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 ninth installment is on Wesley’s sermon “The Scripture Way of Salvation” from 1765.
Text: Ephesians 2:8
Ye are saved through faith. (KJV)
When John Wesley experienced evangelical conversion in 1738 he published a sermon proclaiming his new view of salvation by faith in Christ. Titled, Salvation by Faith, Wesley declared that saving faith is trust in Christ’s death and resurrection. He added that salvation is enjoyed right now, in this present life, and that it consists of pardon and freedom from sin (scroll down for discussion on this sermon). Wesley also asserted that our justification includes the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. However, over the next two decades Wesley sparred with the Calvinists and Moravians over what exactly this imputation involves. He rejected the Calvinist view of absolute predestination and affirmed that Christ died for all people and God’s grace is given to everyone for their salvation in Christ.
In 1765 Wesley decided to return to the subject of salvation by faith but this time he examined it from a more holistic view of the journey of faith, starting from initial awareness of God to justification in Christ and continuing with sanctification in the Spirit. This is what makes the Scripture Way of Salvation a landmark sermon. It encompasses the entire faith journey and spells out Wesley’s perspective on the subject. The sermon therefore highlights Wesley’s unique contribution to Christian soteriology (doctrine of salvation).
Here is the sermon: The Scripture Way of Salvation 1st ed 1765
Outlining the Journey
Wesley begins by repeating the same point he first enunciated in Salvation by Faith – the salvation Paul is referencing in Ephesians 2 is a “present thing, a blessing which, through the free mercy of God, ye are now in possession of” (I.1). That is, Paul is not speaking about our future salvation. He is addressing salvation that is experienced right now, in this present life. Wesley accents the present tense of the verb to make the point – “Ye are saved.” He adds that with propriety we can render the verse, “Ye have been saved.” This rendering takes the widest possible view of our salvation in Christ that begins with the “first dawning of grace in the soul till it is consummated in glory” (I.1).
Taking this wide-angle approach, Wesley states that our salvation begins with preventing grace that awakens a person to the reality of God. This preliminary grace includes “all of the drawings of the Father” and the birth of “desires after God” (1.2). If a person “yields” to these desires and drawings, they will increase over time and lead to more spiritual light and truth, culminating in a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. As the conscience is enlightened by preventing grace, a person learns to walk in justice, mercy, and humility (JW quotes Micah 6:8 here), and over time comes under greater convictions from the Spirit. Even though a person often “stifles” these convictions, if they respond to the truth it leads them to Christian salvation, namely justification and sanctification (I.3).
Wesley treats justification and sanctification as the two main branches of salvation in Christ. Justification is pardon and forgiveness of sin, procured by the “blood and righteousness of Christ” – a allusion to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. The immediate fruits of our justification are peace with God, the hope of assurance, and a joy that is full and overflowing (Wesley here quotes from Romans 5:1-3).
In the same moment we are justified, we are born again by the Spirit, and this begins the process of sanctification. The love of God is poured into our hearts and this pure love expels sin and its fruits from our lives, enabling us to grow in the mind which was in Christ (Phil. 2:5). In the heat of revival many new converts thought that all sin is removed. Wesley corrects this error by pointing out that in the heightened joys of conversion sin is actually “suspended, not destroyed” (I.6). Although sin no longer reigns, it does remain. The work of God in sanctification is a progressive work that begins in the new birth and leads to a full salvation of our voluntary or intentional sins – pride, self-will, anger, unbelief, etc. (I.8). Thus, believers overcome the sins that defile the conscience and enjoy the fullness of God’s love (I.9).
Saving Faith
Whereas thirty years earlier Wesley had defined saving faith as trust in Christ’s death and resurrection, he now describes faith in a more holistic sense. The reason is that his earlier definition fit Christian salvation of justification and sanctification, but does not encompass the broader description of the spiritual journey that he describes in the Scripture Way of Salvation – a journey that begins with the first inklings of spiritual awareness in the heart.
So, Wesley bases his definition of faith on Hebrews 11:1 (KJV). Over 20 years prior Wesley first appealed to Heb.11:1 to define faith in the tract An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion (1743). In his use of Heb. 11:1, Wesley focuses on the word “evidence,” by which he means a “conviction” in the heart, to define authentic faith. Faith is now understood to begin with the “spiritual light” that a person receives long before they learn the gospel. This degree of faith is not yet Christian salvation, but it is “saving” in the sense that it leads to gospel salvation if a person responds to the truth revealed to them. This lower degree of faith includes an awareness of and conviction about the “spiritual world” and the “invisible things of God” (II.1).
Wesley now defines Christian faith as the “evidence” of an assurance of salvation. Born again believers have a “conviction” about their salvation. This felt assurance springs from the Spirit who witnesses to their saving trust in Christ. As Wesley sees it, the faith that justifies also sanctifies. It produces good works and a holy life. Saving faith leads to conformity to Christ and entire sanctification. It produces repentance of remaining sin in the Christian and leads them to claim the promises of full salvation in God’s word. Sanctifying faith claims these promises and believes that God can fulfill these promises in their lives — even today.
Wesley ends the sermon with a snippet of a hymn by Charles Wesley:
Come in, come in, thou heavenly guest!
Nor hence again remove:
But sup with me, and let the feast
Be everlasting love.
Here is the sermon: The Scripture Way of Salvation 1st ed 1765
