holds the truth, but this will be an improvement upon it, if I am not mistaken. In some of your pentecost hymns you paint my light wonderfully. If you do not recant them we shall perfectly agree.

In this very statement, Fletcher says that John Wesley does not associate Pentecost with perfection. It seems to me that Professor Smith, who quotes the above, and most of the other material I have so far quoted in this evaluation, is so much bent upon proving his strange thesis that he does not allow the contrary evidence to mean what it quite evidently means.

My most special problem with Smith's study however, is that it does not take into account the hard-and-fast contrary evidence contained in Wesley's comments on Acts passages in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament.

These Notes constitute a kind of brief New Testament commentary, and they contain Wesley's studied and altogether-intended interpretations for New Testament passages-even though he tells us in the work's preface that he uses considerably the thoughts of others, especially those of Bengelius. He began them January 4, 1754 (see his Journal), worked steadily on them, without preaching, until March (see his Journal March 19), and finished them in a more final way on September 23 of the next year, and spent time "correcting and enlarging the notes" in December of 1759 (see Journal) preparing "another edition" in December of 1787. These Notes and the "four volumes of ‘Sermons’ " were made the standard of doctrine for Methodist preachers in 1784 (Works, 8:331).

It would seem to me that, instead of brushing off the Notes without giving any specific consideration whatever to their evidence, Smith might, if anything, have considered them to be of yet more significance than such sources as letters, in determining what Wesley's teachings were.

In these New Testament Notes, as Wesley writes commentary on the Acts text, sometimes he simply misses what would be good opportunities to relate passages to his Christian perfection doctrine -- if, indeed, he believed such, as Smith says he did. At other times Wesley does comment on passages which the Holiness movement has viewed as related to Christian perfection, but he relates them instead to the first work of grace.

At Acts 1:4-5 we read, "And . . . [Jesus] commanded them . . . to wait for the promise of the Father, which saith he, ye have heard of me. For John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." And whereas Smith says that Wesley taught that the 120 received entire sanctification on Pentecost Day, Wesley does not comment at all about Jesus' "the promise of the Father", and, on "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost," Wesley, in a way that connects it with justification, comments, "And so are all true believers, to the end of the world." Smith says that, for Wesley, to receive the Holy Spirit happens at conversion, but that to be either baptized with or filled with the Holy Spirit, for Wesley, occurs at the time of our entire sanctification. But this is not borne out in Wesley's comments on Acts 1:4-5.

Interestingly, Wesley makes no comment whatever on the Acts 2:4 passage where we read, "And they [the 120, at Pentecost] were all filled with the Holy Ghost." This would be a strange omission, if he viewed being filled with the Spirit as the same as receiving entire sanctification.

On Acts 2:38, where Peter had said that after repenting, and after being baptized with water, his hearers would "receive the gift of the Holy Ghost," Wesley does not say that the gift of the Holy Ghost means entire sanctification, but rather says that it refers to "the constant fruits of faith, even righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

Likewise, on Acts 8:15, when we are told that Peter and John traveled from Jerusalem and met with the Samaritans who had earlier "believed" (8:12), and "prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost," Wesley does not relate such to their entire sanctification. Instead, somewhat vaguely, he comments, on the phrase "the Holy Ghost": "In His miraculous gifts, or His sanctifying graces [note the plural]? Probably in both."

More significantly, Wesley implies that Paul was not converted on the Damascus Road, but three days later when Ananias went to him and said, "Brother Saul, the Lord hath sent me, . . . that thou sayest recover thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost" (Acts 9:17, Wesley). Thus, in a comment on "And he [Saul] was three days" (Acts 9:3), Wesley comments, "An important season! So long he seems to have been in the pangs of the new birth" (Notes, on Acts 9:3). While the Notes only imply that the conversion was not on the Damascus road, but was actually three days later, Wesley, in a letter of November 4, 1758 to the Reverend Mr. Potter, states clearly that the conversion was three days later and that it occurred when Paul was "filled with the Holy Ghost." Wesley wrote to Potter, of Paul’s conversion, that ". . . it does not appear that his was a sudden conversion" (Works, 9:93). Wesley continues: "After he had seen this [the light], 'he was three days without sight. . . . And, probably, during the whole time, God was gradually working in his heart, till he 'arose, and, being baptized washed away his sins, and was filled with the Holy Ghost' " (ibid.). Worthy of special note is the fact that, here, whereas Smith's strange interpretation is that, for Wesley, to be filled with the Holy Spirit occurs at entire sanctification, this is a crystal-clear instance of Wesley's saying that being filled with the Holy Spirit happens at conversion.

