Notes:
Sermon 19: The Great Privilege of Those That are Born of God
With SOSO, I, Wesley could suppose that he had established the basis for his doctrine of justification by faith alone, understood as the threshold of true religion. Taking this then as given—with occasioned short reaffirmations, as in I.3 below—he was free to devote the remainder of his collection to the problems of the ongoing Christian life, from its beginnings in saving faith to its fullness in perfect love. This is evident in the ordering of the sermons; they are out of their chronological sequence, but they have their own logic. Thus, after ‘The Circumcision of the Heart’ Wesley adds a pair of sermons about regeneration, understood as that act of grace concurrent with justification but not at all identical to it—a ‘vast inward change’ that opens up the lifelong quest for holiness.
In the first of the pair (as also later in No. 45, ‘The New Birth’) Wesley wrestles with an unresolved dilemma in his beliefs and teachings. He had been brought up to take baptismal regeneration for granted, as in the office for Baptism in the BCP, in Art. XXVII (‘Of Baptism’), and in his father’s ‘Of Baptism’ in The Pious Communicant Rightly Prepared (1700), which he would thereafter abridge and publish in his own name (1758). John seems always to have believed that something ‘happens’ in baptism (and in infant baptism at that) that validates its propriety and necessity as the sacrament of Christian initiation; he rejected the logic of ‘believer’s baptism’ which always presupposes ‘conversion’ before baptism.
Even so, his own experience and the dramatic conversions in the Revival had forced on him a recognition of yet another sort of regeneration, more decisive and subjective, more nearly correlated with justification and assurance than with water baptism. Thus, somewhat as he had explained ‘the circumcision of the heart’ as a personal transformation following baptism, so now, in ‘The Marks of the New Birth’ and ‘The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God’ (and again, later, in No. 45, ‘The New Birth’), he was in search of a doctrine of regeneration that would take seriously the realities of evangelical 416conversions and yet not repudiate his own sacramental traditions. Whether he ever fully succeeded is an open question; it is undeniable that the doctrine of infant baptism as an objective divine action has never had more than a tenuous place in the Methodist tradition. (For a fuller probing of the theological problem of baptism and regeneration, cf. Robert E. Cushman, ‘Baptism and the Family of God’, in Dow Kirkpatrick, ed., The Doctrine of the Church [New York, Abingdon, 1964], pp. 79-102.)
All this, then, was part of the context of Wesley’s direct concern in these two sermons, the special ‘powers’ (or ‘privileges’, as Wesley prefers to translate ἐξουσία in John 1:12) of justified and regenerated Christians. To this end, he borrows from the analogy of latency from physical birth to point to the latent powers in the human spirit when enlivened by its Creator Spirit (cf. the ‘title’ of the Holy Spirit in the Latin text of the Nicene Creed: Vivificator). Just as the ‘circumcision of the heart’ had involved ‘humility, faith, hope, and charity’, so also ‘the [distinctive] marks of the New Birth’ are ‘faith, hope, and love’.
In expounding this Christian commonplace, however, Wesley comes, under the heading of ‘faith’, to his crucial assertion that the regenerate believer receives real power (or ‘the privilege’) not to commit sin, and so to enjoy unanxious peace in heart and mind. Here Wesley comes as close as he ever will to an unnuanced notion of Christian existence as sinless; he even goes on to denounce those who try to qualify this with the more modest claim that the regenerate ‘do not commit sin habitually’ (I.5). He must have realized, however, that he had laid himself open to misinterpretation, and so he proceeded to add ‘The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God’, and with it a more careful distinction between ‘sin properly so called’ and other shortfallings, i.e., between voluntary and involuntary sins, where ‘voluntary’ sounds suspiciously like ‘habitual’. After that he can develop his metaphor of a spiritual sensorium and his concept of human ‘re-actions’ to divine ‘actions’. This would suggest that the two sermons are better read as a pair than apart.
