Abstract
Every so often, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary will notice a current student with exceptional promise. The Asbury Journal wants to help highlight the work of rising academics by publishing works from such students. This paper is an example of such a work, brought to the attention of the editor by Dr. Larry Wood.
Much of the confusion regarding John Wesley’s phrase, Christian perfection, comes from the western tendency to define “perfection” as a state of infallibility (from the Latin perfectio) rather than a process of spiritual maturing based upon the Greek word for perfection, teleios (Matthew 5:48). Misunderstandings are further perpetuated when the moral law of God is conflated with the ceremonial and civil laws of the Old Testament. This error has led to a revival of antinomianism, justification without sanctification, which was the very issue that John Wesley and John Fletcher strove against in their own day.
DOI
10.7252/Journal.01.2013F.04
Recommended Citation
Campbell, Victoria L.
(2013)
"Understanding Christian Perfection and its Struggle with Antinomianism,"
The Asbury Journal:
Vol. 68:
No.
2, p. 58-77.
Available at:
https://place.asburyseminary.edu/asburyjournal/vol68/iss2/5
Included in
Missions and World Christianity Commons, Other Religion Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons
