So far, in this series, we have looked at a Wesleyan understanding of both Prevenient Grace and Convicting Grace. This brings us to the aspect of Wesley’s perspective that has the most overlap with other Protestant Traditions: Justifying Grace.
In most traditions, talking about someone being “justified” is one and the same with someone “getting saved.” Justification is the word that often gets used to translate the idea in the New Testament that we are “made right” with God. It is the crucial word in passages like Romans 3:23-24 when Paul writes “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” There are several overlapping ways in which this word gets applied, but it is clear that it is referring to the way in which, because of what Jesus has done, we are made right with God by grace and through faith.
On this topic, the Wesleyan tradition is in lock-step with other Protestants who emphasize that we are not brought into a right relationship with God because of anything that we have done, but only because we have faith in Jesus. This is not merely a thing that happens in our minds, it happens when we put our trust in who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. On that basis, we are accepted by God and have our sins forgiven.
It is important to make sure we are clear that this is different than what happens during convicting grace. A person under convicting grace may feel sorrow for their sins, they may be earnestly repenting as well as they can, but that is not the same thing as putting their trust in Jesus. This is because the point of the good news of Jesus Christ is not that we all feel bad for our sins, but that we be freed from our sins and find our new life in Christ.
This is how Wesley puts it:
“And yet I allow you this, that although both repentance and the fruits thereof are in some sense necessary before justification, yet neither the one nor the other is necessary in the same sense, or in the same degree, with faith. Not in the same degree; for in whatever moment a man believes (in the Christian sense of the word) he is justified, his sins are blotted out, ‘his faith is counted to him for righteousness.’ But it is not so at whatever moment he repents, or brings forth any or all the fruits of repentance. Faith alone, therefore, justifies; which repentance alone does not, much less any outward work. And, consequently, none of these are necessary to justification, in the same degree with faith.” (A Farther Appeal To Men of Reason and Religion, Part 1, II.11)
This much is all fairly typical for Protestants. There is, however, a nuance in the Wesleyan perspective that becomes clearer if we understand some of Wesley’s early theological struggles. In his young adulthood, Wesley was shaped by what is called the “holy living tradition.” Under the influence of this tradition, Wesley operated as if justification was something that came at the end of a long journey of growing in holiness. It was only after his famous encounters with Moravian Lutherans that he became convinced by scripture, by the doctrines of the Church of England, and by personal testimony, that people were saved by grace through faith before they grew in genuine holiness.
This is where the Wesleyan understanding of justification is sometimes a little different than other forms of evangelical faith. Sometimes, the way people talk about being justified, or “getting saved,” gives the impression that it is something that happened in the past and is over and done with. When some people talk about getting saved at the time they came to faith, it almost sends the message that, since they are saved by grace through faith and not by works, there is no place for doing anything.
Not for Wesley. He was so captivated by the good news that justification comes at the beginning of our life of faith that he never forgot that it was the beginning of our faith, and never its end. That is to say, coming to be justified by faith is not the last thing that happens in our relationship with God and it is not the goal of that relationship. It is what makes all growth in our faith possible, but the point of having faith is not just to have faith, but to let that faith and trust grow to the point where we live our lives completely devoted to Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit. That will be the topic of the remaining articles in this series.
The practical application, from the Wesleyan perspective of Justifying Grace is that, if we have been justified by grace and through faith, we are in a state of salvation, of being accepted by God right now. Because of that, we can describe ourselves as “saved” in the present tense. It is not just that we will be saved, but that we are saved.
This is crucially important for the Christian trying to comprehend where they stand with God. They do not need to imagine that they have to get to a certain level of holiness before God will accept them, because God accepts them without any works at all. We are not treading water in this life, trying to keep ourselves afloat. We don’t have to be sanctified before God saves us. In fact, we can’t be sanctified before justification because genuine sanctification only happens after God accepts us. We have been made right with God, not because we have done anything, but because of what God has done for us.
This also means that we are not left to our own devices, and with nothing but our own strength in our growing in grace. Wesley distinguished between “justification” and “the new birth,” but he saw them as happening at the same time. Because of that, we will unpack more of what it means to be born again in the next article, but justifying grace is the line between being an enemy of God and being God’s friend, the line between being a sinner facing destruction and being a sinner saved and set on a new foundation. Though both prevenient and convicting grace are important in this process, it is at justification when a person is properly said to “be saved” or “become a Christian.”
If you have been laboring under convicting grace, feeling the burden of your sin but not yet experiencing the relief of that burden through the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, do not stop seeking it in prayer. If your soul is stirred with longing to experience the freedom of Christ, never rest until God gives it. We cannot force God’s hand, but God longs for us to be made new!
