CHRISTIAN PERFECTION AS LOVE FOR GOD
by W. Stanley Johnson
The mission to declare scriptural holiness challenges each generation of Methodism. It
would be self-aggrandizing and false to imagine that only holiness voices proclaim such
things, but it is not far-fetched to claim that certain nuances of expression habitually
occur primarily within these circles. If one listens attentively, the words entire
sanctification, Christian perfection, second definite work of grace, deliverance from
inbred sin and purity of heart may be parsed from the grammar of holiness. This is all
well and good, but after re-examining the bulk of Wesley's writings on perfection, it
appears that his concept of love for God does not receive adequate treatment.1 Although a recent rereading of holiness theologians 2
unveils a sketch of John Wesley's doctrine of love for God in relation to Christian
perfection, the details and place of this panel in the mural of Wesleyan theology remain
to be seen.3
The growing conviction that love for God is central to Wesley's idea of perfection
stands in the uneasy company of a nagging suspicion that current theological literature
and much preaching from the holiness pulpit has missed the Wesleyan and Biblical emphasis
upon love for God. The following material represents an attempt to clarify the nature and
central role of the concept of love for God in Christian perfection according to Wesley's
vision.
It must be acknowledged that a paraenetic tone permeates this discourse. Mary Alice
Tenney in her book, Blueprint for a Christian World, sets the stage for us as she
describes the "dominant disposition" of the Methodist: "It was love-love to
God, expressed in complete obedience to His will, and love for men, expressed in tireless
service to all in need."4 The church today needs to review,
reappropriate and proclaim the privilege and responsibility to love God. This mandate
cannot be overlooked without detracting from the vitality of the faith and life of our
movement.
In the material which follows, we will consider: first, the centrality of love for God
in Wesley's concept of perfection. Secondly, the grounds of love for God. These are: God's
prior love for humanity, knowledge of God and man's love for and faith in God. Thirdly,
the nature of love for God under the following headings: love for God as passion and
affection, love for God as changeable, love for God as an "expulsive power."
Fourthly, we will examine the God who is loved, and the relation of love for God to love
for others.
Finally, I will propose two broadly stated implications of Wesley's concept of love for
God as I conceive its application to the holiness movement today.
The Centrality of Love for God in John Wesley's Doctrine of Christian
Perfection
One of the most crucial texts 5 in the literature of John Wesley
quotes Jesus directly:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it,
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and
the prophets. Matthew 22:37-40
Unlike the anthropocentric understandings of this text which dissolve the first
commandment into the second 6 or dismiss it as hopelessly outmoded
because it is linked to an ephemeral eschaton 7 Wesley thrusts the
first into prominence throughout the Plain Account of Christian Perfection and other key
passages of this theological literature. In answer to the question "What is Christian
Perfection?" he responds:
The loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. This implies that no wrong
temper, none contrary to love, remains in the soul; and all the thoughts, words and
actions are governed by pure love.8
Wesley's "abridgment" of the twofold commandment is significant. He cuts
across the grain of all theologians who produce anthropologies of love, forthrightly
insisting that the Christian is perfected primarily in love for God. A theology of love is
intended. To another question, "What command is there" for Christian perfection
or entire sanctification? he answers:
"Be ye perfect, as your Father who is in heaven is perfect." (Matt. v. 48.)
(2.) "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind." (Matt. xii, 37.) But if the love of God fill all the heart, there
can be no sin there.9
There is nothing more important than love, indeed, Wesley affirms there is
"nothing else."
You should be thoroughly sensible of this,-"the heaven of heavens is love."
There is nothing higher in religion; there is in effect, nothing else; if you look for
anything but more love, you are looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of the royal
way. 10
Wesley's vision of love for God as the apex of Christian religion is clearly reflected
in these representative passages. Wesley believes that faith in God leads to a knowledge
of God and that both faith and knowledge become the ground for the self's genuine love for
God.
