Jonathan Edwards Collection: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology: Chapt 11 Important Sermons on Scripture

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Jonathan Edwards Collection: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology: Chapt 11 Important Sermons on Scripture



TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 11 Important Sermons on Scripture

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Chapter XI

Some Important Sermons on Scripture



We have noticed in the chapters preceding and will notice more fully in those that follow the role of the Bible in the theology of Jonathan Edwards. Here I want to probe more specifically by concentrating on a few of his sermons.

These will be considered chronologically so as, incidentally, to show some of the development in Edwards’ thought and expression. First, the 1723 sermon on 1Co_2:14 gives us the essence of “spiritual understanding” of the Bible while the famous published sermon on Mat_16:17 (1734) sharpens and expands that focus. The printed sermon on Heb_5:12 (1739) shows Edwards at his most practical for the layman while the 1740 ordination sermon on 1Co_2:11-13 is the most particular sermon on the inspirational nature of the Bible. Edwards’ sermon for the Stockbridge Indians in 1753 covers our subject classically and comprehensively, though in simple terms and outline fashion, in a study of the classical biblical text, 2Ti_3:16.

Our first sermon was preached in the fall of 1723 as Edwards was leaving his teens. This was probably the sermon he had written and delivered after he had completed his ministerial degree at Yale. The manuscript is preserved at Andover Divinity School. The text is 1Co_2:14, from which, after a characteristic contextual introduction Edwards extracts the “doc[trine]: ‘That there is a spiritual understanding of divine things which all natural and unregenerate men are destitute of.’” *1*

This is quite similar to the first sermon his Northampton congregation published a decade later. It was on Mat_16:17. I will examine that more carefully later but it is significant now to notice the similarity and yet difference of the “doctrine” on Mat_16:17 : “That there is such a thing as a spiritual and divine light, immediately imparted to the soul by God, of a different nature from any that is obtained by natural means.” *2* It is obvious that the same two points constitute the essence of each sermon. Positively, there is “spiritual understanding” or “spiritual and divine light” given by God to the regenerate. Negatively, this is not given to “natural man” or by “natural means.” Looking ahead we may notice that in the third sermon, Heb_5:12, the necessity of the study of the Scripture by common Christians is the central thrust: “Every Christian should make a business of endeavouring to grow in knowledge in divinity.”

In the fourth sermon, 1Co_2:11-13, Edwards focuses on the nature of Scripture itself more than on the communication of its “spiritual understanding”:



Ministers are not to preach those things which their own wisdom or reason suggests, but the things that are already dictated to them by the superior wisdom and knowledge of God. *3*



One of Edwards’ last sermons, on the locus classicus, 2Ti_3:16, is the most comprehensive treatment of the doctrine of inspiration, yet in the merest outline form, delivered to his beloved Indians. His doctrine: “The Scripture is the word of God.”

Looking at the ensemble as a whole, we see the two foci of Edwards’ main concerns in all his preaching on the Bible - its infallible divinity and the way that “light” is communicated by God alone and only to those whom He regenerates.



1. 1Co_2:14, “That there is a spiritual understanding of divine things which all natural and unregenerate men are destitute of.” *4*

In 1Co_2:14 Edwards, fresh out of his Yale undergraduate and graduate studies, was aware that there was a merely academic knowledge of the Bible. He notes that the unregenerate could understand the Bible well enough that “they may be neither Papists, nor Socinians, nor Arminians. . . .” *5* and even be moved to external Christian morality, but be totally “destitute of” a “spiritual understanding.” He could be an effective and useful teacher of the Word while lacking true perception which does not come by mere knowledge, though Edwards, later in the sermon, stresses that it is never without it. In fact, he insists, it is “impossible” to have spiritual knowledge without the speculative understanding though without the spiritual the knowledge “of the natural man, about spiritual things, is very much like the knowledge of those born blind have of colors.” *6*

Edwards calls those who enjoy spiritual understanding the “spiritualized” and contrasts their knowledge with that of the unspiritualized to those who knew all about the king and those who had seen the king. The former had a “glance” of God while the others knew him only by “hearsay.” *7* Incidentally, he notes in this context a Lockean doctrine he does not develop: direct and reflexive knowledge.

