And now, the final installment of "A Brief Guide to Wesleyan Holiness" or some similar title. Previous links in this series are at the bottom. I'll clean it up and self-publish as soon as I'm able.
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15. I am quite certain that the preceding pages have not answered several important questions, for I have heard them asked in response before. Why has the preaching of holiness waned over the last half-century? Some of it is uncertainty over the meaning of the key biblical texts. Most of it is the difficulty of matching the doctrine to our lives as believers. Still others step back and wonder whether the doctrine can lead us to focus too much on ourselves in a narcissistic, hyper-introspective way.
One very important question is that of addiction. In general, our sense of living above sin imagines a will that is more or less "normal" for a human being -- at least after grace. I realize I am in dangerous theological territory here because all human wills are incapable of making the right choices in the face of temptation without God's help. We would normally assume God's help will automatically put us in the range of a "normal" will.
Nevertheless, our individual wills can start on this journey from different points. A person who is under a sinful addiction of some kind has a longer journey toward victory over Sin than someone whose will is more or less whole even though enslaved. They used to call these sorts of challenges "strongholds."
For sure, we must not underplay the power of God. The stories of conversion from the 1800s and 1900s frequently involved instant deliverance from addictions to things like alcohol. After "praying through," individuals would testify to never drinking again from that moment forward. Broader Wesleyans like William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, regularly witnessed individuals who were instantaneously delivered from addictions like alcoholism.
My friend Keith Drury used to wonder if we collectively don't have as much faith today as we used to. He wondered if, in those previous generations, they expected more of the power of God than we sometimes do today. His question was whether God has "settled" where our expectations have settled. [5] Whatever one thinks on that question, we do not hear as many testimonies of instant deliverance from addiction as we used to.
Brain chemistry is involved. We know far more about the physical conditions of addiction than Wesley might have imagined. That can't change our faith in the power of God over temptation. But it may help us get a better sense of the additional challenges that can face the addict when it comes to holiness.
Our theology does not change. God has the power to deliver the person whose brain is enslaved not only to Sin but to certain chemical "thirstings" that relate to addiction. As Wesleyans, we have an optimism about God's grace even in the face of such strongholds. If we believe in deliverance from demon-possession, we certainly believe in deliverance from the addictions of our body chemistry.
16. In Mark 9, Jesus' disciples are unable to cast out a particularly difficult demon. Jesus indicates that extra prayer was required and, in some manuscripts, fasting as well. The passage makes it clear that some enslavements to Sin are more difficult to overcome than others.
Although I suspect Paul had his eyesight in view, there are "thorns in the flesh" where God does not entirely remove a challenge in this life (2 Cor. 12:7-10). Let me be clear that Paul is not talking about some inevitability of sin for him -- or us. That is not the takeaway here. By God's grace, we can be victorious over temptation every time.
However, I wonder if God does not always take away every struggle entirely. I grew up with the sense that, after entire sanctification, previous struggles with temptation would instantly go away more or less forever. Let me reiterate. God has the power to do this. We should expect that -- even if such struggles were to remain in some form -- they should become less and less pronounced over time.
But in exceptional cases, it is at least possible that God will not always take away the struggle completely, even after we have surrendered them entirely to him. Similarly, after years of ease, a battle can resurface in a moment of crisis. Although it was probably physical, Paul eventually came to a place of peace that it was God's will for him to live out his life with this "thorn in the flesh." It occurs to me that addictions also involve a significant physical component. In that sense, a struggle with alcoholism is, in large part, a physical struggle and a fight with the chemistry of our bodies.
I have heard individuals struggle with the way their parents speak and behave as a disease like Alzheimer's progresses. They usually conclude that it is not their parent doing such things any longer. In my mind, this is another case of a dramatically altered physical structure of the brain complicating one's behavior.
