Fall is upon us, and in our household, it heralds the arrival of our annual birthday season. Every member of our immediate family celebrates his or her birthday in October or November, but for me and for my wife, we especially cherish celebrating the birth of our children. Our son Joshua was born at 4:51 p.m. on October 13, 1992 in Wheeling, West Virginia. Our daughter Hope was born at 12:14 p.m. in Radford, Virginia. The times/dates/places of their births are indelibly etched into our memories, and every year, we remember with parental joy their official arrivals into our lives.
Of course, the stories of these births are far larger and richer than the simple recitation of times, dates, and places. The stories of their births begin with the occasions upon which we discovered that we were “expecting parents.” They include my wife’s bouts with morning sickness and subsequent use of vitamin regimens designed to promote healthy pregnancies, shopping for maternity clothes, monthly trips to the obstetricians’ offices for checkups, sharing grainy sonogram images with family and friends (regardless of their level of interest!), setting up rooms for use as nurseries (featuring Winnie the Pooh themes), feeling the babies’ kicks against my wife’s abdomen, and, naturally, choosing potential names. The stories include events after the actual births: bringing the babies home (and learning how to properly use those complicated infant car seats!), feeding and changing them on their schedules (and I emphasize THEIR schedules!), wellness visits with pediatricians, assembling toys designed to assist in their cognitive development, and the ongoing process of marking “first occasions: their first solid food consumption, the first time they experienced any type of illness (a terrifying time for new parents), and the first time they rolled over on their own. From that point forward, the “on their own” events took on new emphasis and increasing frequency: they were on their way to growing up!
Similarly, I can remember the time, the date, and the place of my experience of the “new birth” in Christ Jesus (John 3.5-8). However, the story of my life journey with Jesus is far larger and richer than the simple recitation of the time/date/place of my decision to repent of my sin and place my faith in Him as Savior and Lord. The passing of time and ongoing prayerful reflection have revealed to me how Jesus was at work around me long before I actually perceived it, taking the initiative to reveal Himself to me in ways both large and small and to invite me to live as His disciple. Also, I have come to understand the process of growing in God’s grace and answering God’s call to ordained ministry that began with my response to Jesus’ call to life as His disciple. Nothing has been the same for me since that time…with all of the fits and starts, bumps and bruises, and plateaus and spurts that come with maturing (the Biblical process known as “sanctification”), I’ve been on a continuous journey of “growing up in Christ.”
This “order of salvation” that I have experienced in my life is one that countless others have claimed as their own witnesses to faith in Christ. The entire Bible repeatedly relates the stories of individuals who proceed through their “order of salvation” via the initiative and invitation of God’s Spirit and the response of personal faith. The practical dimensions of this process are evident in Jesus’ ministry to and with His disciples as recorded in the Gospels, and the theological understandings of this process are constantly expounded in the New Testament epistles. Because of what I have learned from the study of the Bible, read in the history and tradition of the Church Universal (particularly the early Church Fathers), gleaned from a reasoned analysis of the nature of God’s creation around me, and experienced in my own walk of faith, I embrace Wesleyan theology as the most accurate and faithful Biblical expression of the Christian faith and life. I do not claim that it is without problematic tensions or that it is as comprehensive as other expressions of systematic Christian theology, but it is the family in which God has placed me, and it is the place I am most at home.
In John Wesley’s sermon “On Working Out Your Own Salvation,” he outlines the Wesleyan understanding of God’s initiative of grace within the framework of “the order of salvation:”
Salvation begins with what is usually termed “preventing grace;” including the first wish to please God, the first dawn of light concerning his will, and the first slight transient conviction of having sinned against him. All these imply some tendency towards life…the beginning of deliverance from a blind, unfeeling heart, quite insensible of God and the things of God. Salvation is carried on by “convincing grace,” usually in Scripture termed “repentance;” which brings a larger measure of self-knowledge, and a farther deliverance from the heart of stone. Afterward we experience the proper Christian salvation; whereby, “through grace,” we are “saved by faith;” consisting of those two grand branches, justification and sanctification. By justification we are saved from the guilt of sin, and restored to the favor of God; by sanctification we are saved from the power and root of sin, and restored to the image of God. All experience, as well as Scripture, show this salvation to be both instantaneous and gradual. It begins the moment we are justified…(and) gradually increases from that moment, as “a grain of mustard-seed, which, at first, is the least of all seeds,” but afterwards puts forth large branches, and becomes a great tree; till, in another instant, the heart is cleansed from all sin, and filled with pure love to God and to man. But even that love increases more and more, till we “grow up in all things into Him that is our Head;” till we all attain “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
In “The Principles of a Methodist Farther Explained,” Wesley used the image of a house to describe the core theological tenant of the Wesleyan tradition: “Our main doctrines, which include all the rest, are three, that of repentance, of faith, and of holiness. The first of these we account, as it were, the porch of religion; the next, the door; the third is religion itself.” By using this illustration, Wesley was reminding us that, following our experience of conversion, there is an entire house to be explored…an exploration that will take a lifetime and beyond. Remaining on the porch, at the door, or even in the nursery will keep us from the total experience of grace, known as "abundant life" (John 10.10), that God has for us in Christ Jesus.
O, come and dwell in me,
Spirit of power within!
And bring Thy glorious liberty
From sorrow, fear, and sin.
The inward, deep disease,
Spirit of health, remove!
Spirit of perfect holiness!
Spirit of perfect love!
Hasten the joyful day
which shall my sins consume;
when old things shall be done away,
and all things new become!
The original offence
Out of my soul erase,
Enter thyself, and drive it hence,
And take up all the place.
-Charles Wesley
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