"Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" — Sanctification in Charles Wesley's Hymns

Lost Treasure

Like treasure hoarded by a fire-breathing dragon, the biblical doctrine of entire sanctification has been stolen from Christian theology today, but the dragon appears to be in little danger of Christians claiming this jewel again.

Without a doubt, the term "entire sanctification" has been a bugaboo from the beginning, rejected outright by C. H. Spurgeon, reworded by R. A. Torrey as the infilling with the Holy Spirit, and later refaced by Oswald Chambers (a convert of Spurgeon's) as "my utmost for His highest." J. Sidlow Baxter, a self-dubbed Calvinist-Arminian, also avoided binary division by focusing on total surrender as the gateway to personal holiness.

But A. W. Tozer agreed with the Wesleys that words do matter. The term "entire sanctification" as found in the New Testament denotes a unique work of grace subsequent to salvation--a work that the Old Testament use of the word "sanctification" does not convey. To distinguish the Old Testament meaning--"set apart for service"--from the New Testament work begun at Pentecost, Tozer and the Wesleys insisted that the word "entire" must precede "sanctification" to denote the dramatic experience of heart cleansing and infilling with the Holy Spirit. Certainly, as seen with Christ's disciples, this purifying work alone would set His followers apart for service. No one could be empowered who was not first made holy from within. This distinction--being made holy as opposed to being declared holy; imparted righteousness versus imputed righteousness--remains a point of contention between Calvinism and Arminianism today.

The bitter debate surrounding the scope of the Holy Spirit's work arose from a denominational understanding of the sin nature, which Calvinists insist points to total depravity. If Arminians agreed with a doctrine of total depravity in the first place--the basis necessitating the Calvinist doctrine of irresistible grace--they called it "inbred sin" and regarded it as proof of the need for entire sanctification. If Calvary cannot address the sin problem itself, then the death of Christ is no different than the blood of goats and bulls. The Arminian insistence upon a dynamic work of grace that cripples this inborn sin nature remained their signature doctrine. Tozer foresaw that, without this experience of radical heart cleansing, the church would drift into easy believism, assuming a life of sin is nevertheless secure under grace.

Tozer's mid-twentieth century warnings proved all too real: not only easy believism but even apostasy in America had already set in by the time of his death, with the prosperity gospel and progressive Christianity replacing classic soteriology merely one generation later. Ironically, Wesleyan-Arminians played front and center to the erosion of their own doctrine, not only replacing the long-time "bugaboo" term of "entire sanctification" but also redefining holiness itself.

Holiness became "wholeness," a harmless euphemism denoting, not a radical surrender, but a subjective sense of total well-being in which we can almost hear the echo of the popular "tolerance" buzzword in a seeker-sensitive age. The "sanctified" Christian was respectfully set apart for service without being "odd" for Jesus. In fact, he was the most well-adjusted, "relatable" one of the bunch. What bunch? we might ask. Thus did the greatest treasure of Christian doctrine--the infilling of the Holy Spirit--become a marketing tool for Christians.

Tragically, there simply is no market for genuine holiness today. Not only is radical holiness rejected as impossible; even modified appeals to "wholeness" are scorned as undesirable. Persistent caricatures of a second work of grace abuse the very meaning of the word "grace" and mistake obedience for legalism. Thus has Apollyon captured the doctrine of "entire sanctification" as a false gospel of works salvation. Skim the comments of almost any discernment video produced by Christian watchmen today and find viewers attacking a sincere call for a holy life.

But we don't need to read these comments to catch the way the wind is blowing today. All we need to do is note the loss of the historic hymns in which the glorious experience of entire sanctification is held forth as actual personal reality. And even when these hymns have not been discarded outright, many of them have been reworded to dull the convicting sword of truth separating the soul from sin.

Thank the Lord some of us have memorized the old hymns and are old enough to remember not only the words but also the reality of hearing entire congregations singing them in four-part harmony with piano and organ accompaniment. The beauty is still there--the beauty of the hymns themselves, yes, but more than this, the beauty of the truths they proclaim.

Charles Wesley stands alone in his gift of making the most painful spiritual truths irresistibly beautiful. If we look at the truth of entire sanctification in his great hymns, we will find the doctrine that John Wesley preached: holiness is nothing less than perfect love.

Tortured Text

"Love Divine, All Loves Excelling," written by Charles Wesley in 1747, proves the epicenter of holiness teaching in the Wesleyan doctrine. Though the term "entire sanctification" is not found in the hymn, when we examine the words of the original text, we find the working definition of this doctrine as witnessed in real life. How sad, then, to find this doctrine softened by altered wording that loses Wesley's point. Clearly, it was not merely the term but the experience that sophisticates sought to blur. Despite these tamperings, Wesley's pure devotion to Christ speaks for itself.

First and foremost, Wesley shows that holiness is a reflection of Love Divine. Indeed, when this "pure, unbounded love" enters "every trembling heart," how could we be anything other than loving?And when we study the Sermon on the Mount to find that it is this motive of loving others--even our enemies--that makes us perfect, we need not fear false labels of "sinless perfection." We will have reached that Christian perfection of which Christ Himself speaks. If we needed no further proof of the Wesleys' truth than this, their emphasis on divine love should suffice.

