grace, divine pardon and forgiveness; the power of God working within to renew our nature. ¹
Also, free, unconditional love that enlivens the one who is loved to become and do what God desires.

One of the important things that set us apart as United Methodists from other denominations is our understanding of God’s grace.  Although there is only one grace, we see it working in three distinctive ways.  Here we’ll look at one of those ways: sanctifying or perfecting grace.

Justifying grace causes a relational change between ourselves and God.  We are brought to realize and trust (have faith) that we are restored to relationship with God.  Whereas justifying grace brings about a change in relationship status with God, sanctifying grace brings about change in us.  Justifying grace aligns us with God, but sanctifying grace works to keep us aligned with God.  Where justifying grace is a beginning of a relationship with God, sanctifying grace is the process of living that relationship out.  Justifying grace says, “God loves us just as we are;” sanctifying grace says, “God loves us too much to let us stay the same.”

Just as a one-sided marriage fails, a one-sided relationship with God fails.  We must actively participate in our relationship with God for it to thrive, and sanctifying grace gives us the ability to do that.  We show our love for God by our actions performed by the empowerment of God’s grace accepted in trust (aka faith).  As we grow in our relationship with God, we grow in love, becoming more like Jesus, which means we also grow in love of neighbors and enemies!

John Wesley would sometimes call this “perfecting grace,” but he did not mean that one becomes perfect.  Rather, his understanding was that we become so full of God’s love that our intentions are pure in our love of God and humanity (neighbor or enemy).

Here are some Bible passages that help us understand God’s sanctifying grace.  The italics help emphasize the concept of sanctifying grace:

• Philippians 2:  ¹² Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³ for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (NRSV)

• Philippians 3:  ¹⁰ I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³ Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.  (NRSV)

• Matthew 7:24  “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”  (NRSV)

• Colossians 3:10  [You] have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. (NRSV)

• John 14:12  Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. (NRSV)

Relation to the Sacraments

• Baptism:  We only baptize once in our tradition, but the baptism of others reminds us of our own ongoing relationship with God.  We also re-affirm our covenant with God and God’s children in our response to infant baptisms:
  “With God’s help, we will so order our lives after the example of Christ, that this child, surrounded by steadfast love, may be established in the faith, and confirmed and strengthened in the way that leads to life eternal.”Likewise, the response in our hymnal to adult baptisms says something related (see pg. 38):
  “. . . we renew our covenant faithfully to participate in the ministries of the church. . . .”By God’s sanctifying grace working through us, we share God’s grace with those who are baptized.

• Holy Communion:  Lord knows we cannot live the life of faith well without spiritual nourishment along the way.  As a means of God’s grace (a way we receive God’s grace), Holy Communion is one opportunity for  receiving that needed nourishment.Likewise, when we drink of the cup of the covenant, we renew our covenant with God, even when we have failed in that covenant.  So, in Communion, God is working to re-align or keep us aligned with God.

¹  Theodore Runyon, The New Creation: John Wesley’s Theology Today (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), pg. 26.

CLICK HERE to read more about the Distinctive Wesleyan Doctrines of the United Methodist Church.