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The Spirit as the Source of All Saving Grace | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to the Deep Dive, a production of reformed thinking.
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  This is where we take on some of the denser theological works
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  that you send our way. We sit down, we break them
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  apart, and we really try to get to the heart of the argument.
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  And today we're jumping into a really significant piece.
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  It's Jonathan Edwards treatise on grace.
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  Specifically, we're looking at the sources you shared that
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  focus on his argument for identifying saving grace with
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  the person of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, and our mission here is to
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  unpack what is, I think, a pretty startling claim.
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  Edwards isn't just saying that grace is a gift from the Spirit.
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  No, not at all. He's arguing that saving grace,
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  that new life in a believer, is the Holy Spirit himself dwelling
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  in the person as divine love. It's a very high view of grace.
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  It is. And to get there we have to
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  follow his logic very closely. It forces you to ask, what does
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  it really mean to be spiritual? Yeah.
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  How do the persons of the Trinity work together in
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  salvation? It's a very tightly constructed
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  argument. OK, so let's.
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  Start where he starts. Edwards opens by laying down
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  what he calls the Radical principle.
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  This is his foundation. Right.
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  And the principle is that this holy divine thing in the soul,
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  which he says is basically it's summarily divine love.
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  It gets there by the immediate act of the Holy Spirit.
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  That word immediate seems really important.
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  What is he setting up with that? He's drawing a clear line.
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  He's pushing back against any idea that God's action is, you
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  know, remote Oregon filtered through a long chain of
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  secondary causes. He means direct, 1:00 to 1:00,
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  the third person of the Trinity acting straight on the soul of
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  the creature. So it's not just a general
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  influence. No, it's a specific, sovereign,
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  unmediated act. And to prove this isn't just his
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  idea, he then just floods the reader with Scripture.
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  He wants to show that from start to finish in the Christian life,
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  the Bible points to the Spirit as the direct operator.
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  OK, so let's walk through some of that evidence.
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  Where does he begin? Well he has to start with
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  regeneration, the new birth. He goes right to John chapter 3
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  where Jesus says you must be born of the Spirit to enter the.
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  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born
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  of the Spirit is Spirit. Exactly.
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  He sees a direct parallel there. Just as human parents are the
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  immediate source of a physical life, the Holy Spirit is the
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  immediate source of a spiritual life.
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  It's a creative act. And he doesn't stop there.
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  He brings in the analogy of the wind from that same passage.
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  Yes, the wind blows where it wishes.
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  So is everyone who is born of the spirit.
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  And that analogy does a couple of things.
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  It obviously points to sovereignty, but it also
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  highlights the immediacy and the the mystery of it.
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  You don't see the wind, just its effects.
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  Right. You can't chart its path, you
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  just see the result. You can't fully dissect how the
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  Spirit does this work. You just know that he has done
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  it. It's not a mechanical process we
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  can map out. So that's the beginning of the
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  new life. What about keeping that life
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  going? Well, that's the next point,
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  which he calls renewing. He goes to Titus 3.5.
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  Salvation is by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the
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  Holy Ghost. So the Spirit isn't A1 and done
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  agent. He doesn't just flip a switch
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  and walk away. Not at all.
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  He is the one who continuously sustains and revitalizes the
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  very life that he created in the first place.
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  And that idea of continuous renewal seems to connect back to
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  the Old Testament promises, doesn't it?
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  The promise of a new heart. It does perfectly.
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  Edwards brings up Ezekiel 36 where God promises a new heart.
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  Also will I give you, and I will put my Spirit within you and
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  cause you to walk in my statutes.
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  So the obedience, The Walking in my statutes is caused by the
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  Spirit being placed within them. Yes, the Spirit is the engine,
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  not just an external coach shouting encouragement.
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  He's the internal cause of the new life and the new obedience.
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  This leads him right to John 6.63.
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  It is the Spirit that quickeneth.
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  To quicken meaning to make alive.
