By Mark K. Olson

Introduction

In his classic study of John Wesley’s theology of holiness, Harald Lindström makes the insightful observation that Wesley’s evangelical conversion at Aldersgate was made possible by acquiring a “new way of looking at the question of atonement.”[1] Wesley records in his journal of his change in sentiment on April 22, 1738, when he acknowledged to Peter Böhler that saving faith centers on the merits of Christ’s death as the sole means for obtaining forgiveness and favor before God. So radical was this change for Wesley that he referred to this new insight as a “new gospel.”[2]

Kenneth Collins observed the theory of atonement that best characterizes Wesley’s perspective is penal substitution.[3] The aim of this paper is to examine Wesley’s understanding of penal substitution and how it shaped his theological perspective. Our approach will be to first survey Wesley’s views on penal substitution over the length of his career beginning at Aldersgate. The goal is to clarify just how pervasive and dominant this theme was in his writings. Next, we will define each of the major concepts of penal substitution from Wesley’s own perspective. Finally, we will assess the influence of penal substitution on shaping his understanding of the via salutis (way of salvation) and his overall theology. With this said let us begin.

Chronological Survey

When we peruse through Wesley’s extant corpus, it becomes quickly noticeable that penal substitution forms the foundation of his atonement theology. Beginning with his Aldersgate manifesto, Salvation by Faith, we see that penal substitution goes to the heart of his understanding of saving faith. Christ is said to have been “given for us” in his death and that our salvation relies on the “merits” of his life, death and resurrection (I.5). In standard penal substitution terms, Wesley translates the Greek word ἱλαστήριον in Romans 3:25 as propitiation, not expiation (II.3; more on the distinction below). Then a few paragraphs later a key concept of imputation is implied when Wesley notes that the atonement of Christ is “actually applied to the soul of the sinner” (II.7).

Later that same year Wesley published an extract of the Anglican Homilies on salvation and faith. In part one, concerning the salvation of mankind, Wesley includes an explicit affirmation of penal substitution that he will later quote several times:

“In these places the apostle (Paul) toucheth especially on three things which must go together in our justification: upon God’s part, his great mercy and grace; upon Christ’s part, the satisfaction of God’s justice by the offering of his body and shedding his blood, with the fulfilling of the law perfectly and thoroughly; and upon our part, true and lively faith in the merits of Jesus Christ, so that in our justification there is not only God’s mercy and grace, but his justice also.”[4]

This passage highlights several of Wesley’s core concepts about penal substitution: satisfaction of God’s justice, fulfillment of God’s law, Christ meriting or purchasing salvation, and that human justification rests upon God’s justice as well as his mercy.

When we move to the 1740’s we see the same sentiments. In Further Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion and The Principles of a Methodist,Wesley quoted in summary form the above passage from the Anglican Homilies.[5] When we turn to other sermons, we find the same expressions. As the second Adam, Christ serves as federal head, parent and representative of the human race, for whom he made a “‘full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world’” (Justification by Faith I.7). Christ paid the price by propitiating and appeasing God’s wrath (The Righteousness of Faith I.8, 13; The Way to the Kingdom II.5), so that not only are we reconciled to God, but that God is reconciled to us (Justification by Faith I.9; more below on this thought). These same themes are succinctly found in A Dialogue Between an Antinomian and His Friend and its sequel.[6]

Moving to the 1750s and 1760s, Wesley produced sermons, tracts, letters and essays that articulated his penal substitution views. In Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament, Wesley explained that Christ’s death serves to “appease an offended God” and to demonstrate God’s “vindictive justice whose essential character and principal office is to punish sin” (Rom 3:25; see also 1 Jn 2:2, 4:10 where Wesley translates the Greek as propitiation).  Wesley enunciates his penal substitution views with greater clarity in his treatise on original sin. In this major work Wesley supported the ideas of imputed guilt and righteousness, Adam’s federal headship and representation of the human race, and the penal sufferings of Christ’s atonement.[7] Wesley is just as explicit in his letter to William Law.[8] Rejecting Law’s moral influence theory of the atonement, Wesley argued for humanity’s indebtedness to God, and as a consequence, sinners face God’s punitive justice and wrath.[9] Wesley then walks through a litany of scripture passages to defend his idea that in his death Christ paid our debt to God, thereby meriting salvation for lost humanity. Wesley understood the atonement to be an exchange of positions between Christ and the sinner, involving a transfer or imputation of our sin to Christ and his righteousness to the sinner.[10] These same ideas are further taught in the tracts Thoughts on Christ’s Imputed Righteousness and Preface to Treatise on Justification.[11] When we move to the 1760s, the sermon The Lord Our Righteousness espouses the same themes: Christ bore our sins (I.4), made full atonement (I.4), procured and purchased righteousness for sinners before God (II.8-9), thereby clothing the believer with Christ’s righteousness (II.11, 14).

