good news. The grace of God renews that righteousness whereby we can enjoy God forever. I continue to be amazed at just how some (especially the young and the elderly) seem so aware of the reality beyond, accessible not by mind or matter, but by pure and wholehearted devotion to God. Now for the contemporary setting. A few years ago I telephoned an old friend. The first year I taught in a theological seminary she would visit my class only to sit in the comer and pray for me the entire hour. What a marvelous gift. As she picked up the telephone I identified myself, and she responded immediately, 'The doctor just left and tells me that I am in the final stages of a melanoma, and I've only a few days to live." "What!,, I said. "What do you mean?" "Honey, you're not hard of hearing," she replied lovingly. "No, I'm not hard of hearing, but that's hard to hear," I said. "It's all right," she replied. "I'm more at home with God than with this house of clay. I've got more going on beyond the veil than within it." We talked for 10 or 15 minutes, catching up and saying goodbye before I asked, "How can I pray for you?" "Just don't hold me back," was her only response. I closed by praying what I call the Prayer of Enoch (don't ask me what that is, I just made it up): "God take away the pain and let my special friend walk with you a little further each day until one day soon it will be easier for her to go on home with you than to return to her temple of flesh and blood. Amen!" She died a few days later, but her original righteousness {her created image) had already been renewed. Even before her death she walked and talked with God as one sanctified (the righteousness of Jesus Christ realized in her) by grace through faith.
Review Each chapter will conclude with a brief section on its relevance for understanding the way of salvation. This will also serve to coordinate a Wesleyan theology of grace. Without original righteousness there is no Fall. Without the Fall there is no need for the grace revealed in the reconciling work of God in Jesus Christ. Without this grace, this reconciling work of 26