Searching the Scriptures
Edwards’ love affair with the Bible was passionate and long-standing. It was there that he beheld the beauty of Christ. The power of the living God was made known to him in its pages. The glory of the Spirit’s abiding presence was awakened in his heart as he meditated on its majestic truths. There is one short passage in the Narrative where Edwards speaks of the transforming effect of Scripture on his life:
I had then, and at other times, the greatest delight in the holy Scriptures, of any book whatsoever. Oftentimes in reading it, every word seemed to touch my heart. I felt a harmony between something in my heart, and those sweet and powerful words. I seemed often to see so much light exhibited by every sentence, and such a refreshing food communicated, that I could not get along in reading; often dwelling long on one sentence, to see the wonders contained in it; and yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders.
How far removed this is from the declarations of boredom that I so often hear from people who describe their reaction to reading Scripture! Yet again, Edwards wrote of the power of Scripture to awaken and sustain life, and to bring a satisfaction to the human heart that no rival “letter” could touch:
And I have sometimes had an affecting sense of the excellency of the word of God, as a word of life; as the light of life; a sweet, excellent life-giving word; accompanied with a thirsting after that word, that it might dwell richly in my heart.
I think what Edwards refers to must be what the author of Psalm 119 had in mind when he spoke repeatedly of the impact of Scripture on his soul. Consider the following brief sampling and ask yourself if such vivid and passionate language accurately portrays your attitude toward the glory and power of God’s Word:
“In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches” (v. 14).
“I will delight in your statutes” (v. 16).
“My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times” (v. 20).
“Your testimonies are my delight” (v. 24).
“Behold, I long for your precepts” (v. 40).
“For I find my delight in your commandments, which I love” (v. 47).
“The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces” (v. 72).
“Oh how I love your law!” (v. 97).
“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (v. 103).
“Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart” (v. 111).
“Therefore I love your commandments above gold, above fine gold” (v. 127).
“I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil” (v. 162).
“My soul keeps your testimonies; I love them exceedingly” (v. 167).
Do you dwell “long on one sentence” or skim quickly with only a cursory glance at words on a page? The greatest profit that I gain from Scripture is when I pause to take a word or phrase or sentence and turn it over and over again in my mind, speaking it aloud, perhaps even singing it unto the Lord. Memorize it. Muse on it. Ruminate. Reflect. Cry out to the Spirit for the light of understanding. Evaluate your soul and mind and life and leisure time in the light of its truth. Place your thoughts and deeds and desires and daydreams under its authority.
Those incredible statements from Psalm 119 should never be read in isolation from the rest of the psalm. The reason God’s Word resonated with such sweet savor in the soul of the psalmist is because he was committed to seeking the Lord with his “whole heart” (Ps. 119:2, 10) and to meditating on his precepts (119:15) and to fixing his eyes on God’s “ways” (119:15). His resolve was to “keep [God’s] law continually, forever and ever” (119:44). Listen to the psalmist’s prayer, repeated over and again:
“Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (v. 18).
“Teach me your statutes!” (vv. 26, 68, 124, 135).
“Make me understand the way of your precepts” (v. 27).
“Graciously teach me your law!” (v. 29).
“Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes” (v. 33).
“Give me understanding that I may learn your commandments” (v. 73; see also vv. 34, 125, 144, 169).
“Teach me good judgment and knowledge” (v. 66).
“Teach me your rules” (v. 108).
If this were our prayer, perhaps then, like Edwards, we would begin to feel “a harmony” between our hearts and “those sweet and powerful words” and to taste “a refreshing food” in God’s Word and see the “wonders contained in it.” Rest assured of this: God will not allow his Word to rest lightly on the heart of one who longs to experience its life-changing, sin-killing, Christ-exalting power.
Filled with the Spirit
Jonathan Edwards was a cessationist. Largely because of excessive and fanatical behavior associated with the First Great Awakening, he was concerned with the way in which certain people justified unwise, even unbiblical, decisions by appealing to having heard “the voice of God.” He also opposed the contemporary validity of revelatory gifts (especially prophecy) because he believed, falsely in my opinion, that such would undermine the finality and sufficiency of Scripture. I mention this only to point out that, although I disagree with Edwards on this issue, his belief didn’t diminish in the least his love and appreciation for the Holy Spirit.
Edwards’ rather unique understanding of the Spirit is nowhere better seen than in his attempt to account for triunity in the Godhead. In a statement from his Essay on the Trinity he wrote the following:
The Father is the deity subsisting in the prime, unoriginated and most absolute manner, or the deity in its direct existence. The Son is the deity generated by God’s understanding, or having an idea of Himself and subsisting in that idea. The Holy Ghost is the deity subsisting in act, or the divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God’s infinite love to and delight in Himself. And . . . the whole Divine essence does truly and distinctly subsist both in the Divine idea and Divine love, and that each of them are properly distinct persons.1
Edwards is careful to insist that whereas the Spirit is the love and delight that eternally flows between the Father and the Son, he is not for that reason inferior to either, for “the whole Divine essence” truly subsists in him. All the attributes and glory of the divine nature are as eternally and equally present in the third person of the Godhead as in the first two. And lest someone suggest that this reduces the Spirit to an impersonal force passing between Father and Son, Edwards is again quick and insistent that “each of them,” Father, Son, and Spirit, “are properly distinct persons.”
