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Reaching for
Metaphors of Grace
by General Paul Rader
In August last
year, General Paul Rader, former world leader of The Salvation
Army, delivered the annual Coutts Memorial Lecture at
Booth College
in Sydney.
The lecture previously appeared in Pipeline.
My
parents were both preachers and winsome exemplars of holiness.
I grew up with holiness teaching and example. My mother was a
gentle spirit with a talent for loving. My father was a single
minded, passionate evangelist to the last days of his long
life; promoted to glory at 92 – a Salvationist zealot. He
wanted those he won to Christ to survive, and more; to thrive
in grace. Holiness was for them the only safe option, as he
saw it. He had entered into the experience himself and
fervently urged it upon his family and all who came under the
influence of his ministry.
He
had a joyful certainty about his message. It was all aglow
with the possibilities of grace. We found it infectious, as
did others. When he died, our children wrote tributes. Our
eldest recalled how God had spoken to her so often through her
grand-dad: “… through that booming, passionate, hopeful,
edifying, loving voice. I’m still listening,” she said. And so
are we.
He introduced his
children from our teens to a wide range of holiness writers.
Not all were Wesleyans. They included Hannah Whitehall
Smith, Ruth Paxson, Norman Grubb, L E Maxwell, Paget Wilkes,
Sidlow Baxter, Oswald Chambers.
Holiness movement
The Army has from
the start been a holiness movement and despite Major Alan
Harley’s rather jeremiad assessment (he makes a convincing
case in an article published in the May 2009 issue of Word
and Deed, entitled “Is The Salvation Army really a
holiness movement?” A question with which I resonate!), I
believe the Army will continue to be a holiness movement.
With other
holiness denominations, the Army has struggled with the issues
of doctrinal clarity, effective articulation of essentials
with contemporary relevance and unanimity of understanding.
But the Army is still a vital part of the holiness movement,
here (Australia) and around the world.
Full salvation is emblazoned on our banner of blood and fire
and we mean to keep it billowing.
Like many of you,
I grew up in Sunday morning holiness meetings, singing
holiness songs and choruses. I was weaned on Wesley’s holiness
hymns. Early on, I began seeking the blessing of a clean heart
with teenage passion and persistence. At
Asbury
College (in the United States),
I was more thoroughly grounded in the theological foundations
of holiness teaching. We had questions, but used to take
comfort in the thought that what they could not explain about
it on our side of the street (the college), they probably knew
the answers to on the other side of the street where Asbury
Theological Seminary was located. So I crossed the street.
Meanwhile, I married the daughter of a holiness camp meeting
evangelist, whose precious mother was the epitome of holy
love.
So, in the
interests of full disclosure, I confess to being a child of
the holiness revival of the 19th century and schooled in the
Wesleyan tradition of the 18th century. I have
imbibed the perspectives of a broader range of holiness
teachers of the 20th century – our own in the Army, and
others, as well.
I
now have been preaching and teaching the truth of scriptural
holiness, so far as I have understood and internalised it, for
50 years. Across those years, I have been seeking to live out
the reality of its truth in the context of family and our
officership calling, most often in a cross-cultural context.
And now, in this 21st century, I am still searching for more
adequate metaphors to relate this truth to our time. Preaching
to students during the six years of my presidency at a
Christian college, I have worked at trying to make this truth
accessible and compelling to this generation of students – the
millennials. I think I understand some of the questions better
than ever. I am quite sure that I don’t have the final
answers.
The ‘Shorter Way’
Among the issues
that have figured prominently in defining the saving work of
Christ in the human heart is the question of when and how the
experience of entire sanctification can be anticipated and
appropriated. What is called the “Shorter
Way” was taught by Phoebe Palmer
who so directly influenced Catherine Booth.
For Palmer, the altar sanctifies the gift. Entire
sanctification is realised when believers fully submit to the
lordship of Christ and place themselves and all they are or
hope to be on the altar and claim by faith God’s promise for
heart-cleansing. Catherine Booth reflects this view in her own
witness to a sanctifying experience of grace (Green
1996:103-107).
“The altar sanctifies the gift; Thy blood insures the boon
divine; My outstretched hands to heaven I lift, And claim the
Father’s promise mine.” - Francis Bottome (1823-94) 208 v. 4
The “Shorter
Way” found definition in the heat
of the 19th century awakening and the American Holiness
Movement. In this view, writes Christopher Bounds, “entire
sanctification is a simple synergism in which the work of
consecration and faith by a Christian is met immediately with
deliverance from the inner propensity to sin by the Holy
Spirit” (Bounds 2005:2).