Re-Ascending Fire
The descent of God's love to human selves makes possible the ascent of human love for
God. Wesley sweeps aside any notion that love for God can erupt out of the resources of
the unaided human self. His vivid imagery leaves no doubt about this: "The fire of
divine love has this advantage over material fire, that it can re-ascend to its source,
and raise thither with it all the good works which it produces."11
In more traditionally Biblical language the same truth emerges:
We must love God, before we can be holy at all; this being the root of all holiness.
Now we cannot love God, till we know he loves us. "We love him, because he first
loved us." And we cannot know his pardoning love to us, till his Spirit witnesses to
our spirit. Since, therefore, this testimony of his Spirit must precede the Love of God
and all holiness, of consequence it must precede our inward consciousness thereof, or the
testimony concerning them.12
This does not imply, for Wesley, that the love which returns to God is merely a product
of divine cause. Anders Nygren errs seriously at this point when he asserts that the
proper understanding of Agape in the New Testament excludes the action of the self's love
for God as an act of a free moral agent.13 While Wesley grounds love
for God in prior movement of divinity, he does not deny the properly active role of the
self's love for God.
Love for God Requires Knowledge of God
Love for God as Wesley understands it is an impossibility without the close fellowship
and true knowledge of God Himself. Wesley laments the religion of the world which
substitutes "doing no harm," "doing good . . . being charitable,"
"using the means of grace" for genuine spiritual worship. He attacks this error
forcefully:
But will this satisfy him who hungers after God? No . . . the knowledge of God in
Christ Jesus, "the life which is hid with Christ in God " the being "joined
unto the Lord in one spirit;" the having "fellowship with the Father and the
Son;" the "walking in the light as God is in the light;" the being
"purified even as He is pure;"-this is the religion, the righteousness, he
thirsts after: Nor can he rest, till he thus rests in God.14
Knowledge of God includes, for Wesley, an element of immediate encounter with God:
"the soul could not . . . 'abide in the love of God' without a direct witness of the
Spirit to sanctification."15 Prayer becomes a matter of knowing
God intimately. Wesley instructs converts to "see that it be thy one design to
commune with God. . ."16 Such communion in the love of God
experiences a continual sense of spiritual "presence."
The life of God in the soul of the believer . . . implies the continual inspiration of
God's Holy Spirit; God's breathing into the soul, and the soul's breathing what it first
receives from God . . . an increasing presence of God, the loving, pardoning God . . . and
an increasing return of love, promise, and prayer....17
The "increasing presence of God" grounds love for God, since He is "the
Sole End as well as Source, of your Being."18 The pure in heart
enjoy "such a near approach as cannot be expressed. They see him; as it were, face to
face, and talk with him, as a man talketh with his friend;-a fit preparation for those
mansions above, wherein they shall see him as he is."19
The Relation of Faith and Love
For Wesley, love must be grounded in trust of the beloved. The "victory that
overcometh the world" is faith. But not bare faith. Wesley writes, "But here let
no man deceive his own soul. It is diligently to be noted, the faith which bringeth not
forth repentance, and love, and all good works, is not that right living faith, but a dead
and devilish one."20
Wesley does not collapse love into faith. The significant, but erroneous, idea that
"Faith is love towards God, but a love of which the keynote is receptivity, not
spontaneity."21 is foreign to Wesley's thought. He speaks of love
which "engrosses the whole heart," "takes up all the affections," and
leads one to "desire God." Such love, Wesley says, leads believers to
"rejoice in him" and "to have such a possession of God as makes us always
happy." Our Anglican "enthusiast," or so he was labeled by many more
passive intellectuals, gained his reputation for zeal and fervor in part by believing that
the true Christian is one who actively demonstrates love for God.
