John Wesley's View On Entire Sanctification

I like to highlight three points on this chart. According to Wesley, the nominal process of sanctification is a progressive (that’s the first point). We should open ourselves “entirely” to God’s grace and have the intention to be wholly devoted to God. Wesley called this a pure heart. With the pure heart, we then slowly align the soul to the spirit, and grow in maturity. The second point is that sanctification can also be instantaneous. Sometimes, a crisis might happen in life that may help us to mature quickly, or have no desire to sin in a certain capacity. We will talk about that in more details. The Third Point, is that Wesley said one can fall from ES, that few can keep it all the way. But Wesley said most people who fall from it, and regain it in life

If we look at Paul’s life, we see a progressive growth. Early in Paul’s ministry, he wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:1, Paul asked “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (One can sense that Paul was very proud of being an Apostle). Then just after six chapters in 1 Corinthians 15:9, he referred to himself as the least of the apostles. Towards the middle of his ministry, during his first Roman imprisonment, in Ephesians 3:8, he referred to himself as the least of all the saints. (It’s quite a big jump to go from the least of the apostles to the least of the saints). Then, at the end of his ministry and during the second Roman imprisonment, he wrote in 1 Timothy 1:15, that he was the chief of sinners”. In Romans Chapter 7, Paul disclosed his struggle between his spirit and flesh (soul) as he grew from one stage of ES to the next.

Wesley also taught that sanctification can take place instantaneously. However, he did acknowledge that progressive sanctification is the nominal process. Since entire sanctification is also death to sin, there is a noticeable crisis or instant in which the experience takes place. A good example is that of Jesus healing the paralytic man in Matthew 9:3. He told him, “Take heart, son your sins are forgiven”. Later, He told the man to “pick up his mat and walk”. From this we see that the sin of the paralytic man was forgiven. Jesus’ words of forgiveness may be an indication that the man’s disease was a direct consequence of his own sin, although not all diseases are caused by sins (e.g., the blind man in Chapter 9 of the Gospel of John). There is another miracle, which Jesus also healed a paralyzed man and told him to pick up his mat and walk. This is recorded in John Chapter 5 and it took place at the Sheep Gate Pool. This time, Jesus did not forgive the man’s sin, but healed him physically and told him, “Go and sin no more.” A lot of times a crisis situation like this will help us to be sanctified in a hurry. Imagine if Jesus healed you and said, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5:14). Would you continue to sin? I don’t think so. Or imagine as in the case of the adulterous woman, being caught and threatened to be stoned, Jesus rescued her and said, “Neither will I condemn you. Go and sin no more” (John 8:10). If you were the adulterous woman, would you continue to commit adultery? Or, instead of Jesus, someone can be convicted by the Holy Spirit through the reading of the Bible, or an encounter with God in his prayer that leads the person to a crisis or lack of desire to sin. I am not saying that entire sanctification means we are sinless. It just means that whatever sins we are struggling with at our stage of maturity are dealt with. That we love God, obey Him and surrender to Him and we have no desire or intention to sin.