Edwards' Lessons On The Revival of The Church
By Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe
Pastors and church leaders praying for
spiritual renewal in the twenty-first century can turn for guidance to
Jonathan Edwards, the 300th anniversary of whose birth we have
just observed. Edwards carried out his ministry from the 1720s through the
1750s. Living during a transitional age, he embraced his vocation of
interpreting God's eternal gospel during the century of Enlightenment
rationalism and the rise of "modernity." He mediated the classical Reformed
theology and seventeenth-century Puritanism of previous generations for
his own time. In the process, Edwards helped forge the modem evangelicalism
that became so influential in nineteenth and twentieth-century America. We
live in transitional days too, and the need for spiritual renewal in the
church has never been greater.
Edwards was both a major practitioner of evangelistic preaching during the
Great Awakening -alongside "the grand itinerant" George Whitefield and
Presbyterian revivalist Gilbert Tennent -and the most astute theological and
psychological analyst of religious experience ever to write in the United
States. The Works of Jonathan Edwards are available today in a
definitive edition of more than twenty volumes, thanks to the fifty-year
publishing project at Yale University. Two excellent paperback collections
based on the Yale edition now make essential sources accessible to general
readers: A Jonathan Edwards Reader, edited by John E. Smith, Harry S.
Stout, and Kenneth P. Minkema (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1995) and The
Sermons of Jonathan Edwards, edited by Wilson Kimnach, Kenneth P.
Minkema, and Douglas A. Sweeney (New Haven:
Yale Univ. Press, 1999). Christians today can go straight to Edwards more
readily than ever before.
Lesson 1: Persistence
Fifteen years after he witnessed the 1734-1735 "Surprising work of God in
the conversion of many Hundred Souls" in and around his Northampton,
Massachusetts parish - and a full decade after delivering Great Awakening
sermons like "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741) and "The Reality
of Conversion" (1740) -Jonathan Edwards was still preaching for the
salvation of souls and godly reform of life in society. It was not any
easier in his culture than it is today.
Edwards had to come to grips with serious backsliding after both periods of
revival, a disastrous conflict with his congregation in the late-1740s, and
ejection in 1750 from his prestigious Northampton pulpit. Now, as a
missionary to the Mohicans and Mohawks, he served the mixed-race
congregation at Stockbridge in western Massachusetts. Just as he had
contextualized his presentation of the gospel for the lives of veteran
churchgoers of the Connecticut Valley, on the frontier he presented Jesus
Christ through natural and biblical images appropriate to the experience of
his Indian congregation. The straightforward conclusion to one of these
Stockbridge sermons ("He That Believeth Shall Be Saved," 1751) is no mere
distillation of sermons in previous settings. With great power in the
directness of its language, it also reads like the prototype of evangelistic
appeals by countless preachers as yet unborn.
You may have Christ for your Savior and may
have all heaven, only if you will give Christ your hearts.
Christ stands at the door and knocks. If you
will open the door, he will come in and he will give himself to you, and all
that he has.
Now is your opportunity, while life lasts.
Christ never will invite you and offer himself to you anymore after you are
dead....
Christ this day calls and invite you. I am his
servant, and I invite you to come to
him.
(Sermons of JE, 120)
Through every phase of his career in ministry, no matter what the
disappointments, setbacks, and failures, Edwards persisted with the
essential message of salvation, working and praying for the revival of
religion and the spiritual renewal of the church. We, too, know that the
spiritual renewal of persons and congregations does not advance in a
straight unbroken line.
Lesson 2: Humility
When Edwards assumed the solo pastorate at Northampton after the death of
Solomon Stoddard, he was keenly aware that his grandfather's nearly sixty
years of distinguished ministry in the town had been punctuated with five
"harvests" when "the ingathering of souls" had soared. Growing up in East
Windsor, Connecticut as the son of Pastor Timothy Edwards, reading his
grandfather Stoddard's published works, he was ever conscious of living by a
high standard. While he was brilliant at Yale, however, little in his
experience as a young pastor in New York City suggested a future as a
dynamic preacher. Some conversions occurred two years before Stoddard's
death (while Edwards was his associate), but after Stoddard's passing "it
seemed to be a time of extraordinary dullness in religion" and
"licentiousness...among the youth of the town." It came as a delightful
surprise to Edwards toward the end of 1733 when young people began to show
some interest in church. About a year later "the Spirit of God began
extraordinarily to set in, and wonderfully to work amongst us," and finally
"I hope that more than 300 souls were savingly brought home to Christ in
this town in the space of half a year." His A Faithful Narrative of the
Surprising Work of God (1737) emphasized both the "surprising" element
and that God "so ordered the manner of the work" that "the glory of it"
belonged "wholly to his almighty power and sovereign grace," not to human
agency (JE Reader, 57-59, 61-62, 65, 87).
