PREVENIENT GRACEPosted by prsnharvey on February 23rd, 2010

PREVENIENT GRACE– THE GRACE THAT GOES BEFORE

H. Orton Wiley, prior to his discussion of prevenient grace, makes six valuable points about the reality of grace, beautifully cataloguing the full amplitude of grace:

  • Grace is an eternal fact in the inner relations of the Trinity.
  • It existed in the form of sacrificial love before the foundation of the world.
  • It extended order and beauty to the process and product of creation.
  • It devised the plan for the restoration of sinful man.
  • It is manifested specifically through revealed religion as the content of Christian theology.
  • It will find its consummation in the regeneration of all things, of which our Lord testified.

Wiley wisely ties the definition of grace to the character of God: “The absolute holiness of the Creator determines the nature of divine grace. Its laws ever operate under this standard.”

 Prevenient Grace: The Grace That Goes  Before

Wesleyan theology sees the world as a graced world. Grace, which is often described as the unmerited and undeserved favor of God, is a constant of both creation and redemption. In other words, the very creation is a rich and enduring testimony to the love of God, and the possibility of knowing God through Jesus Christ is further witness to the reality of grace. The Incarnate One, Jesus Christ, is declared to be “full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).

Prevenient grace, the grace that goes before, has held a prominent place in the structure and enactment of Wesleyan theology. Wiley offers the following foundational definition of prevenient grace, calling it

 the grace that prepares the soul for entrance into the initial state of salvation. It is the preparatory grace of the Holy Spirit exercised toward man helpless in sin. As it respects the guilty, it may be considered mercy; as it respects the impotent, it is enabling power. It may be defined, therefore, as that manifestation of the divine influence which precedes the full regenerate life.

PASTOR HARVEY CALLS PREVENIENT GRACE, THE ACHILLES’ TENDON.  God KNOWS WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO MAKE US BOTH AWARE OF HIM AND TURN TO HIM.  HE WILL USE CERTAIN EVENTS IN OUR LIVES TO SHOW US THAT HE   IS REAL.

 Grider asserts that

It is proper to say that the Arminian-Wesleyan tradition teaches human freedom in the context of Prevenient grace. We can either accept Christ or reject Him-and our eternal destiny depends upon our free response to God’s offer of salvation.

Albert C. Outler helps us to understand the basic outline of Wesley’s theology, and how in some ways all of what Wesley intended hinged on the prevenience of God’s grace:

 Wesley brought to this complex heritage [of what he had inherited from the Christian past] two new elements: the first, a distinctive stress on the primacy of Scripture (not merely as “standing revelation” but as a “speaking book”); and, second, as [sic] insistence upon the personal assurance of God’s justifying, pardoning grace (which is what he always meant by such terms as “experience”, “experimental”, “heart religion”). The constant goal of Christian living, in his view, is sanctification (”Christian perfection” or “perfect love”); its organizing principle is always the order of salvation; the divine agency in it all is the Holy Spirit. Thus it was that Wesley understood prevenience as the distinctive work of the Holy Spirit and as the primal force in all authentic spirituality.

In somewhat more direct language Outler articulates Wesley’s driving theological principle and ties it in with the Wesleyan quadrilateral: “Theology is the interpretation of spiritual and moral insights sparked by the prevenient action of the Holy Spirit, deposited in  Holy Scripture, interpreted by the Christian tradition, reviewed by reason, and appropriated by personal experience.”

H. Ray Dunning offers the helpful reminder that a true grasp of prevenient grace is a tremendous aid to our theology of revelation. This accords well with our conviction that we live in a graced world. God has sown grace preveniently in all that He has made:

This is my Father’s world, And to my list’ning ears

All nature sings, and round me rings

The music of the spheres. This is my Father’s world. I rest me in the thought

Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas

His hand the wonders wrought.

 This is my Father’s world. The birds their carols raise.

The morning light, the lily white

Declare their Maker’s praise.

 This is my Father’s world.

He shines in all that’s fair.

In the rustling grass I hear Him pass;

 He speaks to me ev’rywhere.

 This is my Father’s world. Oh, let me ne’er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the Ruler yet.

This is my Father’s world. The battle is not done;

Jesus, who died, shall be satisfied,

 And earth and heav’n be one.

The seeds of hope and promise God plants in His creation lead to the fulfillment of creation in Jesus Christ. Sin is a massive contradiction of God’s hopes for us and the universe. Prevenient grace is perhaps the door into the kingdom of salvation. Dunning agrees with this in saying that the many understandings of prevenient grace “are all subservient to the soteriological function of this grace. It is here that one of the major distinctives of the Wesleyan perspective comes to light.”

Wiley, Grider, and Dunning likely would not go as far as the younger Nazarene theologian Michael Lodahl, who shows some of the directions in which the theology of prevenient grace can be developed.

  At its widest possible reach, Lodahl suggests, prevenient grace is a simple and compelling assurance of God’s presence in all humans, whether Christian or not. For missionaries, this means that God’s Spirit has preceded them, arriving long before the boat docks or the airliner touches down. This “grace that comes (or goes) before us” simply means that God is lovingly and graciously present and active in every human life, from fervent Christian to adamant atheist to mindful Buddhist. This is the Holy Spirit, God’s own presence, that “light” of which John’s Gospel speaks, “a light that enlightens every person” (1:9). It is this light, this gracious presence of God in human life, taught Wesley, that encounters us, calls us, and woos us from sin and self- centeredness back toward God. Prevenient grace is God never giving up on anyone. It is this gracious presence of God in human life and societies that makes and keeps us human and humane. The doctrine of prevenient grace affirms that no living human being is without at least some light, some glimmering, flickering awareness of the Holy

Is prevenient grace really the equivalent of the Holy Spirit, as Lodahl teaches? We must exercise caution here. The Holy Spirit does blow as wide and as high as all creation, which might be called the Spirit’s preliminary activity. We should not negate the importance of the Spirit’s roaming. He meets people where they are, whether religious, irreligious, or atheist, and encourages them toward the truth of Jesus Christ. This preliminary work of the Spirit shades over into His final and most important task, to witness to Jesus Christ. After all, “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3).

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