The CatechismGlobal Methodist Church
Question 58 of 77 · Wesleyan Characteristics

Does God require any other sacrifice?

No. Christ's offering redeems us from all sin, so that no other satisfaction is required.

Catechism for the Global Methodist Church, question 58

Commentary

This question closes the catechism's teaching on the cross before the Wesleyan way of salvation moves on to justification. The answer is drawn almost word for word from Article VIII of the Confession of Faith, Reconciliation Through Christ, which confesses that the offering Christ freely made on the cross is "the perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, redeeming man from all sin, so that no other satisfaction is required." Article XX of the Articles of Religion teaches the same doctrine under the title Of the One Oblation of Christ, Finished upon the Cross.

The word satisfaction is the old term for what is owed to God on account of sin, and the catechism says that Christ has paid it in full. Hebrews puts the finished quality of that payment in the tense of its verbs: "when he had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God" (Hebrews 10:12). "For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14). God "presented him as a mercy seat through faith in his blood," so that God "might be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:25-26). No one else could add to that work, because there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Who gave himself as a ransom for all: the testimony at the proper times. (1 Timothy 2:5-6)

Deuteronomy 10 is on the list for a different reason. Moses asks what the Lord requires of Israel and answers with fear, love, and service "with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deuteronomy 10:12). That is a description of what God asks from a people he has already redeemed; it says nothing about a payment for sin.

For a Methodist this teaching settles the conscience. Nothing done in church or in private adds to the price Christ paid. The Lord's Supper is received as a remembrance of that one sacrifice and as a means of grace, never as a repetition of it, which is why Article XX of the Articles of Religion rejects any teaching that Christ is offered again. Good works and fasting come after the cross, as fruit; the satisfaction for sin was finished when Christ sat down (Hebrews 10:12).