We can pose the same question with regard to some who struggle with homosexual temptation. Clearly there are some who testify to complete deliverance of such desires. Others commit themselves to celibacy and a disciplined mind despite continued temptation. For example, Wesley Hill holds to a biblical understanding of homosexual practice and thus rejects that he can ever act -- in mind or body -- on his sexual desires. [6] Yet after more time in prayer than most of us ever give, God has not removed those desires from him entirely. I do not know for certain, but I can imagine that he would liken those impulses to a thorn in the flesh.
Again, we make no allowance for sin. No temptation should take a believer at any time. Our faith in consistent victory over temptation in heart and mind remains firm. We also expect that there will be increasing ease of temptation in these extreme cases. However, if a person is not constantly vigilant, a battle can arise over previous strongholds in a moment.
God apparently does not always completely remove areas of temptation, even if it wanes. I remember the teenager who asked for God to remove his sexual temptation toward the opposite sex. He was later thankful that God didn't answer that prayer. In any case, victory over Sin must remain even though fighting can arise within in a moment. Such areas of potential vulnerability require constant vigilance.
17. Here, I want to return to the concept of entering God's rest daily in Hebrews 3:13. I am told that it is dangerous for a former addict to think of themselves as no longer an addict. [7] Every day, Gerald May suggests, they should begin with the recognition that they are an addict and thus, in so many words, that "Sin lieth at the door." It is a reminder to be vigilant to the propensities of our bodies and not to let our guard down.
I wonder if this is a good practice with regard to any thorn in the flesh that we might have. "Good morning, Lord. I pray you give me victory today over the temptation to do X through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen." And then believe God can and will do it. Then tomorrow is another today.
Every day that is called today, enter God's rest. "Good morning, Lord. This is a day that you have made. Grant me the power to live a life filled with love today and to be victorious over any temptations to sin that may arise." And then tomorrow will be another today, another day to enter God's rest.
18. A former addict may have what I might call an "impoverished will." Such disempowered wills are not merely internal. They can arise from the contexts in which we live as well. You may have heard of a concept known as "generational poverty." It refers to a family that has been impoverished for multiple generations and is in a cycle of dependency. It is much harder for someone who grows up in such a context to climb out to what the rest of us think of as a normal life. There are internal obstacles most of us do not know.
When those of us who have grown up in an "empowered" family look at such individuals, it is easy to miss the enslavement that can be part of this situation. We might think glibly, "Just get a job already." We may not see hidden chains that are likely part of the situation. Their environment might make certain thoughts oblvious to them that are obvious to us. Similarly, we may evaluate others without awareness of our own blessings, which are gifts from God.
It is not pleasing to God to have a hard heart toward those who have not enjoyed the blessings we have (1 John 3:16-18). The question of how to help those with an "impoverished will" because of their context is often a complicated one, and I offer no easy solutions here. Yes, God can radically alter one's mindset and situation in a moment, and he does. God often heals us of our illnesses, but he doesn't always. For example, I have never heard of an amputated leg spontaneously appearing upon a prayer for restoration.
On an even more sensitive note, some of us have mental or emotional challenges that impair our wills in various ways. Similarly, some of us may have blind spots or cognitive challenges that others do not. As the well-known story of Phineas Gage shows, our brain structure has a real impact on our ability to process thoughts and impulses. [8] Like the amputated leg that God doesn't seem to heal, could there be situations where brain structures are effectively "amputated"?
I say none of this to diminish the power and potential of God nor to make excuses. Can can heal anything entirely. Nevertheless, it seems like there is an exceptional category I am calling an "impoverished will" where the fallen human situation is messier than Wesley's tidy ordo salutis. God still has the situation under control and can do whatever he wishes.
19. Another response to the tidy theology of holiness is the charge of narcissism and hyper-introspection. It is perhaps no coincidence that the modern holiness movement coincides with the age of Western individualism. Without even realizing it, our cultural blinders make it all too easy to make the quest for holiness a quest of individual isolation.
