¶ … John Wesley understand the human condition and human need for grace?
The Wesleyan understanding of grace is that grace is a gift given by God, not something that human beings can win by performing particular actions (cited by Outler, 1980, p. 126). Good works are manifested as a symptom or a result of grace but they do not, in and of themselves, secure grace. Wesley quotes Paul's letter to the Ephesians in support of his assertion: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God -- not the result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). Human beings by virtue of their imperfect and fallen natures will sin, which is why God sent his only begotten son to redeem the world from its sins. To view salvation as coming as a result of one's good works is arrogant.
As noted by Albert C. Outler in his "Introduction" to the works of John Wesley, for Wesley, grace had the dimensions of being "saving, sanctifying, [and] sacramental" (p.33). But above all, grace is a constant and abiding presence in the lives of all human beings that they can either partake of or refuse. Wesley did believe in free will in the sense that he believed that human beings could reject the gift of Christ, even though he also believed that human nature was inherently sinful. But there was always a possibility...
Grace thus could save and sanctify and its potential was also manifest on
earth as a sacramental reality. But the Wesleyan understanding of Christ's gift as a
sacrament, it should be noted, is different from the Catholic understanding of God actually being present in the host during a
church service. Wesley believed that God's presence could not be compelled by human actions. Rather it was manifest everywhere, as a direct result of God's abundance.
Furthermore, although sin was inherent in the human condition, "by the merits of Christ, all men are cleared of Adam's actual sin" (Wesley, 1980, p. 139). Christ's
sacrifice was the reason that the potential to be saved was manifest in the world. Although all human beings were by their very nature sinful, Wesley noted, he did not give undue emphasis to the
doctrine of
original sin itself, stressing that the focus should be…
