From Faith to Faith

John Wesley's Covenant Theology and the Way of Salvation

Rodes

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781630870164
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The idea that covenant theology is profoundly influential in John Wesley's theological thought sounds dissonant. What would an evangelical Arminian have to do with a theological framework that historically belongs to a Reformed understanding of salvation? How could this possibly square with his ongoing controversy with the Calvinism of his day? On the basis of compelling evidence from his sermons and correspondence, this investigation dares to push through the impulse to dismiss the idea that covenant theology belongs to the infrastructure of Wesley's thought. The resulting discovery of its role in shaping his narrative of the way of salvation is surprising and intriguing. Wesley is not only informed and fluent with respect to covenant theology, but thoroughly committed to it. This study demonstrates that, with theological precision and discernment, Wesley appropriates covenant theology in a way that is consistent both with its primary theological features and with his Arminianism. His distinctive view of the gradual process of the work of God in the soul supplies valuable grist for further reflection, especially by those charged with the care of souls in the twenty-first century

chapter 1

John Wesley’s Imaging of Covenant Theology

When John Wesley compiled and published A Collection of Hymns, for the Use of the People Called Methodists in 1780, he saw to it that the hymns were “not carelessly jumbled together, but carefully ranged under proper heads, according to the experience of real Christians.”50 A glance at the table of contents is revealing. Wesley traces “the experience of real Christians” from start to finish—from before their first setting foot on the way of salvation to mourning under conviction of sin to groaning for and experiencing “full Redemption.”51 Paul Ricouer describes such a portrayal as emplotment: “the capacity to set forth a story” in which events are configured into a meaningful totality.52 Without doubt, Wesley intended that with this hymnbook in hand his Methodists would be able to both gauge and further their progress on the way of salvation. Yet in no way did he envision this story as a story of his own making. Rather, as we shall discover, he conceived of what had transpired in the lives of these “real Christians” in terms of the storyline of God’s reconciling humanity to himself as revealed in Scripture. And in his view (though certainly not in his view alone) covenant theology both configured that storyline into “a meaningful totality” and provided a biblically-rooted framework from which the complexities of “the work of God in the Soul” might be parsed.

As was noted earlier, Wesley does not explicitly address the matter of the role of covenant theology in his theological thought. For him, covenant theology is a given—a fact easily overlooked by those of us so far removed in so many ways from the setting in which he labored. Thus, his repeated distinction between those who have “the faith of a servant” and those who have “the faith of a son” appears to present-day readers of Wesley as something of an enigma, as evidenced in the array of conclusions drawn as to what he intended to communicate by it.53 On closer inspection, however, Wesley’s distinction is a clarion marker of covenant theology’s presence in his theological thought. And as such, to speak in terms of servant and son as being a distinction made by Wesley is a bit misleading in that it suggests that it originated with him. There is, in fact, compelling evidence that this is not the case. But neither is it the case that the distinction is nothing more than a matter of his tapping into these metaphors on account of their presence in Scripture. It is this, but it is far more than this; for these metaphors had come to embody soteriological affirmations central to covenant theology and to represent its very superstructure. Furthermore, this embodiment was already generally familiar to his audience; and Wesley, seizing upon this established imaging of covenant theology, strategically employed it in his correspondence, sermons, and publications.

Yet, however convincing—or, at least, enticing—these assertions may be, it remains to demonstrate their credibility. And this is the aim of the remainder of this study. But to begin, our attention turns in earnest to the examination of the servant and son metaphors in Wesley’s theological thought. This imaging is of great importance to him for it summarizes foundational elements of his soteriology, something Wesley himself acknowledges in two late sermons.54 Becoming acquainted, then, with his use of the servant-son metaphor is essential and also provides opportunity to become more familiar with the terminology and theological superstructure of covenant theology in general. Our examination opens with an abbreviated chronological survey of the occurrences of the metaphor in the John Wesley corpus, and is followed by an assessment of this textual evidence. But before proceeding, attention must be given to three considerations critical to a proper evaluation of Wesley’s use of the metaphor.

First, it is crucial that the servant and son metaphors be understood as metaphors. This may seem obvious, but inattentiveness on this point has contributed to shuttering the view of Wesley’s covenant theology that comes to light in his use of these metaphors. According to Aristotle, Ricoeur notes, “the power of metaphor . . . is ‘to set before the eyes.’”55 It accomplishes this mission by “presenting one idea under the sign of another that is more striking or better known.”56 Thus, when Wesley writes in his August 29, 1777 letter to Alexander Knox, “You are not yet a son, but you are a servant”57 an image is set before Knox’s eyes. Knox is not a servant, literally; but the twist of the literal meaning produces a characterization.58 And it does this by transposing an entire realm (the realm of servant-master relationships) into the place where another realm normally governs59 (for example, Knox’s actual life setting). As a result, when Knox reads “You are a servant” the properties of servant-master relationships now take the driver’s seat as he contemplates his life—and specifically in this context, his spiritual journey. Of course, this has a substantially different meaning for Knox than the meaning that very same realm of servant-master relationships held for those who heard Wesley describe George Whitefield as a servant when he preached his sermon, “On the Death of George Whitefield.”

To be able to distinguish between multiple meanings attached to the same metaphor, says Samuel Guttenplan, is to be “metaphor-sighted”: to understand what characteristics are to be emphasized and which are to be suppressed.60 Thus, when Wesley speaks of Whitefield as a servant of God, one subset of those features associated with “servant” (faithful, loyal, diligent) is given priority, whereas with Knox, another subset is given priority (doubtful, fearful, without the privileges and comfort of a son). The point here is that metaphor is far more than mere substitution. To regard it as substitution is to reduce metaphor to nothing more than wrapping to be torn away.61 However, rather than to rename (i.e., merely substitute), the function of metaphor is to characterize what is already named and, through the re-description of reality that occurs in the characterization, to actually confer an insight.62

The second consideration follows from this; namely, treating metaphors as literary objects that can be reduced to one-to-one correspondence like a scale model63 is a simplification that obscures the very insight they are intended to deliver. Consider, for example, the commonly-held conclusion that the central issue addressed by Wesley in his use of the metaphors is the matter of assurance of pardon. In this view, when Wesley says, “You are only a servant” he is saying, “You do not ye...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1: John Wesley’s Imaging of Covenant Theology
• 2: The Ancestry of John Wesley’s Covenant Theology
• 3: John Wesley’s Amendment of Covenant Theology
• 4: John Wesley’s Covenant Theology and Holy Scripture
• 5: John Wesley’s Covenant Theology in Context
• 6: John Wesley’s Covenant Theology in Context
• 7: The Salvific Sufficiency of the Covenant of Grace
• 8: The Holy Spirit and the Salvific Perfection of the Covenant of Grace
• 9: “From Faith to Faith”
• Epilogue
• Bibliography