Jonathan Edwards Evangelist

Gerstner’s book helps us to find where the deficiencies which the reformed churches recognize in modern evangelism are. Making an exhaustive analysis of Jonathan Edwards’ sermons, he recovers the content used by that great preacher when calling unbelievers to repentance and belief.
The introductory chapter is meant to inform the content of the book and gives a detailed outline of the whole treatise. It depicts the theology that must be present in the preaching of the so called “predestinerian evangelist”. From this great biblical doctrine, the preacher draws tranquility in his role as the deliverer of the gospel, glorifying and trusting God’s sovereignty in bringing to Him those whom He have chosen. The preacher may also draw boldness in the delivery of the message, not hindering any part of from his hearers for fear of rejection. On the contrary, in his preaching, like Edwards, the evangelist must “be consistent with the justice, mercy, majesty, and truth of God to save or to damn”.[1] He alone selected the content of the preaching, the nations that would hear it and when they would hear. The last paragraph is destined to inform the reader of what he will find in the subsequent chapters.
He precedes his argument on the sovereignty of God by emphasizing the mean by which the Lord has appointed to spread the gospel among the nations. He calls this mean of the “outward call” and since it is God’s appointed as well as the following inward call, it is part of the divine initiative to restore man to his original state. The outward call takes place by two different ways: natural (through creation and man’s conscience) and supernatural (by God’s revelation of His will, the Holy Scriptures). This call is universal; all must hear and should respond to it, although the same is not true to the effectiveness of the calling. Concerning the effectiveness of the ways, although “the Spirit sometimes strive with men apart from the Bible, he never strives so much, nor successfully, apart from it.”[2]
The content of the calling that was present in the preaching of Edwards comes completely from Scripture and aims to explain the anger of God against those who sin in rejecting His infinity love. He tried to bring up a “rational hell”, demonstrating by means of reason and Scripture that “there is just enough judgment in this world to indicate that there will be a greater one in the world to come.”[3] In other words, for his hearers, in the delivery of his sermon, hell became a real place and its reality could almost be felt. They could taste the torments and afflictions of the cursed place. Edwards understood this “frightening” method to be very reasonable; as reasonable as frightening someone out of an eminent accident.
He would also struggle to convince sinners of their actual state. He would fight to convict them of the truth of his preaching, of the truth of condemnation and hell and of the truth that they were those who deserved that punishment. In order to achieve that, he would appeal to their conscience as a natural resource in the soul of man. He certainly recognizes that the renewing and the sanctification of man was a prerogative of the Holy Spirit alone, but conviction he believed to be “a work of the Spirit in the unchanged nature of fallen man; it is not a change within man.”[4] Since conscience is a natural ability for man, man could resist it either by “giving way to lusts or by directly opposing the Spirit in his inward workings”[5] and to reduce the possibility of fabricated activations of the conscience, Edwards considered a genuine activation those which were a fruit of a profound, sincere and prolonged understanding of the content preached and of the sins revealed.
Though the emphasis in hell, condemnation and conviction, that was not the complete message of Edwards’ evangelistic preaching, and he would always encourage his hearers to repentance and to seek salvation. For him, it was not enough to wake man to damnation but it was also necessary to point the solution: the grace of God in Christ. Thus he would encourage them to seek salvation, to flee from the day of wrath. Because of his emphasis on the seeking ability of man he was sometimes accused of Arminianism but, on the other hand, Edwards never affirmed that man was able to believe in Christ by his own reason or that man was able to do good by his own efforts, he only affirmed that man have the ability to believe and to seek. Man is never willing to believe because of his fallen state, but can be stirred up to seek to be willing. Because he seeks what is bad and evil, he does have the ability to seek, than he must have this ability directed towards Christ and his sacrifice and that is the duty of the evangelist. While preaching on the means of salvation, Edwards would say: “the reason why they don’t use the means is not because they could not if they were disposed but because they are not disposed.”[6]
Edwards was always worried about false motives for seeking salvation. Although he defended self-interest as being a point of contact between sinners and the gospel and that the sense of auto-preservation that there are in sinners should be used to bring their attention to the redemptive message of the evangelistic preaching, they should be absolutely discouraged to seek salvation for their own interest. In fact he would affirm that “if men actually do become professing Christians from principles of fear and self-interest alone, they are no true Christians.”[7] In order to avoid such mistake, he would enforce Christians’ duty of self-denial and the desire to please God. To be a genuine seek for salvation, man should be motivated by the goal of glorifying God, of enjoying him and of imitating him.
This seek would have been achieved, according to Edwards, only if God, in his infinity mercy, had appointed before the foundation of the world the salvation of the one who seeks. That would be demonstrated with a change in the life and in the values of the, now, believer. The justification that had been applied to his heart should now be preserved and persist until the return of the Savior. In his own words: “ ’tis necessary for those that have religious affections and seem to have a love to Christ that they should endure to the end in order to their being saved.”[8]
One striking characteristic of his ministry was the attention given to young hearers in the evangelistic preaching. In the fourth chapter of the book, the author describes Edwards’ addressing to those in early age although not determining how old they exactly were. In those words, Edwards uses examples of the quotidian life like going to school together or playing together as an invitation to heaven. “How dreadful to be separated or to be damned together”[9], he would say. He would bring examples like that of Elisha’s cursing children to show the wickedness of their hearts and also their sins were hated by God just like the ones done by the adults. He would also use other sins typical of their age, and even the death of another child, to stir up their conscience.
The main reason for doing so, Edwards thought, was the great learning capacity of children as well as their susceptibility to be frightened of the coming wrath of God. He would also recognize that a sure way to revival was the education of the children in the truth and therefore it was the responsibility of the head of the house and of those who were involved in the care of children top provide such knowledge.
[1] Gerstner, John H., Jonathan Edwards Evangelist, (Pittsburg: Soli Deo Gloria Publications), 15.
[2] Ibid., 23.
[3] Ibid., 25.
[4] Ibid., 42.
[5] Ibid., 43, 44.
[6] Ibid., 89.
[7] Ibid., 64.
[8] Ibid., 164.
[9] Ibid., 39.