Edwards concludes with the importance of notional knowledge as he presses hard on the congregation to study with the “probability” that God will grant them to be spiritually enlightened. “Seeking” doctrine is already present in Edwards’ earliest biblical preaching.



If we would get spiritual and saving knowledge we must receive all opportunities of hearing. Those that don’t think that spiritual knowledge worthy the constant attendance on the preaching of the word can’t reasonably expect that God will bestow it on them. If we make little things an excuse for staying at home and not coming to God’s house for instruction, God may justly make our . . . sins a means to provoke him to withhold instruction.” *8*



This was one of Edwards’ earliest sermons which nevertheless shows the maturity of his thought. In the very introduction he notes that the Holy Spirit is author of two different kinds of light: the Bible itself and the illumination of the reader of the Bible. These are not developed nor compared, probably because the text and the sermon are only concerned with the latter: “Doctrine: That there is a spiritual understanding of divine things which all natural and unregenerate men are destitute of.” *9* Says Edwards:



The great and learned men of the world perhaps may have a hundred times the notional knowledge of divinity when yet, the humble plain illiterate Christian really hath an understanding that is above that he ever has reached to and cannot attain. *10*



“Natural men may be very orthodox in their notional knowledge” *11* the orthodox Jonathan Edwards acknowledges. But they do not have “a certain seeing and feeling” though Edwards admits “it is difficult fully to express what it is.” *12* Yet he points out the obvious difference between reading a book on the taste of honey and having a taste of honey or smelling perfume versus reading about perfume.

The sermon comes to an important distinction between “direct knowledge” and “reflex knowledge” *13* another way of distinguishing between the notional and “experimental.”

Next, Edwards lists four effects of this reflex, experimental knowledge. It “transforms” the heart, “purifies the life,” produces “holy joy,” and “makes more humble.” *14* “[T]here is no beating of spiritual knowledge into carnal men” *15* because the unregenerate simply have no eyes to see it. This would seem to be sufficient explanation but Edwards pursues the theme for several pages *16* even bringing Satan, the “lusts of the flesh,” “worldly-mindedness,” and pride into the action though they would seem to be unnecessarily employed in preventing the naturally blind from seeing. *17*

The final section explains how those get this illumination who do have it. In scholastic fashion, Edwards finds the procuring cause to be the merit and intercession of Christ; the efficient cause the Holy Spirit; the instrumental cause the word of God, and the foundational cause, regeneration. *18*

The most interesting discussion in the “Improvement” is to “tell you which way you shall seek divine knowledge, in a way very likely for success the way God himself has directed to, and a way that don’t at all contradict man’s absolute impotency, and entire inability to obtain the least measure of saving knowledge.” *19* The advice is to get the knowledge you are capable of and practice accordingly, which means reading and hearing Scripture and meditating and praying thereupon - a brief summary in 1727 of Jonathan Edwards’ whole doctrine of seeking which we will develop more fully in the next chapter and to which crucial evangelistic theme we will devote many chapters in the second volume.



2. Mat_16:17, “That there is such a thing as a spiritual and divine light, immediately imparted to the soul by God, of a different nature from any that is obtained by natural means.”

When we compare 1Co_2:14 more closely with Mat_16:17 one thing strikes us immediately. The later sermon is much more structured with little of the overlapping more characteristic of earlier sermons which were far from being devoid of form. Now Edwards goes immediately to an exact definition of the divine light which he found easier to recognize than define in the earlier sermon. God, he still says, acts “upon the mind of a natural man” but “he acts in the mind of a saint as an indwelling vital principle.” *20* This refinement was lacking a decade earlier though it is no way inconsistent with the earlier sermon. Interpretation is not an “impression on the imagination” - a heavy, new emphasis of the revivalist as Edwards now heads off the enthusiast. *21* More penetrating still this light is not “every affecting view.” Edwards was preaching as his first awakening was beginning. He later judged himself too sanguine in his estimates of these many “affecting views.”