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  Right. It's the ultimate statement on
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  where spiritual life comes from. If a soul is dead in sin, the
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  spirit and the spirit alone makes it alive.
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  OK, so he's covered birth, renewal, the source of life.
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  What about the process of becoming holy sanctification?
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  Yeah, he covers that too. He points to the Second
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  Thessalonians 2, where believers are chosen through
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  sanctification of the Spirit, and first Peter one, which is
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  the same thing. The entire process of being set
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  apart for God is the Spirit's immediate work.
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  And then he brings it all home to the practical, day-to-day
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  evidence of that work. The fruit Galatians 5 Lovejoy,
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  peace, patience, all these things are called the fruit of
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  the Spirit. They aren't the fruit of our
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  best efforts. They are the natural organic
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  outgrowth of the Spirit's presence in a life.
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  So by piling all this evidence up, regeneration, renewing,
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  quickening, sanctification, fruit, he's building an airtight
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  case. He is.
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  He's establishing that the whole principle of grace in a person
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  comes directly from the Holy Spirit.
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  That's why the Spirit can be called the Spirit of grace.
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  As in Hebrews, the agent is the Spirit and the action is
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  immediate, and that sets up his next move.
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  Which is to defend this very idea of immediate action.
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  You'd think with all that scripture it would be an open
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  and shut case. So why does he feel the need to
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  defend it? Well, it points to a pretty
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  significant resistance he was seeing, and not just from people
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  outside the faith. He saw this, this strange
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  tendency in people to try and minimize God's direct
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  involvement. To push it away.
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  Yes, to make it as small and remote a matter as possible, as
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  he puts it. There's this human impulse to
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  disbelieve in the immediate influence of the Spirit.
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  What do you think is behind that?
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  Is it about wanting to protect human free will, or is it more
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  of a philosophical thing? I think Edward sees it as a
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  spiritual problem first. I mean, if holiness is something
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  you can sort of achieve through your own efforts or through
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  general means like education or good habits, then you feel like
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  you're in control. You have some ownership over it.
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  Exactly. Yeah, but if holiness is a
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  direct sovereign infusion from God himself that takes all the
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  control out of your hands, it's humbling.
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  Edwards argues that someone who actually loves God should want
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  to believe in God communicating directly with them.
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  So the resistance is in a way unnatural for a believer.
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  And he names the groups that he sees as promoting this kind of
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  resistance. He calls out the Pelagians and
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  the Sicinians. Right.
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  And for the listener, the Pelagians were a group that
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  historically just really overplayed the power of human
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  will. For them, grace was mostly
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  external help, like the Bible or Christ's example that helps your
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  own will choose the good. So they basically denied the
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  need for the Spirit to do anything inside you.
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  For the most part, yes. The Sicilians were a later group
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  that tended toward Unitarianism, so they would downplay the deity
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  of Christ and by extension the personhood and divine work of
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  the Spirit. For them, the Spirit was more of
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  an abstract force or influence from God.
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  Both systems seem designed to make salvation a more
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  predictable, less supernatural process.
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  That's the key. They make it an orderly, remote
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  operation. And Edwards also knew that if
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  you affirmed this immediate influence, you'd get ridiculed.
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  People would call you an enthusiast, A fanatic.
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  He saw that these weren't real arguments, just labels meant to
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  shut down the discussion. So how does he counter this
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  prejudice? He uses a really clever
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  argument. He calls it the creation
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  analogy. He basically says, look, we all
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  believe that God immediately created the entire universe out
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  of nothing. Right X Nilo, the ultimate
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  immediate act. The ultimate act.
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  So he asks, if we can accept that God perform this incredible
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  arbitrary act of creation from nothing, why do we suddenly have
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  a problem with him continuing to have an arbitrary influence on
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  the creation he already made? That's a great point.
