By Mark K. Olson
Introduction
In my previous article—Is the Servant Justified?—I answered the question regarding the soteriological standing of the faith of a servant in John Wesley’s theology. This subject is not merely academic, for it goes to the heart of Wesley’s views on eternal salvation and his full doctrine of justification. Drawing on my recent work, John Wesley’s Doctrine of Justification (Abingdon, 2023), I show that Wesley taught there are degrees of justification and the servant’s “measure of acceptance” pertains to deliverance from God’s future wrath and damnation, and not to evangelical justification and “the full, Christian salvation” enjoyed by born-again believers in Christ.
In this article I want to address other important queries: where did Wesley derive his servant theology? How did he come to use the term servant? What were his sources? And what factors and circumstances explain its rise in his soteriology? The answers to these questions promise further insight into the development of his doctrine of salvation. Our study begins with an evaluation of Wesley’s first use of the term servant, and from there explore the roots of the idea in his spiritual and theological journey.
First Mention
In Wesley’s early writings the term “servant” refers to a follower of Christ.[1] These references are general in nature and not relevant to his servant theology that would emerge in the 1740s. The first relevant appearance of the term servant is found in Wesley’s sermon, Christian Perfection, published in early 1741. In the middle of his argument for a Christian’s freedom from sin, Wesley appealed to Galatians 4:1-7 to contrast the privileges of the Christian dispensation to the Jewish one. Utilizing Paul’s language in the biblical text, Wesley referred to those under the Jewish dispensation as “servants” and those under the Christian dispensation as “sons.”[2] Following the biblical text, Wesley stated that servants are under the law and remain in “bondage to the elements of this world” (KJV). By contrast, sons have the Spirit of adoption and are born again in Christ.
With this foundation, five years later we see the first appearance of the term servant in connection to Wesley’s servant theology. There is one mention in the sermon, The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption,[3] and a second one about two months later at the annualConference, held in May 1746.[4] A close look at how Wesley described the servant in these two writings will help answer some of our questions.
Albert Outler, in his footnotes to The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption, confirmed that this homily contains the earliest mention of the faith of a servant in the published sermons.[5] In the sermon Wesley soteriologically classified humanity into three states: natural, legal, and evangelical. The concept of three states was a common concept among eighteenth-century Anglican divines, so Wesley’s use of three-state model was not new or unusual.[6] Wesley explained the “natural man” has no fear or love toward God. Those in the legal state are “under the spirit of bondage and fear” and this is what primarily motivates their service toward God. The evangelical state is characterized by a “Spirit of love” toward God and includes born-again believers in Jesus Christ. These comments build on his earlier remarks in Christian Perfection and are now applied for the first time to a spiritual category (the faith of a servant) that is introduced in the preamble:
“The spirit of bondage and fear is widely distant from this loving Spirit of adoption: Those who are influenced only by slavish fear, cannot be termed ‘the sons of God;’ yet some of them may be styled his servants, and are ‘not far from the kingdom of heaven’” (§2).
From this quote Wesley defined the servant as one who (1) lacks the “Spirit of adoption,” which includes the evangelical experience of faith; (2) serves God out of “slavish fear;” and (3) falls short of God’s kingdom (see III.4).[7] However, the servant has reached the highest level of the legal state and is “‘not far from the kingdom of heaven.’”
We next turn to the Conference Minutes. On May 13, 1746, John and his brother Charles, along with five others, sat down to discuss several questions confronting the societies and the Wesleyan Methodist movement. Three questions pertain directly to the soteriological standing of the servant:
“Q. 9. By what faith were the Apostles clean before Christ died?
A. By such a faith as this; by a Jewish faith: For “the Holy Ghost was not then given.”
Q. 10. Of whom then do you understand those words “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light?” (Isaiah 50:10).
A. Of a believer under the Jewish dispensation; one in whose heart God hath not yet shined, to give him the light of the glorious love of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Q. 11. Who is a Jew, inwardly?
