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Jonathan Edwards: Affection and Action (Part 3)

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Godly affection is the spring from which godly actions flow. Godly affection is the fruit of faith in Christ. Edwards describes faith as “trusting in another . . . resting or living in acquiescence of mind and heart in the full persuasion of his sufficiency and faithfulness, so as to be ready fully to venture on him in our actions.”

Faith (confidence) in Christ as sufficient and faithful produces an affection for him that leads to godly practice. In the words of Edwards:

They [who] do not enter on any action or course of action in such a confidence, and so venture nothing, and therefore cannot be said truly to trust. He that really trusts in another, ventures on his confidence. And so it is with those that truly trust in God. They rest in the full persuasion that God is sufficient and faithful, so as to proceed in this confidence to follow God, and, if because he has promised that they shall be no losers by such a course; and they have such a confidence of this, that they can and do venture upon his promise, while those who are not willing thus to venture, shew that they do not trust in him.

Faith must be present, indeed, is a necessary pre-condition, to godly action. However, this faith is not without affection. As previously noted, faith and affection, for Edwards, go hand in hand. Faith and affection, together, produce godly action. In the words of Edwards, “Love is an active principle – a principle that we always find is active in things of this world. Love to our fellow creatures always influences us in our actions and practice.”

In addressing the question of faith and action, Edwards comments on Galatians 2:20, which reads “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,” he says,

We are often told that Christians, so far as they are Christians, “live by faith;” which is equivalent to saying that all gracious and holy exercises and virtues of the spiritual life are by faith. But how does this work? Why, in this place in Galatians, is it expressly said, that it works whatsoever it does work by love. From which the truth of the doctrine follows, [that is to say] that all that is saving and distinguishing in Christianity does radically consist, and is summarily comprehended, in love . . . From love to God springs love to man, as says the apostle (1 John v. 1).

According to Edwards, to live by faith is to live in love. The summation of the Christian life is the life lived by love. By faith, the Christian lives by love to God and to man. in the words of Edwards:

It is our inclination that governs us in our actions; but all the actings of the inclination and will, in all our common actions of life, are not ordinarily called affections. yet, what are commonly called affections are not essentially different from them, but only in the degree and manner of exercise.

The life of faith, for the Christian, is the life of love, according to Edwards. It is the heart,  which is the seat of our affections, that govern our actions. Whatsoever the soul is inclined to and has affection for, that inclination and affection will govern the action of the Christian toward to object of the heart.

Edwards appeals to reason and common sense examples to reinforce his argument for man’s actions are a result and fruit of his love. Using Christ’s words in John 15:13, which read, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friend,”  as a backdrop, he writes:

Reason teaches that a man’s actions are the most proper test and evidence of his love. Thus if a man professes a great deal of love and friendship to another, reason, in such a case, teaches all mankind that the friend as he professes to be, in his appearing a friend in his deeds, and not only in his words; and that he shall be willing, if need be, to deny himself for his friend, and to suffer his own private interest for the sake of doing him a kindness. . . And so, if we see a man who, by his constant behaviour [sic], shews himself ready to take pains and lay himself out for God, reason teaches, that in this he gives an evidence of love to God, more to be depended on than if he only professes that he feels great love to God in his heart. And so, if we see a man who, by what we behold of the course ofhis like, seems to follow and imitate Christ, and greatly lay himself out for Christ’s honour [sic] and the advancement of his kingdom in the world, reason teaches, that he gives greater evidence of the sincerity and strength of his love to the Saviour [sic] than if he only declares that he loves Him, and tells how his heart at such and such a time was drawn out in love to Him, while at the same time he is backward to do any great matter for Christ or to put himself out of the way for the promotion of his kingdom, and is ready to excuse himself when called to active effort or self-denial for his Savious’s [sic] sake.

