
Jonathan Edwards, (born October 5, 1703, East Windsor, Connecticut [U.S.]—died March 22, 1758, Princeton, New Jersey), greatest theologian and philosopher of British American Puritanism, stimulator of the religious revival known as the “Great Awakening,” and one of the forerunners of the age of Protestant missionary expansion in the 19th century. Jonathan was the fifth child and only son among 11 children; he grew up in an atmosphere of Puritan piety, affection, and learning. After a rigorous schooling at home, he entered Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 13. He was graduated in 1720 but remained at New Haven for two years, studying divinity. After a brief New York pastorate (1722–23), he received the M.A. degree in 1723; during most of 1724–26 he was a tutor at Yale. In 1727 he became his grandfather’s colleague at Northampton.
![]() A true Christian doubtless delights in religious fellowship, and Christian conversation, and finds much to affect his heart in it; but he also delights at times to retire from all mankind, to converse with God in solitary places. And this also [so, do both!] has its peculiar advantages for fixing his heart, and engaging his affections. True religion disposes persons to be much alone in solitary places, for holy meditation and prayer. . . .
It is the nature of true grace, that however it loves Christian society in its place, yet it in a peculiar manner delights in retirement, and secret converse with God. So that if persons appear greatly engaged in social religion, and but little in the religion of the closet, and are often highly affected when with others, and but little moved when they have none but God and Christ to converse with, it looks very darkly upon their religion. --Jonathan Edwards (Religious Affections, 374, 376) Jonathan Edwards on the Latter Days Inauguration Day is coming and if President-elect Trump’s actions match his pre-election rhetoric, one of his first actions will be clamping down on immigration and ramping up mass deportations. While his new border czar has declared the administration’s initial focus will be on those immigrants who have criminal records, many immigrants (and those who work with them), are feeling increasingly anxious about what might come. As an evangelical Christian and an ordained minister within the Congregationalist tradition — the same tradition that gave us Calvin, the Pilgrims and Jonathan Edwards — I preach and teach often about the authority of the Bible and the redemptive work of Christ. But just as often, I emphasize the need for justice and social change, believing both are equally mandated by the Bible and by the example of Christ himself. (The Stream 12/11/24) READMORE>>>>> |
December 22, 2022: A new book by Victor Zhu, a Chinese-Australian scholar, shows much of this in fascinating detail — the extraordinary events which Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) prophesied would take place in the centuries before the return of Jesus and His final judgment of the world. Zhu shows that Edwards, the greatest Reformed theologian after Calvin, rejected the supersessionism of the Reformer at Geneva. Like Augustine and Luther, Calvin believed that God’s new covenant with the largely-Gentile church superseded God’s earlier covenant with the Jewish people. Calvin also taught that after 30 AD (the probable date for the death and resurrection of Jesus) God turned his gaze from the land of Israel to all the lands of the world, so that the little strip on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean was no longer holy. Edwards denied both of these supersessions. Although he regarded the word “Israel” as a spiritual term for all of God’s people including faithful Jews, he insisted that God’s love for the Church never replaced his love for Jewish Israel, and that the land continued to be holy because God would one day return the Jews to their ancestral home, where they would establish their own state. Edwards also differed with Puritan theologians such as John Cotton and Cotton Mather, who thought the millennium would be centered in England or America. Zhu shows that “Edwards’s millennial kingdom is centered on the land of Israel.” The colonial thinker “had a zealous eschatological hope for the people of Israel” whose restoration to the land was “essential” to the millennium and would “determine the destiny of the world.” Edwards’s Israel-centric eschatology “reflects his rejection of anti-Semitism.” |
I’m an evangelical who believes mass deportations are not the answer
Inauguration Day is coming and if President-elect Trump’s actions match his pre-election rhetoric, one of his first actions will be clamping down on immigration and ramping up mass deportations. While his new border czar has declared the administration’s initial focus will be on those immigrants who have criminal records, many immigrants (and those who work with them), are feeling increasingly anxious about what might come. As an evangelical Christian and an ordained minister within the Congregationalist tradition — the same tradition that gave us Calvin, the Pilgrims and Jonathan Edwards — I preach and teach often about the authority of the Bible and the redemptive work of Christ. But just as often, I emphasize the need for justice and social change, believing both are equally mandated by the Bible and by the example of Christ himself.
(Greg Crites: Baptist News Global 12/2/24) READMORE>>>>>
Inauguration Day is coming and if President-elect Trump’s actions match his pre-election rhetoric, one of his first actions will be clamping down on immigration and ramping up mass deportations. While his new border czar has declared the administration’s initial focus will be on those immigrants who have criminal records, many immigrants (and those who work with them), are feeling increasingly anxious about what might come. As an evangelical Christian and an ordained minister within the Congregationalist tradition — the same tradition that gave us Calvin, the Pilgrims and Jonathan Edwards — I preach and teach often about the authority of the Bible and the redemptive work of Christ. But just as often, I emphasize the need for justice and social change, believing both are equally mandated by the Bible and by the example of Christ himself.
(Greg Crites: Baptist News Global 12/2/24) READMORE>>>>>
The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards
He was a young man unsure of his future. He had many gifts and not a few options before him. His father and grandfather were ministers, as were uncles and others in the family tree. He had a first-rate education, one of the finest of the day, so he was well-prepared for a future in the halls of the academy, should he so choose. He even had a penchant for science and perhaps could have headed off in that direction. But for the time being he was a pastor, a young pastor at that. Eighteen going on nineteen, he found himself far from his native soil of the Connecticut River Valley in the throes of a church split in a Presbyterian church in New York City. He had been invited to pastor the minority faction somewhere along the docks of the city’s harbor. New York City wasn’t nearly as busy in 1722, the year in question, as it is now. The population hovered around just under ten thousand. For a young man from the idyllic setting of small town New England, however, it was a place unlike any he had ever seen. (Stephen Nichols/ Ligonier 1/1/24) READ MORE>>>>>
He was a young man unsure of his future. He had many gifts and not a few options before him. His father and grandfather were ministers, as were uncles and others in the family tree. He had a first-rate education, one of the finest of the day, so he was well-prepared for a future in the halls of the academy, should he so choose. He even had a penchant for science and perhaps could have headed off in that direction. But for the time being he was a pastor, a young pastor at that. Eighteen going on nineteen, he found himself far from his native soil of the Connecticut River Valley in the throes of a church split in a Presbyterian church in New York City. He had been invited to pastor the minority faction somewhere along the docks of the city’s harbor. New York City wasn’t nearly as busy in 1722, the year in question, as it is now. The population hovered around just under ten thousand. For a young man from the idyllic setting of small town New England, however, it was a place unlike any he had ever seen. (Stephen Nichols/ Ligonier 1/1/24) READ MORE>>>>>
July 6, 2023: Gospel Coalition: Let Jonathan Edwards Be Your Spiritual Guide
here’s no end to the writing of books about Jonathan Edwards. Over the past two generations, scholars have rediscovered Edwards, culminating in the 26-volume Works of Jonathan Edwards published by Yale University Press (plus another 52 volumes available exclusively online). During the same period, Edwards reemerged as something of a patron saint among many evangelicals, especially those appreciative of the Reformed tradition or concerned with spiritual awakening.
here’s no end to the writing of books about Jonathan Edwards. Over the past two generations, scholars have rediscovered Edwards, culminating in the 26-volume Works of Jonathan Edwards published by Yale University Press (plus another 52 volumes available exclusively online). During the same period, Edwards reemerged as something of a patron saint among many evangelicals, especially those appreciative of the Reformed tradition or concerned with spiritual awakening.

Treating theologians as “all or nothing” isn’t the way to go. It’s not wise to tar and feather past theologians or uncritically embrace them. Sinful forebears still have something to teach us.
The impulse on social media is to put everyone in quick and easy boxes so we know instantly who the “heroes” and “villains” are, but real life is gloriously complicated. Some of those we might call “villainous” had heroic traits of virtue, while those we might call “heroes” had villainous streaks of sin.
Instead, looking deeper requires us to carefully reckon with sin’s distorting effects in the theological outlook of past theologians. Onsi Kamel recommends we “look at the specific loci of thought and the particular sin, and then investigate in particular how the thought was noticeably impacted by the sin. And then discount or warn about or treat carefully those dimensions of thought.”
We should wonder . . .
How did Luther’s vicious anti-Semitism affect his approach to the Old Testament? Did his view of the Jews shape his sharp distinctions between law and gospel or his two-kingdoms approach to society?
How did Edwards’s slaveholding affect his understanding of mercy and justice? How did it alter the way he understood the Bible or his view of God? How did it shape his view of how society is to be ordered or his doctrine of humanity? Does the fact Edwards’s son became an ardent abolitionist complicate these questions?
How might Barth’s adultery have influenced his views on sin and grace? Did his willful rebellion and theological gymnastics diminish his understanding of God’s judgment? Did they play a part in some of his semi-universalistic musings?
Sanctification is often uneven, and I understand if this article complicates the issue and stirs up more questions than answers. That’s why we need more debate about past theologians, not less. More complexity, not simplistic answers. Truth isn’t served by hagiography or exalted biographical sketches that minimize the sins of theologians from the past. Neither is truth served by the impulse to see only the sins and not the signs of sanctification in the lives of influential thinkers. --Trevin Wax; Gospel Coalition: Should We Cancel Karl Barth, Martin Luther, and Jonathan Edwards? 2.28.23
The impulse on social media is to put everyone in quick and easy boxes so we know instantly who the “heroes” and “villains” are, but real life is gloriously complicated. Some of those we might call “villainous” had heroic traits of virtue, while those we might call “heroes” had villainous streaks of sin.
Instead, looking deeper requires us to carefully reckon with sin’s distorting effects in the theological outlook of past theologians. Onsi Kamel recommends we “look at the specific loci of thought and the particular sin, and then investigate in particular how the thought was noticeably impacted by the sin. And then discount or warn about or treat carefully those dimensions of thought.”
We should wonder . . .
How did Luther’s vicious anti-Semitism affect his approach to the Old Testament? Did his view of the Jews shape his sharp distinctions between law and gospel or his two-kingdoms approach to society?
How did Edwards’s slaveholding affect his understanding of mercy and justice? How did it alter the way he understood the Bible or his view of God? How did it shape his view of how society is to be ordered or his doctrine of humanity? Does the fact Edwards’s son became an ardent abolitionist complicate these questions?
How might Barth’s adultery have influenced his views on sin and grace? Did his willful rebellion and theological gymnastics diminish his understanding of God’s judgment? Did they play a part in some of his semi-universalistic musings?
Sanctification is often uneven, and I understand if this article complicates the issue and stirs up more questions than answers. That’s why we need more debate about past theologians, not less. More complexity, not simplistic answers. Truth isn’t served by hagiography or exalted biographical sketches that minimize the sins of theologians from the past. Neither is truth served by the impulse to see only the sins and not the signs of sanctification in the lives of influential thinkers. --Trevin Wax; Gospel Coalition: Should We Cancel Karl Barth, Martin Luther, and Jonathan Edwards? 2.28.23
Feb 20, 2023: Baptist News Global: Questions to ask while pondering if Asbury is hosting a ‘true revival’
Surprise! It’s a revival!
So said Thomas H. McCall, a theology professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, located adjacent to the ongoing spiritual event at Asbury University in Wilmore, Ky. “Sometimes God does what Johnathan Edwards called ‘surprising work’ and what John Wesley referred to as ‘extraordinary’ ministry,” he recalled.
Surprise! It’s a revival!
So said Thomas H. McCall, a theology professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, located adjacent to the ongoing spiritual event at Asbury University in Wilmore, Ky. “Sometimes God does what Johnathan Edwards called ‘surprising work’ and what John Wesley referred to as ‘extraordinary’ ministry,” he recalled.

“God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any, or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.”
― Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 17: Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733
― Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 17: Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733
“You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”
― Jonathan Edwards
― Jonathan Edwards

An obvious pattern in the Bible is that God tests the faith and stamina of his people as they cry out in prayer for some significant mercy. He tests them by withholding the mercy they are asking for. Not only that, but first he makes things worse, sending them discouraging setbacks. But count on it – he will eventually prosper those who push through in urgent prayer without quitting and will not take no for an answer.
--Jonathan Edwards, “A Call to United Extraordinary Prayer,” in Works (Edinburgh, 1979), II:312.
--Jonathan Edwards, “A Call to United Extraordinary Prayer,” in Works (Edinburgh, 1979), II:312.

And it is farther to be considered, that what God aimed at in the creation of the world, as the end which he had ultimately in view, was that communication of himself which he intended through all eternity. And if we attend to the nature and circumstances of this eternal emanation of divine good, it will more clearly show HOW, in making this his end, God testifies a supreme respect to himself, and makes himself his end. There are many reasons to think that what God has in view, in an increasing communication of himself through eternity, is an increasing knowledge of God, love to him, and joy in him. And it is to be considered, that the more those divine communications increase in the creature, the more it becomes one with God: for so much the more is it united to God in love, the heart is drawn nearer and nearer to God, and the union with him becomes more firm and close: and, at the same time, the creature becomes more and more conformed to God. The image is more and more perfect, and so the good that is in the creature comes forever nearer and nearer to an identity with that which is in God. In the view therefore of God, who has a comprehensive prospect of the increasing union and conformity through eternity, it must be an infinitely strict and perfect nearness, conformity, and oneness. For it will forever come nearer and nearer to that strictness and perfection of union which there is between the Father and the Son. So that in the eyes of God, who perfectly sees the whole of it, in its infinite progress and increase, it must come to an eminent fulfillment of Christ’s request, in John 17:21, 23. That they all may be ONE, as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be ONE in us; I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in ONE. In this view, those elect creatures, which must be looked upon as the end of all the rest of the creation, considered with respect to the whole of their eternal duration, and as such made God’s end, must be viewed as being, as it were, one with God. They were respected as brought home to him, united with him, centering most perfectly, as it were swallowed up in him: so that his respect to them finally coincides, and becomes one and the same, with respect to himself. The interest of the creature is, as it were, God’s own interest, in proportion to the degree of their relation and union to God. Thus the interest of a man’s family is looked upon as the same with his own interest; because of the relation they stand in to him, his propriety in them, and their strict union with him. But God’s elect creatures, with respect to their eternal duration, are infinitely dearer to God, than a man’s family is to him. What has been said shows, that as all things are from God, as their first cause and fountain; so all things tend to him, and in their progress come nearer and nearer to him through all eternity which argues, that he who is their first cause is their last end. --Jonathan Edwards; A Dissertation Concerning The End For Which God Created The World

John 13:15, 16
For I have given you an example, that he should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.