On the one hand, the quest for holiness can feed a certain sense of self-importance that a person may not even recognize in him or herself. Some of us may obsessively think about ourselves, observing every little aspect of goodness we see in ourselves. This attitude has sometimes been called a "holier than thou" attitude. I reject, of course, that all of those who pursue holiness are guilty of this condition, but some perhaps have been in the past.
Then there is the opposite extreme, the person with a hyperactive conscience whose relentless self-examination leaves them constantly decimated in terms of their own moral self-evaluation. I grew up in a family of "sorry" people without a solid sense of their own value in Christ. We were servants of the King but rarely God's children. Thank God for that Easter morning in 1987 when I read through the book of Galatians and was set free from my bondage to self-defeat!
John Wesley was known to say that "there is no holiness but social holiness." That is to say, holiness always involves our relationships with others. Holiness is not something we do merely one-on-one with God. God regularly and normally uses others in the process of our sanctification.
As an introvert, this was a difficult pill for me to swallow in college. I wanted the Lord to zap me in private prayer. But God often works through others. We often will not find victory over that besetting sin without the help and accountability of others. It doesn't have to be that way in theory, but God often insists in practice.
In seminary, David Seamands' book, The Healing of Memories, was very helpful on this score. [9] Although his language is a little cheesy, he suggested that some of us have broken antennae -- damaged "love receptors" -- that aren't receiving the love of God for us even though he is beaming it to us. In God's wisdom, Seamands argued that God often and typically uses others to help us fix the antennae, to heal our ability to receive God's love for us.
Wesley himself is well-known for the small accountability groups he established. Holiness is not a solo sport. It is a team sport, and we do it together as a church. Yes, God can zap us individually, but that's not really the way he designed the game.
20. We can thus speak of a corporate as well as an individual holiness. As a body, we should be sharpening each other, helping each other grow, holding each other accountable. The well-known 1 Thessalonians 5:23 is addressed to the whole church -- that it would be sanctified and preserved blameless. We are prone to make it about me, but it is even more about us.
It is theoretically possible that a whole congregation could be without sin. But it is unlikely. As a Wesleyan, this is how I have justified a corporate confession of sin. At the same time, the Anglican confession is not entirely Wesleyan. "We have done those things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things we ought to have done." The latter statement reveals the all too common defective view of sin as anything short of perfection, missing the absolute mark. God only holds us accountable for finite sins of omission -- not infinite, limitless, unattainable ones.
21. Another objection to holiness is the frequent disconnect in our times between the quest for personal holiness and a near absence of evangelism and biblical justice. Arguably, these connections were a feature of much 1800s and some early 1900s holiness. In those earlier times, the holiness movement was a revivalist movement with street meetings and corner tent revivals. That is to say, evangelism went hand in hand with the pursuit of holiness. But at some point, the movement turned inward and became associated with smaller churches that often do not seem to do much in the way of evangelism.
Similarly, in the mid-1800s, those who preached sanctification were known for their association with the abolitionist and women's rights movements. The Salvation Army was a child of the holiness movement. Yet, by the end of the 1800s, Methodism had become affluent and comfortable, apparently more interested in respectability than godliness and redeeming society. [10] In more recent decades, holiness churches have also sometimes rejected these historic social concerns in lieu of newer concerns that perhaps cost us less to engage.
By "structural evil," we refer to the way in which culture and society can be wired to harm others. This was obvious in the days of American slavery, which John Wesley called "the vilest that ever saw the sun... the sum of all villianies" [11] Black people were not treated as individuals created equally in the image of God but as property, even less than human. Even after the Civil War, the South found ways to perpetuate this structural evil with its Jim Crow laws and other cultural patterns of oppression.
I wish I could say that there was a consistently strong correlation between the pursuit of holiness and opposition to things like racism and sexism, but history shows that this is not always the case. Indeed, holiness has sometimes been used as an excuse to disengage from societal issues, making personal piety a retreat rather than a catalyst for justice. I have known individuals who strongly professed entire sanctification yet seemed to manifest a significant spirit of racism, revealing a deep disconnect between personal holiness and an outwardly facing holiness. The same could be said of sexism.
