Latest / Reformed Thinking / A Divine and Supernatural Light (Matthew 16:17) | Jonathan Edwards

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A Divine and Supernatural Light (Matthew 16:17) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome back to the show you are listening to Reformed Thinking.
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It's good to be here. Today we are cracking open a
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file that is honestly a little intimidating, but in the best
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possible way. We are talking about Jonathan
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Edwards. The big one.
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Yeah, the heavyweight champion. And no, poor you guys.
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We are not talking about sinners in the hands of an angry God.
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We are not dangling spiders over fires today.
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No spiders today, though to be fair, that sermon is Yeah, it's
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often misunderstood as well. It's actually a sermon about
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God's restraining grace. But no, that's for another day.
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Right today we are looking at something arguably more
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essential, more foundational to how a person even comes to have
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faith in the first place. We are digging into a sermon he
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preached in 1734 called A Divine and Supernatural Light.
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That title alone sets a certain tone, doesn't it?
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A divine and supernatural light. It sounds, you know, a bit
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mystical, maybe a little vague. It does.
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It sounds like something you'd see on a new age bookshelf.
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Exactly. But as we're going to see,
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Edwards is incredibly precise. He's a philosopher's theologian.
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He's not just throwing words around, Not at all.
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And since this is Reformed thinking, that is the name of
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the game. We want to understand not just
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what the Bible says, but how the theology of the Reformation
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helps us understand how our minds and hearts actually
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function. How does this all work?
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And Edwards is the master of that.
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He is the great psychologist of the human soul under God.
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He really is, and this specific sermon is a masterpiece because
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it tackles a question that I think every Christian has asked,
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or at least should ask at some point.
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What is the actual difference between knowing about God like,
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you know, memorizing the catechism, knowing the Bible
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stories? You could ace a theology exam.
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You can have all the data points.
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Right. What's the difference between
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that and actually knowing God? That's the question, The
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distinction between a notional knowledge and a real spiritual
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experiential knowledge. It's everything.
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It's the difference between a textbook and a relationship.
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Or, as we will see Edwards put it later, the difference between
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reading a menu and actually eating the meal.
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That's a great way to put it because you could admire the
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menu. You can know all the
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ingredients, you can even tell other people what's on it.
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But if you never taste the food. You're still starving.
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You're still starving, right? So what we're looking at today
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are the mechanics of faith. How does a human being born in
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sin, dead in trespasses actually come to believe?
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Is it because they're smarter than their neighbor?
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Or because they were raised in the right house with the right
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parents is. It an act of their own will?
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Or is there something else, something external, something,
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well, divine and supernatural, that has to happen to the very
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mechanism of the soul? So let's set the stage.
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Edwards is in Northampton, MA. It's 1734.
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This is right on the cusp of the Great Awakening.
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This is the calm before the storm.
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The spiritual tender is very dry.
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He's been preaching faithfully and people are beginning to
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respond in unusual ways. And he stands up to preach on a
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very specific passage, Matthew 16, starting at verse 17.
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Why does he choose this specific text as his launchpad?
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Because it's the perfect case study for this very distinction.
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It's a laboratory example of what he's talking about.
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So walk us through the scene. What's happening in Matthew 16?
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Well, Jesus is with his disciples and he essentially
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asks them a polling question. He wants to get a feel for the
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public opinion. He asked who do people say that
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I am? He wants the word on the street.
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Exactly. And the disciples give him the
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rundown. It's all over the map.
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Some say you're John the Baptist come back from the dead.
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Some say you're Elijah or Jeremiah or just one of the
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prophets. Which sounds incredibly modern,
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honestly. You go out today and ask who
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Jesus is and you'll get 100 different.
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Answers you will He's a good teacher.
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A moral example, a political revolutionary, a myth, a failed
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apocalyptic prophet. The data points are everywhere.
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People see the same evidence, the life of Jesus, and come to
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wildly different conclusions. They do.
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But then Jesus gets personal. He turns the spotlight directly
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on the disciples. He says, But who do you say that
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I am? He closes the distance.
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And this is where Peter steps up.
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Classic Peter, always the first to speak.
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Impulsive, bold, brash Peter. And he says, Thou art the
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Christ, the Son of the living God.
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He just, he nails it. It's the perfect, concise,
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doctrinally sound confession of faith.
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A plus the answer to the whole Old Testament was pointing to.
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But what is so fascinating, and what Edwards just zeroes in on,
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is Jesus reaction. Jesus does not say, good job
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Peter, you've really been studying.
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He doesn't praise Peter's intellect.
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No, he says something that must have been a bit stunning.
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He says, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood
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have not revealed it unto thee, but my father, which is in
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heaven. OK, let's unpack that phrase.
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Flesh and blood. That's a phrase we hear a lot,
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usually just meaning being human or family.
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But in this context, what is Jesus excluding?
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He is methodically excluding every possible natural source
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for this knowledge, flesh and blood.
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Here is a comprehensive term for all of unaided human nature.
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So it's not just other people didn't tell you.
