At some point, we have to ask ourselves: What is the end-game here? What is the purpose behind God’s grace. Where is it all going?
A few weeks ago, I began this little series on talking about salvation which began with taking about justification, continued in by exploring sanctification and the means of grace, and now we come to the end… of God’s grace!
Or, in other words, our focus for this brief reflection is on the purpose of God’s grace in order to speak to the reason for why we would bother concerning ourselves with whether or not we are on the way of salvation in the first place.
But first, in order to get to the end, let’s go back to the beginning… creation. We should begin with how we were made a certain way and how that relates to our being made new in a certain way. Our guide throughout this series has been John Wesley, and to him we will return to process this aspect of the purpose of God’s grace. Wesley, in what is understood to be his first ‘university sermon’1 wrote about an important aspect of creation found in Genesis 1:27, the “image of God”, in a sermon by the same name.
God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
John Wesley understands this image of God as being something that has since been lost, leaving the ‘natural’ state of humanity in need of recovery. He speaks of the original makeup of being made in the image of God that “man… resembled God,” and was marked by “understanding that was just,” that man saw clearly or “plainly,” that he possessed a “will equally perfect,” and that “Love filled the whole expansion of his soul.”2 Wesley begins with how God began, creating a good creation. He expands on what that truly means, rightly or wrongly, but doesn’t leave it at that. As a matter of fact, he demonstrates how he is quite bothered by those who would think that humanity generally sticks with any such goodness. He eventually draws a line between will, liberty, and a supposition that the account of eating the forbidden fruit introduced change which naturally led to change for the worse and so a corruption of the human will and a “depraved understanding.”3
How this helps us understand the purpose of God’s grace is that it orients us correctly to two things in proper order: 1) that God first created mankind (indeed all of creation good) and 2) that a since a corruption has entered into the initially good creation as a consequence of free human will that is not surmountable apart from divine intervention. The purpose of God’s grace, for Wesley, ties back to that original creation: it is to “restore our native immortality.”4 In another sermon, The End of Christ’s Coming, Wesley has this to say, “what is real religion: a restoration of man, by him that bruises the serpent’s head to all that serpent deprived him of; a restoration not only to the favour, but likewise to the image of God.”5 The end of ‘real religion,’ which only comes about and is effective by God’s grace, is a restoration to the original state that God created in the first place.
Where some may like to begin with our brokenness, Wesley begins with creation’s original goodness. Where some may desire to say we are good at our core, Wesley still contends that we are yet corrupted. But, Wesley points out through both his early sermon in The Image of God, and later in The End of Christ’s Coming, that God’s grace is working toward a purpose that works back to creation through Christ, a restoration of the image of God in those who perseverance on the way of salvation. This is marked by perfect love, a wilful disposition of the heart to all that is of God that enabled by the Spirit of God in perfection. It is to this end that we take advantage of the means of grace that God provides and it is to this end that we initiate when we begin our journey of faith in confessing Jesus as Lord. So we continue, not to ask if we are saved, but if we are on the way of salvation. Are we walking to the destination of God’s grace, his end in a creation restored in perfection?
Now to you.
What do you think?
How does considering the state of humanity as originally good, even ‘perfect in love,’ corrupted, and in need of divine intervention to restore it helpful or unhelpful to process questions of salvation for you?
What questions or concerns remain for you having considered this reflection?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
- John Wesley, “The Image of God,” in The Works of John Wesley, Vol.4. Sermons Iv, 115-151, ed. Albert Cook Outler (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1987). 4:290-303. ↩
- John Wesley, “The Image of God.” 4:293-294 ↩
- John Wesley, “The Image of God.” 4:299 ↩
- John Wesley, “The Image of God.” 4:299 ↩
- John Wesley, “The End of Christ’s Coming,” in The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1984). 2:482. ↩