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  It reframes the whole thing. If you accept the bigger miracle
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  of creating matter, the smaller miracle of creating grace in a
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  soul seems perfectly reasonable. It does, and that leads to his
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  final point here, which is about descending to the first, 'cause
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  his logic is that human beings are the highest part of the
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  physical creation, made most immediately for a relationship
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  with God. OK, so if that's true, then it
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  makes the most sense that when it comes to our highest purpose,
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  our holiness, we would deal immediately with the first
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  'cause with God himself. Why would you insert a budget
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  intermediaries when it comes to the most important thing?
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  It's philosophically inconsistent to do so.
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  It is so. He's shown that the spirits work
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  is immediate based on scripture, and that rejecting that idea is
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  based on weak reasoning. Now he has to define exactly
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  what this immediate gift is. Right.
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  And that brings him to the word spiritual.
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  He notices that the Bible consistently calls this
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  principle of grace spiritual, and that's not just a throwaway
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  adjective. No, it's a very specific
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  technical term for him. You see it everywhere.
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  Colossians talks about spiritual understanding.
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  Ephesians mentioned spiritual blessings, Romans a spiritual
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  gift. The regenerated person
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  themselves is a spiritual person.
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  So he needs to nail down what that word actually means in this
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  context. Yes, because he spots a
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  potential misunderstanding right away, he says.
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  Look, spiritual can't just mean something that happens in the
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  human spirit or soul as opposed to the body.
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  Why not? Because all our thoughts and
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  feelings and acts of understanding happened in the
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  soul, if that's all spiritual meant.
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  And even the natural man would be spiritual just by virtue of
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  having a soul. Which would contradict the
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  Bible's clear distinction between the natural man and the
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  spiritual man. Exactly.
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  So he says. The true meaning isn't about the
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  location of the quality, it's about its relation, its source.
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  Grace is called spiritual because it comes from and is
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  related to the Spirit of God. And he uses 1st Corinthians 2 to
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  really drive this home. Paul makes that stark contrast
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  between the natural man who can't receive the things of the
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  Spirit and the spiritual man who can.
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  What's the fundamental difference between them?
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  The difference is whether or not they possess the Spirit of God.
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  The natural man is limited to his own faculties, but the
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  spiritual man has the spirit of God dwelling in him who
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  searcheth all things. Yeah, the deep things of God.
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  So he has a new capacity to understand, one that comes from
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  the Spirit himself. Right.
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  The spiritual man judges things correctly because he's seeing
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  them in the light of the divine person who lives in him.
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  This then connects to what it means to be spiritually minded.
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  Which isn't just about being thoughtful or philosophical.
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  No, he goes to Romans 8. All contrasts being after the
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  flesh with being after the spirit.
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  To be spiritually minded is to mind the things of the Spirit of
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  God, and the result is life and peace.
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  The quality of your mind and life is tied directly to its
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  source. OK, but this raises a huge
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  question. If the Spirit also works on
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  unbelievers through common grace, convicting them of sin
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  and so on, why are only the effects in a St. called
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  spiritual? And that is the absolute core of
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  his argument. This is the pivot point.
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  He has to introduce what he calls the essential distinction.
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  And what is that? He argues that saving grace is
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  called spiritual not just because it's from the Spirit,
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  because common grace is from the Spirit too.
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  It's called spiritual because it is of the very nature of the
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  Spirit of God. It partakes of his essence.
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  Yes. Think about the effects of what
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  we call common grace. The Spirit can work powerfully
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  on people who are not saved. John 16 says The Spirit convicts
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  the world of sin. Right, or Hebrews 6 talks about
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  people who are enlightened and were partakers of the Holy Ghost
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  and then fell away. Those sound like pretty intense
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  experiences. They are.
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  Or think of King Saul. The Spirit of the Lord came on
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  and he prophesied, but then the Spirit departed from him.
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  He had gifts and operations of the Spirit, but he didn't have
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  the nature of the Spirit. He was, as Edward says, totally
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  destitute of that which is Spirit in a saving way.
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  So those are works upon the soul, but not a change in the
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  soul's nature. Precisely, Edwards uses the
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  simple analogy. We call things earthly because
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  they are made of the stuff of the earth.