Edwards line of reasoning is simple. If someone truly loves someone and has a true affection for them, their actions will show it. If a believer is truly trusting Christ, their heart will have an affection for him that will demonstrate itself in action and practice. The only question that remains is what such practice and action look like practically. To this Edwards says:

There are various ways for the exercise of sincere love to God, and they all tend to holy practice. One is, in having a high esteem for God; for that which we love we have the highest esteem for, and naturally show this esteem in our behavior. Another way of showing our love to God is, in making choice of him above all other things; and if we do sincerely choose him above all other things, then we shall actually leave other things for him when it comes to the trial in our practice: and when, in the course of our life, it comes to pass that God and our honor, or God and our money, or God and our ease, are at the same time set before us, so that we must cleave to the one and forsake the other, then, if we really choose God above these other things, we shall in our practice cleave to God, and let these things go. Another way of the exercise of love to God is, in our desires after him; and these also tend to practice. He that really has earnest desires after God, will be stirred up actively to seek after him. He will apply himself to it as a business, just as men do for this world when they have earnest desires for a good which they believe is attainable. And still another way of the exercise of love to God is, in delighting in him, and finding satisfaction and happiness in him.; and this also tends to practice. He that really and sincerely delights more in God than in other things, and finds his satisfaction in God, will not forsake God for other things; and thus, by his conduct, he shows that he indeed is satisfied in him as his portion. And so it is in all cases. If we have had enjoyment in any possession whatever, and then afterward forsake it for something else, this is an evidence that we were not fully satisfied with it, and that we did not delight in it above all other things. In all these cases, the feelings and choices will be seen in the practice.

The demonstration of our faith in, heart’s affection for, and soul’s inclination toward God is seen in a high esteem for God, a choice of him above all other things, a desire after him, and delight and satisfaction in him. The evidence of these practices are, by virtue, a denial and forsaking of everything and everyone else.

According to Edwards, a believer’s faith in the gospel produces an affection for God that results in an abandoning and forsaking of sin and the pursuit of pleasure in anything other than God, and thereby produces a delighting, desiring, esteeming and choosing of God as a daily practice.

Jonathan Edwards: Affection and Action (Part 2)

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Affection for God is not something that is brought about by human power or effort. Affection for God in the heart of the believer is a work of God. Edwards remarks on this:

If it be indeed so, as the Scripture abundantly teaches, that grace in the soul is so the effect of God’s power, that it is fitly compared to those effects which are farthest from being owing to any strength in the subject, such as a generation, or a being begotten, and resurrection, or a being raised from the dead, and creation, or a being brought out of nothing into being, and that it is an effect wherein the mighty power of God is greatly glorified, and the exceeding greatness of his power is manifested; then what account can be given of it, that the Almighty, in so great a work of his power, should so carefully hide his power, that the subjects of it should be able to discern nothing of it? Or what reason or revelation have any to determine that he does so? If we may judge by the Scripture this is not agreeable to God’s manner, in his operations and dispensations; but on the contrary, it is God’s manner, in the great works of his power and mercy which he works for his people, to order things so as to make his hand visible, and his power conspicuous, and men’s dependence on him most evident, that no flesh should glory in his presence, that God alone might be exalted, and that the excellency of the power might be of God and not of man, and that Christ’s power might be manifested in our weakness, and none might say mine own hand hath saved me.

Just as regeneration, being made a new creation, being adopted by God into his family, and being resurrected on the last day are all works of the Spirit of God, so too affections for God are a work of the Spirit. Believers cannot manufacture affections for God, it is a work of the Spirit through faith; Scripture makes this abundantly clear.

It is for and through the glory of God that the Spirit awakens the affections for God in the believer. For in so doing, man’s dependence on God, thereby his affection for him, and thus God’s glorification, becomes greater and greater.

Affections for God are to be experienced by the believer. The Apostle Paul calls for all believers to experience such affections when he writes:

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.

The hope that Paul wants every believer to know is the riches of God’s glorious inheritance for us. This “knowing” occurs through the Spirit making “the eyes of our heart enlightened.” Paul does not say that the eyes of the mind are to be enlightened, as if the knowing of the riches of God’s glorious inheritance were simply a fact that the mind must assent to. Rather, Paul wants the eyes of our hearts enlightened. Paul wants the affects of our hearts to be awakened to God’s glory by the Spirit.  Paul wants the believer’s hearts and affections to know the glory of God. Edwards remarks on this verse are as follows:

Now when the apostle speaks of their being thus the subjects of his power, in their enlightening and effectual calling, to the end that they might know what his mighty power was to them who believe, he can mean nothing else than, “that they might know by experience.” But if the saints know this power by experience, then they feel it and discern it, and are conscious of it; as sensibly distinguishable from the natural operations of their own minds, which is not agreeable to a motion of God’s operating so secretly, and [indiscernibly], that it cannot be known that they are the subjects of the influence of any extrinsic power at all, any otherwise than as they may argue it from Scripture assertions; which is a different; thing from knowing it by experience. So that it is very unreasonable and unscriptural to determine that affections are not from the gracious operations of God’s Spirit, because they are sensibly not from the persons themselves that are the subjects of them.

