You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages in wrestling with this Almighty, merciless vengeance. And then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point [dot] to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. All that we can possibly say about it gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it.
It is inexpressible and inconceivable: for "who knows the power of God's anger"! How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in danger of this great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation that has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they may otherwise be. There is reason to think that there are many in this congregation, now hearing this discourse, that will actually be the subjects of this very misery to all eternity.
This point does not yet explain the mechanism of the atonement; nevertheless, whatever else Edwards says about the atonement should be interpreted through the lens of this particular insight. Oliver D. Crisp is professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Kyle C. Crisp and Kyle C. Excerpted by permission of William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Sections Home. Bible Coronavirus Prayer. Subscribe Member Benefits Give a Gift.
Subscribers receive full access to the archives. Christian History Archives Eras Home. Excerpt Theology. This not only has the effect of frightening us, it shows us how repulsive we are to God. This image, therefore, raises both fear and humility. Edwards views God as the puppet master who has a grand plan for humanity. He believes that any moment, on a whim, God may destroy us. First, he knows that he is speaking to still faithfully strong Puritans. His fire and brimstone sermon served to keep those believers on the straight and narrow.
Search Timelines:. Stay Connected. Subscribe to the ARDA:. GIS Maps. All Rights Reserved. Surprisingly, most of Edwards's other sermons were about God's love, not eternal condemnation.
Nonetheless, this sermon became integral to his legacy in American religion. The sermon spread the ideas of the First Great Awakening throughout the American colonies. It was criticized at the time but the criticism crescendoed in the late 19th century as theological liberals used it to accuse theological conservatives of being outdated, unloving, and harsh.
The Calvinist theology of the sermon can feel alien to modern American sensibilities in its depiction of a wrathful God dangling people over the pit of hell. Jonathan Edwards once thought much the same of Calvinism, especially its assertion of the sovereignty of God over all human beings, both those destined for heaven and those headed to hell.
Edwards was reared in a preacher's home in Connecticut, but while in school at Yale he began to doubt his family's theology.
It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me. Human beings were fallen, totally depraved, and deserving of an eternity of punishment in hell. God graciously plucked some, the elect, from that fiery fate. Edwards's view of God transformed from that of a capricious, uncaring tyrant into a loving, gracious father.
Edwards inherited his grandfather's church at Northampton, Massachusetts in and the young minister quickly became involved in a series of local revivals in New England during the s. He believed that many New England Puritans were Christian in name only, that they had been infected by an "Arminian" theology that privileged free, human choice over God's sovereignty.
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