Religious Affections in Modern, Simplified English

by Jonathan Edwards, Scott Tipton

Six months in the top 100 of Christian Discipleship on Amazon, and four months in the top 50! Now available in large print!

How do I know if what I hear from God is really from God? How can I know if I am truly redeemed? How can I tell what emotions come from me, and what come from the Holy Spirit?

In a classic work that has only become more and more relevant, Jonathan Edwards delivers a masterful summation of what it means to be a true Christian. Learn how to distinguish the words of the Holy Spirit from the whisperings of the flesh as Edwards dissects the tendencies of the false Christian and lays bare the characteristics of a true regeneration in Christ.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) has been called the greatest philosophical theologian America ever produced. He played a critical role in the Great Awakening of the 1730's and 1740's, and was the first president of the college that later became Princeton University. His sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is considered by many to be the most influential sermon ever preached in the United States, and his theological writings provided the foundation for many abolitionist teachers and preachers of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Draw near to God in a new way and adore Him for who He is as you enjoy the razor-sharp reasoning of one of the world's greatest theologians, now delivered in clear, modern prose!

601 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 1, 2022

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database named Jonathan Edwards.

Jonathan Edwards was the most eminent American philosopher-theologian of his time, and a key figure in what has come to be called the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s.

The only son in a family of eleven children, he entered Yale in September, 1716 when he was not yet thirteen and graduated four years later (1720) as valedictorian. He received his Masters three years later. As a youth, Edwards was unable to accept the Calvinist sovereignty of God. However, in 1721 he came to what he called a "delightful conviction" though meditation on 1 Timothy 1:17. From that point on, Edwards delighted in the sovereignty of God. Edwards later recognized this as his conversion to Christ.

In 1727 he was ordained minister at Northampton and assistant to his maternal grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. He was a student minister, not a visiting pastor, his rule being thirteen hours of study a day. In the same year, he married Sarah Pierpont, then age seventeen, daughter of Yale founder James Pierpont (1659–1714). In total, Jonathan and Sarah had eleven children.

Stoddard died on February 11th, 1729, leaving to his grandson the difficult task of the sole ministerial charge of one of the largest and wealthiest congregations in the colony. Throughout his time in Northampton his preaching brought remarkable religious revivals.

Yet, tensions flamed as Edwards would not continue his grandfather's practice of open communion. Stoddard believed that communion was a "converting ordinance." Surrounding congregations had been convinced of this, and as Edwards became more convinced that this was harmful, his public disagreement with the idea caused his dismissal in 1750.

Edwards then moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, then a frontier settlement, where he ministered to a small congregation and served as missionary to the Housatonic Indians. There, having more time for study and writing, he completed his celebrated work, The Freedom of the Will (1754).

Edwards was elected president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) in early 1758. He was a popular choice, for he had been a friend of the College since its inception. He died of fever at the age of fifty-four following experimental inoculation for smallpox and was buried in the President's Lot in the Princeton cemetery beside his son-in-law, Aaron Burr.

Reviews

[Natasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tried reading the original work and was struggling. This version is a blessing. Wonderfully edifying. An exhortation to engage your heart and affection in your worship of God. Was impacted/ convicted in his discussion of evidence of true grace in a believer's life. Will need to re read in the future.

[Jon Den Houter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The table of contents gives you the idea that in this book, Jonathan Edwards is going to cover religious affections (that is, religious emotions) backwards and forwards; no stone will be left unturned; every possible point from the Scriptures pertaining to this topic will be expounded. Surprisingly, however, this seemingly exhaustive treatise on religious affections only begins to cover the subject. For example, many of the biblical passages that best pertain to religious affections and how to judge professing believers by them, Edwards does not even mention (unless I missed them in the footnotes, though I don't think I did).

The most salient example of this is 2 Corinthians 11:21, 12:2-4. "Whatever anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about.... I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell." Here Paul shows the Corinthians what not to do: talking about himself in the third person, he shows them not to boast about their spiritual experiences as evidence of their elite status as Christians. Rather, what Paul says matters is "walking by the Spirit" (2 Cor 12:18). This would have been the perfect text to expound, but Edwards doesn't even mention it!

In general, Edwards does not expound on Scripture at all. (He does mention Scripture a lot in passing or as footnotes at the bottom of some chapters.) This is not a criticism of the biblical integrity of Edwards' work, for I believe Edwards has so studied Scripture that he thinks scripturally, along the lines of the Bible without even having to refer to specific passages. Nonetheless, it surprised me that there is so little Biblical exposition in this book.

