Methodism and John Wesley Explained
Methodism began as a disciplined renewal movement within the Church of England and became one of the largest Protestant families in the world. Its history is inseparable from John Wesley, whose preaching united salvation by grace through faith with a searching call to holiness, Christian fellowship, and love of neighbor.
Methodism did not begin with a plan to create a new denomination.
It began with a nickname.
In eighteenth-century Oxford, a small group of students became known for their unusually disciplined religious lives. They studied Scripture, prayed together, received Holy Communion frequently, fasted, visited prisoners, assisted the poor, and examined their conduct with considerable seriousness. Other students mocked them as “Methodists” because of the methodical order of their devotion.
The insult survived because the movement did.
At the center of its development stood John Wesley, an Anglican priest, scholar, evangelist, and gifted organizer. Wesley did not believe he was inventing a new form of Christianity. He believed he was calling professing Christians back to the faith they already confessed: repentance, trust in Jesus Christ, the new birth, holy living, frequent Communion, mercy toward the suffering, and steadfast participation in the life of the Church.
Historic Methodism can therefore be summarized as a movement of grace, faith, holiness, and disciplined fellowship.
John Wesley Before the Methodist Revival
John Wesley was born in 1703 in Epworth, Lincolnshire, into the large family of Samuel and Susanna Wesley. His father was an Anglican clergyman, while his mother was a learned and formidable Christian teacher who exercised considerable influence over the spiritual and intellectual formation of her children.
Wesley attended Charterhouse School and Christ Church, Oxford. He was ordained a deacon in the Church of England in 1725, elected a fellow of Lincoln College in 1726, and ordained a priest in 1728.
During John’s absence from Oxford, his younger brother Charles and a few companions began meeting for study and devotion. When John returned in 1729, he became the group’s principal leader. George Whitefield, who would later become one of the greatest preachers of the Evangelical Revival, also joined their circle.
The group was never formally named the “Holy Club” by its members. Like “Methodist,” the title appears to have been applied from outside, often in ridicule. The Oxford Methodists nevertheless embraced the practices behind the mockery. They studied the Greek New Testament, fasted regularly, received Communion, visited prisoners, taught poor children, and organized their lives around prayer and service.
They were sincere, disciplined, and charitable.
Yet Wesley increasingly feared that discipline alone could not give him peace with God.
The Georgia Mission
In 1735, Wesley sailed for the new colony of Georgia as a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. He served as rector of Christ Church in Savannah and hoped also to minister among Native American peoples. His brother Charles traveled with him as secretary to James Oglethorpe, the colony’s founder.
The mission exposed both Wesley’s strengths and his weaknesses.
He worked energetically, organized worship carefully, and attempted to enforce what he regarded as the proper discipline of the Church. His rigorous pastoral methods, however, often appeared inflexible to the colonists. His relationship with a young woman named Sophy Hopkey further complicated the situation. After she married another man, Wesley later refused her Communion on disciplinary grounds. Her husband initiated legal proceedings against him.
Historians continue to discuss Wesley’s motives. Some emphasize his strict interpretation of Anglican discipline; others conclude that personal resentment probably influenced his judgment. What can be said with confidence is that the episode seriously damaged his ministry. Wesley left Georgia in December 1737 while the legal controversy remained unresolved.
The experience was humiliating. It also forced Wesley to confront the difference between religious labor and spiritual assurance.
He had crossed the Atlantic to minister to others while remaining deeply uncertain about the state of his own soul.
The Moravians and the Search for Assurance
During the outward voyage to Georgia, Wesley encountered a group of Moravian Christians. When a severe storm frightened many aboard the ship, the Moravians continued singing and praying with remarkable calm. Their confidence impressed Wesley, who recognized in them an assurance he did not possess.
After returning to England, Wesley received further counsel from the Moravian minister Peter Böhler. Böhler emphasized personal trust in Christ, justification by faith, and the inward witness of the Holy Spirit.