Both seem to have been written versions of Wesley’s oral preaching, reaching back to the beginnings of the Revival. It is recorded that he had preached from John 3:8 as early as June 10, 1739, and frequently thereafter (fourteen times in all until December 1757). His first recorded sermon from 1 John 3:9 comes on September 23, 1739; a second comes on January 17, 1740; its last usage as a sermon text seems to have been in November 1756. Even in 1748, however, with these twin sermons, Wesley had laid out one of the undergirding premises of his unfolding vision of Christian existence.
431 The Great Privilege of Those That are Born of God1 John 3:9
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.
11. It has been frequently supposed that the being born of God was all one with the being justified; that the new birth and justification were only different expressions denoting the same thing:
As in William Law, The Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration, or the New Birth (1739), §§22-31 (Works, V.155-66). But see also, even if in a differently nuanced statement, Arthur Bedford’s sermon, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith (1741). The longer tradition to which Wesley here refers goes back to the Reformation, as in Quenstedt, Theologia Didactico-Polemica, where, in III.477, it is affirmed that regeneration may be ‘taken strictly for the remission of sins or justification (Gal. 3:11), in which sense the Formula of Concord states it to be very frequently used in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession; or for renovation as it shows it to be frequently used by Luther.’ In the Reformed tradition regeneration was more closely related to ‘calling’ (the applicatio salutis) and thus rooted in the doctrine of election (vocatio). See Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, ch. xx, pp. 510-30.
See also No. 1, Salvation by Faith, II.7: ‘Justification…implies a deliverance from guilt and punishment,’ and is followed by the new birth, which is its fullness, cf. the later sermon ‘On Patience’ (No. 83), §9. This correlation (and differentiation) between justification and regeneration was crucial for Wesley’s distinction between God’s action in pardoning the repentant and the human effect of this action (‘regeneration’, ‘new birth’, ‘conversion’). Cf. No. 14, The Repentance of Believers, III.2 and n.
22. But though it be allowed that justification and the new birth are in point of time inseparable from each other, yet are they easily distinguished as being not the same, but things of a widely different nature. Justification implies only a relative, the new birth a real, change.
Cf. No. 43, The Scripture Way of Salvation, I.4. In both places, and generally, Wesley sees justification as a change in the relationship between God and the believer, whereas regeneration is a ‘real change’ of heart. Thus it is the threshold of the process of holy living, logically consequent upon justification and the beginning of sanctification. The two, then, are concurrent and yet decisively different.
33. The not discerning this, the not observing the wide difference there is between being justified and being born again, has occasioned exceeding great confusion of thought in many who have treated on this subject; particularly when they have attempted to explain this great privilege of the children of God, to show how ‘whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.’
1 John 3:9.
44. In order to apprehend this clearly it may be necessary, first, to consider what is the proper meaning of that expression, ‘whosoever is born of God’; and, secondly, to inquire in what sense he ‘doth not commit sin’.
11I. 1. First, we are to consider what is the proper meaning of that expression, ‘whosoever is born of God’.
An echo here from the Elizabethan Homilies, XVI, ‘The Coming Down of the Holy Ghost’, Homilies, pp. 409-10. Cf. No. 45, ‘The New Birth’, II.1 ff.
For this concept of the kinds of changes wrought in regeneration see Nos. 43, The Scripture Way of Salvation, I.4; 45, ‘The New Birth’, II.5; 83, ‘On Patience’, §9; see also No. 5, ‘Justification by Faith’, II.1.
22. The ground and reason of the expression is easy to be understood. When we undergo this great change we may with much propriety be said ‘to be born again’, because there is so near a resemblance between the circumstances of the natural and of the spiritual birth; so that to consider the circumstances of the natural birth
Cf. No. 9, ‘The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption’, §5 and n.
33. The child which is not yet born subsists indeed by the air, as 433does everything which has life; but feels it not, nor anything else, unless in a very dull and imperfect manner. It hears little, if at all, the organs of hearing being as yet closed up. It sees nothing, having its eyes fast shut, and being surrounded with utter darkness. There are, it may be, some faint beginnings of life when the time of its birth draws nigh, and some motion consequent thereon, whereby it is distinguished from a mere mass of matter. But it has no senses; all these avenues of the soul are hitherto quite shut up. Of consequence it has scarce any intercourse with this visible world, nor any knowledge, conception, or idea of the things that occur therein.
