“Then Jesus said: “Go into the world. Go everywhere
and announce the Message of God’s good news to one and all” (Mark
16:15, The Message).
Closely associated with service is the fifth and final of the
Five Core Values: Witness.
In the New Testament, the term witness takes on a wide meaning.
It certainly includes the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But
not just in word only but in deed, even in suffering. Jesus was a witness
to the inauguration of God’s kingdom or reign. And Jesus now calls His
disciples to follow His example: “You will receive power when the Holy
Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Witness
is the outcome of one’s pursuit of Christ-likeness. It is not accidental
or incidental that witness is the last of the five core values, for those
who pursue the first four (devotions, worship, discipleship, and ministry)
are a public witness to God’s saving and sanctifying grace. Otis Sayes
observes, “Witness is at the heart of the Great Commission, for the church
advances by a kind of proclamation linked to personal testimony.”
Foster identifies the Incarnational tradition or Stream of Life
as “focusing upon making present and visible the realm of the invisible
spirit. This sacramental way of living addresses the crying need to experience
God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life” (Foster,
Streams of Living Water, p. 237). Witness is where the Incarnational Stream
and Holiness Stream converge, for effective witness is only possible, we believe,
“upon the inward re-formation of the heart and the development of ‘holy
habits’. We can rely upon these deeply ingrained habits of virtue to
make our lives function appropriately and to bring forth substantial character
formation” (Foster, Streams of Living Water, p. 61).
Witness, the fifth and last of the Five Core Values, has deep
roots in the Holiness tradition in general and the Wesleyan-Holiness movement
in particular.
Wesley emphasized the importance of experiencing God’s
accepting, justifying grace by faith. Justification by faith and the new birth
were inseparable, according to Wesley. However, Wesley did think the two could
be distinguished. Justification, he held, is the work God does for us. The
new birth (John 3:1-10; 2 Corinthians 5:17) is the work God does in us. In
his words, “I believe (the new birth) to be an inward thing; a change
from inward wickedness to inward goodness; an entire change of our inmost
nature from the image of the devil . . . to the image of God.”
Wesley did not view the new birth or justification as an end
in themselves but rather the beginning of a new life of holiness in which
people are more sensitive to the presence of God and the circumstances of
their neighbors. Wesley also taught that these “new creatures” did
not have to wonder about their status. He taught that the Spirit of God bears
constant witness in believers that they now enjoy a new standing and relationship
with God. He called this assurance the “witness” or “testimony”
of the Holy Spirit. Again, Wesley writes:
“The testimony of the Holy Spirit is an inward impression
of the soul, whereby the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit that
I am a child of God; that Jesus Christ hath loved me, and given himself for
me; that all my sins are blotted out and I, even I, am reconciled to God.”
But the culminating theme of John Wesley’s theology was
holiness of heart and life. This is what biblical writers and other Christians
sometimes called sanctification. Sanctification, for Wesley, had two main
aspects: inward and outward, personal and social, heart and life. And the
latter is only possible in a sustained and consistent manner upon the experience
of the former. This was the distinguishing feature of Wesley’s view on
holiness. Christian perfection, as Wesley often called holiness of heart,
is what empowers the sincere disciples of Jesus Christ to perform works of
piety and works of mercy.
Certainly, Wesley’s doctrine of sanctification included
the new birth and growth in grace, themes he never abandoned. But it was his
emphasis on Christian perfection or entire sanctification to which the Wesleyan-Holiness
movement is most indebted. Maddox writes:
“With Wesley’s therapeutic focus it is natural that
a central question for him should become ‘how much deliverance from the
plague of sin can we hope for in this life?’ His distinctive answer,
for which he is most widely known (and often criticized), was that there is
a possibility of entire sanctification or Christian Perfection, in this life.
Indeed, he claimed near the end of his life that the propagation of this very
teaching was the chief reason for which God had raised up the Methodists”
(Maddox, Responsible Grace, p. 180).
What did Wesley claim for those who experienced the work of
Christian perfection or heart holiness? Maddox identifies at least five unifying
threads in Wesley’s teaching:
1. Maturity. “One of Wesley’s most characteristic
descriptions of those who have attained Christian Perfection was that they
are now adult—or mature—Christians. From this developmental language
we can sense that his basic conception of ‘perfection’ in the Christian
life was dynamic in nature” (Maddox, Responsible Grace, p. 187).
2. Love. “When Wesley was asked to be more specific what
he meant by maturity, his response was often one of love. He defined Christian
Perfection as ‘the humble, gentle, patient love of God, and our neighbor,
ruling our tempers, words, and actions’” (Wesley, Works, Vol. 11,
p. 446).
3. Overcoming Sin. Wesley believed that affections contrary
to love would, of course, be inward sin. Wesley believed this inward sin was
overcome in entire sanctification. “In a few instances, he described
this overcoming as a ‘rooting out’ or ‘destruction’ of
inward sin” (Maddox, Responsible Grace, p. 188). Destruction language
became problematic for Wesley and when pressed on it he offered driving out,
displaced, or overcoming language instead.
4. Witness. Wesley believed that both Scripture and Christian
tradition attested that God’s loving grace can transform our lives to
the point where our love for God and others becomes a natural response. The
holy life, or a life patterned after Jesus Christ, becomes a witness of loving
response to God and love for one’s neighbor.
5. Instantaneous. “It was,” Maddox observes, “his
further claim that the specific transition to this dynamic level of Christian
life is an instantaneous one, however much gradual growth there may be before
or after it. Wesley apparently assumed that an instantaneous transition at
some point was a logical implication of Christian Perfection’s state
as effected by Divine grace, not simply a human achievement” (Maddox,
Responsible Grace, p. 188).
In summary, Wesley claimed that the work of God’s grace
empowered and enabled the sincere disciple of Jesus Christ to grow in Christ-likeness,
to love God and neighbor to a greater extent, to overcome sin and to witness
the same through holiness of both heart and life. Wesley also taught this
change of heart could occur instantaneously but that Christian maturity was
a process.
