It is estimated that John Wesley traveled around 250,000 miles and preached over 40,000 sermons in a span of 66 years. This series by Mark K. Olson, taken from his website Wesleyscholar.com, includes summaries and links to some of Wesley’s most famous and important sermons. This fourth installment is on Wesley’s sermon “On Working Out Our Own Salvation” from 1785.
On Working Out Our Own Salvation
Text: Philippians 2:12-13
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
This landmark sermon needs to be understood against the backdrop of the 1770 Minutes Controversy between the Wesleyan Methodists and the Evangelical Calvinists. At the 1770 Conference Wesley published some minutes that emphasized the role of good works in salvation. Notably, Wesley stated that some Methodists were leaning too much toward Calvinism in their teaching on salvation and good works. The Calvinists responded by charging Wesley of asserting salvation by works and of leaning to close toward the Roman Catholic position of justification by inherent righteousness.
The controversy lasted for several years with a number of authors on both sides involved in the pamphlet war (see Minutes Controversy page for more information). John Fletcher (d. 1785) came to the forefront as a Methodist theologian during this period with his multi-volume Checks to Antinomianism. At the close the Controversy Wesley began the Arminian Magazine to defend and promote the Arminian cause. Then in 1785 he published his mature thoughts on the subject in the sermon On Working Out Our Own Salvation.
Read the sermon: On Working Out Our Own Salvation
The Synergism of Salvation
For a text Wesley chose Philippians 2:12-13, an Anglican favorite on the believer’s active participation in their salvation. The synergism of Wesley’s soteriology is evident with his two main points: “First, God works; therefore you can work. Second, God works; therefore you must work” (III.2). The necessity of works for salvation could not be more magnified while still holding to a soteriology of free grace. The discourse begins by reminding readers that salvation is the work of the economic Trinity. The Father is the gracious cause of salvation, while the Son is the meritorious cause and the Spirit the transforming cause. God’s salvific work is to breathe into his people “every good desire” and “every right disposition” to equip them for “every good word and work.” (I.1-3). Since, the economic Trinity is the efficient cause of salvation, it “removes all imagination of [human] merit” and gives “God the whole glory” for our salvation (I.1). So, salvation includes God working and us working, with no merit attached to our working.
The Way of Salvation
Wesley proceeds to break down the “gracious dispensations” (III.7) in the scripture path of salvation. Wesley explains that it begins with “preventing grace” and is carried forward by “convincing grace” till a person “experiences the proper Christian salvation . . . justification and sanctification.” Justification involves deliverance from sin’s guilt and a reinstatement to divine favor. Sanctification is liberation from the “power and root of sin” and restoration in the divine image. The path of salvation includes both instantaneous moments (justification and entire sanctification) and continual growth in the love of God and neighbor, until the believer attains in the eschatological future the “‘measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’” (II.1).
With the “scripture way of salvation” explained, Wesley explains “how are we to ‘work out’ this salvation?” (II.2). Recalling themes that reached back to his Oxford days, Wesley stressed the necessity of having a “single eye” in order to obey with the “utmost diligence, speed, punctuality, and exactness” (II.2-3). Regarding the “steps” of salvation, Wesley repeated themes and phrases found in the 1770 Minutes. Seekers are to “‘cease to do evil; learn to do well.’” They must avoid “every evil word and work” and learn to be “zealous of good works,” including “works of piety, as well as works of mercy.” Examples are taken from the means of grace: private and family prayer, fasting, searching the scriptures, partaking of the Lord’s Supper, doing good to all people, and practicing self-denial (II.4). So, for Wesley salvation involves our active participation if it is to be “worked out” in our lives.
Why Believers Must Work
Wesley explores the reason why we must “work” in order to be finally saved. He began by pointing out that a person can work since divine grace is active in them. But Wesley is adamant that such works are “without any merit” (III.4-5). A common pitfall, though, is to have a “mock humility” and exclaim as the Calvinists do, “‘Oh, I can do nothing’” in regard to my salvation (III.6). Nothing could be further from the truth! Wesley points out that works are God’s appointed way for grace to be appropriated for present and final salvation. Consequently, the reader must work or else God “will cease working” in them. To Augustine’s, “‘He that made us without ourselves, will not save us without ourselves’” (III.7), Wesley added John 6:27, “‘Labour, then, not for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth to everlasting life’” (III.8).
Conclusion
In Wesley’s mature soteriology everyone “works for as well as from life.” The scripture path of salvation begins with the unmerited gift of preventing grace, “There is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, is wholly void of the grace of God.” For “everyone has some measure of that light . . . which sooner or later . . . enlightens every man that cometh into the world” (III.4). The same principle holds true for the Christian. They too “work for as well as from life,” having been justified by faith through the righteousness of Christ they work out their sanctification by the grace of God. In this way the believer puts on the “wedding garment” of “personal holiness” in order to receive final justification when Christ returns and welcomes his people into the eternal kingdom.
Even with this brief summary of its main themes, I recommend you read the sermon: On Working Out Our Own Salvation