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No, it's much bigger than that. It means your own reason didn't
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figure this out. Your own senses, what you saw
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with your eyes and heard with your ears, weren't the ultimate
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cause. The testimony of others wasn't
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the cause. Human tradition wasn't the
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cause. So Jesus is telling Peter, you
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did not arrive at this conclusion because you are
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smarter than the Pharisees. You did not deduce this because
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you analyzed the data better. Exactly.
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Think about it. The scribes and Pharisees were
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arguably the most educated men of their day.
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They were the experts in the law.
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They had the Old Testament memorized.
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They saw the same miracles Peter saw.
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They heard the same sermons. They had more data than Peter
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did, arguably. In a way, yes, they had the
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theological training, but they looked at Jesus and saw a
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blasphemer, a demon possessed madman.
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Peter looked at the same man and saw the Son of the living God.
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The data was the same. The conclusion was opposite.
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Why? Because the source of Peter's
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knowledge was different. That's it.
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It wasn't flesh and blood. It was a direct revelation from
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my Father, which is in heaven. And this is the blessing Jesus
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refers to. He calls Peter blessed or happy.
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Why is he happy? Because he has been the
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recipient of a special gift. He's been singled out.
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Yes, the blessing isn't in having the right answer like on
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a quiz show. The blessing is in how he got
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the right answer. He was blessed because God the
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Father bypassed the normal broken channels of flesh and
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blood and revealed this truth directly to His soul.
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It's a distinguishing love, then.
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It's not universal. It was specific to Peter in that
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moment and by extension to the other disciples who believed.
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It is. It suggests that two people can
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be presented with the exact same object, the person of Jesus
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Christ, and one sees a stumbling block and the other sees the
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cornerstone. The difference isn't in the
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object, it's in the eye of the beholder, or rather in what is
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happening to the eye of the beholder.
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Which brings us right to the main doctrine Edwards pulls from
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the text. This is the thesis of the whole
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sermon, and really the thesis of our whole deep dive today.
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Let's hear it. Edward says that there is such a
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thing as a spiritual and divine light immediately imparted to
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the soul by God of a different nature from any that is obtained
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by natural means. Every word in that sentence is
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chosen with surgical precision. Let's focus on 2 words
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immediately imparted. That sounds technical, but it
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seems crucial to understanding what he's saying it.
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Is the hinge of the whole argument.
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The immediate here does not mean instance like it happens in a
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split second, though it might. It means without a medium,
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without a middleman. So usually we learn things
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through media. I learn about science through
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textbook, I learn about current events through a news broadcast.
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Those are the mediums. Right.
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And God often uses means. He uses the preaching of the
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Word, He uses our parents. He uses our own minds and
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rational faculties. But Edwards is arguing that this
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specific light, this specific sense of the reality and beauty
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of God, comes directly from the Spirit to the soul.
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It's a direct transaction. It's God touching the soul
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without a glove. There is no secondary 'cause
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that produces this light. God Himself is the direct and
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sole author of it. And the second part of that
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phrase of a different nature, it's not just more light like
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turning a dimmer switch up. No, this is critical.
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It's not just a higher degree of what natural reason can do, it's
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a different kind of light altogether.
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It's the difference between moonlight and sunlight.
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Moonlight is just reflected sunlight.
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It's the same kind of light. This is different.
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This is a new kind of perception, a new sense given to
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the soul. OK, so we have this claim on the
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table. There is a special light, a
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unique way of seeing that comes only from God directly.
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But Edwards being Edwards, doesn't just leave it there.
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He's a good pastor. He knows people are going to
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misunderstand this. He does.
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He anticipates the objections and the confusions, so that the
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first major part of his sermon is all about clearing the
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debris. He spends a lot of time telling
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us what this light is not. And this is so helpful because
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in religious circles it is very easy to confuse this true
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spiritual light with other similar looking experiences.
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We often rely on the wrong evidence to assure ourselves
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that we're Christians. We.
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Absolutely do. So Edwards wants to strip those
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away first. Let's start with the first
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misconception he tackles. This is a big one.
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The divine light is not the same as a conviction of sin.
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I think a lot of people assume that if they feel guilty, if
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they are terrified of hell, that's the Holy Spirit.
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That means they have the spiritual light.
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But Edward says no. That's right.
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And this is a hard pill to swallow for some people.
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Edwards argues that natural men, that's his term for people who
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are not born again, who do not have the Holy Spirit in dwelling
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them, can still have very strong, very terrifying
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conditions of sin. So feeling bad about your sin is
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not by itself proof of salvation.
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Not by itself, no. Edwards makes a classic reform
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distinction here between what he calls common grace and special
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grace. OK, break that down for us.
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Common grace is the Holy Spirit working on a person from the
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outside, assisting their natural faculties.
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Like turning up the volume on a radio that is already there.
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The conscience. That's a perfect analogy.
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The conscience is a natural faculty.
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Everyone has one. It's part of being made in God's
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image. Even after the fall.
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It tells you right from wrong. Now the Spirit can come along
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under common grace and assist that conscience, making it
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sharper, clearer, louder. So it can make an unbeliever
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feel immense guilt for something they did.
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Immense guilt, terror of God's coming judgement.
