The Narrow Path Ministries

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2007 5:47 pm**

Calvinists like to site Jonathan Edwards as a hero of their theology, but I wonder how many of them have taken the time to read his famous sermon entitled "Sinners in the hands of an angry God".

The sermon itself is a teaching from a verse in Deuteronomy 32:35.

32:35 Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things to come hasten upon them.'

This verse comes from the Song of Moses. Personally, I think the best way to take the song of Moses is to apply it to the rebellion of the children of Israel, and the Judgment that God will bring upon them by their enemies (Assyria, and Babylon). This particular verse (35) I see as a reference to Babylon. However, Jonathan Edwards uses this verse to springboard into a diatribe about how God sets up mankind on slippery ground and is simply waiting for the right time to destroy them and send them to a fiery existence in hell.

Here are some notable quotes from Edwards' sermon:

"We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by: thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell. "

"So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of, all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God."

"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours."

"You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment. And consider here more particularly, "

"there shall be no moderation or mercy, nor will God then at all stay his rough wind; he will have no regard to your welfare, nor be at all careful lest you should suffer too much in any other sense, than only that you shall not suffer beyond what strict justice requires."

"If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least regard or favour, that instead of that, he will only tread you under foot. And though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment."

"You shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and when you shall be in this state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forth and look on the awful spectacle, that they may see what the wrath and fierceness of the Almighty is; and when they have seen it, they will fall down and adore that great power and majesty."

The reason I decided to post this is because one of our Calvinist members(Tartanarmy) felt that this sermon was an accurate portrayal our Father in Heaven. So I thought I would share what I thought were the most objectionable parts of the sermon, and the ones that seem to make God out to be a monster. In the light of Calvinism, God would predestine these sinners (that Jonathan Edwards refers to) to suffer this torment with no option to Seek after God.

Thank you,
Robin

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2007 10:41 pm**

This sermon is difficult to square with these verses from Lamentations 3:

21 This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
22 Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24 “ The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“ Therefore I hope in Him!”
25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
26 It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man to bear
The yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone and keep silent,
Because God has laid it on him;
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust—
There may yet be hope.
30 Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him,
And be full of reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32 Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
33 For He does not afflict willingly,
Nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under one’s feet
All the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the justice due a man
Before the face of the Most High,
36 Or subvert a man in his cause—
The Lord does not approve.

This sermon by Edwards was nothing more than fear-mongering, although I do believe that Edwards was a true man of God. Reading this sermon, one gets a vision of God with an evil grin on his face dangling sinners over the pit of hell, much as a rotten kid takes glee in burning butterflies with a magnifying glass. this is not the God I know and love.

TK

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2007 11:30 pm**

TK wrote:

This sermon by Edwards was nothing more than fear-mongering, although I do believe that Edwards was a true man of God. Reading this sermon, one gets a vision of God with an evil grin on his face dangling sinners over the pit of hell, much as a rotten kid takes glee in burning butterflies with a magnifying glass. this is not the God I know and love.

TK, since Edwards held this horrific, blasphemous view of the nature of God, in what respect do you consider him to have been "a true man of God"?

Posted: **Sat Jun 09, 2007 12:15 am**

More often than not people tend to adopt one view or another of God. either as the merciless judge or as the kindly doting grandfather who never carries out what He threatens to do. Scripture tells us we are to behold both the goodness AND the severity of God.

Heb 10:28 Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Heb 10:29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
Heb 10:30 For we know Him who said, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. And again, "The LORD will judge His people."
Heb 10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Posted: **Sat Jun 09, 2007 12:20 am**

More often than not people tend to adopt one view or another of God. either as the merciless judge or as the kindly doting grandfather who never carries out what He threatens to do. Scripture tells us we are to behold both the goodness AND the severity of God.

Yes, He executes a severe mercy. As I see it, all of his judgments are remedial (the remedy not necessarily attained while the judged are yet alive).

I noticed that none of the passages you quoted speak of "unending torment".

Posted: **Sat Jun 09, 2007 12:41 am**

When reading through the sermon, one finds that there is very little scripture sited, and for the most part what is sited is taken out of context. Personally I doubt that Jonathan could be so easily mis-informed, which leads me to assume that he developed this view of God from sources outside of scripture. then of course, most of his audience probably had never read a bible, so they could hardly dispute what they were being told.

Each of us are lucky enough to have bibles and literacy skills, that allow us to dispute such a view. The more I research the scriptures, the more I am convinced that the God I was taught about growing up (Edward's God) is not God at all.

Robin

Posted: **Sat Jun 09, 2007 1:38 am**

Wow! We have some serious Edwards experts here! (no I am not claiming to be an Edwards expert myself).

But are you really going to judge Edwards from one sermon you don't like?

I would suggest reading more Edwards.

