Owen Strachan » Evangelism Dead Guys Justification

This is the first of a short series of posts adapted from a new 5-volume book series entitled The Essential Edwards Collection.

A Man On Mission

What do you know about Jonathan Edwards (1703-58)? Maybe you remember him as the guy who stared grimly at you from your high school textbook, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” and all that. Maybe you like Edwards, have read some of his writing, and generally appreciate him. Many of us haven’t had either the time or energy to delve deeply into his body of work, which totals 25 foreboding volumes in the Yale Works of Jonathan Edwards series. Edwards—or, as he is known in academic circles, “The Dude”—was a brilliant man, America’s greatest philosopher, and a longtime pastor in colonial Massachusetts. What we may not fully comprehend about the man was just how passionate he was for reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Long before our day, wearing killer knickers and a starchy white wig, Jonathan Edwards was passionately, relentlessly on mission for God.

Only By Faith

In 1734, the pastor preached offensively. He wished to clarify the substance of saving faith in Jesus Christ for his congregation so that they might find salvation. Edwards believed that certain members of his flock had either deceived themselves about their spirituality or had misunderstood the nature of saving faith and the new birth due to unbiblical teaching on the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and he thus set out to win them to a vibrant understanding of this teaching that would nourish Christians and rescue unbelievers. Edwards maintained that it is faith in Christ alone that “justifies, or gives an interest in Christ’s satisfaction and merits, and a right to the benefits procured thereby, viz., as it thus makes Christ and the believer one in the acceptance of the Supreme Judge. ‘Tis by faith that we have a title to eternal life, because ‘tis by faith that we have the Son of God, by whom life is” (Works 19, 158). As articulated here, faith in Christ had the crucial effect of uniting Christ and the believer, once separated by a chasm of sin and unbelief. This was a crucial point. His sermons on justification helped, he thought, “to establish the judgments of many in this truth” and also “to engage their hearts in a more earnest pursuit of justification” (795). To be continued. (Adapted from Chapters Five and Six of Jonathan Edwards, Lover of God from The Essential Edwards Collection)