Love for God Includes Eros
Some theologians within Christendom have been wary of the identification
of passion for God, eros, and love of God. Nygren is adamant that eros has nothing to do
with Christian Agape, while Kierkegaard emphasizes the duty of loving God ("you shall
love"!):22 Passions and feelings do not have permanence and fall
short of the eternal character of love. Wesley does not share this degree of reservation
about emotions, passions and feelings. He continually pictures the Christian as one who
desires God and who is in love with God in such a way that all the capacities or faculties
of human personality are involved. When he explains what is "implied in the being
altogether a Christian" he says:
First. The Love of God. For thus saith his word, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and all thy
strength." Such a love is this, as engrosses the whole heart, as takes up all the
affections, as fills the entire capacity of the soul, and employs the utmost of all its
faculties 23
Of such a Christian Wesley affirms, "All his desire is unto God . . . there is
none upon earth that I desire beside thee."24 This desire for God
is one which not only involves all the passions and affections of the soul, but results in
"a possession of God" which is true happiness:
Now to love God in the manner the Scripture describes, in the manner God himself
requires of us, and by requiring engages to work in us,-is to love him as the ONE God;
that is, 'with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all
our strength; '-it is to desire God alone for his own sake; and nothing else, but with
reference to him;-to rejoice in God;-to delight in the Lord; not only to seek, but find,
happiness in him, as our God and all;-in a word, to have such a possession of God as makes
us always happy.25
In Wesley's way of thinking, the whole person participates in loving God. Various
thinkers elevate intellect, or feeling, or will as the central human capacity, but Wesley
refuses to reduce human nature to a single trait.
Affections Are Involved
The important of the affections is noticed when Wesley considers the marks of those who
are only partially perfected in love for God. Carnal Christians:
know they do not love the Lord their God with all their heart, and mind, and soul, and
strength . . . when they pour out their souls in secret to Him who seeth all the thoughts
and interests of their heart, they are continually ashamed of their wandering thoughts, or
of the deadness and dullness of their affections; yet there is no condemnation to them
still, either from God or from their own heart.26
The affections are, for Wesley, an important indicator of the perfection of love.
"Deadness and dullness" are evidence of less than perfect love. He certainly
disagrees with any who propose to love God "disinterestedly." Wesley asserts
that the hunger and thirst for righteousness is satisfied only in love for God, adding,
"Give me love, or else I die!" Wesley asks rhetorically if it is true that
the keeping the outward commandment is all that is implied in loving God with all your
heart, with all your mind, and soul, and strength, and in loving your neighbour as
yourself? that the love of God is not an affection of the soul, but merely an outward
service?27
He answers his question vehemently, "To mention so wild an interpretation of the
Apostle's words, is sufficiently to confute it."28
The flame of revival kindled the feelings of many with the approval of Wesley. He would
not deny his broad parish the strong feelings of an affectionate love for God. To those
who feared such open piety he only affirmed that richness of his own devotional experience
as one instance among many of his companions.
Love Endures But May Change
There is no guarantee that love for God will always remain the same. It may change, as
Kierkegaard also notes in Works of Love. Speaking of the last days in his Explanatory
Notes Wesley quotes Matthew 24:12: "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of
many will wax cold." He warns, "The generality of those who love God will, like
the church at Ephesus (Rev. ii. 4), leave their first love."29
When one examines the comment he offers on Revelation 2:4 in the Notes, one sees how
changeable is love.
But I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love-that love for which all
that church was so eminent when St. Paul wrote his epistle to them. He need not have left
this. He might have retained it entire to the end. And he did retain it in part, or there
could not have remained so much of what was commendable in him. But he had not kept, as he
might have done, the first tender love in its vigour and warmth. Reader, hast thou?30
Love for God had been a chief mark of this early church. They lost it, but they need
not have lost it. Throughout the vicissitudes of the soul, human commitment to God on the
moral level accompanies and stabilizes immediate states of feeling. Wesley writes:
the mind itself may be deeply distressed, may be exceeding sorrowful, may be perplexed
and pressed down by heaviness and anguish, even to agony, while the heart cleaves to God
by perfect love, and the will is wholly resigned to him. Was it not so with the Son of God
himself?31
The work of the Spirit penetrates deep into the marrow of the personality. The self's
mind, passion and moral nature all join in united expression of adoration and love to God.
There is no aspect of human nature untouched by the perfection of love. The whole self is
devoted to God.