Most significantly, Wesley's comments in the Notes, on Acts 10:44 reveal clearly that Wesley associated receiving or being baptized with the Holy Spirit with conversion. Commenting on 10:44, where we read, "The Holy Ghost fell on all them that were hearing the word," Wesley says: "Thus were they consecrated to God, as the first-fruits of the Gentiles. And thus did God give a clear and satisfactory evidence that He had accepted them as well as the Jews." That this was conversion for Wesley (who I think was incorrect on the matter), is clear because Wesley calls Cornelius the "first-fruits of the Gentiles," and because he states that Cornelius and the others had thus been "accepted"-which is another way of saying "received into favor," or "justified."

Wesley's comments on Acts 10:47 show the same thing. They show that when a sinner repents of his sins he "receives," or is "baptized with" the Holy Spirit. Wesley writes, "Either men have received the Holy Ghost, or not. If they have not, 'Repent,' saith God, 'and be baptized, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.' If they have, if they are already baptized with the Holy Ghost, then who can forbid water? " I myself feel that Wesley is quite incorrect in associating the Spirit-baptism with conversion; but that he does so is too clear to be denied-as this passage from Wesley shows.

Wesley's comments on Acts 10:47 disprove Professor Smith's contention that, for Wesley, receiving the Spirit refers to conversion, whereas to be baptized with or filled with the Spirit refers to entire sanctification. This is because, in comments on that verse, Wesley twice uses interchangeably the phrases "baptism with" or "of the Holy Spirit" and "receiving" the Holy Spirit. Re-quoting him again, as I must do, he writes, "He does not say, They have the baptism of the Spirit; therefore they do not need baptism with water: but just the contrary; therefore they have received the Spirit, then baptize them with water." Wesley also interchanges the expressions again, in comments on the same verse, when he writes, "Either men have received the Holy Ghost, or not. If they have not, 'Repent,' saith God, 'and be baptized, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.' If they have, if they are already baptized with the Holy Ghost, then, who can forbid water? "4

Professor Smith states in end note 33 that John Allen Knight, in his "John Fletcher's Influence on the Development of Wesleyan Theology in America," in the 1978 Wesleyan Theological Journal (p. 27), "asserts mistakenly that John Wesley did not connect Christian perfection with Pentecost." My reading of the materials Smith refers to, and of others, suggests that it is instead Professor Timothy L. Smith who is mistaken.

Notes

1Timothy L. Smith, "How John Fletcher Became the Theologian of Wesleyan Perfectionism, 1770-1776," in Wesleyan Theological Journal, 15 1 (Spring 1980), pp 68-87. Citations of the article will be by page reference. Set in parentheses in the text.

2This Preacher's Magazine article is similar to the one in the recent Wesleyan Theological Journal in many ways, including a disregard of the negative evidence in Wesley’s comments on Acts in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament. In the PM article Smith writes, "That the language of Pentecost remained in the forefront of their [John and Charles Wesley's] thinking about sanctification, despite the interpretation of the passages concerning the outpouring of the Spirit in the Book of Acts that appeared in John Wesley's Notes on the New Testament in 1754, is clear from his response to the widespread testimonies to full salvation he reported in his Journal during the year 1762." That "response," on Wesley's part, is where Wesley wrote, "Many years ago my brother frequently said, 'Your day of Pentecost is not fully come; but I doubt not it will. And you will then hear of persons sanctified as frequently as you do now of persons justified.' And any unprejudiced reader may observe, that it was now fully come." Yet, even a casual reading of this "response" of Wesley, to the revival that was occurring, does not in any way contradict the teaching in the Notes that Pentecost (even for the 120) and the later pentecosts were instances of conversion. The "Pentecost" Wesley had hoped for was not solely the entire sanctification of believers. It was, clearly, a pentecost in the sense of a revival outpouring, when various people would be both justified and sanctified wholly -- and when, Charles Wesley says, you will ". . . hear of persons sanctified as frequently as you do now of persons justified."

3In the Preacher's Magazine article, Smith uses Wesley's seeming to equate being "perfected in love" and being "filled with the Holy Ghost" as his special argument against the customary interpretation of "Mr. Fletcher's late discovery." Wesley had told Joseph Benson, in a letter of March 9, 1771, that Benson would be welcome as a preacher in the Societies if he would "abstain from speaking of Universal Salvation and Mr. Fletcher's late discovery." While Smith interprets that "late discovery" as probably indicating "Wesley's continuing misimpression of Fletcher's view of regeneration" (p. 56, PM), I feel that it is probably a reference to Fletcher's recent espousal of Christian perfection as being wrought by the Spirit-baptism.

4See, e.g., pp. 71-72 of Smith's Wesleyan Theological Journal article discussed herein, for his view that these terms are not interchangeable.

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