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He helps the conscience do what it was designed to do, accuse or
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excuse. But, and this is the absolute
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key, he does not change the nature of the person.
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He's working on the old machinery.
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He hasn't installed a new engine.
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He uses an analogy here that I found really helpful.
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The difference between the spirit acting on a person versus
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in a person. Yes, this is brilliant, he says.
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The Spirit can act on a natural man.
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The way he moved on the face of the waters in Genesis 1.
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The spirit hovered. He moved over the chaos.
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He influenced it from the outside, but he did not become
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the water. He didn't unite with it.
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That's common grace. That's common grace.
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You can be shaken by God. You can be terrified by God, but
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still remain an enemy of God in your heart.
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You could be a prisoner in a cell who is terrified of the
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judge. But that doesn't mean you love
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the judge or his laws. You just don't want the
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punishment. Versus the spirit acting in the
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Saint, the believer. Right.
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For the believer it's totally different.
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The spirit unites himself to the soul.
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He takes up residence as in a temple.
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It becomes a new, indwelling, vital principle.
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It's not just influence from the outside, it is union on the
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inside. It's a new nature.
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So the first thing to clear away is this idea that guilt equals
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grace. Just because you feel guilty or
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feel religious pressure doesn't mean you have this divine light.
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It could just be your natural conscience being amplified by
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common grace. OK, that's a sharp distinction.
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Let's move to the next one. And this was big for the 18th
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century, with all its enthusiasm, but honestly, it's
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just as big today. The light is not impressions on
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the imagination. Oh, absolutely.
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This is huge. Yeah.
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We're talking about visions, voices, seeing lights, having
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dreams that you interpret as being from God, the desire for
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the spectacular. The person who says they saw a
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glory cloud in their bedroom at night.
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Right, or they had a vision of Jesus with a Halo telling them
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everything will be OK. Edwards is very, very firm on
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this. Spiritual light is not seeing a
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physical light with your eyes, and it is not imagining a light
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in your head. It's not an idea of an outward
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light or glory. Exactly.
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He's careful to say it's not some beautiful, pleasant picture
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of a person's face. Why is he so strict about this?
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Well, I guess it's because those things can be counterfeited.
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That's precisely his point. The imagination is a natural
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faculty. It's powerful, but it can be
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manipulated. And he warns, quoting Scripture,
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that the devil can transform himself into an Angel of light.
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So the devil can produce an impression of a beautiful light
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or a comforting voice. He can he can mimic visual
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splendors and Angel of light experiences.
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So if your faith is built on I saw a light or I heard a voice,
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you are on very shaky ground because that experience is not
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in its nature beyond what the devil can produce.
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So what Peter had at Caesarea Philippe, it wasn't a vision.
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He didn't see a Halo around Jesus head that the Pharisees
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missed. No, He saw the same human being
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they saw, but he was given a sight of the spiritual glory,
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the divine Excellency of that person.
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It was an intellectual and spiritual sight, not a sensory
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1. It happens in the understanding,
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not in the optic nerve. Correct.
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And that's a kind of site the devil cannot counterfeit.
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He can't give a soul a true sense of the beauty of God's
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holiness. He hates it.
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He can only produce flashy sensory knockoffs.
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OK, that's a vital guardrail. Third negative definition.
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This divine light is not new revelation.
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Yes, this is the soul of Scripture protection clause.
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Yeah, Edwards is protecting the church from people who say God
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told me something new that isn't in the Bible.
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The I have a fresh word from the Lord crowd.
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The Spirit told me to tell you. Edward says stop right there.
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This divine light does not suggest new truths.
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It does not add new doctrines to the Canon of scripture.
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It's not giving you information that isn't already in the 66
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books. So it's the difference between
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inspiration and illumination. Perfect distinction.
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The prophets and apostles had inspiration.
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God breathed out new authoritative revelation through
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them to write the Bible. That office is closed.
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What we have now is illumination.
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The spirits work is to help us understand what they wrote.
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So the light helps us see what is already there on the page.
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That is it, he says. It gives a due apprehension of
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the things already revealed in God's Word.
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It does not create new data. It spotlights the existing data.
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Think of it like reading a book in a dark room versus reading it
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with a bright lamp. The lamp doesn't add any words
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to the page, Yeah. And a single one.
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It just makes the words that were always there gloriously
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visible. The Holy Spirit's job in
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illumination is to be that lamp for the text of Scripture.
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OK, the 4th and final negative and this one might step on some
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toes. In our modern, experience driven
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culture, the light is not mere religious emotion or what he
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calls an affecting view. Yeah, this is the tear jerker
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argument. You know, it's a sharp 1.
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Edwards points out that a person can be emotionally affected by
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the story of Jesus in the same way they are affected by a sad
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movie or a well written novel. I mean, think about the story of
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the crucifixion. It's objectively A tragedy.
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An innocent man, betrayed by his friends, mocked, tortured and
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killed by his enemies. You don't have to be a Christian
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to find that story sad or moving.
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Correct. An atheist can watch the Passion
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of the Christ and cry. That emotional response is a
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natural human response. It's flesh and blood.