We did not notice the term “sense” applied to the experience of the divine light in this first sermon. We did count some twenty-five occurrences in this sermon of “light” not including cognates or equivalent expressions.

Also the utter rationality of this doctrine is greatly developed in this sermon showing that Edwards had thought long and hard during the intervening years. His urging of seeking for this supernatural, “arbitrary” illumination in both sermons is surprisingly impassive, quite unlike the more urgent evangelistic appeal of later messages.

While the inspiration of the Bible is rarely expressly stated its implicit presence throughout cannot be mistaken. “Why may there not be,” Edwards asks



that stamp of divinity, or divine glory, on the word of God, on the scheme and doctrine of the gospel, that may be in like manner distinguishing and as rationally convincing, provided it be but seen? It is rational to suppose, that when God speaks to the world, there should be something in his word vastly different from men’s word. *22*



The divine light is God’s supreme proof of the divinity of His word impressed on the saint’s heart. We cite this classic sermon in full as summarizing this essential concept in other similar sermons as well.



A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God, Shown to be Both Scriptural and Rational Doctrine *23*



3. Billing Ordination Sermon, “Ministers are not to preach those things which their own wisdom or reason suggests, but the things that are already dictated to them by the superior wisdom and knowledge of God.” *24*

Our third sermon, though preached at the ordination of Mr. Billing and certainly one of Edwards’ most important - if not the most important on the inspiration of the Bible - and preached at the beginning of the Great Awakening, remains unpublished. Its doctrine is stated above.

I have already shown that in spite of his frequent use of the word “dictate” Edwards does not intend thereby mechanical inspiration. He opens up observing that the Greeks could not discover the wisdom of God because it was revealed in the gospel which they despised. They despised it because it was above their natural faculties about which they bragged. But Paul points out that only as the spirit of a man knows the things of man, wise men should know that only the Spirit of God could know the things of God. Then the doctrine is stated.

In the development Edwards, characteristically appreciating knowledge, notes that Paul does not intend to set aside any true wisdom. Astutely he continues noting that man cannot receive anything but what his own reason may be said to “dictate.” He can only receive what seems to that “faculty” to be true. Please note what follows:



When men receive things as truth purely because God has revealed ’em yet reason is remotely concerned as ’tis by the faculty of reason that men desire the revelation and by that faculty they know that a divine revelation is to be depended on.



Paul is not, Edwards says, forbidding the use of reason or he would not distinguish between the things man’s wisdom teaches and the things the Holy Spirit teaches.

Man’s wisdom having the superior wisdom of God would teach other than it would if it had to depend on its own wisdom alone. Therefore, the minister should not preach the wisdom that would seem right to his own reason apart from the superior wisdom of God - especially in things pertaining to men’s duty. Nor should he reject any doctrine taught by divine revelation. If he did, revelation would be useless and the minister would virtually be denying revelation altogether.

This advice applies even when these are difficulties and apparent inconsistencies. It was the fault of the Greeks to stumble here though reason should expect difficulties in revelation. “If many of the positions that are now received in philosophy had been revealed from heaven in past years they would have seemed impossible.” Edwards tells his congregation that there must be men here that now receive principles which when first told to them seemed as “mysterious” as anything in the Bible. He reminds them again that things adults easily understand seem strange to children. Furthermore, things are sometimes “above” us and the things of the flesh are against the things of the Spirit. So there are difficulties but why do we trust our fellow men more than God?

So the minister is to test revelation by revelation and not by his own reason. “Revelation is given as a rule to reason” and not vice versa. Reason must judge concerning claimed revelation but once satisfied it does not become a “rule of interpretation.” (This is the essential point of Edwards’ major Miscellany M 1340 against the Deist Matthew Tindal which I discussed at length in earlier chapters).

Edwards concludes the exposition with a call to ministerial duty not only to receive these things but preach them, if he would not reflect adversely on the wisdom of God as the “papists” do. “God don’t need to be told by his messengers what message is fit to declare.”