Here are some places one could start:

http://www.desiringgod.org/Search/?sear ... an+Edwards

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibr ... heologian/

http://edwards.yale.edu/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Edwards

God himself, the eternal Three in one, is the chief object of this science; and next Jesus Christ, as God-man and Mediator, and the glorious work of redemption, the most glorious work that ever was wrought: then the great things of the heavenly world, the glorious and eternal inheritance purchased by Christ, and promised in the gospel; the work of the Holy Spirit of God on the hearts of men; our duty to God, and the way in which we ourselves may become . . . like God himself in our measure. All these are objects of this science. (Works, II, 159)

This quote comes from the Religious Affections:
As it is with the love of the saints, so it is with their joy, and spiritual delight and pleasure: the first foundation of it, is not any consideration or conception of their interest in (understand: "natural benefit from") divine things; but it primarily consists in the sweet entertainment their minds have in the view or contemplation of the divine and holy beauty of these things, as they are in themselves. And this is indeed the very main difference between the joy of the hypocrite, and the joy of the true saint. The former rejoices in himself; self is the first foundation of his joy: the latter rejoices in God. . . True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures. . . But the dependence of the affections of hypocrites is in a contrary order: they first rejoice. . . that they are made so much of by God; and then on that ground, he seems in a sort, lovely to them. (249f)

Posted: **Sat Jun 09, 2007 3:34 pm**

paidion wrote:

TK, since Edwards held this horrific, blasphemous view of the nature of God, in what respect do you consider him to have been "a true man of God"?

i believe he was mistaken (very badly so) when he preached this sermon, but I am not willing to state that he was always mistaken about everything. maybe he was having a bad day when he preached that sermon. who knows.

TK

Posted: **Tue Jun 12, 2007 2:59 pm**

I will post this on the Piper thread and the Edwards thread.

John Piper writes:

Enjoying God supremely is one way to glorify him. Enjoying God makes him look supremely valuable.

And

Jonathan Edwards came into my life at this time with the most powerful confirmation of this truth I have ever seen outside the Bible. It is powerful because he showed that it was in the Bible. As I write in the year 2003, we are marking his 300th birthday. He was a pastor and theologian in New England. For me he has become the most important dead teacher outside the Bible. No one outside Scripture has shaped my vision of God and the Christian life more than Jonathan Edwards.

Piper quotes a section of an Edwards sermon on I John 3:2, “And it doth not yet appear what we shall be” (KJV):

“[The] glory of God [does not] consist merely in the creature’s perceiving his perfections: for the creature may perceive the power and wisdom of God, and yet take no delight in it, but abhor it. Those creatures that so do, don’t glorify God. Nor doth the glory of God consist especially in speaking of his perfections: for words avail not any otherwise than as they express the sentiment of the mind. This glory of God, therefore, [consists] in the creature’s admiring and rejoicing [and] exulting in the manifestations of his beauty and excellency….The essence of glorifying…..God consists, therefore, in the creature’s rejoicing in God’s manifestations of his beauty, which is the joy and happiness we speak of. So we see it comes to this at last: that the end of creation is that God may communicate happiness to the creature; for if God created the world that he may be glorified in the creature, he created it that they might rejoice in his glory: for we shown that they are the same.” [Jonathan Edwards]

Piper continues:

This was the great coming together for me—the break through. What was life about? What was it for? Why do I exist? Why am I here? To be happy? Or to glorify God? Unspoken for years, there was in me the feeling that these two were at odds. Either you glorify God or you pursue happiness. One seemed absolutely right; the other seemed absolutely inevitable. And that is why I was confused and frustrated for so long.
Compounding the problem was that many who seemed to emphasize the glory of God in their thinking did not seem to enjoy him much. And many who seemed to enjoy God most were defective in their thinking about his glory. But now here was the greatest mind of early America, Jonathan Edwards, saying that God’s purpose for my life was that I have a passion for God’s glory and that I have a passion for my joy in that glory, and that these two are one passion.
When I saw this, I know, at last, what a wasted life would be and how to avoid it.
God created me—and you—to live a single, all –embracing, all-transforming passion—namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all spheres of life. Enjoying and displaying are both crucial. If we try to display the excellence of God without joy in it, we will display a shell of hypocrisy and create scorn or legalism. But if we claim to enjoy his excellence and do not display it for others to see and admire, we deceive ourselves, because the mark of God enthralled joy is to overflow and expand by extending itself into the hearts of others. The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.
[John Piper quotes from Don’t Waste Your Life pp 30-31]

Blessings in Christ,

Haas

Posted: **Mon May 19, 2008 9:15 pm**

This is the most famous sermon in American history. I guess because it is so bad and dishonors the character of God that He blessed it for being so popular for over 200 years.

The Narrow Path Ministries

Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the hands of an angy God

Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the hands of an angy God