These conversations prepared Wesley for the event most closely associated with his spiritual awakening.
Aldersgate and the “Strangely Warmed” Heart
On the evening of May 24, 1738, Wesley attended a religious society meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. He went, according to his journal, “very unwillingly.”
During the meeting, someone read from Martin Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. As Wesley listened to Luther’s description of the change God works in the heart through faith, he recorded:
“I felt my heart strangely warmed.”
Wesley wrote that he felt he trusted in Christ alone for salvation and received assurance that Christ had taken away his sins.
Aldersgate is frequently described as Wesley’s conversion. That description is understandable, but the historical and theological question is more complicated. Wesley had already been baptized, ordained, devoted to prayer, and active in ministry. He had also experienced moments of genuine faith before May 1738.
It is therefore safer to describe Aldersgate as Wesley’s evangelical breakthrough or decisive experience of assurance. It was the moment when justification by faith became not merely a doctrine he acknowledged but a promise he personally trusted.
Aldersgate did not cause Wesley to abandon Christian discipline. It changed the place discipline occupied in his theology.
Prayer, fasting, Communion, charity, and obedience could not earn acceptance with God. They belonged to the life of one who had first received mercy through Christ.
When the Pulpit Moved Outdoors
The next turning point came through George Whitefield.
Whitefield had begun preaching outdoors to miners and laborers near Bristol. Many of these people seldom attended parish worship, and some churches were unwilling to open their pulpits to revival preachers. Whitefield therefore went where the people were.
He invited Wesley to continue the work.
Wesley hesitated. As an Anglican priest, he initially regarded outdoor preaching as irregular and undignified. On April 2, 1739, however, he preached from a small rise outside Bristol to approximately three thousand people. In his journal, he described the decision as submitting “to be more vile.”
The unconventional pulpit changed the course of his life.
Wesley preached in fields, market squares, roadsides, meetinghouses, private homes, and parish churches when they were available. His audiences included miners, laborers, merchants, prisoners, farmers, tradesmen, and members of England’s growing industrial communities.
Whitefield demonstrated the extraordinary reach of open-air preaching. Wesley supplied the organizational structure that allowed converts to remain, mature, and care for one another.
Whitefield gathered crowds. Wesley built communities.
Societies, Classes, and Bands
Wesley understood that a powerful sermon could awaken a person without teaching that person how to live as a Christian.
Those affected by Methodist preaching were therefore gathered into societies for worship, instruction, and fellowship. Societies were not initially intended to replace Anglican parishes. They functioned as renewal communities within the Church of England.
The societies were divided into smaller class meetings under lay leaders. The class system emerged in Bristol in 1742 from a practical arrangement for collecting weekly contributions toward a building debt. Wesley quickly recognized that the same structure could provide pastoral oversight and spiritual accountability.
Classes ordinarily included around a dozen people. Members discussed their spiritual condition, received encouragement or correction, prayed together, and contributed to the work of the society. More intimate groups called bands permitted deeper confession and examination among members of similar spiritual experience.
Early Methodist organization was not accidental bureaucracy. It expressed a theological conviction: Christians ordinarily grow through the grace of God within a disciplined community.
The movement’s expectations were summarized in the General Rules, first published in 1743:
Do no harm.
Do good.
Attend upon all the ordinances of God.
The third rule included public worship, the ministry of the Word, the Lord’s Supper, family and private prayer, the searching of Scripture, and fasting or abstinence. The shortened expression “stay in love with God,” though popular in some modern Methodist circles, is not Wesley’s original wording.
What Do Methodists Believe?
Methodism belongs to Protestant Christianity and historically stands within the broad confession of the early ecumenical creeds. Methodist churches confess the Trinity, the incarnation of the Son, Christ’s atoning death and bodily resurrection, the authority of Scripture, the reality of sin, salvation through Christ, and the final resurrection and judgment.
