John Wesley had a profound impact on Protestant thought and belief, and his theology laid the groundwork for others like Charles Finney and Ellen White. Because he taught that the sinner had to decide to place his trust in Jesus and keep it there, he spawned generations of perfectionistic Christians who had no assurance of their salvation.

As it turns out, Wesley had no assurance either. This is what he wrote to his brother at the age of 63:

“I do not love God. I never did. Therefore I never believed, in the Christian sense of the word. Therefore I am only an honest heathen...And yet, to be so employed of God!” (Quoted from Tomkins; John Wesley: A Biography (Eerdmans, 2003) p. 168.)

Wesley believed that the standard of Christian righteousness was to love as God does—perfectly. When he failed to meet this standard, he despaired of his own righteousness and even questioned his own salvation. Somewhat ironically, he believed he was employed by God even through his unbelief.

This is the fruit of Arminianism. Without the understanding that God knew his own before the world began and chose them out of the world to seat them in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2), the Christian life is one of continued performance, measuring up to an unattainable standard, and ultimately despair.

Greg

Greg,

That quote from the private correspondence of John Wesley is most stunning.  Sadly, generations of people have embraced his Arminian, perfectionist stance as the gospel. Indeed, Wesley’s system of theology was a giant step back toward Rome.

Dennis Fischer

Here is more context for the above quote. For anyone who wants to read it in an original collection of Wesley’s works, it’s online here.

Quoting from Wesley’s autobiography, edited by Albert C. Outler (p. 81-82):

“In one of my last [letters] I was saying I do not feel the wrath of God abiding on me; nor can I believe it does. And yet, this is the mystery: I do not love God. I never did. Therefore I never believed in the Christian sense of the word. Therefore I am only an honest heathen, a proselyte of the Temple, one of the ‘God-fearers’ (Acts 13:16). And yet to be so employed of God; and so hedged in that I can neither get forward nor backward! Surely there never was such an instance before, from the beginning of the world! If I ever have had that faith, it would not be so strange. But I never had any other “awareness” of the eternal or invisible world than I have now; and that is none at all, unless such as fairly shines from reason’s glimmering ray. I have no direct witness (I do not say that I am a child of God) but of anything invisible or eternal.

And yet I dare not preach otherwise than I do, either concerning faith, or love, or justification, or perfection. And yet I find rather an increase than a decrease of zeal for the whole work of God and every part of it. I am so swept along (I know not how) that I can’t stand still. I want all the world to come to what I do not know myself. Neither am I impelled to this by fear of any kind. I have no more fear than love. Or if I have any fear, it is not of falling into hell, but of falling into nothing.”

Again, this confirms that when one is looking within for evidence of godliness, the end is only despair. Wesley preached thousands of sermons during his lifetime and wrote voluminously, yet in the end, his Arminian faith had no power to keep him from profoundly doubting his own confession and left him only hoping that others would come to a faith he knew nothing about.

Greg

Greg

What a great (and disturbing) quote.  I have an uncle who was a life-long adventist--had helped raise up a couple churches, strong believer in Ellen White to the very end.  On his deathbed, a time when people tend to be honest, he said he was a lost man. 

Not long before his death, he gave me paper filled with the stuff that Ellen loved.  He quoted her extensively.  Foolishly, I looked through it and threw it away.  But if you pick up a Firm Foundation magazine sometime and you can read the same kind of statements, such as “Only those who keep God’s Sabbath with Him on earth will keep it with Him in heaven.” My uncles’ paper was full of this kind of rhetoric. 

I couldn’t help but think of him when I read Wesley’s quote.  Knowing my uncle, and how he died, heIps me understand Wesley’s sad comments.

I wonder what it was that seemed to propel Wesley along?  Apparently many people came to Christ.  Did God use an apparently lost and confused arminian?  What about members of strongly arminian churches like adventism and catholicism?  I realize it is very hard for an arminian to make a statement of faith in Christ alone because in reality they are their own saviour--Christ just makes it possible to be saved IF.

My work takes me into the home of many fine old adventists.  One could say that, for better or worse, they are at spiritual maturity.  I must tell you honestly, I often hear stuff that is just heartbreaking.  In one day last summer I heard two different people brush aside the gospel and say “we just have to keep the commandments” and “we just have to be perfect.” The dear lady who said the one on being perfect just broke down and wept, and could not stop weeping.  A life-long adventist, she had no concept of justification based on the external merits of Someone Else or our eternal security as believers.  It all depended on her.

I know where she got that stuff.  One of Ellen’s Testimonies volumes was on the kitchen counter. 