Some of his writings - and some of his behaviour as a pastor - reveal
Jonathan Edwards as possessing anything but a humble personality. He did
have a very high view of his place, not only in New England society but as
an instrument of God in the history of redemption. Nevertheless, by the time
he wrote A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746), he had
been disappointed by the after-effects of two periods of awakening. Some
converts in "the heat of their zeal" fell into error, while "the high
affections of many seem to be so soon come to nothing," and others who had
supposedly repented from sin and reformed their lives "seem to have returned
like the dog to his vomit." A chastened Edwards was left to work out a sober
answer to the question, "What is the nature of true religion?" He did so
knowing that - "in the midst of the dust and smoke of such a state of
controversy, as this land is now in" -some people would be "hurt in their
spirits" while others would viciously attack him for trying to show both
what was "glorious" and "pernicious" in the revivals (7£ Reader,
137-138, 147). Religious Affections is remarkable for the humble
tone in which it is written.
Following his dismissal by his church Edwards had the opportunity to move to
Scotland where he would have been welcomed as an evangelistic hero and
theological genius. Instead, he moved his family to a mission outpost where
he took seriously his work with the native population, devoted himself to
theological writing, and coped daily with the same political enemies that
had dogged him in Northampton. When he was offered the presidency of the
College of New Jersey, his self-effacing initial response reveals a
naturally proud man who has learned the discipline of humility.
Lesson 3: Piety
Jonathan Edwards enjoyed an intense personal relationship with Jesus Christ
and desired nothing less than that everyone to whom he preached might also
know Christ's gracious love. As a young pastor in New York City, on Saturday
morning January 12, 1723, Edwards engaged in a special devotional exercise
to renew his "baptismal covenant and self-dedication" as a Christian. "I
have been before God," he wrote in his diary, "and have given myself, all
that I am and have to God, so that I am not in any respect my own." He
confessed to God that he "did believe in Jesus Christ, and receive him as a
prince and a Savior" and "did receive the blessed Spirit as my teacher,
sanctifier and only comforter; and cherish all his motions to enlighten,
purify, confirm, comfort, and assist me. This I have done." Although bouts
with a spiritual dullness recurred, in his 1739 "Personal Narrative" Edwards
described experiencing "a new sort of affection...an inward sweet sense" of
God's promises and times of "sweetly conversing with Christ," of being
"wrapped and swallowed up in God" with an inexpressible "sweet burning in my
heart." This palpable sense of "the sweet glory of God" overwhelmed him
during devotional exercises as he would "sing or chant forth my
meditations...in soliloquies, and speak with a singing voice" to God. While
he loved to pray in nature, his meditations were always scriptural and
Christ-centered. Such personal spiritual experience fueled Edward's
evangelistic preaching (JE Reader, 268, 284-285).
In his sermon "A Divine and Supernatural Light" (1733; published in 1734),
Edwards told his people that "common grace" would only get them so far in
life. True, God's Spirit operates generally at the human level to "assist
the faculties of the soul to do that more fully, which they do by nature,"
but this has nothing to do with salvation. What God offers in Jesus Christ
is of another magnitude altogether. "In the renewing and sanctifying work of
the Holy Ghost, those things are wrought in the soul that are above nature,
and of which there is nothing of the like kind in the soul by nature."
Through a person's faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit "unites himself with the
mind of a saint, takes him for his temple, and influences him as a new,
supernatural principle of life and action." The Holy Spirit works in
believers' lives by "uniting himself to them, and living in them, and
exerting his own nature in the exercise of their faculties" (Sermons of
JE, 124-125). Spirituality is thus intensely personal but never private;
it is essentially connected with outward behaviour. It is about the renewal
of the church and Christ's mission in the world. As Edwards stated
(over-optimistically, it turned out) after the 1734-1735 conversions, "we
still remain a reformed people, and God has evidently made us a new people"
(JE Reader, 86).
Revival depends on personal spiritual experience, starting with the pastor.
As Edwards often said, it is not enough to know that honey is sweet or to be
able to describe its physical properties. You must actually taste it for
yourself to have "a sense of its sweetness" (Sermons of JE, 127).
When we taste it personally we are suddenly eager and able to tell others
about the sweetness. Edwards's preaching exploded from within his personal
experience. He simply wanted for his people the sweetness that he and others
had already tasted.