44. The reason why he that is not yet born is wholly a stranger to the visible world is not because it is afar off—it is very nigh; it surrounds him on every side—but partly because he has not those senses (they are not yet opened in his soul) whereby alone it is possible to hold commerce with the material world; and partly because so thick a veil is cast between, through which he can discern nothing.
This latency metaphor is one of Wesley’s favourites; it stands as a premise of his religious epistemology (based as that was on ideas derived from Descartes through Malebranche, the Cambridge Platonists and John Norris); cf. No. 10, ‘The Witness of the Spirit, I’, I.12 and n. See also No. 130, ‘On Living without God’, §§2-12, for a striking illustration about an immured toad.
55. But no sooner is the child born into the world than he exists in a quite different manner. He now feels the air with which he is surrounded, and which pours into him from every side, as fast as he alternately breathes it back, to sustain the flame of life. And hence springs a continual increase of strength, of motion, and of sensation; all the bodily senses being now awakened and furnished with their proper objects.
His eyes are now opened to perceive the light, which silently flowing in upon them discovers not only itself but an infinite variety of things with which before he was wholly unacquainted. His ears are unclosed, and sounds rush in with endless diversity. Every sense is employed upon such objects as are peculiarly suitable to it. And by these inlets the soul, having an open intercourse with the visible world, acquires more and more knowledge of sensible things, of all the things which are under the sun.
66. So it is with him that is born of God. Before that great change is wrought, although he subsists by him in whom all that have life 434‘live and move and have their being’,
Acts 17:28.
Ps. 58:5 (BCP).
See Eph. 1:18.
Cf. 1 Cor. 2:14.
7. Hence he has scarce any knowledge of the invisible world, as he has scarce any intercourse with it. Not that it is afar off. No; he is in the midst of it: it encompasses him round about. The ‘other world’, as we usually term it, is not far from every one of us. It is above, and beneath, and on every side.
See Acts 17:23-28.
8. But when he is born of God, born of the Spirit, how is the manner of his existence changed! His whole soul is now sensible of God, and he can say by sure experience, ‘Thou art about my bed, and about my path;’ I feel thee in ‘all my ways’.
Ps. 139:2 (BCP).
Ps. 139:5 (AV).
Cf. Heb. 5:14.
9. ‘The eyes of his understanding’
Cf. Eph. 1:18.
Heb. 11:27.
Eph. 1:19.
See Luke 18:13.
2 Pet. 1:4.
2 Cor. 4:6; orig. ‘both shined’, altered to ‘hath shined’ in 1771, 1787.
10. His ears are now opened, and the voice of God no longer calls in vain. He hears and obeys the heavenly calling: he ‘knows the voice of his shepherd’.
Cf. John 10:4.
Cf. 1 Cor. 2:9.
See Rom. 5:5.
Cf. 1 John 4:16.
1II. 1. Having considered the meaning of that expression, ‘whosoever is born of God’, it remains in the second place to inquire in what sense he ‘doth not commit sin’.
Now one who is so born of God as hath been above described, who continually receives into his soul the breath of life from God, the gracious influence of his Spirit, and continually renders it back; one who thus believes and loves, who by faith perceives the continual actings of God upon his spirit, and by a kind of spiritual 436re-action
Wesley’s own hyphen here, for emphasis; cf. III.2, below, ‘a continual action of God upon the soul and a re-action of the soul upon God’ (and see the OED’s misdated citation of this—as 1771 instead of 1748—as a pioneer usage). See also, below, III.3.
1 John 3:9.
1 John 5:18.
1 John 3:9.
22. By ‘sin’ I here understand outward sin, according to the plain, common acceptation of the word: an actual, voluntary ‘transgression of the law’;
1 John 3:4. Cf. No. 13, On Sin in Believers, intro., I.6 and n.
Cf. 1 John 35. For another discussion of this same point cf. No. 40, Christian Perfection, II.14 ff.
Cf. 1 John 3:9.