We find in this sermon, where Edwards most precisely defines verbal or inerrant inspiration, that he remains the practical theologian. Once having established by reason that the Bible is the Word of God, the minister thereafter is to labor to understand it with his reason but not by comparing reason with reason but revelation with revelation. This is reasonable policy if God knows better than the messenger he has appointed what is the preachment the preacher is to preach.



Summary of Billing Sermon, 1Co_2:11-13

“For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” From this text Edwards draws the doctrine: “Ministers are not to preach those things which human wisdom or reason suggests but the things that are already dictated to them by the superior wisdom and knowledge of God.” *25*

Edwards notes at the outset that there is a sense in which reason “is alwaies infallible” *26* That is when reason teaches truth, it would be unreasonable not to preach that. Again, reason is believed and taught necessarily when it is what is received as true whether by observation or revelation. Rather, those things are more properly meant which the judgment “suggests as acting of itself. . . .” *27* “[T]his is doubtless the meaning of the apostle . . . when he sets what man’s wisdom teaches and what the Holy Ghost teaches in contradistinction. . . . *28*

Now the sermon becomes more specific “1. ’Tis their [the minister’s] duty not to reject any doctrine that is taught by divine revelation. . . .” *29* Otherwise, nothing would be received because it is revealed by God. This means that the minister must preach what may seem against reason and mysterious, which the Greeks erred in rejecting because their reason found them “foolish.” We should expect “many things in such revelation that should be utterly beyond our understanding and seem impossible. . . . [which] would seem to be absurd. . . . ” *30* “If God makes a revelation to us he must reveal to us the truth as it is without immediately accommodating himself to men’s notions and principles. . . .” *31* It is “tender” of God that there are not more mysteries in revelation. After all, “the wisest of us are but children. . . .” *32* When men reject divine revelation because it is above their comprehension they give themselves more credit than God. It is “pride and atheism of heart.” *33* Edwards points out that even some men of genius are beyond other men’s comprehension. The general rational principle is that “reason must be used in judging whether a pretended revelation be indeed a divine revelation but when reason has once received and established this that ’tis indeed a revelation from God’s infinite infallible understanding it is unreasonable after not to make it a rule to our inferiour reasons. . . .” *34*

“The deists,” Edwards observes, “that wholly reject revelation and will have no rule but reason act more reasonably than those who receive revelation to set another rule over it.” *35* God has put in ministers’ hands “a book containing a summary of doctrine and holds ‘em to go and preach that word.” *36* “God don’t need to be told by his messengers what message is fit to declare.” *37*

In the application, Edwards says that the violation of this principle has allowed “Arminianism and Arianism and Deism and Atheism” to “come in like a deluge. . . .” Mr. Billing is assured that faithfulness to the revelation of God will cause him to be called “bigotted zealot” and a faithful congregation to be considered “fools.” Let such faithful ones “glory in that which they call your foolishness which you have by God’s instructions remembering that the foolishness of God is wiser than men.”



4. Heb_5:12, “Every Christian should make a business of endeavouring to grow in knowledge in divinity.”

I need make only a few preliminary comments here about this major sermon on Heb_5:12. Its peculiar emphases are three. First, perhaps as precisely as in any writing, including “Divine and Supernatural Light,” Edwards states not only the difference between rational and spiritual knowledge but the indispensability of the former. “Active” knowledge is “to be sought by the other” (rational) knowledge. *38* Otherwise the teacher may as well speak in an unknown tongue.



No object can come at the heart but by the door of the understanding. And there can be no spiritual understanding of that of which there is not first a rational knowledge.