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You can be moved by the heroism or the tragedy or the injustice
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of the story. So having your affections, your
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emotions stirred by religious things, that isn't the light.
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Not in and of itself, Edwards says.
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Many graceless people have very strong emotional responses to
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religion. They can get swept up in the
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music at a worship service. They can feel a sense of awe and
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great cathedral. Those are natural affections.
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They are not the same as having a sense of the divine Excellency
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of the things of God. It's amazing how careful he is.
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He is systematically stripping away everything that we usually
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point to as evidence of our faith.
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Feeling guilty? Nope.
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Having a vision? Nope.
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Getting a word from God? Nope.
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Crying during the worship service?
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Not necessarily. He is really cornering us here.
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He is. He's a good doctor.
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He wants to get to the actual heart of the matter.
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He wants to find the one thing that is undeniably supernatural,
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the thing that can't be explained away by psychology or
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faked by the devil. He wants to separate the wheat
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from the chaff within our own spiritual experiences.
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So having done all that work, having cleared the debris, let's
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pivot to the positive. What is this light?
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What is the core definition? OK, here it is.
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Edwards defines it like this, a true sense of the divine
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Excellency of the things revealed in the Word of God, and
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a conviction of the truth and reality of them thence arising.
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Let's take that apart. A true sense of the divine
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Excellency. That sounds beautiful, but what
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does it actually mean? It means you see the beauty, the
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loveliness, the supreme worthiness of what the Bible
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reveals. You don't just see the facts,
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you see the glory of the facts. You don't just believe God is
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holy. You have a sense of the stunning
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beauty of that holiness. And the second-half that
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definition, a conviction of the truth, thence arising, the
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conviction comes from seeing the beauty.
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This is the revolutionary part for many people.
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Our normal way of thinking is that first you get convinced of
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the facts, and then maybe you come to appreciate them.
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Edwards flips it. He says this divine light shows
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you the beauty of the gospel, and in seeing that beauty you
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become utterly convinced that it must be true.
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Because it's too beautiful not to be true.
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Exactly. It has the ring of heaven to it.
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And this is where Edwards drops his most famous, most brilliant
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analogy, the honey analogy. I love this analogy.
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I think if you get this, you get the whole sermon.
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You really do. Edwards compares the difference
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between speculative knowledge, which is head knowledge, and
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this spiritual knowledge, which is heart knowledge, to the
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difference between knowing about honey and tasting honey.
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So walk us through that, the two kinds of knowledge.
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OK, first there's what he calls speculative or notional
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knowledge. Imagine you're a scientist.
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You've never tasted honey, but you're an expert on it.
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You take a jar of honey, put it in the lab, analyze its chemical
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composition. You know the ratio of fructose
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to glucose. You can write a paper on it.
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You can read a book that describes its properties, You
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can listen to 1000 people tell you honey is sweet, and based on
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all that external testimony and logical analysis, you can form a
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rational judgment. Yes, I agree honey is sweet.
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You have a notion in your head. But you have not opened the jar.
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You haven't experienced the sweetness.
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You have never tasted it. Now take a child.
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A child who knows nothing about chemistry, can't read the label,
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has never heard an expert opinion, and you put one drop of
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honey on that child's tongue. What does the?
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Child know. In that instant, the child has a
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knowledge of the sweetness of honey that the scientist who has
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never tasted it simply does not have.
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The scientist has the idea, the child has the experience.
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The child has the sense of the sweetness.
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The scientist has the notion, the child has the sensation.
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That is it exactly, and Edwards applies this directly to
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theology. You can be a theologian.
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You can read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew.
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You can study systematic theology for 50 years.
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You can argue logically incorrectly, that God is holy or
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God is sovereign or God is gracious.
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You can agree that holiness is a good and right attribute.
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That is all speculative notional knowledge.
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It's head knowledge. It's knowing the menu.
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It's knowing the menu, but you might not actually love it.
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You might actually hate it deep down, Edwards would say.
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The demons know that God is holy.
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They have a very clear, speculative knowledge of God's
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attributes, probably clearer than ours.
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But they tremble. They hate that holiness.
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So what is spiritual light then, in this analogy?
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Spiritual light is when the Holy Spirit opens the jar and gives
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you a taste of the loveliness of that holiness.
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You don't just agree that God is gracious, you sense the stunning
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beauty of that grace. It becomes sweet to your soul's
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taste buds. So it's not just about
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information transfer, it's about a change in disposition.
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Yes, this is where the will comes in, what Edwards calls the
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inclination. For Edwards, you can't neatly
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separate the mind and the will, the inflect and the affections.
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This light is not just an IQ boost, it's a light that is also
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warm. It engages the heart.
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To know God in this way is to love what you know you.
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Can't taste the sweetness of honey without enjoying it.
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The enjoyment is part of the knowing, the delight is
20:47
inseparable from the perception. And so, for Edwards, to truly
20:51
see the glory of God is to delight in the glory of God.
20:54
So let's take this back to Peter.
20:55
The Pharisees saw Jesus. They saw the data points.
20:58
A man from Nazareth, a carpenter's son, breaking their
21:01
Sabbath rules, claiming divine authority, threatening their
21:04
power structure. They saw the facts.