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  In the same way, saving grace is called spiritual because it
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  partakes of the nature, the very stuff of the Spirit.
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  Common gifts don't do that. So this forces him into what he
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  calls the critical inquiry. He has to define what that
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  nature is. How does saving grace share in
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  the Spirit's nature in a way that is fundamentally different
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  from all those other common effects?
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  To answer that, he has to define two things.
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  First, what is the essence of saving grace?
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  He already told us that it's divine love.
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  Second, what is the essential nature of the Holy Spirit as a
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  person? And if he can show that those
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  two things are the same. Then he's proven his case.
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  Grace isn't just an effect of the Spirit, it is the Spirit.
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  And this is where he moves into his Trinitarian argument.
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  OK, so he's operating within a classic Trinitarian framework.
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  One God, 3 distinct persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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  Yes, and he starts by acknowledging that all the
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  divine attributes, holiness, wisdom, justice, love, they all
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  belong equally to all three persons.
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  But then he makes his big move. He says that the Holy Ghost is
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  in a peculiar manner identified by the name Love Agape.
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  And his key text for this is first John 4.
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  God is love. How does he get from that
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  general statement about God to a specific identification with the
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  Holy Spirit? It's based on the logic of the
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  passage itself. Let's walk through it.
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  In verse 12, John says if we love one another, God dwelleth
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  in US. So the evidence of God dwelling
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  in US is that we have this divine love.
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  Then the very next verse verse 13 John explains how we know
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  this hereby know we that we dwell in him and he and us
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  because he have given us of his spirit.
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  So the two. Statements are explaining the
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  same reality. The evidence is love and the
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  means is the Spirit. Exactly.
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  Edward sees that as a direct equation.
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  The divine love dwelling in us is the Holy Spirit dwelling in
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  us. The 2 are one in the same
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  reality. And he sees the same connection
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  in Paul's writing, too. Yes, in Galatians 5 Paul says by
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  love serve one another and then was the very next instruction.
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  Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the
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  flesh. For Edwards, walking in the
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  Spirit is directly connected to exercising that divine love.
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  The Spirit is the power source for that love.
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  This leads him to that really striking analogy between the sun
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  and the spirit. It does, he says.
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  Look, we all accept that the sun is the personal wisdom or reason
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  of God, the Logos. John 1.
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  The Word was God, he says. There's just as much scriptural
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  reason to identify the Holy Spirit as the personal love of
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  God, the Agape. So in John's writings you get
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  these two massive statements. The word was God and God is
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  love. One points to the Sun, the
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  other, for Edwards, points to the Spirit.
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  Right. And John also says God is light,
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  which connects to the sun as the wisdom and brightness of God's
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  glory. The complimentary statement God
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  is love, he argues, applies to the Holy Spirit.
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  This makes the Spirit the actual, subsisting personal love
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  that flows between the Father and the Son.
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  He's the bond of love and the Trinity itself.
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  He is the act and the substance of their infinite love and
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  delight in each other, and Edwards believes the biblical
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  symbols for the Spirit confirm this.
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  He starts with the dove. Yes, he says.
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  It's not a random symbol. The dove throughout history has
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  been an emblem of love and peace.
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  Think of Noah's Dove or its use in the Song of Solomon.
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  And it's most famous appearance is at Christ's baptism.
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  Which is the key moment the Spirit comes down like a dove,
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  right as the Father says, from heaven, This is my beloved Son.
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  The visual symbol of love descends upon the beloved Son,
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  confirming the Father's words of affection.
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  It's the Father pouring out his substantial love on the Son.
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  He sees a similar thing in the Old Testament type of the holy
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  oil. The anointing oil.
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  He points out his qualities. It's soft, it flows, it's
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  fragrant, it unites. These are all characteristics
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  that beautifully represent the nature of divine love flowing
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  out. Which all ties into the function
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  of the Spirit within the Trinity, the procession.
