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Learning Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Edwards Learning as a child is like writing in stone. Learning when you are old is as if you were writing in sand. A fitting quote for Jonathan Edwards, a man who helped define the New World through theology and philosophy when the struggling New England colonies were still in their infancy. Through his strong vision he believed the people could not return to the past nor be satisfied with the present and for this he is a prime example of a Calvinist and will be remembered among all who study this early culture as a devoted preacher, an acute philosophical thinker, and a shepherd of souls.
Jonathan Edwards was born on October fifth 1703 in the city of East Windsor Connecticut and was the only son among ten daughters. Edward s father was Timothy Edwards, who was a respectable pastor. Edwards mother was Esther Stoddard. She can be considered more famous than her husband because she was the daughter of Reverend Solomon, a Puritan if there ever was one. He was the spiritual leader of the town of Northampton, Massachusetts for 57 years.
Reverend Stoddard gained fame for winning a debate against Increase Mather on the validity of the Half-way covenant. The Half-way covenant allowed non-converters to be baptized, but they could not receive communion. Two years before Stoddard s death, his grandson Jonathan Edwards rose from assistant pastor to pastor. Jonathan Edwards spent a lot of his time fighting against his grandfather s progress, saying he would admit to his sacrament only those who gave satisfactory evidence of being truly converted, siding with Mather on the matter.
He was dismissed for this reason in 1750, having alienated his entire congregation. However Jonathan Edwards did learn much from his grandfather and father about the importance of studying hard. As soon as he could hold a pen he was learning to write. His father taught him several languages such as Greek, Hebrew, and Latin.
At the age of six he could conjugate Latin verbs. At the age of six I learned how to spell my last name, but up until then I swear we were running neck and neck. His early mastery of these languages would later help him be an expert Bible scholar and a powerful Bible messenger. If he lived today he would have spent most of his time dodging spit wads and generally being mad fun of, as he would often spend 14 hours a day studying. Starting at the age of twelve, Jonathan Edwards became an acute observer of nature and wrote for a naturalist in England an account of his observations on spiders, but Edwards also loved to study about other insects.
He watched insects closely, especially ants, citing Gods word in Proverbs 6: 6, which says, Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! and Proverbs 30: 25, Ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer. saying we should admire the great diligence of the ants. Edwards was interested in science and living creatures because he felt that it helped him to understand the mind of the God who made all things with purpose. At the age of 13, Jonathan Edwards entered Yale College.
It was there that Edwards studied theology. In 1720 at age 17 Edwards graduated from Yale, first in his class. Early in his pastoral career, Edwards struggled with the meaning of true revival and wondered what he could do to get his congregation to experience revival. His generation was the second generation of the Puritans and Edwards saw a decline in the spiritual zeal needed to continue the spread of the kingdom of God. Edwards became focused on revival stating that they were at war with a devil that was constantly trying to corrupt their new land.
This is why Gods church can never be satisfied or content. It must always make every effort to enter through that narrow door of salvation. So Edwards began a series of sermons with more prayer, in order to wake up the sleepy congregation that had become too involved with their own business and everyday life and not with Christ and his kingdom. In 1731, he preached a message called, God glorified in mans dependence. In it, he attacks the liberal argument that sin was merely a condition of ignorance.
He believed that human sin was an inherent enmity against God and that salvation meant a change of heart. This challenged complacent believers (the modern day equivalent of Easter and Christmas Christians) to earnestly, sincerely and thoroughly search their hearts of sins and beg for forgiveness. He believed such earnest soul searching by individuals was a step toward salvation. In 1733 he preached a message called A Divine and Supernatural Light.
He stressed that real Christianity requires encounters with the truth, but that the truth must be illuminated by the presence of the Holy Spirit and that only this can produce a sense of divine excellency of the things revealed in the word of God. One of the effects of this encounter will be a delight in the glory of God. He stated, The convert does not merely rationally believe that God is glorious, but has a sense of the gloriousness of God in his heart there is a sense of the loveliness of Gods holiness. Edwards was writing from personal experience. When he first encountered the Scripture under the illumination of the Holy Spirit, his life began to change. Part of this new Spirit-driven concern in the young Edwards at that time was a fervent interest in revival and the extension of Christs Kingdom.
In the following year, 1734, Edwards began a series of sermons about justification by faith. The main message was called, Justification by faith alone. He said, Justification comes not through good works, but through faith. He defined faith in terms of total response to Christ, of one being in Christ. Edwards always stressed the central theme of the religious experience or sense of the heart as he called it.