Love for God is the Dynamic of Holiness
Love for God is the principal dynamic which as a fire burns up the dross of sin. Wesley
instructs those who have not yet been perfected in love that "nothing should remain
in thy heart but the pure love of God alone. Be of good cheer! Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God, with all thy heart, and mind, and soul, and strength."32
In the "Preface" to Explanatory Notes Upon the Old Testament Wesley describes a
sequence which suggests that love works this cleansing process:
this scriptural knowledge will lead you "to love him, because he hath first loved
us;" yea, "to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." Will there not then be all
"that mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus?" And in consequence of this,
while you joyfully experience all the holy tempers described in this book, you will
likewise be outwardly "holy as He that hath called you is holy, in all manner of
conversation."33
In harmony with this, Wesley states, "we must love God, before we can be holy at
all; this being the root of all holiness.34 This is a work of the
Spirit of God, who is never far from the conversation about love in Wesley's theology:
"I rejoice, because the sense of God's love to me hath, by the same Spirit, wrought
in me to love him, and to love for his sake every child of man, every soul that he hath
made."35
"The expulsive power of a new affection" claims our attention as the chief
dynamic of the sanctification of the soul. Love for God subordinates and reorders all
lesser loves. This is Christian perfection for John Wesley.
Prayers Directed to the Triune GodIf love for God is truly central to Wesley's
definition of Christian Perfection we should expect to find his spirituality influenced in
distinct ways. To test this, although not exhaustively, we study "A Collection of
Forms of Prayer, Every Day in the Week," "A Collection of Prayers for
Families," and "Prayers for Children."36
A characteristic prayer of "A Collection of Forms of Prayer" illustrates
Wesley's basic pattern. He first addresses each member of the Godhead, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit offering his "sacrifice of love and thanksgiving."37
Then he summarizes his prayer to the Trinity as follows:
Glory be to thee, O holy, undivided Trinity, for jointly concurring in the great work
of our redemption and restoring us again to the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Glory
be to thee, who, in compassion to human weakness, hast appointed a solemn day for the
remembrance of thy inestimable benefits. O let me ever esteem it my privilege and
happiness to have a day set apart for the concerns of my soul, a day free from
distractions, disengaged from the world, wherein I have nothing to do but to praise and
love thee. O let it ever be to me a day sacred to divine love, a day of heavenly rest and
refreshment.38
The theme of love for the triune God is characteristic of this passage and most of
Wesley's prayers. This consciousness of adoration of the Trinity is again implicit in the
prayer for "Friday Evening,"
O God the Father, who canst be thought to have made me only to destroy me, have mercy
upon me.
O God the Son, who, knowing the Father's will, didst come into the world to save me,
have mercy upon me.
O God the Holy Ghost, who to the same end has so often since breathed holy thoughts
into me, have mercy upon me.
O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, whom in three Persons I adore as one God, have
mercy upon me.39
Despite Wesley's definite Christological commitments, his own prayers show a love for
God which is not "Christo-monism." It would be saying too much to claim that
Wesley's theology of perfection is Christocentric. On the contrary, a concerned reading of
the texts of Wesley's prayers and his statements about love for God show a trinitarian
awareness that pervades his thought and practice of devotion.
Love for God-The Root of Love for Neighbor
One of the most regrettable confusions of our generation occurs frequently when love
for neighbour displaces love for God as the "first and great commandment."