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  Right, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
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  For Edwards, this means He is the divine essence as it is
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  breathed forth in infinitely pure love and sweet delight.
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  He is the shared life and joy of the Father and the Son.
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  He connects this to the pure river of water of life in
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  Revelation, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
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  Yes, and Christ himself identified that living water
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  with the Spirit. It's the river of God's
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  pleasures, the oil of gladness. It's the infinite joy that is
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  the very being of the Trinity. And this leads to maybe the most
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  fascinating point in this whole section, what he calls the
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  silent lover. It's a brilliant observation, he
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  says. Think about it, the Bible talks
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  all the time about the Father loving the Son, the Son loving
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  the Father, and both of them loving us.
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  But you will never ever read a verse that says the Holy Spirit
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  loves the Father or the Son or us.
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  That's actually true, I've never noticed that.
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  Why is that? The answer for Edwards is
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  breathtakingly simple. The Holy Spirit is the love.
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  He isn't another agent who performs the action of loving.
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  He is the substantial, personal, intelligent love that flows
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  between the other two. It would be redundant to say
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  that love loves. Wow.
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  So he's not just loving, he is the love of God personified.
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  He is the Deity wholly breathed forth as love.
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  And this, Edward says, is why we can say God is holy.
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  The holiness of God is this perfect infinite love and
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  delight within the Godhead. The Spirit is the bond of that
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  union is there for the Spirit of holiness.
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  It's an incredibly high view of the Spirit's person and work.
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  It is, and once he's established all that, the final conclusion
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  is basically unavoidable. Let's hear it.
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  If the essence of the Holy Spirit is divine love, and the
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  essence of saving grace is divine love, then he concludes
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  saving grace is nothing other than the Holy Spirit himself
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  uniting himself to the soul and acting as a new vital principle.
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  So when the Bible calls that new principle in US, spirit, as in
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  that which is born of the Spirit, Spirit is Spirit.
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  Edwards is saying that literally means the Holy Ghost.
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  Yes, not just a quality created by the ghost, but the ghost
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  himself. He points to Romans 8 where Paul
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  talks about the war between the flesh and spirit.
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  Paul says that Spirit in US is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of
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  Christ, even Christ in you. The new principle is the divine
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  Person. And that has to change how we
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  understand what it means to be partakers of the divine nature.
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  Absolutely. For Edwards, that's not just
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  poetic language. It means the very deity, the
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  divine nature, is dwelling in us.
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  This divine love joins itself to our human minds and wills and
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  becomes a new principle of life. This is why we're called temples
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  of the Holy Ghost. A temple is where God actually
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  dwells. Precisely.
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  And when we partake of God's holiness, we aren't getting a
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  cheap copy. We are partaking in the very
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  holiness by which God himself is holy, because that holiness is
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  His divine love, and that love now lives in us.
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  So this is the vital union between Christ's and the
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  believer. When Christ is in us, he's in us
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  by his Spirit, who is his love. Exactly.
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  It makes sense of Paul's statement.
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  It is not I, but Christ lives in me.
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  We live by Christ's life because His Spirit, his very life and
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  breath, is now our new life. He uses the analogy of the
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  breath of life to illustrate this.
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  He does. He points to Ezekiel's vision of
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  the dry bones. How do they come to life?
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  Breath or spirit enters them and becomes their new life
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  principle. And Christ does this visually
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  with the disciples in the upper room.
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  Yes, in John 20 he breathes on them and says receive the Holy
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  Spirit. He is communicating his own
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  breath, his own life to become their life.
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  So grace isn't a thing you get, it's a person you receive.
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  This really recenters the role of the Spirit in the whole plan
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  of salvation. It's not an afterthought.
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  No, and Edwards argues that this view is the only one that gives
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  equal honor to all three persons of the Trinity in the work of
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  redemption. How so?
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  Well, if the Spirit is just an agent who applies the benefits,
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  his glory seems less than that of the Father who planned it in
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  the Son who purchased it. But in this model there's a
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  perfect symmetry. What's the symmetry?