This view was dominant in the Army from the beginning and is
represented perhaps
best in the writings of Commissioner Samuel Logan Brengle,
although care should be taken not to oversimplify Brengle’s
understanding of the experience of sanctification and the life
of holiness which he developed in his literary legacy of wise
pastoral counsel.
A “Middle
Way” is more representative of John
Wesley’s perspective as he refined his theology of
sanctification over the long years of his preaching ministry.
By pursuing the means of grace and attending to the Word of
God, the heart is prepared to receive the grace necessary to
claim the blessing of a clean heart. It is God who
creates in the heart of the believer the hunger for holiness
and who beckons us onward toward that moment when in the
encounter of faith and the word of promise the Spirit does the
sanctifying work and, sooner or later, witnesses that the and
Samuel Logan Brengle. Some were in the Keswick tradition.
Brengle was the Army’s most effective and articulate proponent
of scriptural holiness. He spoke at my parent’s wedding – in
the days when they sometimes charged admission, took an
offering and gave an invitation to receive Christ, too!
He was a prophet
with a burden for the future.
“The bridge the Army throws across the impassable gulf
which separates the sinner from the Saviour, who pardons that
He
may purify, who saves that He may sanctify, rests upon these
two abutments;
the forgiveness of sins through simple, penitent, obedient
faith in a crucified Redeemer, and the purifying of the heart
and empowering of the soul through the anointing of the Holy
Spirit, given by its risen and ascended Lord, and received not
by works, but by faith.
Remove either of these abutments and the bridge falls;
preserve them in strength and a world of lost and despairing
sinners can be confidently invited and urged to come and be
gloriously saved. It is this holiness that we must maintain,
else we shall betray our trust; we shall lose our birthright
... our glory will depart ... we shall have no heritage of
martyr-like sacrifice, of spiritual power, of daredevil faith,
of pure, deep joy, of burning love, of holy triumph, to
bequeath to [our children].” (Quoted Waldron 1987:109-111)
heart has been made pure. Usually some level of maturity is
required before the need is felt for a deeper work of grace
and a full and knowing consecration becomes possible. It is
then, as God grants the grace to claim His promise, that the
believer
is
enabled to appropriate the blessing.
Indeed, not to do
so is to back up on light and put the soul in jeopardy. It is
the general demise of a
confident proclamation of these understandings of entire
sanctification in the teaching and preaching of the Army that
Major Harley finds troubling.
The ‘Longer Way’
A third view has
been gaining wide currency among holiness denominations,
particularly since the mid-20th century. It understands entire
sanctification to be appropriated only by a long process of
growth. It is the “Longer
Way”. The focus
is
on a lengthy process of dying to self following on years of
growing spiritual awareness. Few believers will attain the
goal before death; most only when we are glorified.
All of these views have their advocates presently within the
broader Wesleyan holiness tradition. They all posit a death to
the self-life and a cleansing from the inner pollution of sin.
They all affirm the possibility of living “self-controlled,
upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for
the blessed hope - the appearing of the glory of our great God
and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem
us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that
are His very own, eager to do what is good.” (Titus 2:12-14
TNIV).
In his helpful
survey of holiness teaching, Spiritual Breakthrough
(1983), General
John Larsson describes the gradual modification of John
Wesley’s original insights regarding entire sanctification.
Wesley himself revised his understanding over time from
viewing the crisis of sanctification as available only to a
few very near to the “summit of the mountain of holiness”,
often only shortly before death.
Later, he
affirmed the experience was available to believers earlier in
their faith journey. His 19th century disciples confidently
proclaimed that the crisis of cleansing and infilling of pure
love for God and others is “necessary and attainable for
all believers”.
It
is this understanding that is reflected in our 10th doctrine:
“We believe it is the privilege of all believers to be wholly
sanctified ...”
Larsson
concludes: “The crisis has become the gateway, not the goal.
And the crisis is, therefore, not for the few athletes of the
spirit who have nearly made it to the top. It is the way in to
spiritual progress, and is, therefore, meant for everybody.”
(1983:46). It is this view that was presented in the
1969 revision of the Handbook of Doctrine and further
explicated in the extensive writings of General Frederick
Coutts on the life of holiness.
He
writes: “In penitent obedience, I yield up a forgiven life. In
faith believing, I receive of His Spirit. That is the
beginning ... a full surrender is the beginning of the life of
holy living; the end of that experience I do not – I cannot –
see ... In grace as in wisdom ‘hills peep o’er hills and alps
on alps arise’. Spiritually, there is always the glory of
going on and still to be.” (Coutts 1957:37).