A. A servant of God: One who sincerely obeys him out of fear. Whereas a Christian, inwardly, is a child of God: One who sincerely obeys him out of love.”[8]
These minutes inform us that Isaiah 50:10 was a key text for Wesley’s use of the term “servant,” along with Gal. 4:1-7 in Christian Perfection. Wesley further linked the servant to the Jewish dispensation, which is the legal state in the three-state model. Yet, surprisingly, Wesley affirmed that the “servant of God” is a “Jew, inwardly,” along with a “child of God.” This suggests a concept of degrees of real religion in Wesley’s soteriology and that the faith of a servant includes an element of true religion. It also explains Wesley’s comment that the servant is not far from God’s kingdom, meaning the evangelical faith. So, even though the servant is not yet born again and lacks those motives that arise from a revelation of God’s gracious love through the Spirit of adoption (i.e. the direct witness), the servant does serve with an element of genuine faith and piety. Wesley, moreover, identified the faith of a servant with the disciples’ faith during Christ’s earthly ministry. Even though the disciples lacked the new birth at the time, Wesley concluded they were already “clean” before God—a reference to John 15:3.
Degrees of Saving Faith
But how did Wesley understand Christ’s pronouncement in John 15:3 that the disciples were already clean? The answer is found six years earlier when Wesley was in the thick of the Stillness Controversy with the Moravians. The debate became so heated that by late June 1740 Wesley felt compelled to “strike at the root” of the “grand delusion.”[9] Over a series of several days he took up one issue after another related to the controversy, with his first argument claiming there are degrees of saving faith.
The Moravians taught that no one is justified unless their faith is free from all doubt and fear. Wesley summarized their position as “weak faith is no faith.”[10] In response Wesley drew on several scriptures that describe weak faith as acceptable to God. For example, Wesley pointed to Simon Peter who was one of the disciples Jesus chastised for having little faith (Matt. 8:26; 14:31). “Nevertheless,” Wesley recorded in his journal, Peter “was ‘clean, by the word Christ spoken to him’, i.e., justified.”[11] This comment shows that Wesley understood Jesus’ pronouncement in John 15:3 to mean the disciples were already justified before they were born again at Pentecost.[12]
But how did Wesley derive this idea that the disciples were already justified before receiving the new birth? And what sources contributed to his position? For answers, we need to go back a couple more years to the weeks and months following his evangelical conversion at Aldersgate (May 24, 1738). Just three weeks after Aldersgate, Wesley encapsulated his new gospel in the sermon Salvation by Faith. In this sermon he discussed four kinds or degrees of faith: heathen, devil, pre-Calvary disciples, and the post-Pentecost apostles. Of these four kinds/degrees of faith, Wesley firmly asserts that the first three are salvifically deficient. Concerning the pre-Calvary disciples, Wesley indicated they had enough faith to leave all and follow Christ, but they did not yet know Christ as crucified and risen, living and reigning in the heart.[13] This negative assessment of the disciples’ faith is contrasted to the faith of the post-Pentecost apostles, who enjoy the evangelical experience of present salvation in Christ
Turning to his 1738 journal, we know that Wesley struggled with doubt following his evangelical conversion and this led him to inquire into the foundations of the Moravian gospel message. This led him to visit the Moravian mother church in Germany in the summer of 1738. While at Herrnhut in August, Wesley listened several times to Christian David, the carpenter turned Moravian preacher and evangelist. Wesley was so impressed with what David taught that he took notes of each sermon. In one of those messages, David explained that before Pentecost the disciples had been declared “clean” by Christ—an allusion to John 15:3—even though they were not yet “properly converted; and they were not delivered from a spirit of fear; they had not new hearts,” since they lacked the gift of the Pentecostal Spirit.[14] David concluded that the disciples’ pre-Calvary faith characterizes those today who are weak in faith, including those who are justified and forgiven, but have not yet received the indwelling Spirit in the new birth.[15]
According to Christian David, three characteristics mark the disciples’ pre-Calvary faith: (1) they were justified and forgiven; (2) their faith was motivated by reverent fear, not love; and (3) they were not yet born again, since Pentecost lay ahead. We saw above that by 1746 Wesley was using the same three qualifiers to define the “servant of God.”[16] David, therefore, was a key theological source for the change in Wesley’s perspective regarding the soteriological standing of the pre-Calvary disciples between the years 1738 and 1740.
