Jonathan Edwards has been called by many the most influential intellectual thinker of his time. By others he is known as the greatest intellect that America has ever seen. During his lifetime he wrote many works on the Christian faith, including several published sermons and defense works on certain doctrines of the faith. He certainly has had a great impact upon Christian thinkers from his lifetime through today, and no doubt his works will continue to impact those in the future. But what type of impact did he have upon the First Great Awakening in America?
The First Great Awakening in America is generally attributed to the preaching of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. It seems as though Edwards’ preaching was most likely the spark from which the blazing fire of revival got its start. There were several cultural and religious factors that had led up to the Great Awakening, which prepared or laid the foundation for the revival to begin. Edwards’ famous sermon series on “Justification by Faith Alone” led to the beginnings of the revival, which spread throughout the eastern coast of the colonies. The revival lasted from around 1734 to 1742, with general awakenings ebbing and flowing throughout. Upon reflection Edwards wrote an account of the great work of God, which gives us some details of this great revival movement.
Historical Factors Leading Up To the Revival
The religious state of New England, and consequently of the world, had a huge impact upon the breaking out of the Great Awakening. In the 1730’s and 40’s in New England church membership was highly valued and directly affected one’s ability to participate in public events. Only church members could run for office or vote during this time, which is how things had operated throughout history in Christian societies.
Throughout the history of Christian Europe, which directly influenced Christianity in the American colonies, the common practice was to baptize all at infancy and consider them members of the church. This was practiced in both Roman Catholic and Reformed Protestant denominations. It was then expected that the “member” would be taught doctrines and correct living practices throughout childhood, thus allowing them to show evidence of their status as a Christian.
In many instances it was thought of as a confirmation of the person’s faith when they first partook in the Lord’s Supper, of which every church member was supposed to partake. There were many ideas floating around during this time about who should be allowed to participate in the Lord’s Supper. Some were arguing that one must have evidence of their conversion prior to participating, while others thought this not necessary. The issue led to debates and ultimately to the acceptance of baptismal regeneration, which states that the infant is a converted Christian upon receiving the infant baptism. This idea allowed for all to take part in the Lord’s Supper and to be considered viable church members.
The New England Puritans did not hold to these beliefs though. They did not believe in baptismal regeneration, but taught that a born-again believer must have evidence of their conversion experience through a changed life, which would be visible to those around them.
This Puritan theology then directly influenced the beginning of the Great Awakening, because Jonathan Edwards himself held to these values.
Another historical factor that led up to the Great Awakening was the emphasis upon the Armenian theology of salvation by works, which actually took its root in the papal system of the Roman Catholic Church.
The papal system, which basically taught that the Pope was the authority on all things pertaining to doctrine and therefore salvation, led to church members having an understanding of a works based salvation. One had to do all the things that the papacy ascribed in order to be saved. This theology filtered into Armenian doctrine, which was building steadily in popularity in New England during the 1730’s.
Puritans like Edwards were absolutely against a theology of works leading to salvation. Most Puritans held to a strictly Calvinistic theology, which taught that God was absolutely sovereign over all matters, including salvation. Puritan preachers such as Edwards held to and preached a theology of justification (salvation) by faith alone, through grace alone, which takes its root all the way back to Martin Luther, the great reformer.
Jonathan Edwards’ Sermonic Influence upon the Great Awakening
Edwards was truly a brilliant mind. He graduated from Yale at the age of seventeen and spent several more years there as a tutor. He left Yale to help his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, with his church in Northampton, Massachusetts. After spending two years there, his grandfather died, and Edwards became the senior pastor.
He was very concerned over the low level of morality among his church members, especially among the youth, and wrote:
“Many of them were very much addicted to night walking, frequenting the tavern, and lewd practices. It was their manner very frequently to get together in conventions of both sexes for mirth and jollity, which they called frolics, and would spend the greater part of the night in them.” This bothered him so much that he began to meet with the youth in their homes and discuss spiritual things with them. He eventually began to see some improvement in their attitudes and understanding of spiritual things, but the real breakthrough came in his preaching.
To combat the lack of spiritual understanding and piety among the people of his congregation, he began preaching a series on the essential doctrine of “Justification by Faith Alone.” His expressed purpose in preaching such sermons was to make men feel that they understood the subject, and secondly to wipe away all those hopes of heaven, which they had built upon their own works.
During this sermon series Edwards preached his most famous sermon, which kick-started the Great Awakening,
Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God.
The text which Edwards used for this sermon was Deuteronomy 32:35 – “Their foot shall slide in due time.” His main idea was that all men who are outside of Christ are dangling over the pit of hell, only hanging by the thread of God’s grace and mercy (which he calls God’s pleasure).
He taught within the sermon that God is ultimately sovereign over all affairs, including those of judgment and salvation, and that in due time He will put those sinners who are outside of Christ into their rightful place in hell.
Edwards used very vivid images of the torment that awaits lost souls, which effectively led many into a fearful understanding of their own sins against the holiness of God. It is interesting to note that God worked so mightily through Edwards, eventually leading to over three-hundred conversions in the context of his local church, even though he did not preach in an exciting style at all. It is recorded that Edwards merely read the manuscripts for his sermons in a monotone manner, without the use of hand gestures of any kind.
One reason this powerful sermon may have been so effective, is the method in which Edwards applied the truth to the lives of those in the congregation. He said:
“The use [of the sermon]
may be of awakening to unconverted persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ. That world of miser, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of. There is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.” Needless to say, he was trying to drive home the point that those who are outside of Christ need to turn to Him, in order to avoid this terrible fate for all of eternity. He gave a lengthy discourse on the reasons behind their need to do so, and discussed the method in which this repentance and faith should take place.
Edwards’ Reflection on the Great Awakening
Jonathan Edwards had a great amount of influence upon the Great Awakening. The night that he preached his famous sermon many souls were converted to Christianity and a great revival fire began burning. Before long the revival had spread all the way down the colonial coast, and had even begun to travel back to England.
Edwards wrote down the events of this revival in his book, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God. He described the reaction of the people in Northampton as such:
“There was scarcely a single person in the town, old or young, left unconcerned about the great things of the eternal world…Souls did, as it were, come by flocks to Jesus Christ…The town seemed to be full of the presence of God; it was never so full of love, nor of joy, and yet so full of distress, as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God’s presence in almost every house.” His book carried the news of the Great Awakening all way to Europe, where people were longing for a similar experience. Edwards attributes the great work to God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, saying it was quite a miraculous work.
In conclusion we can see that Jonathan Edwards’ sermons and piety had a direct effect upon the Great Awakening that began in New England in the 1730’s. Though he would argue that it was a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, and this author would agree, there is no doubt that his great intellectual ability to search out the Scriptures and present them in an applicable way, impacted those people in Northampton. Because he was not fearful of presenting the doctrines of justification by faith alone and the truth of a possible eternity in hell, many people were saved. This study has left me with the question of whether our current method of sermonizing in the twenty-first century is leading us toward or away from a great revival of this magnitude. It seems that in recent years evangelical Christians have strayed away from the deep doctrines of the Christian faith, and have aimed to bring people into the kingdom of God through other methods. Could we learn something from the example of Jonathan Edwards?