“Our human
nature, left to itself, always clings to the lower levels ...
Few of us seize that banner with the strange device, “Holiness
unto the Lord”, and are lost to sight making for the summit of
the holy hill of God. Only Jesus can rouse us into making such
an attempt. Then look to Him that He may quicken you with holy
desire which, by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit,
may find its fullest expression in holy - that is to say,
Christlike - living” (ibid., 21).
Critical place of crisis
Each of these views - the shorter, the middle and the longer
way – contribute importantly to an understanding of the
possibilities of grace and the way of holiness. Ultimately,
the issue is how the experience is played out in the business
of
living - in the depth of our devotion, the purity of our love
toward God and others, and the consistency of our walk as the
Lord Jesus lives His life in us and through us and we are
transformed into His image.
What must not be lost in our engagement with the issues of
purity and maturity, of crisis and process, is the critical
place of the crisis. “The crisis must be followed by the
process,” writes Coutts, and we agree. But then, this: “Any
comprehensive view of holiness must have room for both. The
experience can neither be explained, nor lived, without crisis
and process.” (Coutts 1957: 37)
And let us make room for the experience of those whose
progress in the life of holiness has involved a series of
crises of various kinds. Indeed, E Stanley Jones averred, that
“the soul gets on by a series of crises.”
Reaching For
Metaphors of Grace – part 2…
While many issues surrounding our understanding of the
doctrine of sanctification and the life of holiness may occupy
our minds and hearts, it is worth observing that the
postmodern generation, and particularly the Gen Xers and
NetGens, are not particularly interested in doctrinal
niceties.
“The modern world
was grounded,” comments Len Sweet, influential Christian
author and commentator on the current scene. “Its favourite
definition of God was ‘Ground of Being’. Its basic metaphors
were drawn from a landscape consciousness that didn’t trust
water. Scholars
are trained to keep categories clean and watertight. We were
taught to be careful not to water down our insights. The
surface on which we lived was solid, fixed and predictable. We
could get the lay of the land, mark off directions where we
were headed and follow maps, blueprints, and formulas to get
to where we are going. A lot of time was spent on boundary
maintenance and border issues.
Postmodern
culture is ... a seascape ... changing with every gust of wave
and wind, always unpredictable ... the sea knows no
boundaries. The only way one gets
anywhere on the water
is not through marked-off routes one follows but through
navigational skills and nautical trajectories,” (Leonard
Sweet, Soul Tsunami pp. 72-73).
“Postmoderns are
hungry for teaching but not for doctrine,” he notes. “Where
the modern age was predominantly either/or, the
postmodern world is and/also. Or phrased more
memorably, the postmodernist always rings twice!”
The Wesleyan evangelical community has not been immune to
these influences.
Among our thoughtful young believers are more than a few who
pursue a postmodern evangelical eclectic spirituality. Their
understanding of holiness is characterised by transparency,
connected-ness, positive relationships, and ethical
responsibility, including creation care.
Two writers whose
love for Jesus and His people is unmistakable, but whose
theology is more of the and/also variety, may represent
iconic figures for this generation of earnest Christians:
Kathleen Norris (Cloister Walk, Amazing Grace and Anne
LaMott (Travelling Mercies), who epitomises a
transparent, earthed and earthy and often irreverent
spirituality that connects with this generation (Whatever! Oh
well!).
Questionable theology
George Barna
speaks of “a lot of questionable theology weighing down
America’s young people”.
“Lacking much
exposure to the Bible itself and coming from a generation that
relies more heavily on emotionalism than empiricism for
guidance, the opportunities for heresy are prolific. We have
the makings of a generation that is prone to reflect on the
finer matters of Christian theology without understanding the
basic foundations,” (Generation Next pp. 82-83). Then
he quotes from Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind
- a comment still relevant: “Today’s students no longer
have any image of a perfect soul, and, hence, do not long to
have one. Yet they have powerful images of what a perfect body
is and pursue it incessantly.” (Some of us could do with
pursuing an “embodied holiness” a little more incessantly.)
Where and how will they acquire the images of grace and
godliness that will engender a hunger for holiness? For our
part, engaging the issues of doctrinal understanding that must
underlie our preaching and teaching of holiness in this or any
other time, is critical.
