"No man is more relevant to the present condition of Christianity than Jonathan Edwards."
—D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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The pious Congregational minister Jonathan Edwards knew and preached the beauties of heaven as much as the terrors of damnation. He was a humble and joyful servant of God, striving to glorify God in his personal life and public ministry. His ministry serves a light to future generations. And his renown as a theologian and philosopher is well deserved. A God-Entranced Vision of All Things: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor chronicles the theological work of the late Jonathan Edwards, and elucidates upon some of the core themes of Edwards' ministry. Lutheran theologian Robert W. Jenson calls Edwards "America's theologian."

Jonathan Edwards, born on October 5, 1703, was the son of Timothy Edwards (1668–1759), a minister at East Windsor, Connecticut (modern day South Windsor.) His mother, Esther Stoddard was the daughter of the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton, Massachusetts. Esther seems to have been a woman of profound intellect and independence of mind. Jonathan, their only son, was the fifth of eleven children. Jonathan was trained for college by his family. He entered Yale College in 1716, at just under the age of thirteen. On February 15, 1727, he was ordained minister at Northampton Congregational Christian church and assistant to his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. That same year, Edwards married Sarah Pierpont. She was then aged seventeen and daughter of James Pierpont (1659–1714), a founder of Yale University and, and through her mother, great-granddaughter of Thomas Hooker.

In the late 1730s, the Puritan congregations, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, presided over a Great Awakening, which in turn, sparked revival in the churches, and invigorated believers in their faith, and brought in new converts. Edwards became acquainted with George Whitefield during this time. He also preached his most famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" in Enfield, Connecticut in 1741. Though, the Edwards who could warn people of God's wrath against sin, could also speak of the sweetness and joy of Christ. One of the core themes of the Puritans that they derived from Holy Scriptures was the holiness of God. From God's holiness emanates not only his justice, which entails wrath against sin, but also his love, which entails grace for believers, on account of Christ's righteousness.

Common to all of Edwards' theology and piety was a passion for God's glory. As a young man he reveled in what he called "sweet contemplations of my great and glorious God" and claimed, "Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God." In a work entitled The End for Which God Created the World (1765). Edwards carefully and logically defended the position that God's ultimate purpose is to glorify himself in all his works. Edwards applied this great truth to his own ministry as a pastor, theologian, scholar, and missionary by making it his passion to proclaim God's glory."
—Boice, James M. and Phillip Ryken, The Doctrines of Grace: Rediscovering the Evangelical Gospel, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002,) p. 49.

Edwards' theology, succinctly stated, could be encapsulated by the Westminster Shorter Cathecism's proclamation that "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

Jonathan Edwards was a tense, highly focused, and very intelligent man, a person of many parts. Ambitious too, while reserved and austere, as he himself recognized. Not just a preacher and revivalist, as he has come to be known to us through evangelical tradition, but a theologian, a philosopher, and a scientist. Part of the romance—or tragedy—of Edwards’ life is that he took it upon himself to play radically different roles at one and the same time. But he seems to have played each of these roles with characteristic thoroughness and commitment.
—Piper, John. A God Entranced Vision of All Things: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards. (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2004), p. 175.

Our reason for being, our calling, our joy is to render visible the glory of God. Edwards writes:

All that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God’s works is included in that one phrase, the glory of God. . . . The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary. The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God, and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair.
—Edwards, Jonathan, “The Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 8, Ethical Writings, ed. Paul Ramsey (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), 526, 531.

One of the core themes of Edwards' theology is that 'God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him:'

The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean. Therefore it becomes us to spend this life only as a journey toward heaven, as it becomes us to make the seeking of our highest end and proper good, the whole work of our lives; to which we should subordinate all other concerns of life. Why should we labour for, or set our hearts on, any thing else, but that which is our proper end, and true happiness?
—Edwards, Jonathan, “The Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 8, Ethical Writings, ed. Paul Ramsey (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), 531.

The Influence of the Puritans
Edwards belonged to a sect known as the Puritans who encompassed the earliest English migrants to the New World. C.S. Lewis said, "We must picture these Puritans as the very opposite of those who bear that name today: as young, fierce, progressive intellectuals, very fashionable and up-to-date. They were not teetotallers; bishops, not beer, were their special aversion..." For many generations, these Puritans were the "young bucks" who wanted to go all the way with God and the Bible.