He also spoke and wrote often of the ministry of the Spirit, primarily in terms of the work of sanctification and illumination. Consider the following:
I have many times had a sense of the glory of the third person in the Trinity, in his office of Sanctifier; in his holy operations, communicating divine light and life to the soul. God, in the communications of his Holy Spirit, has appeared as an infinite fountain of divine glory and sweetness; being full, and sufficient to fill and satisfy the soul; pouring forth itself in sweet communications; like the sun in its glory, sweetly and pleasantly diffusing light and life.
Here again we see Edwards’ highly sensory language in describing his perception of the nature and work of God. Like a self-replenishing fountain that forever flows, God pours forth himself in “sweet communications.” He is a measureless, incalculable reservoir of glory and light, who, in making himself known and giving of himself to hell-deserving sinners, suffers no loss, experiences no lack, and never, ever runs dry! He is more than adequate and able to “fill and satisfy the soul” of men and women who thirst for his presence.
Edwards’ language is reminiscent of Paul’s declaration in Acts 17:25 concerning the independent, all-sufficiency of God, who is not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” If we truly believe, as Edwards did, that God is “an infinite fountain of divine glory and sweetness,” we will not make the blasphemous mistake of thinking that we, by our worship or offerings or activities or good intentions, can in any way add to or supplement or support or increase or enhance his glory and greatness.
So, if God is “an infinite fountain of divine glory and sweetness,” how do we worship him? How do we honor him? With what attitude and intent should we approach him? In what way do we “give” glory to God without belittling him as needy and dependent on us? John Piper tells us:
God has no needs that I [or anyone else] could ever be required to satisfy. God has no deficiencies that I might be required to supply. He is complete in himself. He is overflowing with happiness in the fellowship of the Trinity. The upshot of this is that God is a mountain spring, not a watering trough. A mountain spring is self-replenishing. It constantly overflows and supplies others. But a watering trough needs to be filled with a pump or bucket brigade. So if you want to glorify the worth of a watering trough you work hard to keep it full and useful. But if you want to glorify the worth of a spring you do it by getting down on your hands and knees and drinking to your heart’s satisfaction, until you have the refreshment and strength to go back down in the valley and tell people what you’ve found. You do not glorify a mountain spring by dutifully hauling water up the path from the river below and dumping it in the spring. What we have seen is that God is like a mountain spring, not a watering trough. And since that is the way God is, we are not surprised to learn from Scripture—and our faith is strengthened to hold fast—that the way to please God is to come to him to get and not to give, to drink and not to water. He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
My hope as a desperate sinner, who lives in a Death Valley desert of unrighteousness, hangs on this biblical truth: that God is the kind of God who will be pleased with the one thing I have to offer—my thirst. That is why the sovereign freedom and self-sufficiency of God are so precious to me: they are the foundation of my hope that God is delighted not by the resourcefulness of bucket brigades, but by the bending down of broken sinners to drink at the fountain of grace. . . .
In other words, this unspeakably good news for helpless sinners—that God delights not when we offer him our strength but when we wait for his—this good news that I need to hear so badly again and again, is based firmly on a vision of God as sovereign, self-sufficient and free.2
Here, then, is how we must come to God, whether to serve him or worship him or enjoy all that he is for us in Jesus:
Come, confessing your utter inability to do or offer anything that will empower God or enrich, enhance, or expand God.
Come, with heartfelt gratitude to God for the fact that whatever you own, whatever you are, whatever you have accomplished or hope to accomplish, is all from him, a gift of grace.
Come, declaring in your heart and aloud that if you serve, it is in the strength that God supplies (1 Pet. 4:10); if you give money, it is from the wealth God has enabled you to earn; if it is praise of who he is, it is from the salvation and knowledge of God that he himself has provided for you in Christ Jesus.
Come, declaring the all-sufficiency of God in meeting your every need. Praise his love, because if he were not loving, you would be justly and eternally condemned. Praise his power, because if he were weak, you would have no hope that what he has promised he will fulfill. Praise his forgiving mercy, because apart from his gracious determination to wash you clean in the blood of Christ, you would still be in your sin and hopelessly lost. So, too, with every attribute, praise him!
Come, with an empty cup, happily pleading: “God, glorify yourself by filling it to overflowing!”
Come, with a weak and wandering heart, joyfully beseeching: “God, glorify yourself by strengthening me to do your will and remain faithful to your ways!”
Come, helpless, expectantly praying: “God, glorify yourself by delivering me from my enemies and troubles!”
Come, with your sin, gratefully asking: “God, glorify yourself by setting me free from bondage to my flesh and breaking the grip of lust and envy and greed in my life!”
Come, with your hunger for pleasure and joy, desperately cry-ing: “God, glorify yourself by filling me with the fullness of joy! God, glorify yourself by granting me pleasures that never end! God, glorify yourself by satisfying my heart with yourself! God, glorify yourself by enthralling me with your beauty . . . by overwhelming me with your majesty . . . by taking my breath away with fresh insights into your incomparable and infinite grandeur! God, glorify yourself by shining into my mind the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ!”
1Jonathan Edwards, “Essay on the Trinity,” in Treatise on Grace and Other Posthumously Published Writings, ed. Paul Helm (Cambridge, Mass.: James Clarke, 1971), 118.
2John Piper, The Pleasures of God (Portland, Ore.: Multnomah, 1991), 215–216.