Wesley speaks rightly upon this issue:
How excellent things are spoken of the love of our neighbour! It is "the
fulfilling of the law," "the end of the commandment." Without this, all we
have, all we do, all we suffer, is of no value in the sight of God. But it is that love of
our neighbour which springs from the love of God: whether we do "love him because he
first loved us."40
Wesley's total life and ministry proclaim the urgency and importance of loving service
to neighbour, yet he sees the root of such love as "the love of God." In The
Plain Account he declares: "One design ye are to pursue to the end of time,-the
enjoyment of God in time and eternity. Desire other things, so far as they bend to this;
love the creature, as it leads to the Creator. ''41
Nothing in the realm of being is exempt from its relation to God, including the love of
neighbour. As we serve the neighbour, we do serve God, indeed, Wesley says, "We are
to serve him (God) in our neighbour; which he receives as if done to himself in person,
standing visible before us "42
Wesley, in a remarkable statement, identifies the creation with the Creator, showing
that the true ground of love for and valuing of creation is mandated because God is
reflected in His handiwork:
The great lesson . . . is, that God is in all things, and that we are to see the
Creator in the glass of every creature: that we should use and look upon nothing as
separate from God, which indeed is a kind of practical atheism; but, . . . survey heaven
and earth, and all that is therein, as contained by God in the hollow of His hand, who by
His intimate presence holds them all in being, who pervades and activates the whole
created frame, and is, in a true sense, the soul of the universe.43
The substitution of love for neighbor as the ground of ethics or religion is not
properly Wesleyan. If such humanism is perpetuated, it must not be done in the name of
John Wesley.
Implications of Wesley's Concept of Love for God
If Wesley's concept of love for God is taken seriously, it appears that certain
adjustments need to be made. After due consideration, the following items of our
theological agenda deserve careful attention:
1. Theology should be conceived as radically monotheistic. Proper attention needs to be
given to Scripture, evangelism, the realization of the Kingdom of God in society,
individual self-love, development and academic integrity. But nothing supercedes the
priority of "the increase among men of the love of God and neighbour." God is
our "ultimate concern." Even love for the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit
is relative to the unity of the three persons of the Trinity and to the distinct identity
of each person of the Trinity. In short, we will worship the triune God.
We will worship God and not sinlessness or love as ends in themselves. H. Richard
Niebuhr remarks that "Though God is love, love is not God...." We may also
affirm in sympathy with this, that though God is holy, holiness is not God. The subtle
shift of focus from God to man can be made to appear legitimate but it is not.
2. Christian perfection is best defined according to Wesley's grounding concept as love
for God that results in love for others and cleansing of the heart from the old inadequate
dreams of an evil imagination which found root in a fundamentally idolatrous attitude
toward some thing, or person, or center of value other than God. The initial shedding
abroad of love in the heart of the believer is followed by a crisis situation in which the
self perceives the upward call of God in Christ Jesus and enters a new level of depth in
his-her relationship of love for God. The difference is a matter of degree if the metaphor
of love for God is to be consistent. But the difference is real and the degree of change
is so significant that a new quality of life begins. Yet it is a beginning again. The
second definite work of grace is, in a special sense, only the first step of a journey of
growth which will never end. The fire of love returns to its primal source in God.
Notes
1 Love for God is not to be confused with love from God. Love of God
is somewhat ambiguous, so the phrase love for God is used in this paper to make the issue
clear.
2 The past issues of the Wesleyan Theological Journal, Insights into
Holiness, Further insights into Holiness, The Word and the Doctrine as well as selected
works of holiness writers have been studied. These latter include: Leo Cox, Eldon R.
Fuhrman, George Allen Turner, Mildred B. Wynkoop and others. Writers from other movements
have also been included in this study, including: Harold Lindstrom, Ronald Knox, Albert
Outler, Frank Baker, William Sangster and Martin Schmidt. The footnotes will represent
other interpreters throughout this article.
3 I know of no satisfactory treatment of Wesley's views on this
topic. Although the present study could be extended in various ways, it is presented with
the confidence that Wesley's writings are represented fairly, although not exhaustively.
Special attention has been given to Wesley's sermons and the Explanatory Notes Upon the
New Testament. (Naperville, Ill.: Alec R. Allenson Inc., 1958).
4 Tenney, Mary Alice, Blueprint for a Christian World An Analysis of
the Wesleyan Way, (Winona Lake, Indiana: Light and Life Press, 1953), p. 17.
5 See Gene Outka, Agape: An Ethical Analysis (New Haven: Yale
University Press), 1972, p. l and Leon Hynson, "Christian Love: The Key to Wesley's
Ethics." Methodist History, XIV, No. 1, (October 1975), p.45, for comments on the
importance of this text.
6 Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, V. pp.439-459 and VI, pp.