So, if there is hardly any Biblical exposition in this book, what do all these parts and sections contain? Here I will go through the pages I dog-eared, and there are many, to show you the kinds of comments Edward fills this book with.

I.VIII, Edwards explains that when people come to faith, the normal order of the affections are fear, conviction, and peace. While some people object to this order, he argues that "these objections have no basis in logic, nor the Scriptures." He gives many OT and NT examples of this order. However, he says that just having affections in this order does not PROVE one is a true Christian, for the first step of this chain of affections, fear, can be wrought by Satan: "Satan, if permitted, can terrify man in many ways." And even if the Holy Spirit is the agent causing the person to experience the first step in the chain, "the heart's corruption may quench the Spirit's fire by leading me to self-exalting hopes and joys. Not every woman who is in labor gives birth."

I.XI Edwards criticizes the false teaching that no matter what a Christian does, they should not doubt the truth of their salvation. This is wrong because a believer SHOULD doubt the assurance of their salvation if they are living in sin. "It is natural in man that when love decays, fear arises—God has ordered man's heart in this way so that when his love for God grows weak, he might be protected from sin by a reverent fear [left by the Spirit].... Therefore, those who encourage others to be confident in the redemption of Christ while they live in a carnal state directly oppose the natural ordering of God in the heart of man. This has a tendency to form the most diabolical hypocrites, who never question the assurance of their salvation no matter how fiercely their wickedness rages; under the banner of honoring God by hoping against hope, believing in His great mercy, and confidently trusting in His goodness, they turn a blind eye to themselves."

II.XII Edwards refers to the parable of the weeds and wheat, and quotes Bible teacher Mr. Flavel as saying, "The human eye can more easily discern [between a weed and wheat] than it can tell the difference between special and common grace." Edwards says the only way you can tell these two apart is by the fruit: "It is the flower of the fruit which allows us to discern what is wheat from what is weed. This is the true Shibboleth that He who stands as judge at the banks of the Jordan uses to distinguish those who may cross the Jordan into the true Canaan from those who should be slain at the shore."

III.I is about how people believe themselves to be saved because of a special experience. He gives an example of someone who believes they are saved because the Spirit of God brings a verse to his or her mind. He argues that "if the Spirit of God suggests a verse of the Bible to a man's mind, this is a common influence [common grace], not a gracious influence [special grace]." Further, he argues that "the foundation of [this person's confidence that he or she is saved] is not the message contained in the Scriptures, but in the manner in which the messages came to them." To correct any possible misunderstanding of his point, Edwards writes, "A truly spiritual application of an invitation of the gospel consists in giving the soul a spiritual sense of the divine blessing offered, and a relish of the holiness and excellency of the One who is offering." Edwards gives the example of Balaam as someone who received a common influence of the Spirit—in his case, a prophecy—that was not gracious because it did not touch Balaam's heart. "The witness of the Spirit [that John speaks of in 1 John 4:18] is not any whisper or revelation or delivered word—it is the gracious, holy effect of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of saints manifesting in sweet, childlike love to God, which casts out fear."

III.II Edwards argues that joy is not a telltale sign of a Christian, for non-Christians can have joy. The difference, he says, is that the hypocrite "rejoices in himself, and self is the first foundation of his joy--but the latter [the true saint] rejoices in God." Later, he writes, "as the love and joy of hypocrites come from self-love, so their other affections, their sorrow for sin, their humility and submission, religious desires and zeal—everything stems from God gratifying their ambitions in their own imaginations, exalting them highly and making much of them.... But as to truly gracious affections, they are built elsewhere. They have their foundation in Christ; therefore a discovery of themselves, of their own deformity, and the meanness and simplicity of their experiences... will not destroy them [like it would the hypocrite]."

III.III Edward further explains the difference between believers and non-believers. He writes, "Natural men have no sense of the goodness and excellency of holy things for the sake of their holiness, because they have no taste for that kind of good; it may be said of them that they do not know that divine goodness, that they cannot see it. But the saints, by the mighty power of God, have had this revealed to them—they have that supernatural, divine sense given to them by which they can perceive it, and it is this that captives their hearts and delights them above all else." Later he specifies that by this gracious gift, believers can see the "beauty" of God's holiness whereas "wicked men and devils will have a sense of everything that pertains to the glory of God" except they cannot see the beauty of it.