For Edwards, the knowing of God is an experiencing of his glory and power. This experience of God’s power and glory are the source of the believer’s affections for God. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes the eyes of the heart open to God’s glory, and by faith, we experience that power.

There is a discernible difference, knowable to the believer, between an affection for God that is conjured up in the mind of that believer, and an affection for God that is produced by the Spirit of God.  The experience produced by the Spirit of God is one that exposes the heart to the glory and power of God. Through such an experience of glory and power, by faith, the heart of the believer drawn in affection to God.

Jonathan Edwards: Affection and Action (Part 1)

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Not all affections that arise in the heart of the believer are godly, nor are they the fruit of grace. It is possible for right actions to be done out of wrong motives. Edwards speaks to this and says:

It is no sign that affections are truly gracious affections, or that they are not, that they cause those who have them to be fluent, fervent, and abundant, in talking of the things of religion. . . But this is the fruit of but little judgment, a scanty and short experience; as events do abundantly show: and is a mistake persons often run into, through their trusting to their own wisdom and discerning, and making their own notions their rule, instead of the holy Scripture.

Personal experience is often a foundation for affections. The affections as emotions often become the goal in and of themselves. Believers look to the experience of the affections for the source of the affections. Instead, they ought to make the Scriptures their guide and source for their affections. Christians ought not look to their experience for the motivation to love God. For if they do, the moment an unpleasant, painful, or displeasurable experience comes, affection for God would surely evaporate. However, if in the midst of suffering or painful experiences the believer looked to the Scripture for the truth of the excellencies of Christ and placed his or her faith in that truth, the affections would sure be manifested.

Moreover, whether a believer is trusting in himself or his own experiences, or even in other people and their experiences, or his faith is properly invested in Christ and his excellencies, both will show themselves in the fruit and action of that believer. For whether the heart is operating in grace or sin, regardless, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” To this Edwards writes:

That persons are disposed to be abundant in talking of things of religion, may be from a good cause, and it may be from a bad one. It may be because their hearts are very full of holy affections; “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh:” and it may be because persons’ hearts are very full of religious affection which is not holy; for still out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. It is very much the nature of the affections, of whatever kind they be, and whatever objects they are exercised about, if they are strong, to dispose persons to be very much in speaking of that which they are affected with: and not only to speak much, but to speak very earnestly and fervently. And therefore persons talking abundantly and very fervently about the things of religion, can be an evidence of no more than this, that they are very much affected with the things of religion; but this may be (as has been already shown) and there be no grace.

Every believer operates from the affections of his heart. The actions of the Christian are governed by affections. The result of affection for God is demonstrated in righteous action. The result of affection for self or sin is unrighteous action. A believer’s action, whether righteous or unrighteous, comes from a heart of affection.

Jonathan Edwards: Faith and Affection (Part 3)

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Faith and love are impossible if there is no source from which they can flow. If faith and love have no fountain from which to spring than this discussion is moot.  It is the gospel that Edwards sees as the crucial element in all of this. It is the gospel alone that supplies all that is necessary for faith and love to exist. He writes,

This spirit, even a spirit of love, is the spirit that God holds forth greater motives in the gospel to induce us to, than to any other thing whatever. The work of redemption which the gospel makes known, above all things affords motives to love; for that work was the most glorious and most wonderful exhibition of love that ever was seen or heard of. Love is the principle thing that the gospel dwells on when speaking of God, and of Christ. It brings to light the love eternally existing between the Father and Son, and declares how that same love has been manifested [to us].

The source of faith and love, according to Edwards, is the gospel. The act of God through Christ, the demonstration of love to the world through the cross is the very source of our faith and love. Belief in the gospel and all that God has done for us through Christ is the fountain whence our faith and love spring. It is the gospel that “affords motives to love.”