Its distinctiveness lies not in a completely new creed but in the way it emphasizes the work of grace throughout the Christian life.
Scripture and Methodist Doctrine
John Wesley described himself as a “man of one book,” meaning that Scripture was the supreme standard of Christian doctrine. The phrase did not mean that he read no other books. Wesley was exceptionally well read. It meant that the Bible held final authority over every other theological source.
Historic Methodist doctrinal standards include Wesley’s Standard Sermons, his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, the Articles of Religion, the General Rules, and, in some denominations, additional confessions and books of discipline.
Modern Methodists often speak of a “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” consisting of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Wesley himself did not invent that term or arrange those sources into a formal four-sided system. Methodist theologian Albert Outler developed the expression in the twentieth century as an interpretation of Wesley’s theological method.
The four elements should not be treated as equal authorities. In classical Wesleyan thought, Scripture remains primary. Tradition, reason, and Christian experience assist the Church in understanding Scripture but cannot legitimately overturn it.
Grace Comes First
Wesley strongly rejected the idea that fallen human beings can initiate their own salvation.
The Methodist Articles of Religion state that humanity cannot turn toward faith by natural strength apart from the grace of God acting beforehand. They also affirm that justification rests upon the merit of Jesus Christ and is received through faith rather than personal works or deserving.
Wesleyan theology commonly describes the work of grace in several related ways.
Prevenient Grace
Prevenient means “coming before.”
Prevenient grace is God’s gracious activity before conversion. It awakens the conscience, exposes sin, draws the person toward God, and graciously enables a genuine response to the gospel.
This does not mean that human beings possess an untouched natural capacity to choose God. Wesley denied that fallen people could prepare themselves for salvation by their own power. Any ability to repent and believe is already the result of grace.
Wesleyan theology is therefore not Pelagian. Humanity does not begin the movement toward God independently. God acts first.
Convincing Grace and Repentance
Wesley also spoke of the Spirit’s convincing or convicting grace. Through this work, a person becomes conscious of sin, divine judgment, and the need for mercy.
Repentance is not a work that earns pardon. It is the grace-enabled recognition that we need pardon.
Justifying Grace
Justification is God’s act of forgiving sinners and restoring them to his favor through Jesus Christ.
Historic Methodist teaching is explicitly Protestant on this point: sinners are justified by faith on account of Christ, not because their works have earned acceptance. Good works follow justification as the fruit of living faith; they do not form its meritorious basis.
Wesley closely connected justification with the new birth.
Justification concerns pardon and restored standing before God. Regeneration concerns the inward renewal of the person by the Holy Spirit. Wesley distinguished them conceptually while treating them as inseparable dimensions of conversion.
Sanctifying Grace
Salvation does not end with pardon.
Sanctification is the continuing work of the Holy Spirit by which believers are renewed in the image of God, delivered from the dominion of sin, and formed in holy love.
Wesley’s vision of salvation was therefore deeply transformative. Christ does not merely cancel guilt while leaving the human heart untouched. The grace that forgives also begins to heal.
Wesleyan Arminianism
John Wesley was an Arminian rather than a Calvinist.
He taught that Christ died for all people, that God genuinely desires the salvation of all, and that grace enables a real human response that may nevertheless be resisted. George Whitefield, by contrast, was a Calvinistic Methodist who affirmed Reformed doctrines of election.
Their disagreement became intense, particularly after Wesley published his sermon “Free Grace.” Yet after periods of strain, they continued to recognize one another as Christian ministers and collaborators in the broader revival. The early Methodist movement therefore included both Wesleyan Arminian and Calvinistic branches, although the Wesleyan form became much larger and gave most modern Methodism its theological identity.
Wesleyan Arminianism should not be described as salvation produced by free will. Grace precedes and enables the response of faith.
Wesley also taught that believers must continue in faith. A genuine Christian may later depart from grace and fall into serious sin, although repentance and restoration remain possible. The Methodist Articles expressly reject both the idea that a justified believer becomes incapable of sinning and the idea that forgiveness must be denied to the repentant.
