The Law through History

One of the phrases that we have seen over and over again in Wesley’s writing is “the Jewish dispensation” or something similar. Whenever I’ve seen it, I’ve just kind of laughed to myself, picturing Dallas Theological Seminary and modern dispensationalism. During the reading this week, I tried to trace Wesley’s understanding of the history of God’s interaction with humanity, and I was surprised at the results. Since these sermons were mainly concerned with Wesley’s understanding of the moral law, I’ll be using the moral law as the primary means of tracing the various stages of humanity’s relationship with God in history. It is important to note at the outset that Wesley’s understanding of the moral law is that “it is the heart of God disclosed to man.” In some ways, the moral law and humanity’s ability to know it represents humanity’s ability to know and be in relationship with God.

In the Sermon “The Original, Nature, Properties, and Use of the Law,” Wesley lays out a basic understanding of the progression of humanity in relation to God. He begins with God’s creation of the angels, which he supposes are subject the moral law in the same way as humans. The difference between the two is the necessity of faith for humanity, as Wesley explains in “The Law Established through Faith, II.” Then came humans, also under the moral law and able to understand and choose their own actions.

This was the first point of interest for me, because in “The Law Established through Faith, I,” Wesley talks about Adam as the only man to ever be under the “covenant of works”. Adam, for Wesley, represents the only human of which God ever “required perfect, universal obedience, as the one condition of acceptance.” This is interesting because it suggests that, after that fall, humanity was always under a covenant of grace in some ways. I’ll come back to this in a second.

After the fall, humanity enters a new phase of its relationship to God. Fallen humanity, “by breaking this glorious law [the moral law] wellnigh effaced it out of his heart.” So, humanity had lost the ability to know the moral law, at the very least. “The eyes of his understanding being darkened in the same measure as his soul was alienated from the life of God.” So, we now have two distinct phases for humanity: pre-fall humanity was fully aware of the moral law and post-fall humanity is completely unable to know the moral law.

This period of complete ignorance of the moral law seems, for Wesley, to have barely constituted any period of time at all, however. “God did not despise the work of his own hands; but being reconciled to man through the Son of his love, he in some measure re-inscribed the law on the heart of his dark, sinful creature.” This work of “re-inscribing” did not take place at the advent of the Mosaic law, but with Adam and Eve from the very outset. “This he showed… to our first parents.”

Fallen humanity, for Wesley, was given a sort of internal light by which they were supposed to be able to discern the moral law. This third stage is really the second historical stage for Wesley, since it begins just after the fall. I think this is a significant move because it repositions the Mosaic law as a continuation of the larger work and design of God in relation to humanity, rather than as the advent of something new. This is made explicit by Wesley’s next historical move.

The inner light given to people was ignored, “all flesh had in the process of time ‘corrupted their way before him.’” And so, God chose the Jewish people and gave them the Mosaic Law as a “more perfect knowledge of his law.” So now we have three basic stages: pre-fall, post-fall (in which humanity has the conscience but no more), and the Mosaic stage.

The final stage, the one in which humanity now finds itself according to Wesley, is instituted by the life and death of Jesus Christ. Since humanity from the time of Adam and Eve has been “reconciled… through the Son of his love,” it is unclear to me exactly what is different about this stage. Wesley is less obvious in his portrayal of the difference here, which is what initially intrigued me. Wesley clearly has some sense of there being successive dispensations of God’s relationship with humanity, but he also has a robust sense of continuity between dispensations. All of this leads me to ask two questions:

First, if all humanity after the fall has always been under the “covenant of grace” and has been reconciled through the Son in some sense, what is the real difference historically between the period of time before Christ and the period of time which came after Christ? I think that the answer to this question hearkens back to the Maddox and Collins chapters we read for this week: the Holy Spirit. Wesley claims that the Jewish people, even with the law, could not “comprehend the height and depth and length and breadth thereof. God alone can reveal this by his Spirit.” There is a further work needed, only possible through the Spirit, that goes beyond the Mosaic Law. If Wesley retroactively applies the work of Christ in some ways, perhaps the biggest difference after Christ’s coming is the availability and work of the Spirit.

Second, what is the significance of this system for Wesley? I think the answer to this question lies in the project with which Wesley is here concerned. By maintaining that there were various dispensations, a progression of relationship between God and humanity, Wesley can maintain his belief in salvation by faith alone, and all that follows (like the rejection of the ceremonial law, etc.). By retroactively applying the work of Christ and making the moral law the concern of each stage, Wesley is able to position the law as part of the focus of Christ’s work, rather than opposed to it. Wesley gives the law elevated, and still relevant, status in the course of salvation history.