If ever a group of Christians sought to glorify God in everything, it was the Puritans. Although the term "Puritan" has often been used as an insult, the Puritans themselves were simply Christians who wanted to honor God in their worship and doctrine. Richard Baxter, himself a leading Puritan pastor, defined them as "religious persons that used to talk of God, and heaven, and Scripture, and holiness." Their worldview is perhaps best encapsulated in the first answer in the Westminster Shorter Catechism: "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever."
—Boice, James M. and Phillip Ryken, The Doctrines of Grace: Rediscovering the Evangelical Gospel, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002.)

The Puritan's desire was for a yearning for the Holiness of God, and that deep yearning for the divine was nurtured amidst the sorrows and afflictions of life—and reinforced by the fellowship of believers. Puritan professed an abiding faith in the promises of God revealed in revelation. Their religious affections reflected their desire for righteousness. They saw providence in every aspect of life, and believed unflinchingly in the sovereignty of God. At the heart of Puritan theology was a concern for God's sovereignty: "God the great creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness and mercy" (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chp. 5. §1.)

God was to be praised even in the midst of loss, because the Almighty used even our afflictions and trials for our sanctification. ‘When God lays men on their backs, then they look up to heaven’, says Thomas Watson. ‘The vessels of mercy are first seasoned with affliction and then the wine of glory is poured in.’ Hence, even in the midst of loss, Puritans could savor the joy of God in eternity (2 Corinthians 4:17-18.)

The earliest Puritans were all English Calvinists who hoped to turn the entire Church of England into a Presbyterian national church—like Scotland's—and all of England into a Christian commonwealth modeled after Geneva. As the Elizabethan settlement became clearer and more firmly entrenched, they raised their voices in protest against what they considered 'popish' elements in the Anglican theology, worship and polity. That is, they considered the Church of England under Elizabeth and Hooker and the various archbishops of Canterbury too close to Roman Catholicism, and they sought to purge it and purify it of those 'Romish' beliefs and practices. All of them wanted to abolish the office of bishop and allow congregations to have greater say in choosing their ministers. They despised the Book of Common Prayer and sought simpler worship centered upon sermons. Most of them saw priestly vestments, incense, high altars, kneeling and genuflecting, and statues in churches as pernicious symbols of unbiblical, Catholic tendencies in the English churches. the label 'Puritan' was attached to them because of their desire to purify the English church of such traditions and bring it into conformity with their own vision of true Reformed theology and practice.
—Olson, Roger E., The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1999), 496.

The Puritans were not in lockstep unity, however, as they were divided over issues concerning baptism and the organization of church polity.

In the early decades of the seventeenth century the Puritans began to quarrel among themselves over the exact nature of the ideal church. Some of them wanted to stay with the Church of England no matter what and keep trying to reform it. Others insisted that the state church was hopelessly corrupt and polluted beyond reforming. These Puritans separated from the Anglican church and formed independent churches that followed a congregational form of church polity. Each church would be autonomous and self-governing, calling its own pastor and deciding on worship and practices. Among these radical, separatist Puritans were the so-called Pilgrims who settled first in Holland to escape persecution from the English government and then traveled on the Mayflower to to Massachusetts Bay in New England and founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. During the decade of the 1630s, thousands of Puritans left England and settled in New England wit the hope of establishing a Christian commonwealth. Most of them became congregationalists when they arrived in the New World, whereas the favored church polity of most Puritans was presbyterian.
—Olson, Roger E., The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1999), 496.

Another distinctive hallmark of Puritan theology was the covenant relationship between God and His elect:

Puritan divines faced one of the dilemmas of Calvinism head-on and sought to solve it through what is known as federal, or covenant theology. While this type of thinking about God's relationship with humanity was developed among Calvinists before the heyday of Puritanism, it was the Puritans—especially in New England—who made it central to their whole theology. One dilemma faced especially by Puritan Calvinists of New England was this: If human are to strive for conversion and sanctification (signs of grace,) how is it compatible with divine sovereignty in predestination? In other words, how may strong belief in predestination be reconciled with equally strong insistence on Puritan piety? For "if predestination affirms the ultimacy and final efficiency of God's choice, piety urges at least some effective free participation on the part of the human subject." A related dilemma was this: If God is so sovereign that His will is not bound by anything, including his own nature and character, how can believers ever be sure of their election? The underlying nominalism or at least divine voluntarism within high Calvinism raised this question intensely for Puritans who sought assurance of election through signs of grace. How can one trust God not to be capricious? Are the elect secure, or might God change His mind?

