Holiness, Sanctification, and Christian Perfection — Unit 7: Holiness of Heart and Life: Spiritual Disciplines and the Means of Grace

Key Verse

"And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers." (Acts 2:42, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Define "means of grace" in Wesley's sense and explain why he taught that they matter for holiness.

2. Name the five instituted means of grace and give a Scripture for each.

3. Distinguish works of piety from works of mercy, and explain Wesley's General Rules of 1743.

4. Describe the quarrel with the Moravians over "stillness" and Wesley's answer.

5. Answer the charge that the means of grace are works-righteousness, and plan a simple rule of life for yourself and your church.

The Voice of This Unit

This course is written from inside the Wesleyan tradition for Wesleyan students. We are conservative evangelicals who hold that the Bible is the Word of God and our final authority. Earlier units asked what holiness is. This unit asks how a believer walks in it from day to day. We do not claim that disciplines make us holy. We claim that God, who alone sanctifies, has given us ordinary paths along which His grace comes to us. Where other Christians object to this teaching, we state their objections fairly and then answer them.

Holiness of Heart and Life

Wesley often described the goal of the Christian life as holiness of heart and life. The heart is the inward part: our loves, desires and tempers. The life is the outward part: our words, habits and deeds. The two cannot be separated. Hebrews 12:14 says, "Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord." The word "pursue" tells us that holiness is not a prize that falls on a sleeping man. It is a gift that is received by a person who is running toward the Giver.

Wesley's own experience at Aldersgate in 1738 (told in our Course 1) did not end his search for God's ways. It began a lifetime of careful practice. He believed that the grace which saves us is the same grace that grows in us, and he asked a practical question: by what ordinary paths does God give His grace to those who seek it? His answer is the doctrine of the means of grace.

What Is a Means of Grace?

In his sermon "The Means of Grace" (1746), Wesley defined the means as outward signs, words or actions which God has appointed as the ordinary channels by which He gives His grace to people. Three points in that definition deserve attention.

First, God appoints them. We do not invent the means. They come from Scripture and from the practice of Christ and the apostles.

Second, they are channels and not sources. A pipe does not make the water. In the same way, prayer or fasting or the Lord's Supper has no power in itself. The power is God's. A person may use all the means and gain nothing if he trusts the act and not the God who acts through it. Wesley warned about this danger directly.

Third, they are ordinary and not the only way. God is free. He may meet a person at any time and place. But God has also told us where He has promised to meet us, and it is wise to go where the promise is given.

The Instituted Means

Wesley named five means which Christ Himself ordained. Scripture shows each one.

Prayer. This includes private prayer, prayer with the family and public prayer. Jesus said, "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly" (Matthew 6:6). In prayer we ask, we confess, and we listen. Paul tells us to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Searching the Scriptures. Wesley meant hearing the Word preached, reading it, and thinking about it. Paul wrote that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The psalmist wrote, "Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You" (Psalm 119:11). Wesley called himself "a man of one book" in the preface to his sermons, and he asked his preachers to read daily. In many of our churches the people cannot all read, so hearing and memorizing matter all the more.

The Lord's Supper. Jesus said at the table, "Do this in remembrance of Me" (Luke 22:19), and Paul passed the same words to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Wesley urged frequent communion. He held that the Supper is more than a reminder: Christ is truly present to the believer by the Spirit, and the Supper is a means by which He feeds and strengthens faith. John and Charles Wesley published Hymns on the Lord's Supper in 1745. Course 4, Unit 8, studies this sacrament in full.

Fasting. Jesus said, "when you fast," not "if you fast" (Matthew 6:16-18). In Wesley's day the early Methodists fasted regularly, and he commended the practice of fasting on set days of the week. Fasting is not a way to force God's hand. It is a way to say with the body that we hunger for Him more than for bread. It must be done quietly, without display.

Christian conference. This old phrase means holy conversation and fellowship. It includes the gathering of believers, as in Acts 2:42 and in Hebrews 10:24-25, which urges us not to forsake assembling together but to stir up one another to love and good works. In Methodist life this became the class meeting and the band, which Course 1, Unit 4, describes.

The Prudential Means

Beside the five instituted means, Wesley spoke of what are called the prudential means. "Prudential" means wise and fitted to the case. These are rules of practice that a sensible Christian adopts to keep close to God. They may differ from place to place. Examples are watching over one's own heart, denying oneself, taking up one's cross daily (Luke 9:23), choosing useful books, and joining a small group that holds one accountable. The instituted means are fixed by Christ. The prudential means are chosen with judgment. A church in a village without electricity will keep different habits from a church in a city, but both need a plan.

The General Rules of 1743

In 1743 Wesley wrote "The Nature, Design, and General Rules of the United Societies." The only condition for joining a society was a desire to flee from the wrath to come and to be saved from sin. But those who stayed were expected to show the fruit of that desire in three ways.

1. Do no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind.

2. Do good, by showing mercy to all people, as far as there is power.

3. Attend upon the ordinances of God, meaning the public worship of God, the ministry of the Word, the Lord's Supper, family and private prayer, searching the Scriptures, and fasting.

Notice that these rules are not a list of forbidden things only. Two of the three are positive. They join the inner life with the outer life. Unit 8 will return to the General Rules when it asks how to keep rules without becoming legalistic.

Works of Piety and Works of Mercy

Later Wesleyan writers divided the means into two groups, and the division is now common. Works of piety are acts that turn us toward God: prayer, Scripture, worship, the Supper, fasting. Works of mercy are acts that turn us toward our neighbor: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the prisoner, teaching the ignorant, and caring for the stranger. Jesus joined the two when He said, "inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me" (Matthew 25:40). James says, "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead" (James 2:17).

