Thursday, March 21, 2019
O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in your sanctuary and gazed upon your power and glory. Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you! I will praise you as long as I live, lifting up my hands to you in prayer. You satisfy me more than the richest feast. I will praise you with songs of joy. I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night. Because you are my helper, I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your strong right hand holds me securely. Psalm 63:1-8a
We are
looking this week at the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, a term that helps us see a
process of theological understanding…a way of thinking about God[1]. This process includes these four: Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and
Reason. Today we investigate Experience.
If you
look closely at the “experiences” of the Psalmist with God, you have something
of an understanding of what John Wesley meant when he added that word to his methodology
of interpreting the Christian life. The
Psalmist begins with a soul-thirsting search to be close to God, and an
encounter with worship and demonstration of God’s power. He has tasted of God’s love and refuses any
other life than one lived in God’s presence.
He has felt the security of strong, everlasting arms.
Today we
would simply use the word assurance to describe the
relationship that has developed between the Psalmist and his Creator. In the Christian “experience” it is the
assurance of forgiveness of sin, and the enlightened, cleansed soul that
produced Wesley’s strangely warmed heart.
Rev. David
Watson quotes Albert Outler, who coined the term Quadrilateral:
Outler’s understanding of the role of experience in Wesley’s theology,
then, is quite particular. It is not any experience that a person has, it is
the distinctively Christian experience of assurance of the forgiveness of one’s
sins. It is the experience of the witness of the Spirit. Wesley was quite fond
of citing Romans 8:16 to illustrate this: “it is that very Spirit bearing
witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”[iii]
If we are
going to think Methodist-wise with John Wesley then, the experience of
new-birth is necessary. Jesus said it
rather plainly:
Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ John 3:6-7
It is the
Spirit of God Who gives us accurate understanding of the Scriptures. Without the Spirit’s help we are without a
clue as to understanding God’s ways or words.
So, where Wesley
and informed spiritual understanding are concerned, there is no such thing as
experience born of having lived a certain number of years, or the knowledge
gained from making mistakes, or having investigated this or that. It also has nothing to do with having been in
church all your life, or even attended seminary. None of that is bad; but none of that counts…in
the slightest…without God’s Spirit taking up residence in your soul.
That is a
condition of spiritual blindness…you need a little more light!
For You Today
If you
would like that light in your soul, it is as profoundly simple and
life-changing as repenting of sin (telling God you’re sorry and meaning it) and
inviting God to take over your life with a prayer that says just that.
A final
word today from the beloved Apostle, John:
But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 1 John 1:9
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[1] I first heard this phrase (tied
to the word “theology”) in seminary with Baptist Theologian Fischer Humphreys,
who entitled his book thusly.