III.IV&V Edwards further specifies what is so beautiful about God's holiness: his moral perfections. His moral perfection shines light on the perfection of Christ's way of redemption, "because this way delivers us from sin and Hell, bringing us to the happiness which is formed by the possession and enjoyment of moral good." What's more, "he who sees the beauty of holiness, or true moral good, sees the greatest and most important thing in the world... therefore, the man who does not know this, knows nothing. His knowledge is only the shadow of knowledge, or, as the apostle calls it, the form of knowledge. It is truly, then, that the Scriptures represent those who do not have the spiritual sense as blind, deaf, senseless, even dead, and aptly do they describe regeneration as the opening of blind eyes, the raising of the dead, the bringing of a new person in the world... he has become a new creation—the old things have passed away, and behold, all thigns have been made new." I also really like this analogy: "A mathematician could labor for days to determine by his numbers the most direct path to the center of the Earth, but a falling stone reveals it in a moment. In this way, a spiritual disposition and taste teaches and guides a man in his behavior in the world." Additionally, I love his comment on 2 Peter 1:16-18, "The apostle calls that mountain 'the holy mountain' because the manifestation of Christ which were made there to their minds were the glory of His holiness, the beauty of His moral excellency." Finally, he ends his chpater by explicating how the gospel "does not beg for evidence as much as some believe it does; its evidence is with it, in itself." That evidence is the beauty of God's moral perfections, his holiness. "The miracles that Christ performed proved effectual to convince the disciples, but not the Pharisees and Scribes [because] their reason was sanctified." Edwards uses the example of the Houssatunnuck Indians, who recently made known their desire to be instructed in Christianity. Happy for those Indians, Edwards says that education is NOT the path to knowing the gospel (not that Christian education is bad) but rather the Holy Spirit-given spiritual ability to "taste," like honey, the beauty of God's holiness.

III.VI Other authors have noticed what Edwards asserts in this chapter: "It seems to be the nature of spiritual pride to make men conceited of their humility." But what sets Edwards apart is his deep dive into this idea; his exposition helped me understand a passage that has always puzzled me, Luke 17:7-10 (although Edwards doesn't reference these verses). Edwards writes, "If a poor slave bends down to [untie the shoelaces of another and wash his feet], no one will notice, not even the slave (unless he is horribly proud). For a slave to object to such a thing would cause great astonishment among those around him—they would cry out, 'Who do you believe yourself to be?' ... When [a] person says in his heart, 'This is a great act of humility; certainly, I am truly humble, that I should feel and do this,' what this person means is, 'This is a great act of humility for a great one such as myself.'"

Spirit-empowered humility, by contrast, "disposes a man to think others better than himself, such as in Philippians 2:3.... The Christians that are really the most eminent saints, and therefore have the most excellent experiences, humble themselves like a little child, because they look on themselves as little children in grace. All their achievements are but the achievements of babes in Christ; they are astonished and ashamed by the low degrees of their love and thankfulness and their little knowledge of God." Moreover, "the person who is pront=e to think that he is an emeinent saint in comparison with others, who believes himself to have had wonderful examples of God's power revealed through him above and beyond the experiences of most, and who sees thsi thoughts rise in his heart often and on its own, naturally offering itself as a FRUIT [emphasis mine] of his own state... this person is certainly wrong... He is under the influence of a proud and self-righteous spirit. If this is a habitual condition of the man and a constantly dominating thought of his mind, he is no saint at all; he is not a Christian; and has not even a taste of true grace, as surely as the Word of God is true."

III.VII can be summed up as follows: A true experience at the altar of God's grace will truly alter a person.

III.VIII Edwards explains that true Christian fortitude is not fierce, directed outward against the non-Christian world, but humble, directed inward against one's own sinful nature. He backs up his argument with Proverbs 16:32, "Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city." He gives much spiritual evidence for his point in this chapter, including his point that often in Scripture, a righteous man and a merciful man are synonyms (see Isaiah 57:1 NKJV for one such example).

III.IX Many Christian authors have noted that repentance doesn't end with conversion; rather, repentance is an ongoing facet of the life of a true Christian. Edwards agrees with this and deepens it: not only is repentance ongoing for a true Christian, but their heart, through the work of the Holy Spirit, becomes increasingly tender to sin. He notes the increasing sensitivity of David's heart to his sin as an excellent example of this: "David's heart... pained him when he had cut off a part of Saul's garment." Edwards also points out in this chapter that "the diminishing of the fear of God's displeasure in future punishment [as a Christian grows in their trust of the all-sufficiency of Christ] brings about a proportional increase of fear of His displeasure in and of itself."