Lesson 4: Theology matters
On the eve of the Great Awakening, Edwards explained "The Importance and
Advantage of a Thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth" (1739). Contrary to the
notion that theology is "needless speculation," he argued (based on his
theory of psychology) that, while faith necessarily operates in the heart or
will, the truth of the gospel is first perceived by the understanding.
"There is no other way by which any means of grace whatsoever can be of any
benefit, but by knowledge" (Sermons of JE, 31, 37). The homiletic
shape of Edwards's sermons - movement from exposition of text and
elaboration of doctrine to application -embodies his psychological and
theological assumptions.
During the 1734-1735 awakening Jonathan Edwards was already aware that
evangelical theology both sparks and guides spiritual renewal. His sermons
from the early 1730s show how an explanation of Christian doctrine -
especially the Reformed emphasis on God's sovereignty, utter human
sinfulness, and the work of Christ in salvation - set the stage for revival.
"God Glorified in the Work of Redemption, by the Greatness of Man's
Dependence upon Him, in the Whole of It" (1731), for example, is a powerful
rendering of the salvation narrative where each person of the Trinity plays
a necessary role. "The redeemed of Jesus Christ depend on God" completely
for salvation from the "emptiness and misery" of sin, for "all is of the
Father, all through the Son, and all in the Holy Ghost."
Edwards made sure that his people understood exactly how the gospel works:
We are without hope, but "God not only gives us the mediator, and accepts
his mediation, and of his power and grace bestows the things purchased by
the mediator, but he is the mediator.... Yea, God is both the purchaser and
the price; for Christ, who is God, purchased these blessings for us, by
offering up himself as the price of our salvation" (Sermons of JE,
68, 73, 79).
Scoffers who dismiss Edwards's best-known
sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741), as a low attempt to
scare people into repentance, miss the crucial moment when he makes the
invitation: "And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein
Christ has flung the door of mercy wide open, and stands at the door calling
and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners." That great evangelistic
sermon was preached in the week-by-week context of many others that
presented the positive way to glory. Quite simply, as Edwards said in "The
Reality of Conversion" (1740), God wants us to "be happy and blessed
forever" (Sermons of JE, 63, 104). Everyone in town had heard many
times that there is a Savior; what they needed to hear was that unless they
turned to that Savior-again or for the first time-they were lost. In the
sermons of Jonathan Edwards the whole storyline of Christian doctrine
unfolds, sometimes one element in the spotlight and sometimes another,
creating altogether a spiritual setting in which the revival of religion
could ignite.
Theology also matters because, when revival happens, spirituality can easily
burn out of control. This actually occurred in New England, most notably in
the vituperative preaching and eccentric antics of evangelist James
Davenport in 1741-1742. When Edwards preached concerning the "Divine and
Supernatural Light" that God "imparts this knowledge immediately, not making
use of any intermediate natural causes," he knew how explosive this message
could be in the church. He immediately stipulated that "this spiritual light
is not the suggesting of any new truths, or propositions not contained in
the Word of God." While "some enthusiasts pretend" to possess secret
knowledge, setting themselves up as a kind of Gnostic elite, the "spiritual
light" imparted by the Holy Spirit "reveals no new doctrine...no new thing
of God, or Christ, or another world, not taught in the Bible; but only gives
a due apprehension of those things that are taught in the Word of God"
(Sermons of JE, 122, 125-126). After his doctrinally grounded sermons
sparked revival, when the Awakening threatened to become a destructive
wildfire, Edwards struggled to control the blaze. His writings from the
mid-1740s through the 1750s argue that sound doctrine grounds and channels
experience, corrects error, prevents "enthusiasm" (unbridled emotionalism),
and guards against arrogance among the spiritually awakened.
Lesson 5: Renewal is about holiness
During periods of revival - as Edwards stated in "Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God" - "many are flocking to him, and pressing into the kingdom of
God...with their hearts filled with love to him that has loved them...and
rejoicing in hope of the glory of God" (Sermons of JE, 63). It is
natural during such times for believers to identify true religion with
heightened spiritual experiences, visions, feelings, or physical
manifestations. Jonathan Edwards used the term "holy affections" to describe
these "more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of
the soul" (JE Reader, 141).