Assurance and the Witness of the Spirit
Wesley taught that Christians may possess a genuine assurance that they are children of God.
This assurance is not merely confidence in one’s moral performance. It is associated with the witness of the Holy Spirit, who bears witness with the believer’s spirit that he or she belongs to God.
Wesley did not always describe assurance as equally intense or emotionally dramatic. He also distinguished saving faith from a permanent state of uninterrupted psychological certainty. Aldersgate should therefore not be turned into a rule that every Christian conversion must include an identical sensation.
The strangely warmed heart is Wesley’s testimony. It is not a sacrament every believer must reproduce.
Christian Perfection
The most distinctive and frequently misunderstood Wesleyan doctrine is Christian perfection, also called perfect love or entire sanctification.
The language immediately invites misunderstanding. Wesley did not teach that Christians become omniscient, physically immortal, incapable of temptation, or unable to make mistakes. He explicitly stated that Christian perfection does not remove ignorance, infirmity, error, or temptation.
He also did not mean that mature Christians cease to need Christ. The perfected believer remains dependent upon grace, prayer, the atonement, and continued growth.
What, then, did Wesley mean?
He believed that the Holy Spirit can so purify the heart that love for God and neighbor becomes its governing disposition. Christian perfection is not absolute perfection in every possible sense. It is the perfection of holy love.
Wesley sometimes described it as deliverance from inward and outward sin. Yet his particular definition of sin was important. He commonly defined sin in this context as a voluntary transgression of a known law of God. Mistakes arising from ignorance or human weakness could still produce harmful consequences, even when they were not classified as sin in the strict sense used in his doctrine of perfection.
This definition remains one of the most debated features of Wesley’s theology.
Wesley taught that sanctification begins with the new birth and ordinarily develops gradually. He also taught that entire sanctification may be received instantaneously by faith, often after a long period of growth and followed by further growth. It was therefore neither simply a lifelong process nor merely a dramatic second experience. His account included both process and gift.
Later Holiness and Pentecostal traditions developed this teaching in different directions. Some emphasized a clearly identifiable second work of grace; others placed greater emphasis on progressive maturity.
Wesley himself urged believers to seek perfect love while remaining cautious about pride, exaggerated claims, and careless language.
The Means of Grace
Wesley defined the means of grace as outward signs, words, or actions appointed by God as ordinary channels through which he conveys grace.
The principal means included:
Prayer
Searching the Scriptures
The Lord’s Supper
Fasting
Christian fellowship
Public worship
Works of mercy
These practices do not mechanically produce salvation. Nor do they earn divine favor. They are places of obedient receptivity in which Christians seek the God who has promised to meet, strengthen, and sanctify his people.
Methodism at its best is therefore neither sacramentalism without conversion nor revivalism without sacramental life.
It expects grace at the altar, in Scripture, at the Lord’s Table, in the prayer meeting, among the poor, and within the honest fellowship of believers.
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
Historic Methodist teaching recognizes two sacraments instituted by Christ:
Baptism
The Lord’s Supper
The Methodist Articles describe the sacraments not merely as badges of Christian identity but as signs and means through which God works invisibly to strengthen faith. They reject transubstantiation while affirming that believers truly receive Christ in a heavenly and spiritual manner through faith.
Wesley encouraged frequent Communion. He did not regard the Lord’s Supper as an occasional ceremonial appendix to preaching. He regarded it as a divinely appointed means through which Christ nourishes his people.
Historic Methodist churches generally retained infant baptism from Anglicanism while also baptizing adult converts. Some later Wesleyan denominations allow variations in how infant baptism and dedication are practiced, so no single statement describes every modern branch.
Personal Holiness, Social Holiness, and Mercy
Wesley’s phrase social holiness is often misunderstood.