21:06
They saw the menu items. Right.
21:08
But Peter saw the same facts and saw glory.
21:11
He saw divine Excellency. He tasted the honey.
21:13
He saw that this man was not just a rule breaker.
21:16
He was the Son of the living God.
21:18
And that reality was beautiful to him.
21:20
It commanded his heart. It was a superior beauty to
21:23
anything else he had ever seen. That's the difference, and it's
21:26
a difference of kind, not just degree.
21:28
So this light, this new sense, fundamentally changes how the
21:32
mind itself functions. It's not just a feeling that
21:35
sits alongside our thinking, it actually effects our intellect.
21:38
It does. Edwards talks about how this
21:40
light removes prejudice. This is a huge point for our
21:44
age, which is so focused on bias.
21:46
It is the mind of a natural man. An unbeliever is not a neutral,
21:51
objective observer. When it comes to God, we like to
21:54
think we are. We like to think we're just
21:56
dispassionately weighing the evidence.
21:58
But the Bible says we're not. The Bible says we are hostile to
22:01
God. Our minds are full of prejudice
22:03
against divine truth. We do not want God to be
22:06
sovereign over our lives. We do not want to be told we are
22:09
helpless sinners in need of grace.
22:11
We have a vested interest in the Christian story not being true.
22:14
It's like trying to explain the virtues of your favorite sports
22:17
team to a die hard fan of their biggest rival.
22:20
They literally cannot see the good plays because their bias
22:22
blinds them. Anything your team does a
22:24
suspect. That is a perfect modern
22:26
example. Prejudice blocks reason.
22:30
The scribes and Pharisees saw the miracles of Jesus,
22:33
undeniable miracles like raising the dead, and their prejudice
22:37
was so strong it forced them to conclude.
22:40
He does this by the power of Beelzebub, the Prince of Demons.
22:43
Which is an utterly irrational conclusion.
22:45
It's insane. It makes no logical sense, but
22:48
prejudice makes smart people say and believe irrational things to
22:52
protect their worldview. So the spiritual light comes in
22:55
and scrubs the lens. It removes the bias.
22:58
It sanctifies the reason it does this by destroying the enmity,
23:02
the hostility. When the light reveals the sheer
23:05
beauty and loveliness of God's character, the heart is 1 over.
23:08
And when the heart is one over you, stop fighting the truth.
23:10
The prejudice dissolves. It dissolves because you've
23:12
fallen in love with the the thing you used to hate.
23:14
So for the first time the mind can actually weigh the arguments
23:17
fairly. The Light opens the door for
23:19
reason to work properly, free from the enslaving power of sin.
23:22
So Edwards is not anti intellectual.
23:25
He's not saying just feel it. Not at all.
23:27
He's the opposite. He believes sin makes us stupid,
23:30
or at least deeply irrational when it comes to spiritual
23:33
things. This divine light restores our
23:36
rationality. It makes our minds function
23:38
better. He uses another analogy here of
23:40
landscapes. Yes.
23:42
Imagine trying to view a beautiful, complex landscape in
23:46
the dim twilight. You can make out the basic
23:48
shapes. There's a mountain over there,
23:50
some trees here, maybe a river, but it's all blurry and
23:54
indistinct. You can't see the details or the
23:56
relationships between things. And then the sun comes up.
23:59
The sun is the spiritual light. What happens?
24:02
The sun doesn't change the landscape.
24:04
The mountains and trees were always there, just like the
24:06
doctrines in the Bible were always there, but now you see
24:09
them with brilliant clarity. You see the colors, the
24:11
textures? You see the distinctness of each
24:14
object. You see how the river winds
24:16
through the valley. You see the mutual relations of
24:18
all the divine truths. The light helps the mind focus
24:21
and understand the beautiful harmony of God's plan.
24:24
That is so good. It also engages the attention.
24:27
When you find something beautiful, you pay attention to
24:29
it. If I love a certain band, I
24:31
listen to their music differently.
24:32
I notice the bass line, the lyrics, the production.
24:35
It's not just background noise. That's it exactly.
24:38
The beauty of the truth revealed by this light captivates the
24:42
faculties. It wakes up the mind and makes
24:44
it want to study and understand what it's seeing.
24:46
There's another aspect to this effect on the mind that Edwards
24:49
calls intuitive evidence. This is his divine stamp
24:53
argument. This gets into apologetics.
24:56
How do we know the Bible is from God?
24:58
This is Edwards of presuppositionalism coming out.
25:00
He argues that when you truly see the gospel, when this divine
25:03
light shines on it, you see a glory, a majesty that is so
25:06
transcendent, so superlative, that you become intuitively
25:09
convinced it cannot be a human invention.
25:11
It's self authenticating. Yes, his analogy is the sun.
25:14
How do you know the sun is bright?
25:16
Do you need someone to construct a logical argument for you?
25:18
Do you need a syllogism? Premise A bright things give off
25:22
light and heat. Premise BI perceive light and
25:25
heat. Conclusion.
25:27
The sun is bright. No, you just, you look at it.
25:30
You just open your eyes and see it.
25:32
The brightness is its own proof, Edward says.
