Reading Jonathan Edwards’s “Personal Narrative” and listening to his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” brought back many memories of lying in bed as a child, wrestling with God. I didn’t recognize the fervor of the experience until I saw it reflected in Edwards as in a mirror. It brought back that point in my life at which the Bible ceased appearing to me merely as black type on white paper and started to breathe. God’s Spirit brought about some similar soul-cries in the two of us, separated by centuries.

Edwards says, “It has often appeared sweet to me, to be united to Christ; to have him for my head, and to be a member of his body.” For some reason it seems that this love exhibits itself most strongly immediately post-conversion. That the fervor should diminish saddens me, and I pray against it.

            The introductory material mentioned that Edwards’s parishioners felt exaltation “when they experienced delight in God’s sovereignty.” Might this strike many members of our current culture as counter-intuitive? Should God’s sovereignty produce delight?

            I sometimes fondly call my home “Arminian county.” There, preaching often focuses on man’s efforts to attain God’s favor. At about the age of 12 I first started hearing preaching that focused on the bigness and the ability of God. Nothing was more exciting. Not only did my own salvation not depend on me, but I could identify in God a reality great enough to consume me. Glorifying him, I found, was a worthy end. The Bible, no longer a book of heroes who had “done the right thing” but rather a book about God’s greatness and grace, became delicious to me. I loved, as Edwards did, to be united to Christ, to have him for my head, and to be united to his body.

 

Chelsea Kolz

Jonathan Edwards

Senior

Fall Semester 2012