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  The Father is the one who plans redemption and provides the
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  Redeemer. The Son is the Redeemer and the
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  price paid and the Holy Spirit is the good that was purchased.
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  He is the purchased possession. So the value of the price the
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  son is equal to the value of the thing bought, the Spirit.
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  That's the idea. The glory is perfectly balanced.
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  Being the Divine Person who is the purchase treasurer of the
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  Church is just as glorious as being the Divine person who is
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  the price. So the Holy Spirit, then is the
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  ultimate good. He's the sum total of all the
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  blessings of the Gospel. That's what Edwards calls him,
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  the sum of all good things. And he shows this by comparing
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  the Gospels. In Matthew, Jesus says the
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  Father gives good things to those who ask.
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  In Luke's account of the same teaching, what does he say the
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  Father gives? The Holy Spirit.
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  The Holy Spirit, He's the good things all wrapped up in one
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  divine person. It fits that structure from
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  Romans 11. All things are of the Father
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  through the Son and in the Holy Ghost.
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  He is the good itself that we possess.
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  Which also clarifies the language in the Benediction, the
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  difference between communion with the Father and Son and the
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  Communion of the Holy Ghost. Right.
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  To have communion with someone means you share something in
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  common. We share a common good with the
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  Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is that common
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  good. He is the shared fullness, the
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  blessing that unites us to the Godhead.
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  So when we wish for the Communion of the Holy Ghost,
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  we're wishing for the actual experience of that indwelling
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  person, the. Experience of the gift itself.
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  And this understanding has major implications for how we think
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  about grace on a practical level, specifically what
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  theologians call habitual grace. OK, what's the issue there?
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  When we talk about a habit of grace being formed in US, what's
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  the danger? The danger is thinking of grace
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  as a created thing, a sort of spiritual muscle or battery that
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  God installs, which then operates on its own power.
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  Like it has its own momentum. Yes, Edwards argues against
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  that. He says there is no other
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  principle of grace in the soul than the Holy Spirit himself
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  dwelling and acting there. The continuation of grace is not
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  by some natural force of a habit.
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  So our spiritual life isn't self-sustaining even after
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  conversion. Not for a second.
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  He uses the powerful light analogy.
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  He says if God were to take his spirit out of your soul, all
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  grace would cease instantly, just like light manages from a
• 21:43
  room the moment you remove the candle.
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  The Spirit isn't the one who lights the fire.
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  The Spirit is the fire. So every act of grace, every
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  moment of faith or love, is a direct result of the Spirit's
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  continuous, immediate presence in action.
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  It is. It feels like a natural
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  principle to us. It's part of our new nature.
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  But it is sustained moment by moment, by divine power and
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  covenant, not by its own inherent strength.
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  And he says this is true for all holy creatures.
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  Even angels in heaven. Even the angels in heaven, the
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  Saints in glory, Adam before the fall, their holiness consisted
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  and consists entirely in their communion with this one Holy
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  Spirit. So to wrap this all up, Edwards
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  is making this incredibly powerful case that saving grace
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  isn't something we get from God, it is God.
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  It's the Holy Spirit who is the personal love of God, taking up
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  residence in the believer and becoming their new life.
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  It's the communication of God's own holiness to us.
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  And that leaves us with a final thought, something for you to
• 22:38
  really consider. If our holiness, our spiritual
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  life, is literally the holiness of God himself dwelling in us,
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  this substantial, eternal, unchangeable person of the Holy
• 22:48
  Spirit, what does that mean for the doctrine of the final
• 22:50
  perseverance of the Saints? If the source of our new nature
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  is the immutable person of God himself, how does that shift our
• 22:57
  perspective away from relying on our own fragile efforts and
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  toward an absolute, moment by moment reliance on the person
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  who is the gift? That's a vital question to think
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  through. Thank you for walking us through
• 23:08
  this deep and powerful argument from Edwards.