25:35
The glory of God in the Gospel is like that.
25:38
When the eyes of the heart are opened by this light, you see a
25:40
divine stamp on the message. You just know it's not a
25:44
cunningly devised fable because it looks like God.
25:47
It has a character of holiness and wisdom that finite sinful
25:51
men could never have invented. Which explains why you can argue
25:54
with a skeptic for hours. Present all the historical
25:57
evidence for the resurrection and they just won't budget.
25:59
But then sometimes someone just hears the gospel preached simply
26:03
and it it clicks, they see it. They see the stamp, the light
26:07
shines, and the argument becomes secondary.
26:10
The primary proof is the glory of the thing itself.
26:12
OK, let's move into the mechanics of this.
26:14
We talked about it being immediate, but Edwards gets into
26:17
the weeds here because he wants to be careful.
26:19
He has to explain the role of our own faculties and the role
26:22
of the Bible. If it's immediate from God, do
26:25
we need to read the Bible? Can we just sit in a dark room
26:28
and wait for the ZAP? A great and necessary question.
26:31
Edwards anticipates this. He is a Reformed theologian, so
26:34
he is deeply wary of enthusiasm. That's the 18th century word for
26:39
people thinking they can bypass the ordinary means of grace like
26:42
the word. So what's the relationship?
26:44
He says yes, the light is given immediately by God, but it
26:47
shines on the truths presented in the Word.
26:49
The Word conveys the content. So God doesn't just ZAP your
26:52
soul with a generic feeling of goodness.
26:54
No, the light illuminates specific propositions.
26:58
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He died for sinners.
27:02
God is holy. The Bible provides the doctrines
27:05
that the light then makes you see as beautiful.
27:07
Let's use his analogy of the sun again, OK?
27:10
To see a tree you need 3 things. You need a functioning eye that
27:13
their human faculties are mind and reason.
27:15
You get an object to see, that's the tree, and you need light to
27:19
see it by, That's the sun. The sun doesn't create the tree,
27:21
the tree is already there. And the eye doesn't create the
27:23
light, but the sun shines on the tree and the light carries the
27:27
image of the tree into the eye. So in this analogy, the tree is
27:31
the doctrine, the truth found in the Bible.
27:34
Yes, the gospel, the story of Christ, that's the content.
27:39
The Bible conveys the notion to your mind.
27:42
You read the words Christ died for sinners.
27:44
Your brain, your eye processes that sentence.
27:48
But the sense of the divine Excellency of that truth, the
27:50
tasting of the honey that comes from the Holy Spirit, the sun
27:54
shining on the text. So you need the Bible to have
27:56
something for the light to shine on.
27:58
That is the whole point. The Spirit does not whisper new
28:01
facts into your ear. He illuminates the facts already
28:03
revealed in Scripture. So no, you cannot just sit in a
28:06
dark room. You need to put yourself in the
28:08
way of the beam. You need to open the book and
28:10
expose your mind to the object. And what about our brains, Our
28:14
faculties? What's their role?
28:16
They are the subject of the light, but not the cause of the
28:18
light. We are active.
28:20
We are thinking, reasoning, understanding.
28:22
The light shines into our minds, not into our big toe, but our
28:26
minds do not generate the light. Just like my eye is active, when
28:29
I see the lens is focusing, the retina is processing, but my eye
28:33
doesn't generate the sunlight. Perfect the cooperative
28:35
reception, but a monarchistic cause.
28:38
Look at you using the big theological words.
28:40
Had to sneak one in. Yes, God is the sole author of
28:45
the Light, but He shines it into a working, thinking, feeling,
28:49
human mind that is engaged with His Word.
28:53
That's the balanced biblical picture he's painting.
28:55
I love that. OK, so now he moves to proofs.
28:58
Edwards was a man of the Enlightenment, a rationalist in
29:00
the best sense. He wants to offer both
29:03
scriptural proofs and rational proofs.
29:05
He wants to show that this doctrine is not just a pet
29:07
theory he invented. It's biblical, and it just plain
29:11
makes sense. The scriptural proofs are
29:13
robust. He doesn't just proof text one
29:15
verse. He shows a pattern throughout
29:17
the Bible. He quotes Paul in 2nd
29:19
Corinthians 4.6 extensively. For God, who commanded the light
29:23
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the
29:27
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
29:29
Jesus Christ. That's a direct parallel to the
29:32
creation account. It is.
29:33
Paul is intentionally echoing Genesis one.
29:36
Just as God said let there be light and created physical light
29:39
out of nothing by a sheer act of divine power, he says.
29:43
Paul argues God does the same thing in the soul.
29:45
He speaks into the dark, chaotic heart of a Sinner and creates
29:49
spiritual light. It's a creative act.
29:51
It's a miracle. He also quotes the Psalms, which
29:54
is interesting. Psalm 119 Point Linteen.
29:56
Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of
30:00
thy law. Yes, and that is a brilliant
30:02
proof text. Think about who is praying that
30:04
David. He had the law.
30:07
He had the scrolls in his hand. He could read the Hebrew
30:09
letters. He was a theologian king.
30:11
So why do you need to pray? Open my eyes.
