Article VIII—Of Free Will

[LivingWitness]

The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.

could someone laymenize this please I have tried to understand what is being said and for some reason I am not getting it.

Raygn

 

[wvmtnkid]

Hi Raygn-

I will give it a go, and hopefully others will help fill in where I leave off. It sounds like it is talking about Prevenient Grace, which in a nutshell is the "Grace that comes first." After the fall of man, man (and woman) are unable to do any good on their own. It is only by God's grace in them that they can. The passage is saying that man, alone on his own, will not turn to to God on his own accord. It is only because of the grace that God offers us first that we can even find our need for Him and are able to do anything that is acceptable to him. Without God's grace, we are a depraved lot, we give into our selfish and reckless desires. But because God's grace comes first, we can then have faith to reach out to him for Salvation or His saving grace.

Does that help any?

 

[WesleyJohn]

.

 

[WesleyJohn]

.

 

[wvmtnkid]

Well, I did some digging around, and perhaps Raygn can give us some more light on this subject as well. But it appears what is quoted above is Article of Religion VIII from the Discipline of the Methodist Church (note no United in front). The note on the UMC website states it is from the Discipline of 1808 and is collated against Wesley's orginial text in The Sunday Service of the Methodists (1784) (well actually I suppose that includes all of the Articles of Religion of the Methodist church not just this one particular one). I did notice is it was very similar to Article of Faith #7 that you presented to us from the Church of the Nazarene.

So, I guess all that to say I don't know if it only applies to United Methodists or not. I did not know it was an Article of Religion of the Methodist Church until I just did the research a few minutes ago. To me, to sounds like it is fairly a Wesleyan doctrine and would apply to both. Just my .02.

Either way, I am sure I will learn something regardless if you or herev answers the question!

 

[LivingWitness]

http://www.umc.org/interior.asp?mid=1648


this is where I got the Article 8

Raygn