In its original context, it referred primarily to holiness lived in Christian fellowship. Wesley rejected the idea that Christianity could be practiced as an isolated, purely private spirituality. Believers need the Church, the sacraments, correction, encouragement, and the opportunity to love actual neighbors rather than imaginary ones.
Social holiness should therefore not be treated simply as an eighteenth-century term for modern political activism.
Nevertheless, Wesley also taught that love for God must become visible in mercy toward others. The early Methodists visited prisoners, instructed children, cared for the sick, raised relief for the poor, and encouraged responsible stewardship.
Wesley also condemned slavery. In 1774, he published Thoughts Upon Slavery, denouncing the slave trade and the cruelty inflicted upon enslaved people. Shortly before his death in 1791, he wrote to William Wilberforce and encouraged him to persevere in the struggle against slavery.
These efforts did not replace evangelism. Wesley regarded them as expressions of faith working through love.
Methodism sought to unite what Christians are often tempted to separate:
personal conversion and life together,
justification and sanctification,
doctrine and devotion,
evangelism and mercy.
Charles Wesley and the Theology That Could Sing
John Wesley organized the movement, but his younger brother Charles gave it a voice.
Charles Wesley was an Anglican priest, revival preacher, and one of the most prolific hymnwriters in Christian history. Scholarly collections attribute thousands of published poems and hymns to him.
His best-known texts include:
“And Can It Be”
“O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”
“Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”
“Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus”
“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”
“Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”
Some of these hymns were subsequently edited or paired with melodies Charles never heard. Nevertheless, their theological substance remains recognizably Wesleyan.
Through hymnody, ordinary congregations learned about the incarnation, atonement, universal grace, assurance, sanctification, resurrection, and the love of God.
John gave Methodism its organization.
Charles gave Methodism a theology people could carry home in song.
Did Wesley Intend to Found a New Church?
Not in Britain.
John Wesley lived and died as a priest of the Church of England. He repeatedly resisted separation and hoped the Methodist societies would renew Anglican Christianity from within.
Yet the movement gradually developed many features of an independent church: its own meetinghouses, conferences, lay preachers, traveling ministers, membership discipline, hymnals, finances, and pastoral structure.
The decisive institutional break came first in America.
After the American Revolution, many Anglican priests had left the former colonies, and American Methodists lacked ordained ministers to administer Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Wesley unsuccessfully sought greater assistance through the Church of England and eventually acted on his own understanding of early Christian ministry.
In 1784, Wesley ordained the lay preachers Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey as presbyters for America. He also set apart Thomas Coke, already an Anglican priest, as a general superintendent and sent him across the Atlantic with instructions for organizing the American work.
At the Christmas Conference in Baltimore, the American preachers formed the Methodist Episcopal Church. Francis Asbury insisted upon election by the conference rather than accepting office solely through Wesley’s appointment. He was then ordained deacon, elder, and general superintendent by Coke over three consecutive days. Coke and Asbury were soon called bishops, a title Wesley disliked in this context.
Separation in Britain occurred more gradually after Wesley’s death in 1791. Methodism did not emerge from a single dramatic declaration of independence but through decades of practical and ecclesiastical development.
Methodism Today
Methodism is now a worldwide family rather than a single denomination.
Its churches include the Methodist Church of Great Britain, the United Methodist Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, the Free Methodist Church, the Wesleyan Church, and numerous Methodist bodies throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and Latin America.
Related Holiness churches, including the Church of the Nazarene, also trace substantial portions of their theology to Wesley.
The World Methodist Council currently describes itself as consisting of approximately eighty Methodist, Wesleyan, United, and Uniting churches representing more than eighty million people in 138 countries. These figures describe the Council’s member communions collectively, not one centralized worldwide denomination.
Modern Methodist churches vary considerably in worship, government, theological emphasis, and moral teaching. Some retain bishops; others do not. Some are liturgical, while others resemble evangelical revival churches. Some emphasize entire sanctification strongly; others mention it rarely.