In later life Wesley’s views on Christ’s atonement did not materially change. In The End of Christ’s Coming Wesley affirmed that Christ bore our sins in his own body and made a “full, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction” (II.6). In the atonement the Father laid on Christ our sins (Spiritual Worship I.7). He did this by delivering up Christ to die a cursed death (God’s Love to Fallen Man I.5). Therefore, the cross is God’s remedy for the evils which befell us due to the Fall (On the Fall of Man II.8-9). Below we will return to these later sermons when we assess the implications and ramifications of Wesley’s penal substitution theory on his theology. What this survey demonstrates is that penal substitution served as the main lens through which Wesley understood the work of Christ on the cross, and thereby through which he understood gospel salvation.

Specifics of Penal Substitution

Let’s begin by looking at the Anglican homily quoted above. For in this quotation we see the specific roles the Father and Son take in Wesley’s atonement theology. We begin with the Father’s role. Wesley is clear that God’s love and grace serve as the ground for the giving of his Son. To support this conclusion Wesley quoted John 3:16, “If God SO loved us –observe, the stress of the argument lies on this very point: SO loved us, as to deliver up his only Son…” (God’s Love to Fallen Man I.5; emphasis his). So, God the Father is the one who provides the atonement.

Next is the Son’s role, and to whom the atonement was given. Since this has been a debated point over the centuries, more space is given below to ascertain where Wesley stood. We have already seen that Wesley believed the atonement to be a satisfaction and purchase of salvation. So, to whom or what did Christ satisfy? If Christ merited and purchased our salvation, to whom did he pay it? Let’s first clarify to whom Wesley did not believe the atonement was given.

First, we saw above that Wesley rejected the moral influence theory as a full explanation of Christ’s death. When Wesley wrote to William Law in 1756, he told his former mentor that until the latter’s assertions, which deny penal substitution, are “fully proved I cannot give up my Bible.”[12] So Wesley’s response to Law makes it evident he did not believe the atonement was given to the human race. From this we must not conclude that Wesley believed our sanctification and renewal in God’s image to be unconnected or not dependent on Christ’s death. To the contrary, Wesley was affirming what the scriptures teach: that Christ gave himself for us, but not to us (cf. 1 Cor 15:3).[13]

Second, in opposition to Roman Catholicism Wesley did not support the idea that the atonement was paid to the church. In the tract A Roman Catechism…With a Reply Wesley counters the Catholic argument that said in essence the atonement was given to the church, so her prayers, penances, and other works could attain merit and compensation before God.[14]

Third, nor did Wesley see the atonement as primarily given to satisfy God’s law. When Mr. Hervey suggested that in his death Christ made satisfaction to God’s law, Wesley was quick to reply, “I do not remember any such expression in Scripture. This way of speaking of the law, as a person injured and to be satisfied, seems hardly defensible.”[15] Thus, Wesley did not support a basic premise of the governmental theory. Although Maddox supports the possibility of a connection between Wesley and Grotius on the matter of Christ as our representative,[16] this repudiation of Christ dying to primarily satisfy God’s law rules out the idea that Wesley supported the governmental theory.

Fourth, another dead end is that Christ made satisfaction to Satan. Apart from using in a general sense the language of “ransom” and “redemption”—that Christ paid the price for our salvation—Wesley never supported the notion that Christ’s death was a payment to Satan. Only once did Wesley appear to support the ransom theory when he expounded on the sinner’s dreadful condition. When the sinner is awakened, says Wesley, fear grips the heart—fear of God’s wrath, fear of death, fear of man, and fear of Satan, who serves as the executioner of God’s just vengeance (The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption II.6). Here, Satan is a mere servant of God and not the one to whom Christ made compensation.

So, if Christ’s sacrifice was not paid or offered to the human race, the church, the divine law, or to Satan, then to whom was it given? By the elimination of alternatives, we can conclude it was to God the Father:

“These things must go together in our justification;—upon God’s part, his great mercy and grace; upon Christ’s part, the satisfaction of God’s justice (A Further Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, Works, Jackson, 8:54).

