This is the question I want to address for the next several weeks with you. United Methodists are sometimes accused of not believing in anything. Or we are accused of not having any established doctrine. But the fact of the matter is that there are definitely distinguishing characteristics of a United Methodist, and I intend on presenting at least eight of them for you in this series of newsletter articles. It is important to remember that as United Methodists we are Wesleyan in the expression of our faith. This means that we adhere to the spiritual and doctrinal emphases of John Wesley, the great church reformer in the Anglican tradition. Of course the Anglican Church never embraced the reforms of John Wesley, which did not prevent Wesley from maintaining his Anglican Church membership till the day he died. It was the Wesleyan “reformation movement” which eventually became known as Methodism. From the original Methodist movement sprang many other religious traditions, too numerous to mention here.
The second distinguishing characteristic of a Wesleyan is the way we view theology. And please remember that the use of the name “Wesleyan” in referring to whom we are as Methodists refers to the fact that John Wesley is the 18th Century church reformer after whose life and teachings we model our faith life and practice. Let me also say that when we talk about “theology” we are not talking about something that is utterly foreign and unknowable to the average church attendee. The word “theology” means this: the study of the nature of God and religious truth. It’s the same as biology, geology, cosmetology or astrology. It is applied study and learning from a variety of sources toward a particular subject matter. In the case of geology it is applied study and learning in regard to the earth’s crust and the way in which the earth has been formed.
The mistake that is too easily made is in thinking that theology is only done by the “experts” or those who have some specialized training in this particular science. When the reality is that we are doing theology all the time. When you reflect on the pastor’s sermon and what it says about God and your own relationship with God, you are doing theology. When you sit in a Sunday School class and ponder the passages of Scripture discussed and attempt to apply new Biblical truth to your life in the week that follows, you are doing theological work. When you sit by the hospital bedside of a dear friend who is recovering from a difficult surgery and you wonder where is God in all of this, you are doing theology. When you are making a decision about whether or not you should allow your children to schedule soccer practice on a night of the week when your church offers excellent children’s programming, you are doing theology. When you ponder the mysteries of heaven and hell, you are doing theology.
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.
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accused of not believing in anything. Or we are accused of not having any established doctrine. But the fact of the matter is that there are definitely distinguishing characteristics of a United Methodist, and I intend on presenting at least eight of them for you in this series of newsletter articles. It is important to remember that as United Methodists we are Wesleyan in the expression of our faith. This means that we adhere to the spiritual and doctrinal emphases of John Wesley, the great church reformer in the Anglican tradition. Of course the Anglican Church never embraced the reforms of John Wesley, which did not prevent Wesley from maintaining his Anglican Church membership till the day he died. It was the Wesleyan “reformation movement” which eventually became known as Methodism. From the original Methodist movement sprang many other religious traditions, too numerous to mention here.
we model our faith life and practice. Let me also say that when we talk about “theology” we are not talking about something that is utterly foreign and unknowable to the average church attendee. The word “theology” means this: the study of the nature of God and religious truth. It’s the same as biology, geology, cosmetology or astrology. It is applied study and learning from a variety of sources toward a particular subject matter. In the case of geology it is applied study and learning in regard to the earth’s crust and the way in which the earth has been formed.