Jonathan Edwards was a key American preacher and theologian of the First Great Awakening who emphasized God’s sovereignty, personal conversion, and a changed life as evidence of true faith. Raised in a devout Puritan home, he became pastor of a large congregation and sparked a powerful revival through his passionate sermons, including his famous "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Edwards believed the natural world revealed God’s wisdom and that genuine spiritual renewal came from the heart, themes reflected in biblical passages like Psalm 19 and Romans 10. Despite controversy and dismissal from his church, he continued missionary work and later became president of Princeton before his death. His writings and revival legacy deeply influenced American evangelicalism and continue to inspire Christians and missionaries today.
Jonathan Edwards was an American theologian and preacher largely responsible for the First Great Awakening. Edwards is often considered America's most important philosophical theologian and founding father of American Evangelicalism.
Edwards was born into a Christian family. At thirteen, he studied theology at Yale. At twenty-four, Edwards was ordained as a minister in the Congregational Church and became assistant to his maternal grandfather, Reverend Solomon Stoddard, in Northampton, MA. He also married his wife, Sarah Pierpont, the daughter of the founder of Yale College, that same year, writing in his journals about how Sarah's spiritual devotion and personal relationship with God inspired him. Edwards devoted thirteen hours per day to studying, even in his new role as minister and husband. Just two years later, his grandfather passed away, leaving Edwards in charge of the largest and wealthiest congregation in the colony.
Edwards was a staunch Calvinist who preached emotionally moving sermons using a quiet voice to slowly move his hearers from point to point. People responded with vocal outcries, swooning, and even convulsions. More strictly Puritan churches criticized Edwards's appeal to emotions and especially his audience’s bodily reactions to these conversion experiences. Edwards argued that the Bible holds plenty of examples of such responses to spiritual encounters (1 Samuel 10:6; Ezekiel 1:28; 44:4; Daniel 8:18; Acts 2:37; Revelation 1:17). Besides, he maintained that the evidence of true conversion would be a changed life lived out afterwards.
A revival began in Edwards’ church that lasted two years and spread so widely that when George Whitefield came to America, he and Edwards connected over their shared passion to preach the gospel. Whitefield even preached at Edwards's church a sermon that brought Edwards to tears. Revival began again in New England and Jonathan Edwards preached his most famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," to great effect on July 8, 1741 in Enfield, CT. Many people repented and professed faith that day, so the sermon was delivered again on other occasions in other places.
A disagreement between Edwards and his church congregation arose in 1748 over the requirements for receiving communion. Edwards was eventually dismissed from the position in 1750 and later took on the pastorate of a smaller church in Stockbridge, MA. During his time in Stockbridge, he also acted as a missionary to a native tribe of Mohicans (Housatonnoc).
In 1758, Edwards's son-in-law, Aaron Burr Sr., who was president of the College of New Jersey (which became Princeton University), died and Edwards was asked to take on the presidency of the college. He took the role, but died only one month later after succumbing to complications from a smallpox inoculation.
Jonathan Edwards's influence continues today through his vast collection of writings available both online and in print. He studied the spiritual process of conversion during the Great Awakening and recorded his observations and insights of the religious activity during his time. He wrote sermons, discourses, essays, treatises, and even a memoir called The Life of David Brainerd which inspired thousands of readers to become missionaries. Unfortunately, in a 1741 pamphlet, Jonathan Edwards, like George Whitefield, defended slavery in America for those born enslaved, in debt, or captured in war. However, despite ten years earlier having purchased at least one black teenager brought from Africa, Edwards did condemn the trans-Atlantic slave trade and call for its end. Edwards's writings show him to have been a man of deep thought, deep study, and deep conviction.
Jonathan Edwards sincerely desired to see people respond to the gospel and spent his life spreading that message. Many missionaries and pastors have credited Edwards's writings for their own desire to work in the ministry. Among them are missionaries Francis Asbury, David Livingstone, and Jim Elliot and pastors John Piper and Tim Keller.
Jonathan Edwards is an example of the lasting effects God can bring about when a person devotes himself to sharing the good news of salvation by grace through faith alone.
Quotes by Jonathan Edwards:
“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked.”
“True conversion consists in the soul’s giving up itself to God, and receiving Christ.”
“Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.”
“God is glorified not only by our enjoying Him, but by our rejoicing in Him.”
“The enjoyment of God is the highest happiness that the creature is capable of.”
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