It rips my heart out to see they way people that I love are hurting.  In reality, they are living and dying without trusting in the Lord, or just trusting him partially, but then they have to do their part, too--whatever they define that to be--and they don’t know.

My wife and I spent almost three hours standing by the deathbed of a dear old SDA lady who, in great spiritual agony, kept reviewing all the good things she had done.  Every once in a while I’d try to insert a comment on just trusting the Lord, and she’d say (in great distress) “Oh yes, but we have to do our part, too.” And she talked on while we listened, trying to convince us that she was good enough to save, mentioning church people she had helped, her vegetarian cooking, etc. 
Far as I know, she never found a satisfactory answer for “our part.”

It was an awful way to die (and to have lived).

Bob

Hi Greg,

Amazing confession, isn’t it? When it comes to “OUR part” of the agreement, this part fails us at the end of the day, no matter how hard we may try to change the situation. And it’s understandable what he was doing, looking at what was happening in his life, in the absence of clearly grasping what had happened in Jesus’ life. Instead of finding assurance exclusively in what Jesus did for Him on the cross, and in the blessed truth that his sins, our sins, were imputed to Christ and will never be imputed to us, Wesley found assurance (as we often discover involved in self-looking) in looking to himself. And if we look long enough, and deep enough, what we’ll see is not at all good news. And it was never intended as good news, but as bad news.  God wanted us to look at ourselves in order to see us as his pure eyes see us, corrupted, and cease looking to ourselves and start gazing at Jesus Christ who is “good news”, the gospel.

Gabriel

Greg,

This is an amazing quote. I wonder if Wesley ever felt differently AFTER that quote was written, and later came to assurance of faith. It would be very tragic if this was his final thoughts. And Bob, thanks for giving the examples from your SDA friends and family.

Stan

Stan, I hope you are right. At age 63, Wesley would have preached thousands of sermons before making this admission to his brother. He tirelessly travelled throughout England and America preaching his message of holiness and perfection of character. It is stunning, but not surprising that he reached these conclusions, although we can’t know what happened in his life after he made them. It’s all the more difficult to understand when you consider his conversion experience, which he attributed to a sovereign act of God (we covered this earlier in this article).

Bob, reading your stories is just so sad, for the same reasons that reading Wesley’s quote saddens me. When I get the chance, I’d like to post a story about the last moments of the Reformed theologian Edmund Clowney’s life. His experience is nearly the opposite of what you wrote about, confirming that what we believe about God has great consequences in both life and in death.

Greg

Here’s a short summary of Clowney’s story written by his daughter, Rebecca Clowney Jones, from the Foreward of his book How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments.

“On February 26, while getting up to help my mother with the Saturday vacuuming, my father fell and broke his sacrum. During his consequent hospitalization, complications arose that eventually overwhelmed him. On March 8, the same day I flew from California to be with my parents, I received e-mail confirmation that the manuscript had been accepted for publication. That evening, when I arrived at the University of Virginica hospital, I gave my dad the good news. His face brightened and he gave me a thumbs-up sign. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘you’ve got to get well now so you can sign the contract.’ But it was his wife of 63 years, Jean Clowney, who signed the contract. On Palm Sunday (March 20, 2005, at 6:30 p.m. EST), with his head cradled in my mother’s arms and his family praying by his side, my father left us to worship his beloved Christ in heaven, with the angels and that ‘great cloud of witnesses’—the many faithful Christians already with their Savior. It has thus been my sad honor to complete a few editorial odds and ends and to watch over the process of getting this book to press.

In the last weeks of his life, my dad (never known for his musical talent) made a reputation for himself as a singer. Comforted by the hymns sung by his family and friends from Trinity Church, he was so eager to sing Christ’s praises himself that he sang in the emergency ward, right through his oxygen mask. By the time he was settled into his hospital room, the nurses were whispering, ‘That’s the man who was singing in the emergency ward!’ My father’s voice did not end with his death. This volume, with the others he wrote, will sing on: ‘I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you’ (Psalm 22:22).”

When I read this the first, time, I was moved. This is the kind of death I want to have, praising God and looking forward with anticipation to what lies ahead, not with fear and uncertainty over whether I’ve proven my “fitness for heaven” or whether I’ve remembered all of my unconfessed sins. The only way to have this kind of joyful assurance is by knowing you are a great sinner who has a great Savior.

Greg

Greg

Thanks for your last post.  Well said, especially your last paragraph.

Because of the Lord Jesus Christ, my life will end in praise, not fear!!

What a difference!

Bob

Greg and Bob,

Thanks again. This illustrates why doctrine is soooo important! If we can only hope that our lives may be good enough to pass the Investigative Judgment, then we are people most miserable indeed.

Stan