“Whom God hath set forth a propitiation—To appease an offended God” (Explanatory Notes, Romans 3:25; cf. 1 Jn 2:2 note).

“For what can make a satisfaction to God, but the obedience and suffering of his Son?” (Roman Catechism…With Reply; Works, Jackson, 10:125).

Wesley is quite clear that Christ offered himself to God, for the human race, to satisfy God’s justice and thereby deliver from sin and Satan’s grip. This means that Wesley’s atonement doctrine maintains a dualism—God is both the one who gives and the one who receives the atonement of Christ. But we might ask: why would God give something that, in the end, was only given back to himself? This appears circular. The answer is found in the definition of key concepts in Wesley’s penal substitution theology.

Key Concepts

We begin with Adam’s federal headship in Wesley’s covenant theology. Wesley addressed this subject in Justification by Faith.[17] Adam was created perfectly. Therefore, God gave him a law suited to his nature and capacity to merit God’s eternal favor. But Adam freely transgressed this law. The consequence was death—death for Adam and his posterity. Wesley relies heavily upon Romans 5:12-19 to support his viewpoint. This passage states that through Adam’s one sin, everyone was made a sinner (v. 19). Therefore, Adam is the representative of us all. In the same way, Christ is the second Adam—the head, parent, and representative of the whole human race.  He tasted death for every person and bore our sin to “remit the punishment due our sins” and to “reinstate us in his (God’s) favor” (Justification by Faith II.7). Thus, a union exists between Christ and his people.

The significance of Adam’s and Christ’s federal headship within Wesley’s thought becomes even more pronounced when we look at how he defined key concepts, like imputation, penal, propitiation, divine wrath, and expiation. Wesley understood impute to mean “to account” (Thoughts on Christ’s Imputed Righteousness, Works, Jackson, 10:314), and “to transfer” (On Living Without God §15). Drawing upon the Old Testament’s story of the scapegoat (Lev 16), Wesley asserts that the sins of the people were imputed to the goat so that the goat became polluted and bore their sin, and in turn God’s people were cleansed and their sins taken away (Original Sin, Works, Jackson, 9:314). In other words, the people’s sin was transferred to the goat, and the goat’s innocence was credited to them. In the same passage Wesley explained that by penal suffering he meant suffering punishment for sin:

“Punishment is not barely suffering, but suffering for sin: To suffer, and to be punished, are not the same thing; but to suffer for sin, and to be punished, are precisely the same” (Original Sin, Works, Jackson, 9:316).

Wesley, therefore, concluded that even infants must not be innocent since they too suffer on account of Adam’s sin. That is, they too are “involved in the guilt of Adam’s sin” (Original Sin, Works, Jackson, 9:316). In Adam we all die, in Christ we all are made alive (1 Cor 15:22). As Adam’s sin is imputed to us, so by the “blood of Christ (we are) accepted and ‘counted for righteousness’” (Rom 4:5; Letter to Rev. Dr. Horn, Works, Jackson, 9:114). When Wesley spoke of Christ bearing our sins his meaning is clear: our sin is transferred to Christ and he suffers the punishment due our sin. This is penal substitution. The concepts of headship, imputation and penal suffering are further clarified when we look at how Wesley understood God’s wrath.

When William Law denied the reality of divine wrath and punitive justice, Wesley was quick to reply with a litany of scripture passages. In just one section Wesley quoted thirty-four texts that speak of God justice and anger toward sin (Works, Jackson 9:486-87). He quoted from all three major sections of the Old Testament (Law, Prophets, Writings) along with one New Testament text (Rom. 3:25). Significant is Wesley’s identification of divine anger to just punishment (Works, Jackson, 9:480-81). This helps us to understand his meaning. God’s anger is not the venting of uncontrolled emotion, as often found in human anger, but the deep opposition and just retribution God has toward sin. Hence, to speak of God’s wrath is just another way of demarcating God’s strong opposition and just punishment of sin. But this further entails that since God is angry at sin, his wrath must be satisfied and appeased if the sinner is to be reconciled to him (Explanatory Notes, Rom. 3:25). Therefore, one of the main objectives of the atonement is to satisfy God’s anger, and in this way, even God is affected by the cross of Christ. For Wesley often speaks of God himself being reconciled to the world (Justification by Faith I.9; The Original, Nature, Property, and Use of the Law I.4).

