Theology and Reading
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 52, No. 2 – Spring 2010
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 24: The “Blank Bible.” Edited by Stepen J. Stein. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. 1,435 + xiii pages. hardback, 2 volumes, $200.00. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 25: Sermons and Discourses 1743–1758. Edited by Wilson H. Kimnach. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. 799 + xiv pages. hardback, $95.00.
Half a century in the making, the final volumes of The Works of Jonathan Edwards are seeing the light of day with the publication of these volumes, which prove to be a valuable, though expensive, resource for pastors who desire to examine Edwards in his study wrestling with the Bible, and crafting excellent sermons. One more volume is left for publication, an event that will bring to a close a canon comprising the first comprehensive critical edition of Jonathan Edwards’ works, a labor of love that Yale university Press has been nursing since the mid-1950s. The entire set will stand as the definitive edition of Edwards’ works for the rest of the twenty-first century.
These works canvass two related aspects of Edwards’ role as a gospel minister—his detailed study of Scripture (volume 24) and the eventual result of those studies, his sermons (volume 25). The former showcases Edwards’ unique notebook, what he called the “Blank Bible,” which contains thousands of exegetical observations on a multitude of texts throughout the Bible. One might say that this notebook represents the closest thing we have to a “Jonathan Edwards Study Bible.” The latter work contains thirty-seven representative sermons from the last fifteen years of his life (1743–1758), a period that spans almost half of his public ministry. Both volumes are edited by senior statesmen in the guild of Jonathan Edwards scholarship. Stephen Stein, editor of the “Blank Bible,” has for four decades called scholars to examine Edwards’ exegetical method, long before the history of Biblical exegesis became a hot topic in scholarly circles. His numerous studies on the topic include two previous volumes in the Yale series (volume 5, Apocalyptic Writings [1977], and volume 15, Notes on Scripture [1998]), and volume 24 is graced with his 117-page introduction which represents the fruit of over thirty years of study on the topic. Volume 25, the sermons volume, is written by the dean of Edwards’ sermon corpus, Wilson Kimnach, whose previous work on the subject also includes an earlier volume in the Yale series (volume 10, Sermons and Discourses 1720–1723 [1992]). Volume 25 represents the sixth and last volume in the Yale series on Edwards’ sermons. We will review each of these volumes separately.
Sometime in 1730 Edwards received a unique, “interleaved” Bible from his brother-in-law, Benjamin Pierpont, who had recently decided to abandon preparations for the ministry. The book contains two types of pages: small leaved pages of a King James Bible interleaved with large blank pages intended for notetaking on each page of the Scriptures. For the remaining three decades of his life, Edwards filled these blank pages with exegetical notes, theological observations, and hundreds of references pointing him to other commentators on particular passages. Stein notes that within several years of its use the Blank Bible “gradually took on the function of a general index of to [Edwards’] exegetical reflections” (19). In total, Edwards recorded over 5,500 separate entries in the “Blank Bible,” and the Yale editors thankfully divided the text up into two manageable volumes (Old Testament and New Testament).