WE have in the context an account of one of the many very remarkable things that passed that night wherein Christ was betrayed (which was on many accounts the most remarkable night that ever was), viz. Christ's washing his disciples feet; which action, as it was exceeding wonderful in itself, so it manifestly was symbolical, and represented something else far more important and more wonderful, even that greatest and most wonderful of all things that ever came to pass, which was accomplished the next day in his last sufferings. There were three symbolical representations given of that great event this evening; one in the passover, which Christ now partook of with his disciples; another in this remarkable action of his washing his disciples feet. Washing the feet of guests was the office of servants, and one of their meanest offices. And therefore was fitly chosen by our Savior to represent that great abasement which he was to be the subject of in the form of a servant, in becoming obedient unto death, even that ignominious and accursed death of the cross, that he might cleanse the souls of his disciples from their guilt and spiritual pollution.
This spiritual washing and cleansing of believers was the end for which Christ so abased himself for them. Tit. 2:14, Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people. Eph. 5:25, 26, Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water. That Christs washing his disciples feet signified this spiritual washing of the soul, is manifest by his own words in the 8th verse of the context, Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him. If I wash thee now, thou has no part with me. Christ, in being obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, not only did the part of a servant unto God, but in some respects also of a servant unto us. And this is not the only place where his so abasing himself for our sakes is compared to the doing of the part of a servant to guests. We have the like representation made in Luke 22:27, For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am among you as he that serveth. And wherein Christ was among the disciples as he that did serve, is explained in Mat. 20:28. Namely, in his giving his life a ransom for them.
When Christ had finished washing his disciples feet, he solemnly requires their attention to what he had done, and commands them to follow his example therein. Verses 12-17, So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done unto you? Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one anothers feet: for I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.
-Jonathan Edwards; Portsmouth, at the ordination of the Rev. Mr. Job Strong, June 28, 1749
For I have given you an example, that he should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.
WE have in the context an account of one of the many very remarkable things that passed that night wherein Christ was betrayed (which was on many accounts the most remarkable night that ever was), viz. Christ's washing his disciples feet; which action, as it was exceeding wonderful in itself, so it manifestly was symbolical, and represented something else far more important and more wonderful, even that greatest and most wonderful of all things that ever came to pass, which was accomplished the next day in his last sufferings. There were three symbolical representations given of that great event this evening; one in the passover, which Christ now partook of with his disciples; another in this remarkable action of his washing his disciples feet. Washing the feet of guests was the office of servants, and one of their meanest offices. And therefore was fitly chosen by our Savior to represent that great abasement which he was to be the subject of in the form of a servant, in becoming obedient unto death, even that ignominious and accursed death of the cross, that he might cleanse the souls of his disciples from their guilt and spiritual pollution.
This spiritual washing and cleansing of believers was the end for which Christ so abased himself for them. Tit. 2:14, Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people. Eph. 5:25, 26, Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water. That Christs washing his disciples feet signified this spiritual washing of the soul, is manifest by his own words in the 8th verse of the context, Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him. If I wash thee now, thou has no part with me. Christ, in being obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, not only did the part of a servant unto God, but in some respects also of a servant unto us. And this is not the only place where his so abasing himself for our sakes is compared to the doing of the part of a servant to guests. We have the like representation made in Luke 22:27, For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am among you as he that serveth. And wherein Christ was among the disciples as he that did serve, is explained in Mat. 20:28. Namely, in his giving his life a ransom for them.
When Christ had finished washing his disciples feet, he solemnly requires their attention to what he had done, and commands them to follow his example therein. Verses 12-17, So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done unto you? Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one anothers feet: for I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.
-Jonathan Edwards; Portsmouth, at the ordination of the Rev. Mr. Job Strong, June 28, 1749

"The subject that very much enrages an arbitrary prince, is liable to suffer the most extreme torments that human art can invent, or human power can inflict. But the greatest earthly potentates in their greatest majesty and strength, and when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but feeble, despicable worms of the dust, in comparison of the great and almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth. It is but little that they can do, when most enraged, and when they have exerted the utmost of their fury. All the kings of the earth, before God, are as grasshoppers; they are nothing, and less than nothing: both their love and their hatred is to be despised." -Jonathan Edwards; Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God Prov20:2