Christian Smith
in his 2005 survey of the faith of American teens entitled
Soul Searching and based on a broadranging five-year study
of teen religious understanding and practices, found their
faith mostly self-interested, naive and muddled. “Based on our
findings,” he writes, “I suggest that the de facto
religious faith of the majority of American teens is
‘Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.’ God exists. God created the
world. God set up some kind of moral structure. God wants me
to be nice. He wants me to be pleasant; wants me to get along
with people. That’s teen morality. The purpose of life is to
be happy and feel good, and good people go to heaven. And
nearly everyone’s good,” (Smith 2005:10-11).
In 2010, he
published the results of a follow-up survey which included
many of the same informants of the earlier study in order to
track the development of faith understanding among “emerging
adults” between 18 and 29. The book is titled Souls in
Transition. He finds this age group even less interested
in the particularities of doctrinal discussion or
denominational allegiances. They are largely distanced from
any serious consideration of biblical teaching as impinging
upon their own sense of what feels appropriate. “More
generally, it was clear in many interviews that emerging
adults felt entirely comfortable describing various religious
beliefs that they affirmed but that appeared to have no
connection to the living of their lives.” This is the context
into which we are called to articulate the truth claims of
Scriptural holiness.
Reducing truth
Given our Western cast of mind, we have a tendency to want to
reduce truth to system, experience to rigid categories of
explanation, profound mysteries to code words, shibboleths and
neat formulae. Scripture presents us with a wealth of
metaphors which interpreted too literally can lead to
confusion and considerable mischief. So we continue to try and
understand the metaphors and search for metaphors of our own
in our attempts to make this precious truth accessible to our
people and appropriate to our time.
As a young
missionary, I was greatly helped by a slim book entitled
The Spirit of Holiness by Everett Cattell, veteran
missionary to India
and president of
Circleville
Bible College.
He describes the life of the believer as bipolar, i.e. he
pictures a horseshoe magnet under paper filled with iron
filings. They arrange themselves around the two poles. In
sanctification, the pole of the self finds its life in Christ,
and the two poles become one. Something goes out of existence.
It is the old configuration of the filings and the tensions
between the poles. ”Not the self, but the pattern of life
created by the self when it is not hid with Christ in God is
the thing that must be destroyed.” He insists on a
distinction between the death of self and a death to
self. If the self moves away from Christ, the old pattern
of tension and division reappears. The secret is abiding in
Christ by the Spirit. Campus Crusade has adopted a similar
model and metaphor in its popular booklet, Have You Made
the Wonderful Discovery of the Spirit-filled Life? It may
seem too formulaic, but deals with the central issue of
displacing the self on the throne of the heart, and putting
Jesus on the throne with all other areas of life ordered under
his sovereign control.
Free Methodist Bishop Les Krober presents a compelling witness
to his own pilgrimage coming to an awareness that the critical
issue for him was an addiction to self that needed to be
broken. He defines sanctification in this way:
“Entire sanctification is the work of God in response to a
Christian’s surrender and faith which breaks the addiction to
self. This full surrender changes our saving relationship to
God as it delivers us from the spirit of rebellion. It opens
the door to the possibility of a wholehearted love for God and
others. It lays the foundation for a growing improbability of
willful disobedience. This deepened relationship with God,
activated by His Spirit, releases us from our self-sufficient
arrogant attitude, frees us from the need to control others
and dictate our own terms, and breaks the habit of
manipulating the world and God. As the Holy Spirit frees us
from our independent mind and will, we grow in quantum leaps
of Christ-likeness, making glad the heart of God and bringing
hope and joy to the person being transformed.”
McCasland, in his
biography of Oswald Chambers, Abandoned to God,
describes his experience of sanctification at age 27 in this
way: “The citadel of his heart had fallen, not to a conquering
Christ, but to the gentle knocking of a wounded hand!”
(McCasland 1993:86)
We look for
positive metaphors of freedom and robust health, of
possibility, privilege and power. J Sidlow Baxter in A New
Call to Holiness (1967:134 ff.) employs the metaphor of
living in a fetid, damp, unhealthy slum, without proper
nourishment, surrounded by disease. The body becomes
debilitated, weakened and subject to infection. But suddenly
the poor wretch is transported to a seaside village where the
air is clear and the sea winds bracing. The food is nourishing
and the environment clean, beautiful and inviting. The body
begins to respond. Not all at once, but gradually. The change
of circumstance was sudden and critical. But the recovery of
vigorous health takes longer - good diet, fresh air, exercise,
a pleasant and healthful environment. Before long, the face
takes on a glow and life is lived to the full. This, he sees,
as the nature of the sanctification experience.
