But for all that Wesley did have some basic and emphatic beliefs – completely orthodox, but which he reiterated and regarded as important to practical Christianity. There are three in particular which are neatly summed up in this well-known statement entitled the Four Alls. All need to be saved; All can be saved; All can know they are saved, and All can be saved completely. By saved Wesley means, in orthodox Christian terms, being saved from the present and future consequences of our human sinfulness inherited from Adam, by the atoning death of Christ upon the cross and the consequent sharing of a new and eternal life with God made possible by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. All this may sound to some, an old-fashioned mouthful, but it simply means that the love of God, through faith in Jesus can transform our lives for time and eternity.
So with the first two Alls that all need to be saved and that all can be saved, John Wesley is asserting, in the strongest possible way, that God’s saving love or grace, is for all people whatever their colour or culture or creed and also whatever their depth of sin or evil might be. No single creature, however depraved, is beyond God’s saving grace, and what is more God yearns that all human beings should be saved. This alas does not mean that all will be saved – God’s grace can be resisted and, instead of salvation, judgement will be the lot of those who defy the Lord to the end.
Wesley, in his lifetime, clashed with many otherwise fine Christians who took the Calvinist view that as God is all sovereign in His creation, and consequently His grace is resistless, those who refuse His grace must do so because they have been predestined by God to damnation instead of salvation. Whilst Wesley conceded that in the Bible there is a doctrine of divine election and that God being God knows the end from the beginning, he felt, as most Christians do, that this is a monstrous notion and that one of God’s great gifts to us, as human beings, is the ability to make a free and responsible choice. There is, of course, the underlying assumption that God in one way or another makes this choice possible for all human beings whatever their state of heart or mind.
So Methodists have long held to this belief in the universal offer of God’s salvation through Christ. As Charles Wesley wrote in one of his memorable hymns:
Secondly Wesley held firmly to the belief that all can know they are saved. This is the belief that, as Christians, we can be assured that God has forgiven our sins, reconciled us to Himself and given us the gift of eternal life. At his conversion whilst attending a Moravian Bible Study group in London on the 24th May 1738, Wesley in his journal speaks of feeling his heart strangely warmed, as he realised, presumably for the first time in his life, that Christ had actually died for him and for his salvation. This for Wesley was a moment of complete assurance that he was, to use his own expression, an altogether Christian. Wesley later picked up the words of the apostle, Paul from Romans 8 verse 16, that the Holy Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children…
John Wesley's assertion in his early ministry: that every truly born-anew Christian receives this inner assurance of their own personal salvation – is not merely a matter of intellectual conviction, or a fond hope that one is saved of God, but a heartfelt experience possibly of healing by the power of the Holy Spirit. Some Christians, both in Wesley’s day and today, would describe this as being Baptised in the Holy Spirit. Again brother Charles articulated the assurance of faith in the words of a hymn:
Inspire the living faith,
Which whosoe’er receives,
The witness in himself he hath,
And consciously believes;
The faith that conquers all,
And doth the mountain move,
And saves whoe’er on Jesus call,
And perfects them in love.
Forgive the awkwardness of the words but you see the point. However, as Wesley grew older and more mature, he did concede that this inner, somewhat mystical, sense of assurance might not be the experience of some genuine Christians. It is analogous to some charismatic Christians of today who insist that unless one can testify to an experience of the infilling of the Holy Spirit with the attendant gift of speaking in tongues, or the other gifts of prophesy, discernment or healing, one is only, as it were, only half-a-christian.
Surely the more reliable proof of one’s faith lies not in the exhibition of signs and wonders, but in the presence in one’s life of an increasing love for God and of His Son, Jesus, and an active, practical love for others, whoever or whatever they may be. Does not John in his first letter in the New Testament write, We know that we have come to know God, if we obey his commands .... and we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love one another.. ?
Thirdly the final all is that all can be saved completely (or to the uttermost). John Wesley also believed and taught his people that God’s plan was not only to save us from our sins, but to make perfect our lives by the power of God’s love. Wesley declared in many sermons that God can, here and now take from our lives not only our sin, but also the desire to sin. In other words God can bring our love to a point of perfection, but Wesley had to concede that this perfection is impeded by the limitations of our mortal flesh. However for Wesley this perfecting or maturing of our faith and love is something for which we should continually aim, and like the Apostle Paul, we should run that straight race for love and holiness. Again the sentiment finds its strongest expression in the hymns of brother, Charles, for example:
Or to take another example from the closing verse of Wesley’s famous hymn: Love divine, all loves excelling.
Finally it should be noted that this holiness, or perfect love which the Wesleys taught was essentially a social as well as a personal holiness – it should find its reflection in the way we treat each other in church, and indeed beyond its bounds. For Wesley, true Christian love found its best expression in terms of caring, compassion and justice. And so Methodism at its best, is a scripturally based experience of God’s saving love poured out for all, an experience that finds its assurance and confidence in the inner presence and power of that love of God in one’s life, and an experience whereby one’s life is gradually transformed by that love and thus becomes a practical witness to God’s glory.
Douglas Graham