Closely associated with propitiation is the idea of expiation. It is significant that Wesley does refer to expiation in some of his writings. But in the critical scripture passage (Rom. 3:25) he translates the Greek term ἱλαστήριον as propitiation, not expiation. We have already seen that to propitiate means to appease divine anger. How did Wesley define expiation?   According to its general meaning, Wesley used the term to refer to the purging of sin from the human soul (The Rich Man and Lazarus I.5). Here we see a significant difference between the two words and their related concepts; and why Wesley favored the former. Propitiation has a divine focus and centers on an objective understanding of the atonement, while expiation refers to the removal of sin and favors a subjective interpretation. Propitiation points upward; expiation looks downward. Wesley’s many comments on the atonement make it clear he preferred the former over the latter, without denying that the cross removes human sinfulness.

The other main concepts in Wesley’s atonement theology center on the images of debt, satisfaction, and merit. In The Good Steward Wesley opened by mentioning the various relations humanity has with God. One of these is debtor: “Considered as a sinner, a fallen creature, he is there represented as a debtor to his Creator” (P.1). Commenting on the clause in the Lord’s Prayer that refers to our trespasses, Wesley made the following observation:

“‘Our trespasses:’ –The word properly signifies our debts. Thus our sins are frequently represented in Scripture; every sin laying us under a fresh debt to God, to whom we already owe, as it were, ten thousand talents. What, then, can we answer when he shall say, “Pay me that thou owest?” We are utterly insolvent; we have nothing to pay; we have wasted all our substance. (Sermon on the Mount VI §13; emphasis his).

Turning to the concepts of satisfaction and merit, both are found in Wesley’s writings. When he responded to the Catholic catechism, he appears to have agreed with their meaning of satisfaction: to make compensation to God for one’s debt (Roman Catechism…With Reply, Works, Jackson, 10:124). In Wesley’s atonement theology Christ satisfies the demands of God’s holiness and justice, so that forgiveness and mercy can be granted. This idea dovetails neatly with his concept of merit. Wesley basically understood merit to be that which procures, causes, or entitles one to God’s favor and acceptance. Wesley agreed with John Calvin on this matter, “‘Christ, by his obedience, procured and merited for us grace or favour with God the Father.’ Again: ‘Christ, by his obedience, procured or purchased righteousness for us’” (The Lord Our Righteousness II.9). Involved in this purchase or merit is the active and passive righteousness of Christ’s humanity—both his sinless life and his vicarious sufferings (The Lord Our Righteousness I.4).[18] On account of Christ’s perfect righteousness, the believer is counted righteous and acceptable before God. There is nothing the sinner can offer to God, for all their righteousness is mere filthy rags (Is 64:6). As Wesley was fond of saying:

“All believers are forgiven and accepted, not for the sake of anything in them, or of anything that ever was, that is, or can be done by them, but wholly and solely for the sake of what Christ hath done and suffered for them” (The Lord Our Righteousness II.5).

To conclude, Wesley understood the atonement primarily through the lens of covenant theology; that is, both Adam and Christ are public persons who represent the human race in their actions. Adam in his transgression made all people sinners in need of redemption; Christ in his obedience unto death provides the righteousness necessary for salvation. Both Adam’s sin and Christ’s righteousness is imputed to their posterity; that is, their spiritual standing is transferredto their people. This covenant understanding of the plan and working of redemption is what drives Wesley’s interpretation of the atonement as penal substitution. God’s holiness demands justice; but God’s love seeks mercy.

In the atonement both divine justice and mercy come together to find a remedy for human sinfulness and separation from God. As sin offends God’s holy heart, thus alienating the sinner from him, so Christ satisfies the demands of God’s holiness by becoming a sacrificial lamb that is pure and unblemished. Since sin brings legal debt before the Creator, so Christ pays the penalty thus meriting forgiveness and acceptance for everyone who believes. Because sin stirs up divine judgment and wrath, Christ propitiates such anger by bearing humanity’s sin, even into the heavenly holy of holies. Thus, Christ’s penal sufferings for sin soothe, atone, turn aside, and satisfy divine justice, thereby opening the door for God’s mercy to triumph. In this way Christ mediates between God and humanity, reconciling the human race to God—and also God to the humanity. Therefore, we can understand why in Wesley’s atonement theology God is both the giver and receiver of Christ’s work on the cross.