231-249. Cf. Graeme de Graaff, "God and Morality," Christian Ethics and
Contemporary Philosophy, ed. Ian T. Ramsey (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1966), pp.31-52, and
Richard R. Roach, "Excessive Claim: Rahner's Identification of Love of God with Love
of Neighbour," Studies in Religion, 5, No. 3, pp.247-257 and No. 4, pp.360-372.
7 Reference is made to Jack T. Sanders claim in Ethics in the New
Testament that "the command to love is so inherently anchored in the expectation of
the imminent end of the age and of God's final victory that the failure of that
expectation renders the call of love meaningless." Cited in 0. Lamar Cope,
"Ethics and the New Testament: A Survey of Perspectives 1970-1980. Word and World
Theology for Christian Ministry, p. 179.
8 John Wesley, "Plain Account of Christian Perfection" The
Works of John Wesley (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, n.d., reprinted
in 1972) 11, p. 394; cf. Works, 11, p. 368 and many similar statements.
9 Wesley, Works, 11, p. 390.
10 Wesley, Works, 11, p. 430.
11 Wesley, Works, 11, p. 441.
12 Wesley, Works, 5, p. 115; cf. Works, 5. p. 127.
13 Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, (London: SPCK, 1957) Part I
"What we have here is a purely theocentric love, in which all choice on man's part is
excluded." p. 213. Cf. M. C. D'Arcy, The Mind and Heart of Love: Lion and Unicorn: A
Study in Eros and Agape, (New York: Henry Holt and Company), 1947, p. 312.
14 Wesley, Works, 5, pp. 268f.
15 Ibid., p. 420.
16 Ibid., p. 330.
17 Ibid., pp. 232f.
18 Ibid., p. 208.
19 Ibid., p. 281.
20 Ibid., p. 22
21 Nygren, Agape and Eros, p. 127.
22 Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love; (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1946), pp. 40ff.
23 Wesley, Works, V. pp. 21ff.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid., p. 381.
26 Ibid., p. 92.
27 Ibid., p. 220.
28 Ibid.
29 Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament, p. 113.
30 Ibid., p. 943.
31 Wesley, Works, 5, p. 399.
32 Ibid., p. 96.
33 Wesley, "Preface," Explanatory Notes Upon the Old
Testament, 1765, 1, p. viii.
34 Wesley, Works, 5, p. 115 (My emphasis).
35 Wesley, Works, 5, p. 141; cf. Works, Vol. 5, p. 211: "this
is the true circumcision of the heart. Let the spirit return to God.... with the whole
train of its affections."
36 Wesley, Works, 11, pp. 203-272.
37 Ibid., p. 203.
38 Ibid., p. 203.
39 Ibid., p. 230.
40 Wesley, Works, 5, p. 278. This study does not discuss self-love
in Wesley's thought. However, worth noting is Wesley's comment in the Explanatory Notes on
the New Testament on Mark 12:35: "And to love his neighbour as himself-to maintain
the same equitable and charitable temper and behaviour toward all men, as we, in like
circumstances, would wish for from them toward ourselves, is a ... necessary
duty...." Wesley does not clearly promote self-love here, although he does not
disapprove of self-regard. A full-scale study of Wesley's concept of self-love on the
order of Oliver O'Donovan's The Problem of Self-Love in St. Augustine (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1980) would be useful but I am not convinced that Wesley says enough on
the topic to make such a work possible. If the material is present in Wesleys' writings in
quantity and/or kind to allow such a study, it would certainly be useful to augment the
serious consideration of Wesley's doctrine of love in general.
41 Wesley, Works, 11, p. 368.
42 Ibid. p. 440. Austin Farrer accords with Wesley's theological
understanding of regard for neighbour as we see in the following statement from Farrer's
article, "Examination of Theological Belief." "The regard we owe him. And
yet he is no mere channel through which regard is paid to God, for God is regarded by
regard for what He regards, and what He regards is the man." From Faith and Logic,
ed. Basil Mitchell (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1958), p. 20.
43 Wesley, Works, 5, pp. 283ff.
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