Wesleyan-Holiness theology is often in tension. This tension is present in the fact that holiness folk like rules, guardrails, limits, and special rules while Wesleyanism tends toward expansion, wideness, and a centering that allows for a variety of movement and direction without straying away from the center. Because of these differences, tension is created that leads us a few ways.
Directions
One direction is toward a fundamentalism of holiness. This direction forms ever constricting walls around what it means to be a holy people. Scripture becomes a static and inerrant rulebook and there is a drift into law as a path to holiness. This direction may also lean into certain Hebrew Law but makes illogical claims about the nature of portions of the Law. Paul has something pretty strong to say about trying to follow any part of the Law as Christ followers when addressing the church in Galatia. Discipleship becomes about knowledge and right thinking. Sin becomes legal and relational, but the legal is assumed to be God’s demands. Personal piety becomes the primary way we experience holiness.
Another direction is to become unmoored from the centering of holiness in becoming like Jesus. This direction can lead to a drifting that rejects any claim to truth or reality. Amongst Wesleyan-Holiness people this direction is much more rare than the fundamentalist route. But it is a path that can be tread. Societal transformation becomes the primary way we experience the move of God.
Via Tension
The Wesleyan-Holiness direction should be one of tension between the two extremes. This does not mean we split the difference or meet in the middle. No, it means we follow the example of the one in whom we find truth. It means becoming disciples of Jesus such that we are continually being shaped in the image of Christ. It means recognizing that social sin and personal piety both shape how we respond as a holy people. We do not allow personal piety to trump all, rather we seek to address social sin as we are being shaped in the image of Christ as persons.
The Wesleyan-Holiness direction is one of expansion, even in light of the danger of becoming uncentered. We are a people whose response to God is enabled by the work of the Holy Spirit, working in the world as a transforming force in partnership with the commission to be a people shining the light on the path to reconciliation and transformation. It is not our mission to save people, that is the work of God. The Spirit is not simply a force in the world. Her mission is to spread the expansive grace of God over all. This is a wooing and a leading. The Spirit woos those who have yet to respond and leads those who have. She leads us into the places that God is already working.
Welseyan-Holiness folk do not carry Jesus into places, we are led to places that Jesus is. We seek the good of all and invite all into a reconciling relationship with God and one another. We reflect in the unending faithfulness of God’s love and mercy.
Legal AND Relational
There are tendencies toward a purely legal or relational answer to sin. The Wesleyan-Holiness response should be one born in our experience of God and of God’s mercy. It is too easy to be extreme here, but the real work is in recognizing the nature of the legal and relational when it comes to sin. Sin is primarily a relational problem. We see this is Genesis when relationship is broken, we see this in Paul’s pleading for the Corinthian church to see one another as worthy of love, and we see it in the work of Christ. There is a legal and even transactional aspect to sin, but not in the way we usually teach it.
The problem is that we read a passage like Romans 6:23 which reads; “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (NRVSue) And place the wages due toward God. But Paul continues in Romans 7 to explain what he means. He is showing that sin demands payment in death. It is sin that demands a legal or transactional response. God’s way is different. God’s mercy wipes the payment due to sin, not to Godself.
This is a transformational truth when you see it. I cannot unsee the fact the God is a God of infinite mercy and grace in whom love is the very nature. God does not demand a legal response to sin, God’s mercy sends sin’s demand for payment packing. This is the problem Job has with God when he runs away - he does not wish for God to be who God is. This is a themes present in scripture about God.
Psalm 103:8-14
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him. For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.
Psalm 145:8-9
The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.
Micah 7:18-19
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of his possession? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in showing steadfast love. He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
Romans 11:30-32
Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so also they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.
Paul is very clear in Galatians that any attempt to bring the Law to bear within the grace of Christ is futile and places us under condemnation of the entire Law. The only legal aspect is the one sin tries to exact from us. The Spirit works in our hearts to truly transform us into new creation.
Wesleyan-Holiness Response
In light of these it becomes a Wesleyan-Holiness response to the world of modeling the wideness of God’s mercy. To be ambassadors to a hurting world in which we work in partnership with God to reveal where God is already present. Wesleyan-Holiness faith does not create a bridge to a distant God whose wrath demands payment. Rather ours is a faith that reveals the God already in the midst. We use all of the tools we have inherited from those who have gone before us. The traditions of the Church catholic, our reason, intellect, and imagination, our experience of God in the world, and scripture as the guide to know who God is through the revelation of Jesus the Christ.
We are centered in the truth of Jesus as the way to truly know who God is through way, truth, and life. There is truly no other way in which we can see the fullness of God other than Jesus. The Law, the prophets, and even scripture can only reveal in part without the lens of Jesus. But being centered does not restrict our movement in the world. It allows us to move in many directions in response to the lead of the Spirit. We need not worry about hitting walls or barriers because our centering holds us steady in the faithfulness of Christ. But oh the places we will go.
Ae we willing to follow the Spirit into an ever widening understanding of God’s mercy or are we a people whose fear pushes us to build walls? I pray we can be the former even in light of the struggle to be a people of mercy.