In this third installation in my series on “What Do Methodists Believe?” I want to address the issue of who can be saved. Hopefully I can address this without causing too much confusion for anyone. Actually it isn’t really too difficult to explain. So allow me to give it an attempt that will fit onto this one page.
There is a saying that the only things we can be certain of in this life are death and taxes. As United Methodists, who adhere to a Wesleyan understanding of the Bible, we believe that there is something else of which people can be certain. Methodists believe people can know they are saved. We refer to it as assurance. Assurance is not presumption about the future. The focus is not on what God is going to do for me at some future point in time. Belief in a doctrine of assurance does not give me license to go out and live any old way I want to today, believing all the while that my duty for God has been done, and that my position with him is secure. Scripture affirms that, “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” Hebrews 9:27 To presume upon God being merciful in that hour would be pure arrogance. If we all were to receive what we truly deserved from God, none would survive that day. Assurance is not saying, “What a good Christian I am!” Rather, assurance is declaring, “What a great Savior I have!”
Wesleyans believe that not only can people know that they are saved, but we also affirm that people can be saved to the uttermost. John Wesley referred to it as “full salvation.” Christian perfection is our hallmark – a salvation in which we are not only saved “from sin,” but also saved “for righteousness.” This, of course, does not mean that we can be perfect, sinless human beings in this life. Nor does it mean that we can attain our own righteousness by our own cunning. Only one man is known to have been without sin in his life, and that was Jesus of Nazareth. He was able to live a life of true perfection because his nature was significantly different from ours. Yes, Jesus was fully human like us, but in addition to being fully human he was also fully divine. He was man and God, two natures fused together for the only time in our known history. In his lifetime Jesus illustrated what is humanly possible when we fuse our own human nature with God’s divine nature. It doesn’t happen as easily or as naturally for us as it did with Jesus. But, Jesus did tell us that we could be more than we ever thought possible.
Another distinctive way that Wesleyans approach God and
God's Word is by "conjunctive theology." Sure, it sounds like something
we might not have a hope of understanding, but it really is not that difficult.
As a reminder, theology is the way we think and talk about God. It is
the way we express our understanding of God. Conjunctive is a fancy way
of saying that we ‘join together' or ‘combine.'
John Wesley, when denied a pulpit
by the Anglican Church of England, was asked by a colleague, "But where will
your parish be?" Wesley showed himself unconcerned and stated, "The world is my
parish." His response has been the Methodist mission challenge down through the
centuries. We've not always lived up to it well, but nevertheless it is who we
are. Wesleyan Methodists agree with John Wesley that the world is our parish.
Our sending companion is the Lord Jesus Christ who unquestionably was
mission-minded.