III.X I highlighted this quote: "Some seem to be very zealous against profanity or revealing clothing... but he that has true zeal puts it to use against his own sins first." Also this: "if a man appears greatly engaged in the religion of the social sphere, but not much engaged in the religion of the closet, it is a very bad sign for the state of that man's affections."

III.XI Idolatry is a sin because it displaces the greatest good, God, for a lesser good. So, if God is truly the greatest good, we should find in God our highest happiness and satisfaction. Along these lines, Edwards writes, "Spiritual good is satisfying because there is enough in it to satisfy the soul. If men be not satisfied [in Christ] enough to rest, the fault lies in themselves." The rest doesn't mean we no longer seek God, however; in the true Christian, Edwards says, there is "a holy breathing and panting after the Spirit of God to increase holiness."

III.XII Edwards continues his point that the rest that a true Christian experiences in God does not mean she becomes passive. On the contrary, she is told to "be zealous to do good works" in Titus 2:14, and elsewhere to wrestle, "press towards the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus... and run with patience the race that is set before." (Edwards alludes here, of course, to Philippians 3:14 and Hebrews 12:1). In this connection, Edwards makes an interesting point about trials: "It is God's manner to be trials on His children intentionally, [not to determine the degree of that person's faith, for God already knows this without needing to test them, but rather to] display the nature of their conviction to their own consciences and, sometimes, to the world." Edwards talks about this more under the III.XII subheading "Argument II."

Edwards also helped me understand the mysterious phrase in the Bible "the power of the resurrection"—this means the Holy Spirit producing fruit in us, which Edwards says is "a kind of captivity, gaining a full and steadfast inclination of the will towards God and holiness." Edwards explains this with a great analogy: "holy living is as much the fruit of what God does for His children as the fruit of a field is the result of the labor of the farmer." This is foreshadowed in the tabernacle, Edwards points out, specifically in "the flowers [on the candlesticks that shed light into the world, which] contained the principle of fruit, [and the golden bells and pomegranates] on the ephod, the garment of Aaron, the high priest.

Another interesting quote from this chapter is this: "By the sight of the transcendent glory of Christ, true Christians see Him worthy to be followed." This reminds me of kids who look up to the glorious performance of LeBron James and want to be like him in every way. (Of course, Christ is much more glorious than LeBron, but the world, not having spiritual sight, does not see this.).

Also, Edwards makes the point that sinners "will part with some of their sins, but not all; they will leave the grosser acts, but not their lusts in the lesser indulgences of them. But we must part with all our sins."

"Argument II." Edwards argues strongly that "holy living in the midst of trials is the greatest evidence of sincerity to their own consciences." God does not need evidence of the sincerity of our faith, for He knows our hearts, but we need evidence for ourselves. Edwards gives a great illustration of this with the rich young ruler in Matthew 19. The rich young ruler believed himself to be sincere in his faith: "All these [commands] I have kept" (19:20). So Jesus gives him a trial to show the rich young ruler he is not as sincere as he believes himself to be: "Christ tried him by telling him to go and sell all that he had and give to the poor, and take up his cross and follow Him, that he should receive treasure in Heaven."

Argument III. Edwards makes an excellent point from the fact that the same Greek word appears in both James 2:22 and James 1:15:

"You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete (teleo) by what he did."

"Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown (apoteleo), gives birth to death."

His point is that the proper end and ultimate goal of grace is holy living (AKA fruits of the Spirit), just as the proper end and ultimate goal of sin is wicked living.

Argument VI. At the final judgement, Edwards says, the test of whether or not we have received God's grace will be our fruit (in a footnote, he gives lots of Biblical evidence for this). Thus, it makes sense that we can test ourselves before the Day of Judgment by looking at our own fruit. He also made the interesting point that we can test our own hearts by the parables of the pearl of great price and the treasure hidden in the field: Is God's grace indeed such a treasure in our lives that we have sold everything we have to attain it?

Objection I. "The workings of grace that Christians find within themselves... should not be discounted simply because they have to do with behavior or living a holy life rather than something more spectacular."

Objection II. Edwards asserts holy living is NOT the price of God's favor... "holiness is merely an indication of God's favor."

[Jonathan Prudhomme · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is incredibly helpful and surprisingly has *many* applications to our modern evangelical landscape. I especially appreciated Edwards’ thoughts on the proportionality of the fruit of the Spirit/holy affections in the life of the believer. This is particularly applicable today in a world that encourages the emphasis of certain virtues at the expense of others in order to bolster one’s own tribe.

[Valerie Romero · Rating 5 out of 5]

a great update for a fave edwards book.... might be a better option for a group read :)