The means by which the gospel affords motives to love is through knowledge of God. The picture of God and Christ as clothed in love is an inducement to love. Edwards writes:

God and Christ appear in the gospel revelation, as being clothed with love; as sitting as it were on a throne of mercy and grace, a seat of love, encompassed about with the sweet beams of love. . . Therefore, it is plain that this spirit, even a spirit of live, is the spirit that the gospel revelation does especially hold forth motives and inducements to; and this is especially and eminently the Christian spirit – the right spirit of the gospel.

God’s love as perfectly reflected in Christ is the motivation and inducement to love. God is the source of our affections for him. The heart of love is produced by the gospel – the message of the God of love.

When a Christian understands and is reminded anew of who God is, the natural result is love. Knowledge of God and love for him go hand-in-hand. Edwards remarks:

Divine knowledge and divine live go together. A spiritual view of divine things always excites love in the soul, and draws forth the heart in love to proper object. True discoveries of the divine character dispose us to love God as the supreme good; they unite the heart in love to Christ; they incline the soul to flow out in love to God’s people, and to all mankind. When persons have a true discovery of the excellency and sufficiency of Christ, this is the effect. When they experience a right belief of the truth of the gospel, such a belief is accompanied by love. They love him whom they believe to be the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Growth in sanctification is growth in love. Growth in love comes from growth in the “discoveries of the divine character.” A Christian’s continual “discovery of the excellency and sufficiency of Christ” will lead to and naturally result in a Christian’s continual growth in a heart of affection. Edwards continues:

When the truth of the glorious doctrines and promises of the gospel is seen, these doctrines and promises are like so many cords which take hold of the heart and draw it out in love to God and Christ. When persons experience a true trust and reliance on Christ, they rely on him with love and so do it with delight and sweet acquiescence of soul. . . When persons experience true comfort and spiritual joy, their joy is the joy of faith and love. They do not rejoice in themselves, but it is God who is their exceeding joy.

True faith in Christ produces inexpressible love and joy. When the believer truly places his trust in the promises of God purchased for him by Christ, their is an inevitable love that binds him to God. Faith in the gospel leads to true joy in God, because faith in the gospel means an understanding that joy is not found in a person, but only and exhaustively in God.  Or as Edwards himself wrote, “High degrees of joy are the proper and genuine fruits of the gospel of Christ, therefore the angel calls this gospel, ‘good tidings of great joy, that should be to all people.’”

Emotions and affections are not only appropriate, but necessary and natural responses to the gospel. The truth that gospel contains is so great and so wonderful, one cannot but help but be taken with emotion, especially affection and devotion for God.

These affections and joys that naturally arise from faith in the gospel are merely foreshadows of the greater affections and joy that await the Christian to experience in heaven. To this Edwards writes:

The knowledge which the saints have of God’s beauty and glory in this world, and those holy affections that arise from it, are of the same nature and kind with what the saints are the subjects of in heaven, differing only in degree and circumstances: what God gives them here, is a foretaste of heavenly happiness, and an earnest of their future inheritance.

Those saints that have already gone to glory experience fully God’s beauty. Likewise their affections are are fully engaged in the perfect worship of the Savior. For those Christians still remaining and living here on earth, understanding the glory of God through the word of Christ brings faith in the gospel that results in affection for God. That understanding and affection are are but pale glimpses of the ultimate reality awaiting them in eternal glory. Everything the gospel brings into our experience in sanctification is a foretaste of the eternal life in heaven.

Jonathan Edwards: Faith and Affection (Part 2)

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Edwards defines his term “affections” as encompassing many emotions, including fear, hope, love, hatred, desire, joy, sorrow, gratitude, compassion, and zeal. Fear of God, hope in his promises,  love for God and others, hatred of sin, desiring holiness, holy joy, brokenheartedness, gratitude to God, compassion and mercy toward others, and passion for God’s glory all comprise affection. But all of these find their summation in one great affection, love. Love, according to Edwards, is the chief affection.

Edwards argues that affection is the inclination of the soul toward or against an object.