Preliminary Conclusion
Let us put the above insights in their chronological order:
June 1738 – In Salvation by Faith Wesley defines the pre-Calvary disciples’ faith as soteriologically deficient. He grouped this level of faith with the other two groups (heathen and devil), and distinguishes it from apostolic faith, the faith of the born-again believer in Christ.
August 1738 – Wesley learns from Christian David that the disciple’s faith was justifying but not yet regenerating, since they would not receive the new birth until Pentecost.
June 1740 – Wesley restates Christian David’s position: according to the Savior’s pronouncement in John 15:3, the disciples were already justified but not yet regenerated until Pentecost.
Early 1741 – Wesley contrasts the privileges of the Christian dispensation to the Jewish one by utilizing the Apostle Paul’s terms “servant” and “son.”
May 1746 – In the Conference Minutes Wesley’s identified the faith of a servant with the faith of the pre-Calvary disciples. He further elaborated that the disciples at this time belonged to the Jewish dispensation, also called the legal state, and were motivated by fear in their service to God. Wesley contrasted this degree of saving faith—the faith of a servant—with the evangelical state: the faith of the post-Pentecost apostles and the born-again believer in Christ today.
So, here we have two degrees of saving faith: the faith of a servant (pre-Calvary disciples) and the faith of a son (post-Pentecost apostles).
We also saw in the 1746 Conference Minutes that Wesley appealed to Isaiah 50:10 to support his servant theology. This verse includes the terms “servant” and “fear,” which became for Wesley two of the chief characteristics of this spiritual state. Along with Galatians 4:1-7, the Isaiah text was a key source for his use of the term “servant” to label this degree of faith. The term proved useful to contrast it with the born-again son or child of God and still include an element of true religion (more on this point later).
The Almost Christian
Even though we have answered the main questions about the roots of Wesley’s servant theology, we can gain further insight by examining his 1741 sermon, The Almost Christian. Interestingly, Wesley described the almost Christian with the same three categories found in Salvation by Faith: heathen honesty, nominal Christian belief, and devout sincerity. Likewise, the “altogether Christian” matches up to the faith of the apostles.[17] We can show the comparison in a chart:
Salvation by Faith (1738) The Almost Christian (1741)
Heathen faith Heathen honesty
Devil’s faith Nominal Christian belief
Pre-Calvary disciples’ faith Devout sincerity
Apostolic faith Altogether Christian
While the top three qualities listed in the chart (on the right) comprise the character of the almost Christian, more important for our purpose is to recognize an ascending gradation from heathen honesty to devout sincerity in Wesley’ description. Just as the servant serves as the highest level of the legal state in The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption, devout sincerity defines the highest level of the almost Christian. This suggests that for Wesley in the early 1740s, servant and devout sincerity represent the same degree of faith.
Two insights follow. First, even though the almost Christian lacks the Spirit of adoption, Wesley concluded that a “real, inward principle of religion” is at work in this level of faith,[18] and that the almost Christian has a “real design to serve God” and a “hearty desire to do his will.”[19] This adds insight into how Wesley understood this degree of faith. He does not consider this degree to be void of all real religion even though it lacks the new birth and those motives springing from a perceptible assurance of God’ pardoning love. Therefore, Wesley did believe the servant’s faith to be sincere and authentic, as far as it goes.
Moreover, in The Almost Christian Wesley identified his pre-Aldersgate faith with the almost Christian,[20] as he will do thirty years later when he identifies his pre-evangelical faith with the servant (in footnotes added to the 1738 journal).[21] Since the almost Christian and the servant point to the same degree of faith, we can conclude that Wesley began to identify his pre-Aldersgate faith with the servant state much earlier than what scholarship has considered on the matter. He just used different vocabulary to express his thoughts on the subject.
To conclude, before Wesley began in 1746 to use “servant” to label this stage of faith,[22] he employed “the almost Christian” and the pre-Calvary disciples to reference the same spiritual state. It was in 1746 that Wesley began to formalize his language by introducing the term “servant” to label this degree of saving faith. However, before we draw our final conclusions, we should explore one more topic: Cornelius and Acts 10:35.