The solution to these and other problems was found in covenant theology, which affirms that God has initiated and bound himself to contracts with humans. The first covenant God offered to Adam and Eve was the covenant of works. God promise to bless them in paradise so long as they obeyed him and did not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The covenant of works was broken by humans and the result was exactly what the contract required—condemnation and corruption for covenant breakers. The Puritans assumed that all of Adam and Eve's posterity were born covenant breakers. They accepted the strong Augustinian idea that, as they put it, "in Adam's fall we sinned all." Part of the covenant of works was the condition that if original humans failed in their obligations, their posterity would suffer corruption and condemnation. God's covenants are not just with individuals. They are collective and apply to groups in history.

Covenant theology posited a second contract God mercifully established with fallen humanity—the covenant of grace. According to it, "God's promises of redemption and renewal are to those who will receive them in faith and respond to them in obedience. The good news is proclaimed but a requirement is exacted. The covenant of grace requires only that humans be sorrowful for their sinfulness, believe God and trust in his promises (e.g., to provide a perfect sacrifice for sin,0 and strive to glorify him in their lives. As the nineteenth century gospel song says, "Trust and obey.
"—Olson, Roger E., The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1999), 501-502.

Additionally, another climatic "hallmark of Puritan theology was the ideal of a Christianized society:

New England Puritans especially believed fervently in what has been called theonomy, or "kingdom now theology." That is, they believed that one of the God's promises in the covenant is not only to bless individuals, families and the church for trusting and obeying but also to bless human society if it will strive for godliness in its order. The Puritans believed in God's promises of blessing to Israel applies to them as extension of Israel under the second phase of covenant of grace known as the new covenant. The church is the 'New Israel' and the kingdom of God on earth is promise to it if it permeates all of human society and brings social structures into confirmity with God's law. When the Puritans exiled themselves from England in the 1630s, they sought a New World where this Christian commonwealth (modeled after Calvin's Geneva) could be built unhindered by the godless crown and impure state church. They saw North America as the promised land and sought to occupy it for God and his kingdom.
—Olson, Roger E., The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1999), 503.

After leaving Northhampton, Jonathan Edwards declined posts in Virginia and England to become, in 1750, pastor of the congregational church in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and a missionary to the Housatonic Indians. To the Indians, Edwards preached the Gospel message through an interpreter. Their interests Edwards boldly and successfully defended by decrying the whites who were exploiting and oppressing the Indians. Edwards believed that the Gospel should be preached in earnest to all peoples throughout the Americas.

Closing Salvos
So, do we need the Puritans today? It is no understatement to say that the rebound of Reformed theology in the late 1990s and twenty-first century owes to the resurgence of interests in the old Puritans. Christianity Today journalist Collin Hansen recently chronicled the popularity of Reformed theology with young twenty-somethings, in his book Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists, which grew out of a 2006 article in Christianity Today:

In many ways the Calvinist resurgence that Piper is leading owes more to the British Puritans than even Calvin or any other stream of Reformed theology. John Owen, known for penetrating insight into sanctification, emerged as the top theologian from the era of Puritan rule in Britain. John Bunyan endured persecution for his Puritan faith and produced the defining work of Christian pilgrimage literature, Pilgrim's Progress. Charles Spurgeon, a Baptist like Bunyan, zealously evangelized and during 1800s built possibly the world's first megachurch. Jonathan Edwards, the only American whose portrait hung in the library, died nearly two decades before the colonies became the United States. In recommending Desiring God, J.I. Packer said, "Jonathan Edwards, whose ghost walks through most of Piper's pages, would be delighted in his disciple."
—Hansen, Collin. Young, Restless, and Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists. (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2008), p. 35.