Those who are familiar with the timeless features of his rigorous, pietistic Calvinism found in his more popular writings may find in the “Blank Bible” a strange and foreign Edwards who reads the Bible very differently than many of us do today. For one thing, we find in Edwards very little awareness of a division between exegesis and theology. The careful and even cumbersome transitions that seminary students learn to make from exegetical observation to biblical theology and ultimately to systematic theology are quite absent in the “Blank Bible.” This is not due to the fact that Edwards was a sloppy exegete; rather, it is merely an example of how an eighteenth century theologian interpreted the Bible. Before the rise of modern critical methodology, evangelical interpreters like Edwards often moved with great ease from exegetical observation to systematic formulation. Hence, Christ’s breathing upon the disciples in John 20.22 is evidence for the filioque. “[T]he Holy Ghost,” he writes, “proceeds from the Son as well as the Father, for the Holy Ghost is the breath of Christ” (964). Paul’s mentioning of the Spirit and the flesh lusting after one another (Gal 5:17) confirms Edwards’ position on the nature of grace: “grace in the heart is no other than the Spirit of God dwelling in the heart, and becoming a principle of life and action there” (1085). Edwards’ example challenges Bible students today not only to master the nuts and bolts of exegesis, but also to become proficient in the art of theological interpretation.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Edwards’ reading of holy writ to twenty-first century sensibilities is his heavy reliance upon typological readings of Old Testament passages. Typology is a lost art among evangelical interpreters of Scripture today. It basically was a way of discerning the multiple ways Christ is prefigured in the Old Testament, thereby reading the Old Testament as a thoroughly Christian book. For Edwards much of the material of the Old Testament contains typological references to Christ. Thus, for Edwards the burning bush (Exod 3:2–3) represents Christ’s human nature—as it was not consumed by the divine fire so too was Christ, the “Branch” from the stump of Jesse (Isa 11), not consumed by the wrath of God in his redemptive work for humankind. “The Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, [by] his appearing in this bush, is a type of his being manifest in the flesh” (209). Similarly, Christ is represented in Jacob’s dream (Gen 28) in numerous ways: “Jacob’s sleep here seems to represent the death of Christ” he writes.
As Jacob in his sleep has the gate of heaven opened, and a ladder set on the earth on the land of Canaan, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending on it, and God appearing in heaven revealing himself as the covenant of God of him and his seed, and promising that his seed ‘shall be as the dust of the earth’ [vs. 14], and that in him and in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed, so Christ by his death procured that the gate of heaven should be opened towards the earth, and that there should be an union between heaven and earth, and that there should be a way to heaven from the earth (172–73).
The church also is featured prominently in Edwards’ typological readings. For instance, Sampson’s wife who repeatedly attempts to extract from her husband the meaning of his enigmatic riddle in Judges 14, “represents the church, the spouse of Christ.” As Sampson revealed to her the meaning of the riddle, so “Christ revealed to his church in the gospel day the mystery of the gospel which had been kept hid from ages and generation, after his church had long sorrowed and wept under her legal dispensation” (337). Typological readings like these populate hundreds of Edwards’ notes on the Old Testament and stand of a fine example of how early eighteenth century Protestants interpreted Scripture.
Edwards’ “Blank Bible” is not for everyone. The work is designed for specialists, does not contain a central narrative or argument, and is very pricey. Yet for those who want to “read Scripture with Edwards,” catch a glimpse of the private world of Edwards’ intense pursuit of knowing the Bible, and be fascinated by the wonders and peculiarities of his hermeneutics, this work would be a valuable investment.
Edwards’ preaching after the great years of the Great Awakening underwent a mild transformation, so says Wilson Kimnach, editor of volume 25. other literary pursuits (The Religious Affections, Life and Diary of Brainerd, and his works from the Stockbridge years), as well as difficulties with his Northampton congregation, and the fact that he recycled many of his Northampton sermons in Stockbridge all contributed to the fact that we do not have as many complete sermon manuscripts from the last fifteen years of Edwards’ life. Simply stated, other activities preoccupied Edwards’ energies; the sermon, Kimnach observes, “was [at this time] becoming marginalized within the cycle of Edwards’ literary activities” (38). Yet this does not mean that the sermons from this period are poorly written. On the contrary, when Edwards did devote the time to sermon preparation the result was the same excellence he sought in his earlier endeavors. The sermons in this volume showcase Edwards as a seasoned homiletician, at the heights of his sermonic powers. Many of his well-known sermons from this period are contained in its pages: his funeral sermon for David Brainerd (True Saints, When Absent from the Body, are Present with the Lord), his Farewell Sermon preached to his Northampton congregation after they voted to dismiss him, and True Grace, Distinguished from the Experience of Devils, a 1752 sermon which Edwards preached to the Presbyterian Synod of New York that majestically summarizes his theology of revival and religious experience. In addition to these sermons, pastors and Edwards fans will find throughout the volume a treasure of material that is spiritually edifying, theologically profound, and rich with pastoral insight. In what remains I will examine two themes that link many of the sermons together in this volume: Edwards’ ideal of the gospel minister and his dedication to cross-cultural missions.