33. But here a difficulty will immediately occur, and one that to many has appeared insuperable, and induced them to deny the plain assertion of the Apostle, and give up the privilege of the children of God.
It is plain, in fact, that those whom we cannot deny to have been truly ‘born of God’ (the Spirit of God having given us in his Word this infallible testimony concerning them) nevertheless not only could but did commit sin, even gross, outward sin. They did transgress the plain, known laws of God, speaking or acting what they knew he had forbidden.
44. Thus David was unquestionably born of God or ever he was anointed king over Israel. He knew in whom he had believed;
See 2 Tim. 1:12.
Rom. 4:20.
Ps. 23:1, 2, 4 (BCP).
Ps. 18:1, 2 (BCP).
Ps. 34:1 (BCP).
Ps. 118:28 (BCP).
55. And even after the Holy Ghost was more largely given, after ‘life and immortality were brought to light by the gospel’,
Cf. 2 Tim. 1:10.
See 1 Cor. 9:10; 10:11; 2 Tim. 3:16-17.
Acts 4:36-37.
(Acts) 11:29.
(Acts) 13:1-2.
Wesley returns repeatedly to this incident (Acts 15:36-41), always to the same point: that while Barnabas may have lost his temper in the contention, St. Paul never did; cf. No. 22, ‘Sermon on the Mount, II’, III.10 and n.
[Acts] 15:35, 38, 39.
66. An instance more astonishing than both these is given by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians. ‘When Peter’, the aged, the zealous, the first of the apostles, one of the three most highly favoured by his Lord, ‘was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James he did eat with the Gentiles’
Gal. 2:11-12.
Acts 10:28.
Gal. 2:12-14.
77. I answer, what has been long observed is this: so long as ‘he that is born of God keepeth himself (which he is able to do, by the grace of God) ‘the wicked one toucheth him not.’
1 John 5:18 (Notes).
This idea of backsliding is integral to Wesley’s distinction between voluntary and involuntary sins and to his rejection of ‘perseverance’ as well. See Nos. 14, The Repentance of Believers; and 13, On Sin in Believers.
See 2 Cor. 12:9.
Cf. 2 Tim. 1:6.
Cf. 1 Pet. 4:7.
Cf. Phil. 3:14.
88. To explain this by a particular instance. David was born of God, and saw God by faith. He loved God in sincerity. He could truly say, ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth’ (neither person or thing) ‘that I desire in comparison to thee!’
Ps. 73:25 (BCP).
Cf. Luther, Baptism, VIII: ‘Thus, St. Paul in Romans vii, and all the saints with him, lament that they are sinners and have sin in their nature, although they were baptized and were holy; and they lament thus because their natural sinful appetites are always active so long as we live.’ Wesley was caught here between two extremes, rejecting not only all Lutheran and Calvinist versions of invincible concupiscence but also all counterclaims to ‘sinless perfection’. See No. 8, ‘The First-fruits of the Spirit’, II.6 and n.
He was ‘walking upon the roof of his house’,
2 Sam. 11:2.
Gen. 4:7.
Cf. Isa. 45:22.
The eye of his mind was now closed again, and God vanished out of his sight. Faith, the divine, supernatural intercourse with 440God, and the love of God ceased together. He then rushed on as a horse into the battle,
See Jer. 8:6.
Cf. No. 13, On Sin in Believers, intro., III.1-9 and n.
99. You see the unquestionable progress from grace to sin. Thus it goes on, from step to step. (1). The divine seed of loving, conquering faith remains in him that is ‘born of God’. ‘He keepeth himself ’, by the grace of God, and ‘cannot commit’ sin; (2). A temptation arises, whether from the world, the flesh, or the devil, it matters not; (3). The Spirit of God gives him warning that sin is near, and bids him more abundantly watch unto prayer; (4). He gives way in some degree to the temptation, which now begins to grow pleasing to him; (5). The Holy Spirit is grieved; his faith is weakened, and his love of God grows cold; (6). The Spirit reproves him more sharply, and saith, ‘This is the way; walk thou in it.’
Cf. Isa. 30:21.