The word Methodist therefore identifies a historical family, not complete agreement on every contemporary question.
The United Methodist Church and the Global Methodist Church
The United Methodist Church was formed in 1968 through the union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church.
At its General Conference held in 2024, the denomination removed its former prohibitions against openly gay clergy and penalties connected with clergy or churches conducting same-sex weddings. The changes took full effect by January 1, 2025, although clergy retain discretion regarding which weddings they will perform.
In 2025, constitutional amendments establishing worldwide regionalization were ratified. The denomination now consists constitutionally of nine regional conferences—one in the United States and eight in Africa, Europe, and the Philippines—with authority to adapt specified portions of church discipline to regional contexts. Implementation and the development of a global Book of Discipline remain ongoing.
The Global Methodist Church launched on May 1, 2022, amid the broader separation of traditionalist congregations from the United Methodist Church. It maintains traditional Methodist doctrine and the historic Christian teaching that marriage is the covenantal union of one man and one woman.
Neither body should simply be equated with the entirety of Methodism or treated as a perfect reproduction of Wesley’s eighteenth-century movement.
How Methodism Compares with Other Christian Traditions
Methodism is unmistakably Protestant but retains important features of its Anglican ancestry.
It shares with Lutheran and Reformed Christianity the doctrines of original sin, justification by faith, the authority of Scripture, and the necessity of grace. It differs from classical Calvinism concerning unconditional election, irresistible grace, definite atonement, and unconditional perseverance.
It shares with many Baptists and evangelicals an emphasis on conversion, preaching, evangelism, Bible reading, and personal discipleship. It traditionally differs from most Baptists concerning infant baptism, sacramental grace, and episcopal or connexional structures.
It shares with Anglicanism its historical origin, sacramental inheritance, liturgical vocabulary, and early episcopal framework. Methodism developed more extensive systems of itinerant preaching, lay leadership, class meetings, and revival organization.
Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians may recognize in Wesley a serious insistence that salvation includes real interior transformation rather than a merely external declaration. Important differences remain concerning ecclesial authority, apostolic succession, sacramental theology, the communion of saints, and the Protestant framework of Methodist doctrine.
Methodism should therefore not be reduced to “Anglicanism with enthusiastic hymns.” It is an evangelical, sacramental, revivalist, and holiness-centered Protestant tradition.
Common Misconceptions
“Methodists believe good works earn salvation.”
Historic Methodist standards teach that justification rests entirely upon Christ and is received through faith. Good works are the fruit of living faith, not a payment offered in exchange for forgiveness.
“Wesleyan free will means humanity can come to God without grace.”
Wesley denied natural spiritual self-sufficiency. The ability to repent and believe is itself enabled by prevenient grace.
“Christian perfection means becoming incapable of error.”
Wesley explicitly denied that Christian perfection removes ignorance, weakness, mistakes, or temptation. He meant a heart governed by holy love.
“Methodism is simply emotional revivalism.”
Early Methodism included powerful preaching and intense religious experience, but it was also highly structured. It required regular fellowship, pastoral oversight, Scripture, Communion, fasting, financial stewardship, and accountability.
“Aldersgate is the required pattern for every conversion.”
Aldersgate was central to Wesley’s experience, but Methodism does not require every Christian to feel a physically warmed heart or identify an exact minute of conversion.
“Social holiness simply means political activism.”
In Wesley’s original usage, social holiness especially meant that holiness must be lived with other Christians. His wider works of mercy and concern for society followed from this communal and Christ-centered vision.
“All Methodists now believe the same things.”
Modern Methodist and Wesleyan denominations differ significantly. The name identifies a shared inheritance, not uniformity.
The Strengths and Questions of the Wesleyan Vision
Wesley perceived several dangers that continue to trouble Christianity.
Doctrine can become detached from devotion.
Religious experience can become detached from truth.
Evangelism can produce decisions without discipleship.
Moral discipline can become detached from grace.
Social concern can become detached from reconciliation with God.