Related Reading:

Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

The English Puritan's Beginnings - A Puritan's Mind

The Example of the English Puritans - Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings

In Defence of the Puritans - Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings

The Pilgrims & Puritans: Total Reformation for the Glory of God - Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings

"God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him."
—John Piper

"Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness."
—Genesis 15:6

Solomon Stoddard, (the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards,) wrote in his book The Righteousness of Christ, the summation of the righteousness of the law:

It is sufficient for us if we have the righteousness of the law. There is no danger of our miscarrying if we have that righteousness. The security of the angels in Heaven is that they have the righteousness of the law, and it is a sufficient security for us if we have the righteousness of the law. If we have the righteousness of the law, then we are not liable to curse of the law. We are not threatened by the law; justice is not provoked with us; the condemnation of the law can take no hold upon us; the law has nothing to object against our salvation. The soul that has the righteousness of the law is out of the reach of the threatenings of the law. Where the demand of the law is answered, God has bound himself to give eternal life. Such persons are heirs to give eternal life. Such are heirs of life, according to the promise of the law. The law declared them heirs of life, Galatians 3:12, 'The man that doth them, shall live in them.'

One of the hallmarks of the Reformation was the doctrine of imputation. It is by the imputation of Christ's righteousness on the basis of faith that believers are justified in the eyes of God. Through, Christ, our sin debt is wiped clean, and we are reconciled to God the Father in love. Stoddard's remarks ultimately hearken to the doctrine of imputation.

According to the Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, imputation is "a transfer of benefit or harm from one individual to another. In theology imputation may be used negatively to refer to the transfer of the sin and guilt of Adam to the rest of humankind. Positively, imputation refers to the righteousness of Christ being transfered to those who believe on him for salvation."

In Romans 4:3 Paul quotes Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.” Thus the idea of “imputation” is introduced by the word “credited” from Genesis 15:6. This idea of imputation or crediting is introduced in connection with Romans 4:2 to show that Abraham was not “justified by works.” (“If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about.”) So Paul is forging the link here between “justification” and “imputation.” We know, Paul says, that Abraham was not “justified” by works because Genesis 15:6 says “faith was credited to him for righteousness.” Thus we learn that when Paul thinks of the justifying work of God he thinks of the imputing or crediting work of God. How then does Paul conceive of this crediting or imputing work of God? There are clues as we consider the flow of thought through verses 4-6.
—Piper, John. Counted Righteous in Christ: Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness. (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2002), pp. 54-55.

Did Jesus Die on the Cross and Bring the Gospel Message Into the World So You Could Own BMW and be rich? I was watching TV once at a friend's house, and we were channel surfing and stumbled upon televangelist Joel Osteen, and stopped long enough to hear him say, "You can have a better life, a better car, a better house..." In other words, he is just appealing to touchy-feely positive messages, the health-and-wealth non-sense. It's about making people feel good in much the same way secular humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow can speak of gratification of our needs and our self-actualization! It's holier than thou heterodoxy garbled in religiosity and "Christian clothing" for the spoiled "me generation" of the 1960s. Before I could just accuse Joel of being a fluff preacher, until I heard of the Larry King interview with Olsteen. In a nutshell, Joel struggles to affirm that Christ is truly the only way! Having said that, it's all the more reason to devote an expose of a false teacher... Joel tacitly denies John 14:6 when asked about the salvation of Jews and Muslims who have not accepted Christ: "You know, I'm very careful about saying who would and wouldn't go to heaven. I don't know ..." There are hundreds, even thousands of Joel Osteens—errant, false prosperity theologians who preach idolatry wrapped and clothed as "Gospel" and echoing the name of "Jesus." Millions are deceived into believing that Christianity promises near-Heaven on Earth—as if prayer can be used as incantations for summoning wealth.

Christ is gain. It is true that every blessing is a providence of God. God's design for this natural order to reward deliberation, hard work, labor, frugality and saving over the course of time. Indeed, God does prosper many of His flock. But "Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother,..." (Ps. 49:6) Job was counted blessed of God, and was prospered after much suffering, but prosperity is not promised—none whatsoever on this earth. Prosperity is part of God's common grace, and ironically too, the Bible admits that riches are a stumbling block to all men. Riches impedes their desire for spiritual concerns. God often humbles His servants first in preparation for a blessing that they might be exalted.

This life is a vapor. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal" (Mt. 6:18-20.) As Stonewall Jackson used to quote to his wife, "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." (2 Cor. 5:1) Where are your treasures?

Related Reading:
Joel Osteen: False Teacher