Cornelius and Acts 10:35
In the Wesley corpus the one scripture text that was appealed to the most to define his mature servant theology is Acts 10:35.[23] This verse is part of a larger story dealing with a Roman centurion named Cornelius. Luke records that the Apostle Peter acknowledged before everyone present that “God is not a respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted by him.”[24] Wesley’s comment on this verse is instructive, “Through Christ, though he knows him not. The assertion is express, and admits of no exception. He is in the favour of God…in some measure, accepted.” Several verses earlier Wesley acknowledged that in a “Christian sense, Cornelius was then an unbeliever” because “he had not then faith in Christ.”[25] So here we have Cornelius, an unbeliever according to the Christian faith, nevertheless accepted by God because of his sincere reverence and practice of the means of grace.[26] These comments encapsulate what Wesley believed about the soteriological standing of the faith of a servant (for more on this point, see my previous article Is the ‘Servant’ Justified?).
But this was not the first time Wesley appealed to the story of Cornelius and Acts 10. A central issue in the 1740 Stillness Controversy concerned the validity of the means of grace as instruments for conversion. In this first mention of Cornelius and Acts 10:35, Wesley asserted that Cornelius’ prayers and offerings were acceptable to God even though he was an unbeliever in a Christian sense.[27] This undercut the Moravian argument that any use of the means of grace, prior to justifying faith, was “full of sin.” It also means that Wesley was taking a more positive view of this degree of faith that is preliminary and precedes “the proper Christian faith” of born-again believers.
Five years later the question of Cornelius’ pre-Christian spiritual standing came up once again at the 1745 Annual Conference. The question was asked if Cornelius was already in God’s favor before he believed in Christ. Wesley and the Conference’s response was straight-forward, “It does seem that he was.”[28] When asked if Cornelius’ pre-Christian prayers and offerings were at best “splendid sins,”[29] the answer was “No.” Instead, Wesley and the Conference replied that these good deeds of Cornelius, though an unbeliever, were done by the “grace of Christ.”[30]
Once again, we have remarks from Wesley that refer to the servant’s degree of faith that pre-date his first mention of the term “servant” in 1746. This is a remarkable change from just four years prior when he declared to his university audience that before 1738 he was only an almost Christian (i.e. servant)—whose faith was merely that of a devil.[31] The point is that, as Wesley reflected on Cornelius’ spiritual state, he came to appreciate more and more that God’s grace preveniently enlightens and awakens the human heart to reverence God and to practice righteousness.
Two years later (1747), Acts 10:35 was referenced once more by Wesley in a letter to his brother Charles. Its purpose was to support his argument that an explicit sense of pardon is not required for justification before God.[32] In 1749, Acts 10:35 began to serve as a kind of shorthand for vital religion. In a letter to the Rev. Vincent Perronet, Wesley shared the story of how the Methodist societies originally started with seekers coming to him for spiritual counsel. Out of this was birthed the United Societies, which had only one requirement for admission: a “desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins.”[33] Wesley then identified these seekers with those who “fear God and work righteousness.” A little later in the same letter he proceeded to share how he began to issue tickets to weed out the wayward from his societies. The tickets represented his strong approval that the bearer was a genuine seeker of salvation, a person who “fears God and works righteousness.” To such a believer Wesley gave the right hand of fellowship.[34]
That same year Wesley reiterated the same point in the sermon Catholic Spirit. Fearing God and working righteousness is once again affirmed as the ground for Christian fellowship and unity.[35] So, by the end of the 1740s, the language of Acts 10:35 was becoming shorthand for vital religion and the benchmark for Christian fellowship. It would take only a small step for Wesley to state in 1755 that Cornelius was already accepted, enjoying the favor of God, even though he was officially an unbeliever according to a proper Christian faith.[36] The die had now been cast, Wesley’s theology was moving in the direction that would later affirm the faith of a servant as “properly saving” and bringing “eternal salvation to all those that keep it to the end.”[37]
Concluding Thoughts
The aim of this article is to explore some fundamental questions regarding Wesley’s servant theology: (1) Where did Wesley derive his servant theology? (2) How did he come to use the term servant to label it? (3) What were his sources? And (4) what factors and circumstances explain its rise in his soteriology?