Sacramental practice can become formal without becoming transformative.
Wesley attempted to keep these realities together. His theology began with grace, called sinners to faith, gathered converts into community, directed them toward the sacraments, and expected the Holy Spirit to produce a holy life.
His system also raises legitimate questions.
Christians continue to debate whether his doctrine of entire sanctification accurately describes the New Testament’s teaching about sin in the believer. His restricted definition of sin can appear to minimize the moral seriousness of actions produced by ignorance or disordered judgment. Reformed Christians dispute his account of election and perseverance. Catholic and Orthodox Christians question the ecclesiastical authority by which Wesley reorganized ministry and ordained clergy outside normal Anglican order.
These disagreements should not be concealed.
Yet Wesley’s central challenge remains powerful: the grace Christians confess should become visible in the lives Christians live.
Why Methodism Matters
Methodism became one of the most influential Christian movements of the modern period because it carried theology into ordinary life.
It brought preaching to people who rarely entered churches. It gave laypeople serious responsibility. It organized converts into enduring communities. It placed hymns beside sermons, mercy beside evangelism, and sanctification beside justification.
At its best, Methodism refuses to treat Christianity as either a vague religious feeling or a merely intellectual system.
The sinner is awakened by grace.
Christ is received through faith.
The believer is born anew.
The Church becomes a school of holy love.
And faith begins to work through love.
Reflection
John Wesley spent years trying to serve God before he learned to rest more fully in what God had accomplished through Jesus Christ.
His prayers were not worthless. His fasting was not meaningless. His care for prisoners and the poor was not misguided. But none of these things could bear the weight of his justification.
Christ alone could do that.
This is the enduring beauty of Aldersgate. The gospel does not begin with humanity ascending toward God through sufficient effort. It begins with the Son of God descending toward humanity in mercy.
We do not persuade Christ to become our Savior through discipline. We pursue discipline because the Savior has first loved us.
Yet the grace that pardons does not leave us unchanged.
The Holy Spirit teaches the proud to become humble, the selfish to become generous, the careless to become watchful, and the despairing to trust the promises of God. Grace gathers isolated people into communion and teaches them to bear one another’s burdens. It turns faith outward in mercy while drawing the heart upward in worship.
Wesley’s deepest hope was not that Christians would become impressed with their own holiness. It was that the love of God would so fill them that self-centeredness would lose its throne.
Methodism’s finest inheritance is therefore not merely an efficient organization, a famous conversion story, or a collection of magnificent hymns.
It is the conviction that the salvation offered in Christ is both freely given and profoundly transformative.
Christ receives the guilty.
He awakens the spiritually sleeping.
He restores the fallen.
He nourishes his people through Word, sacrament, prayer, and fellowship.
And by the patient work of the Holy Spirit, he teaches redeemed sinners to love God and one another.
Sources and Further Reading:
Primary Sources
John Wesley. The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, especially the entries for May 24, 1738, and April 2, 1739.
John Wesley. “Salvation by Faith.”
John Wesley. “The Witness of the Spirit.”
John Wesley. “The Means of Grace.”
John Wesley. “The Scripture Way of Salvation.”
John Wesley. “Christian Perfection.”
John Wesley. A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.
John Wesley. Thoughts Upon Slavery.
John Wesley. “The Duty of Constant Communion.”
John Wesley. Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament.
John Wesley. The General Rules of the United Societies.
The Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church.
Scholarly Sources
Campbell, Ted A. Methodist Doctrine: The Essentials. Revised edition. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2011.
Collins, Kenneth J. The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007.
Hempton, David. Methodism: Empire of the Spirit. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
Heitzenrater, Richard P. Wesley and the People Called Methodists. Second edition. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013.
Maddox, Randy L. Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology. Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1994.
Rack, Henry D. Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism. Third edition. Peterborough: Epworth Press, 2002.
Vickers, Jason E. Wesley: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: T&T Clark, 2009.