30:13
Because he knew he was blind to something that was there.
30:16
He knew there were wondrous things, glories, divine
30:18
excellencies in the text that he would completely miss if God did
30:22
not perform a supernatural act of opening his spiritual eyes to
30:25
see them. He had the object, the law, but
30:28
he needed the light. And then there's John 17.3.
30:31
And this is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only
30:34
true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent.
30:37
Right. Eternal life is this kind of
30:39
knowledge. It is not just having the right
30:41
information about God, it is the knowing itself that constitutes
30:45
life. OK, so after laying that
30:47
biblical foundation, Edwards moves to the rational proofs and
30:50
this is where he shines as a philosopher.
30:53
He basically argues that this doctrine is exactly what we
30:56
should expect to be true if the Christian God is real.
30:59
Yes, he wants to show that this idea is reasonable.
31:02
His first rational argument is what we could call the divine
31:05
difference, right? He says basically, let's reason
31:08
together. If God is an infinite being,
31:10
infinitely holy, wise and glorious, infinitely higher than
31:14
man, then shouldn't his character and his work look
31:17
vastly different than human character and human work?
31:20
It shouldn't just be human glory plus 10%, it should be different
31:23
in kind. Like the difference between a
31:24
candle and the sun, or the difference between a child's
31:27
drawing and the actual Grand Canyon.
31:29
If God reveals himself, we should expect that revelation to
31:32
carry a weight, a majesty, a stamp of divinity that is
31:37
unmistakable to those who have eyes to see.
31:40
And it's rational to think that seeing this divine stamp would
31:43
be the ultimate convincer. OK, that makes sense then, he
31:46
argues from the blindness of sin.
31:49
This connects back to what we said earlier about prejudice, he
31:52
says. It is entirely rational to
31:54
suppose that wicked, selfish, prideful minds would not be able
31:58
to appreciate pure, selfless, divine beauty.
32:01
It would be foreign to them, even offensive.
32:03
Like a person with a high fever who thinks sweet food tastes
32:07
bitter. The problem isn't the food, it's
32:09
the sick palate. That's a great analogy you might
32:11
have used. Or like a depressed person who
32:13
can enjoy a beautiful party, their internal state makes them
32:16
unable to perceive the external reality correctly.
32:19
Sin, Edwards argues, is a spiritual disease that distorts
32:23
our taste buds. So rationally, we would need a
32:25
supernatural intervention, a divine healing to fix the palate
32:29
so we can taste the truth properly.
32:30
That's a strong argument, and his third rational argument is
32:34
the dignity of the gift. This one is beautiful.
32:38
He argues that this knowledge of God, this tasting of His
32:41
Excellency, is the absolute highest good a creature can
32:44
have. It's the entire purpose of our
32:46
existence. It's the thing that determines
32:49
our eternal destiny. It's the Pearl of great price.
32:52
So God wouldn't outsource the delivery of that gift.
32:55
That is it exactly. It would be unfitting for God to
32:58
let something so precious depend entirely on secondary causes.
33:02
God might let second causes handle lesser things.
33:05
He lets the sun and the rain and the soil grow the corn.
33:08
He lets gravity hold the planets in orbit.
33:10
But for the crown jewel of his creation, the saving knowledge
33:14
of himself and the soul of his creature, it is rational and
33:17
fitting that he would keep that in his own hands.
33:19
He wouldn't trust that to a preacher's eloquence or a
33:21
parent's teaching, or a person's own cleverness, no.
33:24
He delivers that gift personally.
33:25
It's a direct transaction between the creator and the
33:28
creature. That is actually really intimate
33:30
when you think about it that way.
33:31
It is deeply intimate. It means that if you believe, if
33:35
you truly see the glory of Christ, it is because God the
33:38
Father looked at you from eternity and personally directly
33:42
turned on the light in your soul.
33:44
It's an act of pure sovereign grace.
33:47
Wow. OK, So what does this all mean
33:48
for us? This is where Edwards ends his
33:51
sermon with an improvement section, which is classic
33:54
Puritan speak for application. This is So what section?
33:57
That's right. So what?
33:59
And he starts with something that's surprisingly encouraging.
34:01
He talks about the goodness of God in this what we could call
34:04
the democratization of grace. I love this point, it's so
34:08
pastoral. If salvation depended on
34:10
figuring out complex theological arguments, or being able to read
34:14
Latin and Greek, or having a genius level IQ, well, most of
34:18
the world would be doomed. It would be a religion for the
34:20
intellectual elite. Right.
34:22
But because this divine light is a sense of the heart, because
34:25
it's like tasting honey, the uneducated person, the babe at
34:29
the Bible says, can have it just as fully and as richly as the
34:33
most brilliant scholar. Maybe even more so because they
34:35
don't have their own intellectual pride getting in
34:37
the way. Often more so.
34:39
Edwards quotes First Corinthians one for Consider your calling,
34:43
brothers. Not many of you were wise
34:45
according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful.
34:48
Not many were of noble birth. A person with a very low IQ can
34:52
taste honey just as well as a chemist, and a person with no
34:56
theological degree can see the glory of Jesus just as clearly,
34:59
if not more clearly, than tenured seminary professor.