We are now in a better position to offer some answers. First, the religious climate in which Wesley developed his servant theology was the foment of the Evangelical Revival in the late 1730s and early 1740s. The Revival burst forth with such raw power and energy that expectations were initially set too high for the evangelical experience. The Moravians proclaimed a gospel message that allowed no doubt for faith to be saving. And it was not just the Moravians, for Wesley acknowledged decades later that Methodist preachers at the time were in error when they required converts to profess a clear assurance of forgiveness to be saved.[38] From his own struggles with doubt following his evangelical conversion, Wesley came to see that the presence of doubt does not necessarily rule out the reality of authentic faith. Nor is it the sole determinate of eternal destiny. The variegated nature of religious experience in the revival became the soil from which Wesley would cultivate a soteriology with degrees of faith and justification, and this led him to formulate over time his doctrine of the faith of a servant.
Christian David’s influence proved instrumental. He was the first to explain to Wesley, both biblically and theologically, how there is a middle state between the sinner and the born-again believer in Christ. He did this in a series of three sermons in August 1738. And David used the pre-Calvary disciples of Christ to illustrate this middle state. He made the same point in his sermons on the Beatitudes and Romans 7 and 8. Over the next several years Wesley would employ David’s insights and language to work out the particulars of his servant theology.
By 1746 Wesley began to formalize his language for his servant theology. It appears that Galatians 4:1-7 and Isaiah 50:10 served as primary texts since these passages includes the term “servant” (and is contrasted with “son” in Gal. 4). The term proved useful for two reasons: first, in scripture a “servant” refers to sincere followers of the one true God and believers in Christ. Therefore, the term inherently includes an element of true religion. Second, along with the term son, the term servant allowed Wesley to distinguish between degrees of Christian experience—between a reverent faith in Christ and the evangelical experience of new birth by faith in Christ. Before 1746 Wesley used other vocabulary, like the “almost Christian.” But over the long-term this label proved less useful probably because it was employed by other Anglican divines to describe those whose faith is clearly nominal (i.e. lacking real religion).[39] In contrast, Wesley repeated numerous times that the servant does include an element of true religion. Meaning, Wesley did consider the servant to be a Christian (on this point, see my prior article Is the “Servant” Justified?).
Lastly, we can understand why Wesley placed the servant in the legal state in his three-state model (natural, legal, evangelical). In this model the evangelical state describes only those who enjoy the direct witness of the Spirit to their new birth, which the servant lacks. Therefore, Wesley placed the servant at the highest level of the legal state and “not far from the Kingdom of God” (that is, evangelical experience). Later, when Wesley was not using the three-state model, he simply declared the servant to have a faith that is “properly saving” for “eternal salvation,” yet falls short of the evangelical experience of new birth in Christ.
The challenge for us today is that our evangelical soteriology does not have a middle state between the sinner and the born-again believer. In most churches, Wesley’s category of the servant is simply considered to be fully Christian. In effect, his categories of servant and son are combined into a single category. This is due to the evolution of evangelical theology over the past three hundred years. While a worthwhile topic to explore, it is beyond the scope of this article.
[1] For example, see Wesley’s use of the term “servant” in his Journal (Thomas Jackson, ed. The Works of John Wesley, 14 vols. [Baker Book House, 1984], 1:14, 34, 183).
[2] Christian Perfection II.10. See The Works of John Wesley, Bicentennial Edition, 35 vols. gen. eds. Frank Baker, Richard Heitzenrater, and Randy L. Maddox. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975-83, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984-Present), 2:109-10 (Hereafter: Works).
[3] Works, 1:250. The sermon was published in early 1746.
[4] May 13, 1746; Albert Outler, ed. John Wesley, New York: Oxford University Press, 1964, 157.
[5] Works, 1:250, footnote 4.
[6] Wesley and the Oxford Methodists were discussing the three spiritual states as early as 1734. See Richard P. Heitzenrater, Dairy of an Oxford Methodist: Benjamin Ingham, 1733-1734.Durham: Duke University Press, 1985.