Emotions and extraordinary experiences loomed so large among the awakened in
1740-1741 that reaction set in. Not only rationalist opponents of the
revivals but tradition-minded orthodox believers put off by extremism began
to affirm a more socially oriented form of church life. A Treatise
Concerning Religious Affections (1746) is Edward's response to this
challenge. He denied that "religious" feelings or "bodily sensations" are
necessarily spiritual, because in themselves they are nothing more than "the
motion of the blood and animal spirits." Rather, "it is not the body, but
the mind [i.e. heart, will] only, that is the proper seat of the
affections." Spiritual affections will always to some degree produce
sensations, because body and soul are united, but "religious" sensations can
be caused by other stimuli than the Holy Spirit and by themselves they tell
us nothing about the workings of God in the soul. Still, contrary to those
who held that reason and morality defined true religion, Edwards placed
"fervent, vigorous engagedness of the heart" at the center of Christian
faith and life. "The right way," he insisted, "is not to reject all
affections, nor to approve all; but to distinguish between affections"
according to biblical standards (JE Reader, 141-142,149).
Edwards explores twelve notions commonly identified as evidence of
godliness, rejecting them all as "no sign one way or the other" that God is
at work. These have to do with levels of emotion, bodily effects, fluency of
speaking, feeling God-controlled, having Bible verses come suddenly to mind,
feelings of love or confidence, inclination to spend time on religious
activities, and so forth (JE Reader, 149-153). His twelve
"Distinguishing Signs of Truly Gracious and Holy Affections" also come with
two warnings: Zealous Christians should not use this or any list of signs to
judge who is saved and who is not; and lazy nominal Christians should not
use it to assure themselves their souls are safe. The first eleven of
Edwards's positive signs culminate in the twelfth, decisive sign of God's
activity in the soul. For example, truly gracious affections arise from
"influences and operations on the heart, which are spiritual,
supernatural and divine." That is, holy affections come not from
some physical cause or self-interest but from "the Spirit of God...as an
indwelling principle" and pure love for the excellence and beauty of God.
Further, "holy affections are not heat without light" but "arise from the
mind's being enlightened, rightly and spiritually to understand and
apprehend divine things." Every positive sign of spiritual affections
includes person humility, abhorrence of sin, and utter reliance on the
sufficiency of God in all things (JE Reader, 153-157, 164).
Religious Affections
presents a Trinitarian theology of holiness, with the Holy Spirit actually
and personally living within each believer. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit
"exerts and communicates himself in his own proper nature" in our souls.
Since "holiness is the nature of the Spirit of God," it follows that "his
sweet and divine nature, mak[es] the soul a partaker of God's beauty and
Christ's joy, so that the saint has truly fellowship with the Father, and
with his Son Jesus Christ, in his having the communion or participation of
the Holy Ghost." As already noted, such personal fellowship with the Trinity
is supernatural but never just otherworldly. "The Spirit operates in the
saints, as dwelling in them, as an abiding principle of action" in human
society (JE Reader, 158).
On this basis Edwards presents his ultimate sign of God's activity in the
soul: "Gracious and holy affections have their exercise and fruit in
Christian practice." By "Christian practice," he means the believer's life
will be so ordered that every aspect of behaviour in every area of life will
be transformed by the holiness of God. Such holiness of life will be
evident to others, for, as Jesus said "Ye shall know them by their fruits"
(Matt. 7:16). And he argues that holiness, the process of sanctification
worked by God in us over years of faithful living, is a more reliable source
of comfort to us even than remembering our first conversion. When a person
"is at liberty whether to walk or sit still, the proper proof of his having
an heart to walk, is his walking. Godliness consists not in an heart to
intend to do the will of God, but in an heart to do it: (JE Reader,
164-169).
Spiritual renewal occurs among our people and
revival comes to our churches and communities when Christians begin actually
to walk the walk of faith. As God's Holy Spirit works in our lives, as
sinners repent and come to Christ, as commitments are made and renewed,
Christian practice -holiness - will be the "sign of signs" of God's gracious
activity. Certainly, holy living is the sign that is most persuasive in an
unbelieving world. It is the sign that draws sinners to the Redeemer of whom
we speak and skeptics to the God we worship.
Jonathan Edwards lived during the century that
defined what it meant to be "modem," the age of Enlightenment when truth was
assumed to be reasonable and self-evident. Our vocation is to witness
faithfully in a world that has become "postmodern," an age of relativism in
which the supernatural has reappeared but any truth will do. We may live 300
years later, but the human problem and the eternal gospel remain. Lessons
from the theology and ministry of Jonathan Edwards should guide our witness
today -persistence, humility, piety, theology and holiness.
This article
appeared originally in Theology Matters: A
Publication of Presbyterians for Faith, Family and Ministry,
Volume 9, No 6, November/ December, 2003, and has been
reprinted with permission.
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