He believed in not dwelling on the past and stayed away from causing a stir over how the church may have changed, unlike other pastors. He did this not out of lack of respect for the past but under the realization that this was a new era of religion. He was fond of saying History was the unfolding of God s design and every happening in the existence of man is properly understood only when we can perceive its place in the great divine work of redemption. simply meaning that change is not horrible.
In the year of 1734, revival began to break out in Northampton, Massachusetts. It began among the young people who had been drifting away from the church. If a nation is to be revived spiritually, then it must first come from its young people. The young are essential for they are not fixed-minded or corrupt like old people. Young people tend to be more eager to learn and pure in their desires.
Acts 2: 17 says, In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions. Young people, especially those of college age were the best ones from which a spiritual revival could take place. They are the hope of the country and its future. And even many young people can bring their parents to the Kingdom of God. Many young people wanted to meet with Edwards personally after his sermons to have discussions.
In that year of 1734, a great change began to occur among the people. There was a great and earnest concern about the things of God and eternal life. An intense conviction of sin was nearly universal among those responding to the Northampton revival. Deeper sins like pride and envy were now the focus. Some people were even convicted that they were not more convicted. That one kind of left me scratching my head.
In his early years, Edwards could not manage with all the small talk needed for parish visitation. But now many came to Edwards personally to his office to have Bible study. This revival of 1734 was the spark that was fanned into flame along the whole East Coast until or about 1743. Some more of the signs of this great revival were, for one, personal thirst and desire for God for each individual.
Secondly, the sharing of the gospel, which was previously directed mainly from clergy to laity, now flowed in new channels from wives to husbands, even from children to parents. Over a short period of time, hundreds came to Christ. Towns seemed to be full of the presence of God. Edwards wrote, The town seemed to be full of the presence of God: it was never so full of love, nor joy, and yet so full of distress as it was then it was a time of joy in families on account of salvation being brought unto them; parents rejoicing over their children as new born, and husbands over their wives. Edwards wrote about this revival in 1736 in a work called A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God. He interpreted the religious revival as evidence of Gods redemptive work in New England.
Later he wrote The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God in 1741 and Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival in 1743. In both of these works, he defended the revival as an authentic religious experience. Edwards was very demanding upon his congregation. But it was in a good way so that they would be true and sincere to God, who sees and judges the heart. For instance in 1742, he drew up a covenant for his congregation to sign, binding them to live their faith visibly. But Jonathan Edwards is most noted for his famous sermon he delivered in 1741 called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
This sermon created spiritual panic among the congregation who heard it. His key verse was Deuteronomy 32: 35 which says, It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them. In this sermon he stated that the rebellious man is far too small and weak to resist the judgment of God which was sure to come. He said in his sermon, There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God Hell, the very expression of divine wrath, is prepared; the fire is made ready; the furnace is hot now; the flames do now rage and glow Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen.
The response of the audience? It scared the hell into them with many screaming and weeping. This sermon has the true meaning of the fire and brimstone preaching. In his numerous reaches wondering into the will of God, Edwards came to two definitive conclusions that changed the way he lived and taught. The first, was that human history will end several thousand years after evil is crushed so we may experience every blessing God has given us. The second, was that the new world of America would be a major part of world history between the present and end of the millennium.
He thought it was the closest place to heaven there was. He believed the New World was discovered in order that the new and most glorious state of God s church on Earth might commence there, that God might choose to begin in it a new world of cultural respect when he creates the new heaven and new Earth. The start of this miracle was supposed to take place in New England. His interest in natural science was continued in his mature years. He advanced a theory of atoms, he demonstrated that the fixed stars are suns, he made interesting studies on the growth of trees and on the formation of river channels, he studied the principles of sound, the cause of colors, and the tendencies of winds, and anticipated Franklins discovery of the nature of the lightning. In one of his comments later in his life, Edwards said that God had not hidden the treasures of knowledge in nature to make things difficult for man, but to challenge his inquiring spirit and curiosity.
On March 22, 1758 Edwards succumbed to a case of small pox leaving behind his wife, eleven children, and a legacy. That driven quality a person gets when they know they re capable of something is felt then the same as it is now and as one of the first to embody that American attitude and realize things would never be as they were before, his efforts, even seeing the state of our religion today, have made an imprint on our culture. 328
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