[7] For a fuller description of the servant, see the prior article Is the ‘Servant’ Justified?
[8] Outler, John Wesley, 157.
[9] Journal, 6/22/40, Works, 19:153.
[10] Works,19:154 (emphasis his).
[11] Works, 19:155 (emphasis his).
[12] It could be added that Wesley’s point applies to all OT saints, like Abraham. Since the new birth is a new covenant blessing in Christ (Jn. 7:37-39), OT saints were justified but not born again in a NT sense.
[13] “Salvation by Faith”I.3, 5, Works, 1:121; Mark K. Olson, John Wesley’s Theology of Christian Perfection (Truth in Heart, 2007), 88-92.
[14] Journal, 8/10/1738, Works, 18:271.
[15] Works,18:270.
[16] First, the servant is clean (i.e., justified) before God (May 13, 1746, Conference MinutesQ.9). Second, the servant serves God out of reverential fear (May 13, 1746, Conference Minutes Q.10, 11; “The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption” Preamble, §2). Third, the servant lacks the new birth (May 13, 1746, Conference Minutes Q. 9, 11; “The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption”Preamble, §1).
[17] For a fuller discussion, see my John Wesley’s Theology of Christian Perfection, ch. 3.
[18] “The Almost Christian” I.9, Works, 1:134.
[19] “The Almost Christian”I.10, Works, 1:136.
[20] “The Almost Christian” I.13, Works, 1:136.
[21] Journal 4/25/38, Works, 18:235 footnote a (emphasis his).
[22] That is, preliminary to the evangelical state of the born-again Christian.
[23] For example, see Wesley’s appeal to Acts 10:35 in his Journal comments on December 1, 1767.
[24] Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament, Acts 10:35.
[25] Acts 10:4 note. It should be noted that Wesley appealed to Acts 10:35 to delineate not only the soteriological standing of the servant, he also appealed to it to express his views on the possibility of eternal salvation for some Jews, Muslims, and heathen.
[26] Acts 10:4 specifically mentions Cornelius’ prayers and acts of charity (alms). Both serve as means of grace in Wesley’s sacramental theology. Prayer is a work of piety, charity a work of mercy.
[27] Journal 6/25-27/40, Works, 19:158.
[28] Outler, John Wesley, 149.
[29] The Moravians had argued that any good work prior to saving faith was only a “splendid sin.”
[30] This comment suggests that Wesley already had a robust doctrine of prevenient grace.
[31] “The Almost Christian” II.4; compare with I.13, Works,1:136, 138.
[32] Letter 7/31/47 (Works,26:255).
[33] “A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists” I.8, Works, 9:257. The reader should note a slight but present parallel between this definition and Acts 10:35. Those who desire to flee God’s wrath also fear him, and those who desire to be saved from their sins also begin to work righteousness.
[34] “A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists” IV.2, 3, Works,9:265.
[35] III.5 (Works,2:94).
[36] Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament. Cf. Outler,177, for another implied reference to Acts 10:35. In the early 1760s Wesley continued to use Acts 10:35 as a benchmark for vital religion (Journal 7/19/61; 8/19/63). In a letter to the Rev. Mr. Horn, Wesley clarified himself on the spiritual state of the servant. While agreeing with Horn that those who fear God and work righteousness are accepted by God, Wesley disagreed that this implies our works play a role in our justification; for “none can either fear God or work righteousness till he believes, according to the dispensation he is under” (The Works of John Wesley, editor Thomas Jackson, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984 reprint, 11:452; hereafter: Works, Jackson). Thus, the servant is accepted by faith, not works; nevertheless, it is a lower faith than that of a child of God. Wesley is well on his way to embracing the servant theology of his later period.
[37] See his 1788 sermon On Faith I.10.
[38] See Wesley’s 1788 sermon, On Faith I.11.
[39] Examples of the almost Christian representing nominal faith include Bishop Ezekiel Hopkin’s sermon The Almost Christian (1693) and George Whitefield’s The Almost Christian (1738).