35:02
It bypasses the brain's processing power and goes
35:05
straight to the soul's capacity for love and delight.
35:08
That's the beauty of it. God has ordained it so that no
35:11
flesh may boast in His presence. That is good news, but then
35:14
comes the hard question, the Puritan turn, the self
35:18
examination. This is the inevitable and
35:20
necessary moment we have to look in the mirror.
35:22
Now that you've heard what this light is and what it isn't.
35:25
Edwards asks us to check our own experience.
35:27
What's the state of your own soul?
35:29
He asks, Is your faith merely a notion?
35:32
Is it just an opinion you hold because your parents held it, or
35:35
because you grew up in this culture?
35:37
Is it just a set of doctrines you agree with intellectually,
35:40
or has the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
35:43
the face of Jesus Christ actually shined in your heart?
35:46
Do you see the beauty? Have you tasted the honey?
35:49
That is the ultimate test. Not are you perfect?
35:53
Not do you know all the answers? But is the gospel sweet to you?
35:57
Do you see the glory of God in the person and work of Jesus
36:00
Christ? Or is Christianity just a dry
36:03
list of obligations and facts to you?
36:05
That's a searching question. And finally, he talks about the
36:07
fruit. If this light truly shines in a
36:10
person's life, what happens? What are the results?
36:12
It changes everything. He lists several effects.
36:14
First, there is joy. This knowledge is the most sweet
36:17
and joyful knowledge possible. You're seeing the most beautiful
36:20
object in the universe. It cannot help but produce a joy
36:22
that is, as Peter says, unspeakable and full of glory.
36:26
Then there's a weaning from the world.
36:28
Yes, it makes the world and its treasures look less attractive
36:32
by comparison. When you have seen the sun, a
36:35
candle looks dim and smoky. When you have tasted the best
36:39
honey, artificial sweeteners don't satisfy anymore.
36:42
It naturally weans you off the idols of the world, not by brute
36:46
force, but by what Thomas Chalmers would later call the
36:49
expulsive power of a new affection.
36:51
You're not just trying to stop loving the world, you've started
36:54
loving something better. Exactly, and the 3rd and most
36:57
important fruit is Universal Holiness.
37:00
This is key. It's not just about ideas, it
37:02
changes your practice. Right.
37:04
Edwards argues that you cannot truly see God as lovely and
37:07
continue to live in defiant, cherished sin.
37:10
The 2 are incompatible. If you see him as beautiful, you
37:13
will want to obey Him. You will want to be like Him.
37:15
It creates A sincere love for God.
37:17
And that love becomes the engine for obedience.
37:20
It's the only engine for true Christian obedience.
37:22
It moves you from I have to obey or I'll get punished to I want
37:26
to obey because his ways are beautiful and good.
37:29
It's the difference between a slave's obedience, which is
37:32
driven by fear, and a child's obedience which is driven by
37:35
love and admiration for their father.
37:37
That's the difference between religion and the gospel.
37:40
The fear of hell can make you stop doing bad things, but only
37:44
a sight of the beauty of Christ can make you start loving good
37:48
things. So to sum it all up, we've moved
37:50
from Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi through the
37:53
brilliant analogy of tasting honey all the way to this
37:56
immediate, personal, life changing work of the Holy
37:59
Spirit. It is a lot to take in.
38:00
It is, but at its heart it's also very simple.
38:03
It's about God opening blind eyes to see a glory that is
38:07
really and truly there in His Son.
38:08
So here's the final provocative thought.
38:11
If I'm listening to this and I'm honestly thinking I don't, I
38:13
don't know if I have that. I believe the facts, but I don't
38:16
know if I've ever really tasted the honey.
38:17
What do I do if it's immediate and sovereignly given by God?
38:21
Am I just helpless? Do I just sit and wait?
38:23
That is the great practical tension of Reformed theology,
38:26
isn't it? And Edwards would say, no,
38:28
you're not helpless. You cannot manufacture the
38:30
sunlight. You cannot force your eyes to
38:32
see. That's God's work.
38:34
But you are commanded to act. You can place yourself where the
38:37
sun is most likely to shine. So you don't try to be smarter.
38:41
You don't try to work up an emotion.
38:42
No, Edwards would say, go to the Word.
38:45
The light shines on the Word. Read the scriptures, especially
38:48
the Gospels. Look at Jesus Christ, put the
38:50
object before the eyes of your mind, and as you do, you pray
38:53
the prayer of David. Open thou mine eyes, You pray
38:56
the prayer of the blind man, Lord, that I might receive my
38:59
sight. You use the means that God has
39:01
appointed. You use the means.
39:03
Your reason is the I. The Bible is the object.
39:06
But you must plead with God and depend on God to provide the
39:08
Son. You put yourself in the path of
39:10
the beam. Precisely.
39:12
And you wait on the Lord, who is rich in mercy.
39:15
That is a great place to leave it.
39:17
This has been a deep dive into Jonathan Edwards, the divine and
39:20
supernatural light. Thank you for listening to
39:22
Reformed Thinking. See you next time.