One of the books in our library is an old, slender, little volume
entitled A Plain Account of Christian Perfection As Believed and
Taught By The Rev. John Wesley.
Frank and I were so impressed by Wesley’s writings as recorded in
this book – A Plain Account of Christian Perfection – that Frank
began to write a detailed commentary of it, which is found on our web
site at:
http://all-creatures.org/living/perf.html
Frank prefaces his commentary with this heading: “True Christian
living requires us to live according to Kingdom standards which bring
Heaven to earth.”
The following statement forms the basis of “Christian perfection”:
Jesus said, "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)
Today I will touch on a few of Frank’s comments found in his review
of John Wesley’s “Chapter 12-B: In What Sense Christians Are Perfect.”
In this section Frank explains about the animal sacrifices found in
the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament):
“In Chapter 1, the prophet Isaiah spoke out for God against the
irreverent Israelites and even called the people who killed an animal
as a sacrifice, without a truly repentant heart, murderers (v. 21).
They killed without necessity or compassion. The people who made an
animal sacrifice were to have great remorse for both the animal and
their unintentional sin. Intentional sin was never covered by a
sacrifice. Additionally, the last sacrifice occurred nearly 2,000
years ago, and He was Jesus.”
Here Frank writes about the connection of sport hunting and sin:
“Sport hunting,” the taking of pleasure in killing an animal, is
obviously not a necessary act of survival. Also, because the killing
is part of a “sport,” by definition, remorse and compassion are
removed, which makes “sport hunting” a sin. A pious Jew recognizes
this fact, as should all Christians.”
“Think about this as we continue with Wesley's writing, and
remember that in the kingdom of heaven there is no death (Revelation
21:4). Likewise, we are not talking about hunting only, but all things
outside the will of our Father who is in heaven.”
I will end this Blog with this quotation from Frank’s commentary:
“John Wesley is going back to the absolute basics of Christianity.
To compromise these basic understandings is to allow Christianity to
be hijacked by the devil, who is the father of sin and a liar. If we
compromise any of the perfection of God's creation or of heaven, and
say that these things don't apply to us upon this earth, we are saying
that God is a liar and unable to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
The complete text of Frank’s comments on “Chapter 12-B: In What Sense
Christians Are Perfect”, with quotations from John Wesley, is found in:
http://all-creatures.org/living/perf-12b.html
For a chapter-by-chapter commentary, including Wesley’s quotations,
up to and including Chapter 19-R, see:
http://all-creatures.org/living/perf.html