1010. To explain this by another instance. The Apostle Peter was full of faith and of the Holy Ghost;
Acts 6:5 where the reference is to Stephen.
Acts 24:16 where the reference is to Paul.
Walking thus in simplicity and godly sincerity,
2 Cor. 1:12. Cf. No. 2, The Almost Christian, I.9 and n.
Gal. 2:12; cf. Wesley’s revision in Notes.
But ‘when they were come’ a temptation arose in his heart to ‘fear those of the circumcision’
Ibid.
He was warned by the Spirit that sin was near. Nevertheless, he yielded to it in some degree, even to sinful fear of man, and his faith and love were proportionably weakened.
God reproved him again for giving place to the devil. Yet he 441would not hearken to the voice of his Shepherd, but gave himself up to that slavish fear, and thereby quenched the Spirit.
See 1 Thess. 5:19.
Then God disappeared, and faith and love being extinct he committed the outward sin. ‘Walking not uprightly, not according to the truth of the gospel’, he ‘separated himself’ from his Christian brethren, and by his evil example, if not advice also, ‘compelled’ even ‘the Gentiles to live after the manner of the Jews’;
Gal. 2:12, 14.
Gal. 5:1.
Thus it is unquestionably true that he who is born of God, keeping himself, doth not, cannot commit sin; and yet if he keepeth not himself he may commit all manner of sin with greediness.
31III. 1. From the preceding considerations we may learn, first, to give a clear and incontestable answer to a question which has frequently perplexed many who were sincere of heart. Does sin precede or follow the loss of faith? Does a child of God first commit sin, and thereby lose his faith? Or does he lose his faith first, before he can commit sin?
I answer: some sin, of omission at least, must necessarily precede the loss of faith—some inward sin. But the loss of faith must precede the committing outward sin.
This distinction between ‘omission’ and ‘commission’ is also essential to the doctrine of ‘sin in believers’ and the necessary ‘repentance of believers’. But the line between involuntary and voluntary omissions is easy to slide across, in one direction or the other, and this never ceased to be a problem for Wesley. Cf. No. 14, The Repentance of Believers, I.14 and n.
The more any believer examines his own heart, the more will he be convinced of this: that ‘faith working by love’
Gal. 5:6. Cf. No. 2, The Almost Christian, II.6 and n.
Cf. 1 Pet. 4:7.
Heb. 12:1.
Jas. 1:14. Cf. Notes, and also No. 26, ‘Sermon on the Mount, VI’, III.15.
Cf. Jas. 1:15.
22. From what has been said we may learn, secondly, what the life of God in the soul of a believer is, wherein it properly consists, and what is immediately and necessarily implied therein. It immediately and necessarily implies the continual inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit: God’s breathing into the soul, and the soul’s breathing back what it first receives from God; a continual action of God upon the soul, and re-action of the soul upon God; an unceasing presence of God, the loving, pardoning God, manifested to the heart, and perceived by faith; and an unceasing return of love, praise, and prayer, offering up all the thoughts of our hearts, all the words of our tongues, all the works of our hands, all our body, soul, and spirit, to be an holy sacrifice, acceptable unto God
See Rom. 12:1.
33. And hence we may, thirdly, infer the absolute necessity of this re-action of the soul (whatsoever it be called) in order to the continuance of the divine life therein. For it plainly appears God does not continue to act upon the soul unless the soul re-acts upon God. He prevents us indeed with the blessings of his goodness. He first loves us, and manifests himself unto us. While we are yet afar off he calls us to himself, and shines upon our hearts.
See Luke 15:20.
See 1 John 4:19.
44. Let us learn, lastly, to follow that direction of the great Apostle: ‘Be not high-minded, but fear.’
Rom. 11:20.
Cf. Charles Wesley’s hymn, ‘For a Tender Conscience’, st. 2:
(Hymns and Sacred Poems (1749), II.230.)
1 Cor. 10:12.
1 John 5:4.
Cf. 1 Tim. 1:19.
1 Thess. 5:17.
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Entry Title: Sermon 19: The Great Privilege of Those That are Born of God