The volume contains numerous “ordination sermons” that Edwards preached on the event of a young minister’s installation at a congregation. Edwards used these solemn occasions to impress upon both the minister and congregation the responsibilities and privileges that are bound up in the minister’s vocation. The ideal gospel minister, Edwards writes in The Church’s Marriage to Her Sons and to Her God, is called both to “marry” the congregation he is called to, and to officiate a marriage between Christ and the people of God in that congregation: “he espouses them, that in their being espoused to him, they may be espoused to Christ” (184). In The True Excellency of a Gospel Minister (1744), Edwards presents the gospel minister as one who is both a burning and shining light, one who not only “is set to be a light to men’s souls, by teaching, or doctrine” (i.e. a “shining light,” 92), but one who is filled with “the holy ardor of a spirit of true piety” (a “burning light,” 91). Like his Lord, the gospel minister is willingly to embrace the difficult challenges of the ministry for he is called to emulate his Master, a point he illustrates in Christ’s Sacrifice an Inducement to His Ministers. “[Be] ready to be conformed to Christ, and as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it that he might sanctify [it] by the word, so the minister should be ready to give what they have, and give themselves, to spend and be spent” (670). Sober warnings frequent some of these passages regarding the minister who has failed in his calling and Christian profession. “’[T]is likely,” he writes in a fashion that is true to his hell-fire and brimstone image, “that those in hell that will be nearest to the fallen angels, in their state of misery, will be those that Christ once set to be angels of the churches, but through their unfaithfulness, failed of their proper excellency and end” (98). These images, collected from these sermons, paint a challenging and inspiring portrait of the ideal gospel minister, one that every pastor today should read and meditate on.
Many of the later sermons in the work represent his attempts to preach the gospel to local Indians associated with the Stockbridge mission, a responsibility that he embraced when he was called to the frontier pastorate of Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1751. These sermons are a fascinating showcase of “America’s theologian,” who is known for his metaphysical subtlety and theological acumen, teaching the basics of Christianity to Native Americans who knew very little about the faith. We find in these sermons what Edwards considered to be the non-negotiables of Christianity, and the basics of his evangelistic method. How Edwards preached is significantly different in these sermons for he emphasized more of a story-telling approach than he did in his sermons to a European audience. But what he preached, the content, he did not water down. The same themes of a new heart, divine and supernatural light, and evangelical Calvinism populate these discourses. In God is Infinitely Strong, Edwards explores the facets of God’s great power and steers the sermon to their need of a new birth. God created all things, Edwards says, “making things so great, making ‘em out of nothing;” and he “can do all things for you, [and] can give you a new heart. No other can” (644–45). In Christ is to the Heart Like a River to a Tree Planted by It, Edwards woos his hearers to Christ in typical Edwardsean fashion: “As the waters of a river run easily and freely, so the love of Christ. [He] freely came into the world. [He] laid down his life and endured those sufferings. Christ never [leaves] his saints that love him and trust in him: the love of Christ never [ceases]” (602–03). We can discern in these basic sermons his evangelistic method in its simplicity where he calls people to Christ, to get a new heart, and to turn away from all sin. His sermon Death and Judgment ends with the following impassioned appeal: “Now I, as a minister of Jesus Christ, invite you to come to Christ to be saved from hell. He is willing to accept: he says, ‘He that comes to me I will in no wise cast out.’ He will forgive all your sins and will bestow heaven and all its good things upon you, if you will but hearken unto him” (598–99). The core of Edwards’ message remained the same regardless of his audience.
As Edwards’ popularity continues to grow, so too do the distortions of who he really was and what he really taught. In the current resurgence of Calvinism in North American evangelicalism, I have noted a peculiar tendency on the part of some who basically read into Edwards the beliefs and values that characterize today’s Calvinists without taking into consideration the significant historical, theological, and contextual differences that exist between our time and his. Many, in short, make Edwards in their own image. These volumes, if read and studied, will go a long way in aiding to correct these misconceptions and will allow us better to understand, appreciate, and be challenged by the real Edwards of history.