Assessment  

We saw above that Wesley held that Christ’s atonement provides a provision of righteousness for all people. This suggests that Wesley held an Arminian viewpoint of the penal substitution theory. The best way to flesh this out is to contrast Wesley’s view with the Calvinist perspective. We saw above that Wesley could at times quote John Calvin with approval on the subject of the atonement. But stark differences remained between the two camps regarding the atonement. Calvinists in Wesley’s day tended to see Christ’s work as a legal transaction and linked it to their doctrines of unconditional election, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. Wesley’s Arminian convictions led him to understand the penal substitution theory differently due to his belief in God’s universal love offering salvation for all people to accept or reject.

Another concern Wesley had with the Calvinist perspective was its antinomian character (The Lord Our Righteousness II.19-20). Personal holiness (i.e. righteousness imparted) was at the heart of Wesley’s understanding of our relationship with God. Therefore, any version of the atonement that canceled out the need for imparted righteousness was strongly opposed by him. This explains his resistance to the Calvinist position on the “righteousness of Christ.” The Calvinists often used this phrase to support their antinomian view of the imputation of Christ’s active righteousness or sinless obedience (Thoughts on the Imputed Righteousness of Christ, Works, Jackson, 10:315). By contrast, Wesley spoke of the “merits” of Christ’s death providing a general atonement for sin. He learned this viewpoint from his parents and Anglican tradition (Maddox, Responsible Grace 104; cf. Wesley’s Letter to a Gentleman at Bristol, Works, Jackson, 10:307).

There are other areas where Wesley parted paths with the Calvinists regarding the atonement. Wesley maintained universal redemption whereas the latter supported limited atonement. This meant the Calvinist perspective understood saving grace to be irresistibly given only to the elect believer. As an Arminian, Wesley rejected this position and affirmed prevenient grace enabling free response to the gospel. However, Kenneth Collins is correct when he states that Wesley’s doctrine of prevenient grace implies that its initial gifting is irresistibly given as the ground for human conscience, free will, and knowledge of God (The Theology of John Wesley 80). This suggests that Christ’s atonement as a satisfaction of God’s justice does irresistibly benefit all people in some degree. The idea of degrees is a staple in Wesley’s thought as Lindström shows (Wesley & Sanctification 120).[19] Therefore, we can say with confidence that Wesley’s penal substitution view provided a foundation for his doctrine of universal prevenient grace.

The above points highlight the importance of penal substitution in Wesley’s theology of creation, fall, and original sin. According to Wesley’s covenant theology, Adam was created perfect. His transgression plunged not just himself, but his posterity into bondage to sin and death. Another way Wesley could communicate this same truth was to speak of humanity’s debt to God. In ways similar to Anselm’s satisfaction theory, Wesley could assert that the human race had injured their Creator’s honor by not giving him the love and worship he deserves. And because of original sin, people now love the creature more than the Creator. Therefore, God’s justice breaks out to punish disobedience. The question arises, who shall satisfy this debt? Who can pay for the sinner’s disloyalty and lack of love? Who can stand in the gap and turn aside God’s wrath of righteous punishment? In Wesley’s perspective, only the God-man can stand in-between heaven and earth and reconcile humanity to God, and God to humanity. This latter phrase was a logical outcome of Wesley’s understanding of penal substitution. For if Christ died to appease and turn aside God’s anger, then the cross had an effect on God himself. Thus, Wesley spoke of God being reconciled to humanity through the cross. While we might reject this notion today, it shows to what degree Wesley embraced the penal substitution theory in his interpretation of Christ’s death.

But other questions arise, like, why did Wesley believe in penal substitution when other atonement theories were available to him? It has already been shown that Wesley did not favor the moral influence theory, the governmental theory, or the ransom theory. It is correct that he at times used the language of these theories. But when he took the time to enunciate clearly his own views, he steered clear of these theories. The main reasons appear to be two-fold: (1) His Anglican tradition (e.g. the Homilies on Salvation he published); and (2) His straight-forward reading of scripture. For example, when the prophet Isaiah speaks of Christ bearing our sin and suffering in the place of sinners, Wesley took such language literally (note Wesley’s literal reading of the scriptures in his response to William Law; Works, Jackson, 9:488-93). Hence, we should understand that penal substitution played a significant role in how Wesley read his Bible. Yet more is implied here. Since the atonement is central to how one understands salvation, penal substitution must have played a major role in his soteriology as well.