Wesley taught that both are means of grace. A person who prays but never helps the poor has half a religion, and a person who helps the poor but never prays has the other half. Perfect love has two faces, love for God and love for neighbor. Unit 9 studies the works of mercy and social holiness in detail.

The Quarrel over Stillness

The doctrine of the means of grace was sharpened by a real conflict. In 1738 and after, Wesley and his friends worked closely with the Moravians in London, who had helped him in his search for assurance. But in 1739 and 1740 some Moravian teachers, among them Philip Henry Molther, taught what was called "stillness." They said that a person who lacks true faith should not use the means of grace at all, not pray, not read, not come to the Supper, but should be still and wait until faith is given. They feared that these acts would become works to earn salvation.

Wesley rejected this teaching. He answered that Scripture tells seekers to ask, to seek, and to knock (Matthew 7:7), that the earliest believers continued in the apostles' teaching, in the breaking of bread and in prayers (Acts 2:42), and that God has in fact met many people as they waited in the use of the means. In July 1740 he separated from the Fetter Lane society, the Moravian-led group in London, because of this issue. The break helped to form the distinct Methodist societies.

Historians do not all agree on the cause. Some stress Wesley's high-church Anglican training, which valued the Prayer Book, the Supper and fasting. Others stress the Moravian differences in theology and in leadership. Both factors were surely real. The Wesleyan answer is that Wesley's conviction stood on the New Testament and on the experience of people he knew, and that his Anglican training prepared him to see what Scripture already taught.

The Objection of Works-Righteousness

The strongest objection comes from those who fear that the means of grace turn into a ladder to heaven. Some Reformed and Baptist Christians say that all the talk of "using the means" sounds like Rome and that salvation is by faith alone. They remind us that Isaiah 58 and Matthew 6 condemn those who fast and pray for show. The Moravians had the same fear.

We answer in four steps. First, we agree that salvation is by faith. Wesley's sermon "The Scripture Way of Salvation" (1765) teaches that we are justified by faith alone and sanctified by faith. Second, Wesley taught that the means are valuable only as far as they lead to the knowledge and love of God. When a person stops there and rests in the act, the act becomes an idol. Third, the means do not put God in debt to us. They are the place where we meet the God who gives freely. A farmer who plows and plants does not make the rain, but he is a fool if he sits in the house and waits. Fourth, the objection proves too much, because Jesus Himself prayed, fasted, read the Scriptures, and kept the feasts. If those things were only works, He would not have done them.

A second, quieter objection says that a stress on discipline will make Christians anxious. That danger is real. A tender conscience can be crushed by a long list of duties. For this reason Wesley's rule is not to heap on burdens but to help people stay near the Source of grace. If a practice has become a burden that crushes joy, the pastor should gently lighten it and teach again that we come to God by grace.

A Rule of Life for a Pastor

A pastor cannot lead people into a path he does not walk. A simple rule of life, based on the means, might include these parts.

• Daily: time in prayer and in the Word, even if only short, and thanks at the table.

• Weekly: public worship, a day of rest, a time of fasting if health permits, and some act of mercy for a neighbor.

• Regularly: the Lord's Supper, and meeting with a small group or a trusted friend who asks, "How is it with your soul?"

• Yearly: a time of retreat, review and renewal of the covenant with God.

This is a pattern, not a law. Illness, poverty and work will change what a person can do. The point is that grace flows most freely to those who have made room for it. Charles Wesley's hymns also serve as a means of grace, because singing teaches the great truths of salvation to the heart and to those who cannot read.

Pastoral Application

Pastor Grace serves a congregation in a growing town. A young woman who was converted six months ago comes to her in tears. "I prayed and fasted for two weeks," she says. "I wanted to be holy, but nothing happened. Maybe these things do not work."

Pastor Grace does four things. First, she thanks the young woman for her hunger and does not scold her. Second, she explains that fasting and prayer are not a machine that produces holiness, but places to meet the One who gives it, and that God often works slowly. Third, she asks what else is in her week, and finds that the young woman has no one to talk with and has not taken the Lord's Supper since she was converted. Fourth, she invites her to a women's class meeting and to the table on Sunday, and she gives her a short Psalm to read each morning. She teaches her to look for fruit, such as greater patience and love, over months and not days.

Summary

Holiness of heart and life is received by the grace of God, who also gives the ordinary means through which His grace comes. In "The Means of Grace" (1746) Wesley taught that the means are appointed by God, are channels and not sources, and are ordinary but not exclusive. The five instituted means are prayer, searching the Scriptures, the Lord's Supper, fasting, and Christian conference. Prudential means are wise, local practices that help us keep close to God. The General Rules of 1743 call us to do no harm, to do good, and to attend upon the ordinances of God. Works of piety turn us toward God and works of mercy turn us toward neighbor, and both are means of grace. Wesley rejected the Moravian teaching of stillness and left the Fetter Lane society in 1740. To the charge of works-righteousness we answer that salvation is by faith, that the means are valuable only as they lead to God, and that Christ Himself used them. A pastor should follow a simple rule of life and teach his people to do the same, without crushing anyone with burdens.

Further Reading

• John Wesley, sermon "The Means of Grace" (1746).

• John Wesley, "The Nature, Design, and General Rules of the United Societies" (1743).

• John Wesley, sermon "The Scripture Way of Salvation" (1765).

• John Wesley, Journal, the entries on the Moravians and the Fetter Lane society.

• John and Charles Wesley, Hymns on the Lord's Supper (1745).

• Holiness Through the Ages, the Master's textbook for this course.

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