Soul disease
I have come to
see sanctification as a cleansing, healing work at the motive
centre of the personality; a freeing from the soul’s
debilitating inner disease. I have come to feel that what the
Spirit is addressing here is much like an HIV positive
condition of the soul.
We walked a brother in Christ through HIV/AIDS until
the Lord took him. He came and told me. Then we watched every
virus take him down. Soul disease weakens us like that. It
disables our spiritual immune systems subtly and renders us
vulnerable to every opportunistic spiritual virus in the moral
environment in which we are immersed. I am breathing this in
from the atmosphere on a daily basis.
It
is not only the things to which I consciously expose myself,
but the unseen, unsuspected influences that play upon me
constantly. Then when the pressure is great and my defences
are weakest, I fall prey to the temptations that present
themselves.
It’s the soul’s virus that the sanctifying work of the Spirit
addresses. It doesn’t make us fully robust overnight. We’re
still subject to temptation and even failure. But the immune
system has been put in place and my moral energies are no
longer being silently sapped and therefore rendering me
vulnerable to the approaches of the evil one however he
presents himself.
“O
come and dwell in me,” sang Wesley.
“Spirit of power within!
And bring the glorious liberty
From sorrow, fear and sin.
The whole of sin’s disease,
Spirit of health remove,
Spirit of perfect holiness,
Spirit of perfect love.”
If
we were to think of sanctification in digital terms, is
sanctification something like a reprogramming of the software
of the soul, with appropriate downloads and updates - perhaps
including the introduction of anti-virus software for systems
protection - and a recognition of the dangers of careless
surfing (what gets your attention, gets you!)?
And is there a moment when we must muster the faith and
courage to press “enter” to begin the adventure?
Life in the Spirit
The journey itself - the process - may be seen as more
significant than any sense of definitive arrival at a
specified destination. Characteristically, there is more
journaling of the journey than clear and confident witness to
crisis encounter with the Cross and the Spirit purifying our
hearts by faith.
Recall the titles
I mentioned, Cloister Walk and Traveling Mercies.
What do we gain or lose in focusing on sanctification as the
Imitatio Christi - to which Richard Foster, Dallas
Willard and others are drawing us anew? The positive value is
its focus on sanctification as relational and transformative,
in the context of a “Transforming Friendship” (James Houston)
with Christ by the Spirit.
This resonates with the current generation. “As we walk in the
light ... “ (1 John 1:7).
Eugene Peterson,
in Subversive Spirituality, explores the hunger of this
age for intimacy and transcendence.
Unfortunately these hungers are poorly served as we reach out
for pseudo-intimacies that dehumanise and pseudo-transcendence
that trivialises.
It is the
possibility of a living, vital and intimate relationship with
a transcendent God through faith in Jesus that connects so
well with this generation.
Sanctification is the lived reality of Christ in the
believer’s life and our life in Christ (John 15:4-5 and
Colossians 2:6-7).
Coutts quotes
Brengle in the frontispiece of The Call to Holiness as
declaring: “There is no such thing as holiness apart from
‘Christ in you’.” This focus emphasises the disciplines of
faith and love’s obedience. The employment of the means of
grace, regular practices and disciplines of worship and
devotion was vital to Wesley’s view of sanctifying grace,
including the role of the community of faith and ministries of
compassionate service.
The International Spiritual Life Commission was convened to
explore the inner life of The Salvation Army and the adequacy
of our provision of the means of grace through our corps
ministries for the spiritual nurture and sanctification of our
people. The report of the commission took the form of a series
of calls to Salvationists around the world and provides a
basis for reviewing whether and how effectively the spiritual
ministries of our corps are meeting the needs of our people.
It calls all Salvationists to engage in the disciplines of
life in the Spirit: the disciples of our life together and the
disciplines of our life in the world.
This view of sanctification as our life in Christ as He makes
His hallowing presence real in us, is strong on the outcomes -
the ethical implications of holy living. “The aim of such
instruction,” says Paul to Timothy, “is love that comes from a
pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy
1:4-5). This focus is decidedly Wesleyan. “It has always been
the most profound conviction of Wesleyanism that the Bible
speaks to the moral relationships of men and not about
sub-rational, non-personal areas of the self.
Sin is basically
self-separation from God ...holiness is moral to the core -
love to God and man,” (M Wynkoop, A Theology of Love,
p. 167). On the other hand, from a Wesleyan perspective, there
is a need to deal decisively with the sovereignty of the self
and the soul’s debilitating inner disease that saps our
spiritual energies and undercuts our ability to follow the
example and teaching of our Lord Jesus.
There is, after
all, no Calvary
by-pass!
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