Students of Wesley are aware that in the last decade of his life his thought turned to the subjects of eternity and theodicy. In sermons like On the Fall of Man, God’s Love to Fallen Man, The General Deliverance, The New Creation and The End of Christ’s Coming, Wesley tackles questions surrounding the reality of evil and its eradication. Of interest to our subject is that Wesley did see the atonement as the remedy for evil and the fall (On the Fall of Man II.8). With his understanding of Adam as federal head we can understand why. If evil entered our world through Adam’s sin, then through the second Adam it will be fully vanquished. But Wesley’s penal substitution views necessarily imply that evil is rooted in humanity’s rebellion against God. In other words, the fundamental problem of evil is vertical—Adam’s separation from God. According to Wesley, this is the core problem that the atonement seeks to settle first. Therefore, the cross becomes essential for us to know God in his fullness:

“We might have loved God the Creator, God the Preserver, God the Governor; but there would have been no place for love to God the Redeemer. This could have had no being. The highest glory and joy of saints on earth, and saints in heaven, Christ crucified, had been wanting” (On The Fall of Man II.10).

In the sermon The End of Christ’s Coming we are told that through Christ’s “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction” the sin of the world is taken away, and the gifts of salvation are given to the human race (II.6). In the rest of the sermon Wesley described what these gifts are: preventing and saving grace, sanctification and renewal in God’s image, destruction of Satan’s work of sin (voluntary and involuntary) and death, and the glories of the resurrection (III.1-5). Thus, Wesley interprets the entirety of salvation (via salutis) through the lens of Christ’s atonement as penal substitution. Simply stated, the doctrine was no tag-on to an otherwise self-contained system but remained at the heart and marrow of his theology and his understanding of the via salutis.

Another question arises: why did Wesley reject the other atonement models when developing his theology? The answer is quite simple. Wesley’s theology is theocentric. The other models just do not focus on the divine-human relationship as penal substitution does. The ransom theory centers on Satan and the powers of evil. The moral influence model turns the atonement on its head, by explicitly affirming that God’s holiness did not need to be satisfied at all. The focus is on human transformation. Yet, we also saw that Wesley was not inclined to embrace a middle position, like Grotius’ governmental theory. This is because such models turned the attention away from the person of God to his law and the moral order of the creation. Wesley would not allow for anything to take the place of God as the central focus and reason for Christ’s death.

We conclude that beginning in 1738 and thereafter Wesley consistently proclaimed a gospel of present salvation through faith in the cross of Christ, understood through the lens of penal substitution:

1 God of my salvation, hear,
And help me to believe!
Simply do I now draw near
Thy blessing to receive.
Full of guilt, alas! I am;
But to thy wounds for refuge flee:
Friend of sinners, spotless Lamb,
Thy blood was shed for me…

3 Nothing have I, Lord, to pay,
Nor can thy grace procure;
Empty send me not away,
For I, thou know’st, am poor.
Dust and ashes is my name,
My all is sin and misery:
Friend of sinners, spotless Lamb,
Thy blood was shed for me.

Hymn 168 (Works, Bicentennial Edition, 7:290)

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[1] Harald Lindstrom, Wesley & Sanctification, 58.

[2] JW Journal 5/24/38, §11.

[3] Kenneth Collins, The Theology of John Wesley, 102.

[4] Albert Outler, John Wesley, 125.

[5] Works, Jackson ed., 8:54, 361.

[6] Works, Jackson ed., 10:266, 276.

[7] Works, Jackson ed., 9:246, 256, 314, 332.

[8] Works, Jackson ed., 9:486ff.

[9] Works, Jackson ed., 9:486-88.

[10] Works, Jackson ed., 9:490-91.

[11] Works, Jackson ed., 10:312ff., 316ff.

[12] Works, Jackson, 9:488.

[13] The moral influence theory/model affirms that the primary purpose of Christ’s death was to effect human transformation through the demonstration of God’s love. Hence, this view rejects the ideas of payment and satisfaction. My point is to show that Wesley was no moral influence theorist, since he did believe in satisfaction and payment concepts. I do think it is a fair implication of the moral influence model to say that the atonement was given to the human race, because this model is anthropocentric, not theocentric, as penal substitution is.

[14] Works, Jackson, 10:124-25.

[15] Works, Jackson, 10:318.

[16] Maddox, Responsible Grace, 108.

[17] Works, Jackson, 5:53.

[18] For further study on this topic, see Mark K. Olson, John Wesley’s Doctrine of Justification (Abingdon, 2023).

[19] See my John Wesley’s Doctrine of Justification for a full discussion of this topic related to objective righteousness.