The second verse--dropped even by John Wesley to avoid any false impression of sinless perfection--nevertheless holds some of Charles Wesley's clearest holiness shorthand: "let us find that second rest." In "that second rest," we hear the echo of Wesleyan terms such as "second blessing" and "entire sanctification" but with a wonderfully fresh twist: "rest." If it were either works salvation or sinless perfection of which Wesley speaks, we would find anything but rest. But when we examine his specific words in this line, they flow naturally into the next: "take away our bent to sinning." This wording, as Charles's own revision to his brother's protest to singing "take away our power of sinning," has also been politely reworded by editors after Wesley to say "take away the love of sinning." But how is this an improvement?

The bent to sinning is the habit that has become second nature in our lives. Even a tree grows bent to the direction of the wind. But the second nature can be overruled by the second rest--that rest which finds peace in loving others better than ourselves--for do we not think first of ourselves unless Love Divine baptize us with His love? Perhaps modern-day words have confused the effect with the cause, but taking away the "bent to sinning"--striking self-love at its root--will indeed cause the "love of sinning" to wither into abhorrence. How else can we find our hearts "set at liberty" unless we have lost the bent to sinning?

The editors' replacements in both of these lines lack both clarity and meaning. Anyone can tell that "promised" and "second" are not synonyms. How can we know what rest is promised if that rest is never defined? "Let us find the promised rest" sounds like an allusion to heaven beyond the grave. But Wesley is speaking about living, not dying. Furthermore, the vagueness resulting from the editors' replacement blocks the flow even to their own next modification. "Let us find the promised rest" does not lead to "Take away the love of sinning." When we realize that some editors tortured Wesley's text on purpose, we see where their edits backfired, proving to be little more than bland filler--also proving ironically both the value of Wesley's intentional choices and their own holiness illiteracy.

The third verse of Wesley's great hymn shows us implicitly the life we must live once we find "that second rest." Notice that this life is one of constant praise and service: "Thee we would be always blessing; serve Thee as Thy hosts above." Oh, me, if I had been singing from memory, I would have been "wrong" again. See here another "fixing" of what was not broken: "serve Thee as Thou wouldst approve." I don't have time to figure out what that means before singing "glory in Thy perfect love." But if I sing what Wesley wrote--"serve Thee as Thy hosts above"--I picture angels and perfected saints fulfilling the Lord's Prayer: "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." Wouldn't that mean that my service would be not merely acceptable--"as Thou wouldst approve"--but also remarkable?

And what would make it remarkable without a pure heart instinctively obeying its Lord's command? In his famous sonnet, "On His Blindness," John Milton writes "thousands at His bidding speed," creating a picture of obedience unseen on earth. The Psalms especially are rich with the exact vocabulary Wesley has chosen, and to be numbered with those "hosts" gives me a vision of my sacred mission--the very purpose for which my heart has been purified and set apart. Such consecration of service will cause us then to "glory in Thy perfect love." And once again, Wesley's thesis of perfect love remains the heartbeat of this hymn.

Insert a key change here, pull out all the stops of the pipe organ, and sing from your lungs this grand finale: "Finish, then, Thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be." Oh, thank goodness the editors found no quirky archaism here to render Wesley's theology null and void. "Pure and spotless let us be." There it is: unvarnished, old fashioned conviction intensifying the beauty, despite coughs and squirms for hankies as others sing. We can see why modern culture has abandoned the hymns.

But the text wins at last. We have glimpsed the treasure. And now Wesley uncovers the gold: "Let us see Thy great salvation perfectly restored in Thee." What is "Thy great salvation" except salvation from sin? "Perfectly restored"? This doesn't sound like total depravity or positional holiness or progressive sanctification with no end in sight. This song has the full authenticity of personal experience as seconded by the witness of the Spirit. The power is in the truth because the purity is in the life. These words are not pretty decorations but profound proclamations.

Transformed Temples

What else does this "great salvation" do? Wesley continues "changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place." This is a profound phrase in itself. Notice he does not write "changed from agony into glory," as if the bent to sinning lingers until death. The glory begins in this life immediately upon our hearts being "set at liberty." This is a lifetime transformation, to be sure, such as Paul writes of those who behold Christ's image in a mirror until they see His likeness instead of their own. But it is also instantaneous, for how else could it begin in glory? With our friends who argue that sanctification is progressive, we would contend that it cannot progress unless it has begun.

Today we hear about Christians coping with their addictions. Where is the glory in that? When Tozer speaks of "that incredible Christian" who is holiest when he is most conscious of sin, he is not speaking of a life of sin but of a new consciousness of sin. The truly holy man finds in himself sins that most people excuse. But he also knows a new liberty and a new destiny, as Wesley expresses in these lines: "changed from glory into glory till in heaven we take our place." Any editor who understood Wesley's intent would never have changed this line to "till with Thee we take our place." What would this even mean? Changed in an instant, we become Christ's temple now. There is no "till."

But if we are speaking of taking our place in heaven, we complete the narrative arc of entire sanctification, which begins in conviction, changes from glory to glory and ends in casting "our crowns before Thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise." Will you have crowns to cast before Him, or are you content to boast of your righteousness as mere filthy rags? Those who misuse Isaiah's image as denoting even the aftermath of salvation and sanctification have clearly confused the cause--our filthiness--with the effect--our righteousness in Christ.

And have we not heard one too many times the false distinction between those Christians who made it to heaven but lost their rewards and those who flew gloriously in? I can't imagine a true Christian even thinking of his own rewards in the first place. Our one true reward is to cast our crowns before our Savior, "lost in wonder, love, and praise." Holiness is about loving Jesus and others and requires losing that love of self that holds us back from fulfilling this excellent love. Let us find this treasure today and make this Love Divine our all-consuming song.