WHO WE ARE

Montgomery Essig on What Methodists Believe

The doctrine John Wesley gave to the world as Methodism was neither new nor complicated. He did not seek to produce (promulgate) either a new-fangled religion or an original theology. He was essentially a great reformer. What he sought to do was not to establish something startling in the way of dogma or belief, but to get people to live closer to God in the old faith, and work for its extension to those who had no faith. Substantially, his doctrine taught that God’s love and pardon are free to all those who desire to “flee from the wrath to come,” and that Jesus Christ died upon the cross in atonement for the sins of all mankind. This was the teaching of the English Church in which John Wesley had been raised. What John Wesley did in the way of a new thing was to get people to accept Scriptural doctrine and live the upright life any person accepting it should live. He brought about this result by means of Class Meetings, Bands, and Societies he organized. At the same time, he taught that no Christian could do a Christian’s duty unless laboring to get others to accept the same faith and live the same life. Let us now go into details: Methodists believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; Triune and Eternal. In other words the Holy Trinity. They reject the Calvinistic doctrines of predestination and election and that Christ’s atonement was limited only to the elect. They lay special stress upon the lost condition of humanity without Christ, the freedom of grace and love and pardon for all that will seek them, and the assurance of pardon to all who truly believe in the Savior. Further, they declare that God leaves it to one’s free will whether or not he or she wishes to be saved, and that in this respect, God is merciful as well as just. Methodists regard as particularly important what is known to them as “the witness of the Spirit.” They hold it to be the privilege of every Christian to have a conscious knowledge of the pardon of sin; in other words, they believe the Holy Spirit conveys to the heart of the repentant and converted person the knowledge that he/she has been pardoned and is in truth a child of God. For this reason, along with others, personal experience and testimony are looked upon by Methodists as things of very high value. Methodists also hold to the doctrine of justification by faith. This is declared to be the divine judicial act which gives a person who believes in Christ full benefit of His atonement, an act divinely done for a believer, just as regeneration and sanctification is done within a believer at the time of the change of heart. Still, Methodists hold that it is possible for a person who has been justified to fall away and to be lost. This is called “falling from grace,” or “apostasy.” The only way to prevent it, their faith declares, is to be on constant watch spiritually, in public worship and ministry of the Word, in celebrating Holy Communion, in family and private prayer, in the searching of the Scriptures, in fasting and abstinence, and in good works. And it was for this purpose John Wesley employed his Class and Band Meetings