There can be no “taste” of what there is no “notion.” *39*

Another stress of this sermon is the utter superiority of spiritual knowledge above all other kinds. Perry Miller and other scholars always appreciated the Puritan (versus fundamentalist) appreciation of learning. Here Edwards asserts that such learning is indeed “very excellent” though at the same time this spiritual understanding is “infinitely more useful.” It is as much above “other sciences as heaven is above the earth.” ** Edwards also throws in the thought that God having left scientists “in the dark” about their fields has given a written book to guide the study of this divine science. No doubt the greatest emphasis of all in this sermon stresses the activity and power of this knowledge to move the people to seek it. Edwards had made the nature and differentia of this supreme knowledge very clear, but his parishioners, no doubt agreeing with him, were not doing enough to acquire what he and they so highly regarded. Not only does Edwards end with no less than seven directions for its acquisition but along the way reminds the congregation that this is the “trade” of all of them who need not use their heads to learn the other sciences but cannot leave this one to the professionals (“ministers”). If ministers are appointed teachers that implies that they, the congregation, must be learners. They must not be standing still - “fundamentals are not enough.” *41* “Long evenings” spent in mere amusement and conversation is a “sin.” Gaining this precious divine knowledge is not easy but it is “pleasant” as well as infinitely valuable.



The importance and advantage of a thorough knowledge of Divine truth.

5. 2Ti_3:16, “The Scripture is the Word of God.”

Coming now to the final sermon of Edwards from the Bible on the Bible we come at the same time to the most fundamental: 2Ti_3:16, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”

Unfortunately, in a sense, this is a mere outline sermon preached to the Stockbridge Indians. We have no printed manuscripts but only a copy printed in Grosart’s, Unpublished Writings. . . . *42* I say “unfortunately” not only because we do not have the manuscript but because the copyist is Alexander Grosart who claimed great care and accuracy in copying. But one of the sermons he published, of which I have examined the manuscript, I found to be very inaccurate. Nevertheless, since there is little likelihood of anyone missing or not getting Edwards’ exposition here I venture to publish the brief outline in its entirety the text being so crucial, the date being so near the end of Edwards’ life and the “medium” being simplicity itself for the sake of his beloved but benighted American savages whom Edwards’ son, Jonathan, and his disciple, David Brainerd, loved even more. It is to be remembered that this extemporaneous sermon would have been communicated through an interpreter. This may well be the most poignant scene in American education, as it certainly is in evangelism, America’s greatest communicator of the gospel preaching to America’s aboriginal minds. Broadus, the famous homiletician, used to advise ministers if they would preach well to “read Bishop Butler and preach to the negroes” (at that time, uneducated). Here was a greater than Butler preaching to those less learned than the “negroes.”

Before I print the sermon let me point out a few of the theological “sights” to be seen on the terrain before us. First, everything spelled out in the other more finished discourses is present here. Second, though all is here, the appropriate simplicity of speech is here also. There is none of the fine language of “Reason No Substitute for Revelation” but those without revelation are in gross “darkness.” Only those with the Bible have a true knowledge of God and are the beneficiaries of Scripture’s “enlightening.” The Indians would not have caught the overtones though they could not miss this message: “the more wicked men [are] the more they are AGAINST” the Scripture.

God gives you speech, he told his primitive congregation, unlike the animals, so you can speak with one another. Would he not want to speak to you? We have waded through some deep waters wrestling with Edwards’ apologetics which is here reduced to this: learned heathen “think there is a God yet they don’t know what he is.” The necessary divine source of Scripture is reduced to a formula every listener could understand: the “wicked would not make it [Scripture]; good men could not.”

Finally, though by no means exhaustively, “seeking” is rather assumed than explained. With emphasis Edwards will make one thing unmistakably clear: God “WILL SAVE ALL THAT COME TO HIM.” So the Indians must learn the Scriptures God has graciously given them even if they must “learn English” since the Bible is not yet in their language. Most important of all, with all your learning you must “DO” or you will be the “worse” for your knowledge. So as you bask in the sunshine for its glorious light, come to God’s light in his Word; and “come to meeting!”



The Scripture is the Word of God.



We see that for Jonathan Edwards the Bible is nothing less than the “dictated” word of God. It can be understood and appreciated by worldlings. They can even realize that it is the word of God and argue for it. Nevertheless, they never “taste” it, “see” it or “feel” it as the word of God. Many of Christ’s little ones may be incapable of grasping the arguments, much less of defending them but they have a sense of the heart that these things come from God and they love them. Men come by this knowledge normally in the way of seeking it and are likely to remain unenlightened if they are not concerned enough to come to meeting to hear it expounded. This was Edwards’ message to the awakened elite of Northampton and to Stockbridge’s “savages.” *43*