Raising these types of holiness issues can result in some defensiveness. For example, a person might deflect these concerns by raising other valid moral issues of today. I hope it is obvious that such concerns are not mutually exclusive. But at times, it is hard not to get the impression that this is sometimes an avoidance technique -- an attempt to avoid an unsurrendered area of one's life by changing the subject.
The motto "God hates sin" has a sound of holiness, but a quick look at what God hates in Scripture is revealing. God hates a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that are quick to shed blood, one who plots evil, feet that run to evil, false witnesses, those who sow dissension (Prov. 6:16-19). These overwhelmingly refer to individuals who bring harm to others.
God abhors those who speak lies and are bloodthirsty (Ps. 5:4-6). God hates those who love violence (Ps. 11:5). God doesn't want to look on traitors and those who swallow up the righteous (Hab. 1:13). Notice again the theme of God hating haters -- those who do harm to others. More than anything else, it is a hatred of hatred.
What is the sin that God hates the most? It is the sin of hurting other people, particularly the vulnerable.
Here, we come to a sobering question. Could some Christians be hiding an unholy heart behind a veneer of godliness without even realizing it? In the name of hating sin, could some of us be making excuses for ourselves to be hateful toward others? "I would love my neighbor, but I can't because God has commanded me to be holy." God, of course, is the judge of all our motivations, and he can divide between the thoughts and intents of our hearts (Heb. 4:12).
22. We humans are incredibly good at rationalization, where we find ways to justify what in the end is not justifiable. We make the simple complex in an attempt to avoid what is really straightforward. May the Lord correct any instance in this book where I might have done so. Test the spirits to see if they are of God.
What should be clear is that God wants to empower us to live a godly life that is fully devoted to Jesus, doing everything we do to the glory of God. God wants to give us the fullness of the Holy Spirit, our Advocate, our power source. He wants to empower us to love God with our entire being and love our neighbor and enemy as well.
In theory, we would love God and others with every part of our being from the moment we receive his Spirit. Yet in practice, there are often areas of our lives that we still need to work through. Eventually, many believers will testify to a crisis experience where they lay their all on the altar. This full consecration of ourselves is then met with God's entire sanctification of us.
The journey does not end there. If we do not walk consistently in the Spirit, old battles may re-emerge. There can be thorns of our flesh that, while they do not defeat us, require special, conscious attention in our walk with the Lord. After we have given everything we know to give, new areas may surface as we walk through the normal stages of life development.
We continue to grow in grace even after we have committed ourselves to be fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Every day that is called "today," we choose again to enter into God's rest. Then one day, whether at the second coming or in death, we will finally be perfected. Ultimately, in the resurrection, we will be glorified. Our humanity will be consummated even beyond the perfection of Adam. We will be like Jesus for we will see him as he is.
[5] His musings were rarely statements of firm belief. He wondered about many things without having certain answers or positions. I found almost all of his musings more insightful than most people's conclusions.
[6] Wesley Hill, Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (Zondervan, 2016). As a reminder from James 1:14-15, it is important to reiterate that temptation in itself is not sin. It is when one acts mentally or physically on that temptation when it becomes sin, as well as if one feeds the temptation.
[7] Gerald G. May, Addiction & Grace: Exploring the Psychology of Addiction, the Power of Spirituality, and the Path to Freedom through Contemplative Practices (HarperOne, 2007).
[8] In 1848, a railroad iron shot through his skull. With the change in the physical structure of his brain, his personality changed dramatically thereafter.
[9] David Seamands, The Healing of Memories (Victor, 1985).
[10] See Kevin Watson's Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline: A History of the Wesleyan Tradition in the United States (Zondervan, 2024).
[11] In "Thoughts Upon Slavery" (1774).
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