As a part of my liberal arts education at George Fox University, I was required to take some sort of philosophy course at some point over the four years in order to earn an incredibly expensive piece of paper called a degree. Not being quite the philosophy type, I opted to get it out of the way as soon as possible. So in my first semester of my first year at GFU, I enrolled in ethics class.
Let's just say that if I already wasn't planning on being a philosophy major, this set it in stone that I would not be. Given my extreme zeal for the Bible and my extreme naïvety on what college classes tend to be like, the class was rather unpleasant to me. On the one hand, I didn't really get the concept embodied in Aristotle's quote, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it;" on the other hand, I don't think it was a bad thing for me to hold up my defenses of what I know is the truth of God's Word.
Now that I've been through four years of school, I know better how not to get too hot-headed while discussing controversial topics. I've also learned to really look into why I believe what I believe so I can explain it in a way that somebody who doesn't believe in the inerrancy and "God-breathed-ness" of Scripture can understand. I'd say that's pretty valuable.
ANYWAYS, all that blabbing to introduce something I've been thinking about a little bit recently: The contemporary perception of the Great Awakening preacher, Jonathan Edwards. While my ethics class, we read from our book and discussed an article that condemned Edwards as the most hateful and wicked person in the world. Yes, literally the most hateful, or at least one of the most hateful.
For anyone who may not know who Jonathan Edwards was, he was an American pastor, preacher, and theologian in the 18th century, and one of the great catalysts of the Great Awakening. He is most well-known for his sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," in which he tells the audience of God's incredible impending wrath, and how they are as wretched in the sight of God as a venomous spider, hanging over a flame and ready at any moment to be flung therein. His admonition is to repent and be reconciled to God. This is the text that is read in ethics, history, and literature classes to give students an idea of who Jonathan Edwards was and what the Great Awakening was. I even read in in my high school American Literature class.
Back to my college ethics class. In the article, Jonathan Edwards was put next to a real historical villain, Heinrich Himmler, the main overseer of the Nazi concentration camps, under whom were tortured and killed millions of innocent people.
In this comparison, the author regarded Edwards as an even worse villain than Himmler, saying that he "condemned" most of the world, not just to torture and death, but to eternal punishment in hell. The horror of this misunderstanding was exponentially augmented by the fact that not only did many of my classmates not think anything of it, but they agreed that Edwards was a villain.
Yet this misunderstanding of Jonathan Edwards doesn't just survive today, but prevails. It is not just a misunderstanding of a theologian, but of the Gospel itself. Edwards did not tell people that they were hopeless, or that they had to meet a standard. He WARNED them and was trying to make a vivid picture of the grave and eternal danger they were in, in hopes that some might understand and cling to the Savior. As John Piper said of him, "He was laboring as a pastor to communicate a reality that he saw in Scripture and that he believed was infinitely important to his people."
Edwards was a man who was completely saturated in the Word of God, and was entirely convinced of the truth of such passages as Revelation 14:17-20, 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9, John 3:18, Matthew 25:41-43, etc. He DID NOT WANT people to be condemned to hell forever, nor did he condemn anyone to hell (only God has that power). But he warned people that they were condemned already if they were not covered by the blood and righteousness of Jesus.
This quote from Edwards' journal should give you a glimpse of his heart in this matter:
Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad’s of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.
I would encourage you to check out other works by Jonathan Edwards. John Piper said of Edwards, "Most of us don't know that he knew his heaven even better than his hell, and that his vision of glory was just as appealing as his vision of judgment was repulsive." I would also encourage you to read "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," and keep in mind the reality and eternality of hell. Do you care if people are headed in that direction? Do you really believe it?
MOST IMPORTANTLY, keep reading the Bible. What does it say about hell? How does that effect how you live and interact with others?
I was thinking about this because I recently listened to a biographical sermon by John Piper about Jonathan Edwards. It was really inspiring to me in my walk with the Lord, and I would encourage you to listen to it here.
A list of Jonathan Edwards' resolutions can be found here, and it's also pretty neat!
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