Edwards in 5 Sayings: American Theologian

Jonathan Edwards was a prominent figure in American theology. Today, Stephen Nichols examines Edwards’ reflections on God’s creation, his exaltation of God’s sovereignty, and his heart for sinners in need of Christ’s mercy.

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. On this episode, we are continuing our exploration of some of these great figures and trying to get at them in five sayings. And as we begin this month of October, and this first week of October, we have to turn to our friend, America’s greatest theologian, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Jonathan Edwards. This is very fitting because this week, October 5 is Jonathan Edwards’ birthday. He would be 321 years old. Well, let’s look at Edwards in five sayings. The first saying comes from the first thing that Edwards wrote that he intended to be published. He had hoped that this essay on the flying spider, would get published in London’s Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions. This was sort of a publication of gentlemen scientists in those early moments of the enlightenment, and Jonathan Edwards had made these observations of the flying spider and New England, and he wrote them down and he had hoped to get them published.

Curiously enough, this what we call the “Spider Letter,” was written on October 31^st, 1723. Edwards is just 20 years old. He gives a report of his observations of the flying spider, and then as a good scientist, he speaks of his corollaries and he begins this sentence with the word hence, “Hence the exuberant goodness of the Creator who is not only provided for all the necessities, but also for the pleasure and recreation of all sorts of creatures, even the insects.” Now, Edwards noticed that as the flying spider would put out a web and sail through the air and go from tree to tree to tree, Edwards wanted to put a little smile on that spider’s face as if it were enjoying itself and its recreation and enjoyment. I think why I like the saying is it tells us a lot about what Edwards thinks about nature and how he sees nature and how he sees nature as revelatory, but more important, not only about nature, but about nature’s God. And so, nature reveals who God is, and I love this expression, “The exuberant goodness of the Creator who provides not only for our necessities, but also for our enjoyment and our recreation.” And if he does it for the spiders, well of course he does it for us.

Alright, that’s number one. Number two for Edwards and five sayings is his delightful conviction of God’s sovereignty that he writes of in his personal narrative. This was written in 1739. It’s reflecting back on his conversion many years earlier, and in it he writes, “Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God.” So here we are keeping with the doctrine of God in Edwards, and we’ve said this before, as you look at these Mount Everest of church history, one thread that holds them all together is a high view of the doctrine of God. And here’s Edwards exalting God and exalting the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. It’s what Edwards loves to ascribe to God.

Now you need to go back and read the personal narrative because Edwards himself says, right after he makes this statement, he says, “I haven’t always thought that way.” There was a time like how Luther hated the righteousness of God, if you remember in his conversion, Edwards actually speaks of hating the sovereignty of God. And so it was a conviction that he came by in a rather hard way. But once God opened his mind and he came to that, as he calls it, “delightful conviction of the sovereignty of God.” Well, it was a centerpiece doctrine for him for the rest of his life.

The third saying, and we’ll introduce it, but we’ll pick this back up next week after Edwards has his birthday and we come back to meet again. This is from his “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” And you might expect me to use any one of those dramatic lines in the sermon, how sinners are like spiders, again the spider, dangling by a mere Webb over the pit of hell or the bow of God’s wrath being bent and the arrow being ready to flung. But here’s the dramatic imagery I want to leave you with. Edwards writes, “Christ has flung the door of mercy wide open, and Christ stands in the door calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners.” Well, that’s Edwards in three sayings. We’ll pick up two more next time together. And I’m Steve Nichols and thanks for joining me for 5 Minutes in Church History.