In his great work on affections, Edwards declares:

God has indued the soul with two faculties: one is that by which it is capable of perception and speculation, or by which it discerns, and views, and judges of things; which is called the understanding. The other faculty is that by which the soul does not merely perceive and view things, but is some way inclined with respect to the things it views or considers; either is inclined to them, or is disinclined and averse from them; or is the faculty by which the soul does not behold things, as an indifferent unaffected spectator, but either as liking or disliking, pleased or displeased, approving or rejecting. This faculty is called by various names; it is sometimes called the inclination: and, as it has respect to the actions that are determined and governed by it, is called the will: and the mind, with regard to the exercises of this faculty, is often called the heart.

The exercise of this faculty are of two sorts; either those by which the soul is carried out towards the things that are in view, in approving of them, being pleased with them, and inclined to them; or those in which the soul opposes the things that are in view, in disapproving of them, and in being displeased with them, averse from them, and rejecting them.

Edwards defines the inclination of the will, as governed by the mind and expressed in action, as affection. These affections are often referred to as “the heart.” Edwards sees no distinction between the will and the affections of the soul; the two are joined and indistinguishable in there actings.

Whatever a person has affections for, it is toward that thing that the soul is inclined. If a person loves God with all their heart, that person loves God with the affections of their heart, and therefore, by necessity, the inclination of their soul.

Jonathan Edwards: Faith and Affection (Part 1)

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In the middle of the 18th century, the mind of Jonathan Edwards had few competitors. His writings and sermons still have a profound affect on the church and secular scholarship to this day. Edwardian theology has been popularized by modern Reformed Baptist pastor John Piper, who has built his entire ministry on the works of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards is essential to this paper because of his emphasis on joy, in particular the connection of faith and affection to it. His theology did not simply flow from a superior intellect, however Edwards intellect was indisputably superior. Edwards’ theology flowed from a powerful and intimate relationship with God. Recounting an experience in that relationship, Edwards wrote, “On January 12, 1723, I made a solemn dedication of myself to God, and wrote it down; giving up myself . . . And solemnly vowed to take God for my whole portion and felicity; looking on nothing else as any part of my happiness.” This experience in young Edwards’ life would shape the rest of his life and theology.

Faith, Love, and the Gospel
Edwards theology of sanctification maintains that faith produces godly affections, and godly affections produces godly practice (actions). Faith is essential to affections and actions. In his comments concerning 1 Peter 1:8, which reads, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,” Edwards writes, “. . . the apostle takes notice . . . of this joy . . . The manner in which it rises, the way in which Christ, though unseen, is the foundation of it, [that is to say] by faith.” For Edwards, the source of joy is faith. But Edwards does not dichotomize faith and love, rather he sees them as one. Without love, faith is not real saving faith. Or in the words of Edwards himself:

True love is an ingredient in true and living faith, and is what is most essential and distinguishing in it. Love is no ingredient in a merely speculative faith, but it is the life and soul of a practical faith . . . A speculative faith consists only of the understanding, but in a saving faith there is also the consent of the heart; and that faith which is of the former kind, is no better than the faith of devils, for they have faith as far as it can exist without love, believing while they tremble. Now the true spiritual consent of the heart cannot be distinguished from the love of the heart. He whose heart consents to Christ as a Saviour [sic], has true love to him as such. For the heart to sincerely consent tot he way of salvation by Christ, cannot be distinguished from loving that way of salvation and resting in it.

A believer, according to Edwards, cannot believe in Christ apart form loving him. To trust Christ is to love him, and to love Christ is to trust him. There cannot be one without the other. As again Edwards says, “The will and affections of the soul, are not two faculties; the affections are not essentially distinct from the will, nor do they differ from the mere actings of the will, and inclination of the soul but only in the liveliness and sensibleness of exercise.”

Edwards says further:

In every act of the will whatsoever, the either likes or dislikes, is wither inclined or disinclines to what is in view; these are not essentially different from those affections of love and hatred: that liking, or inclination of the soul to a thing, if it be in a high degree, and be vigorous and lively the very same thing with the affection of love; and that disliking and disinclining, if in a greater degree, is the very same with hatred. In every act of the will for, or towards something not present, the soul is in some degree inclined to that thing; and the inclination, if in a considerable degree, is the very same with the affection of desire.

Most essential to Edwards theology of sanctification is the role of godly affection in the sanctification of the believer. He writes:

The Author of the human nature has not only given affections to men, but has made them very much the spring of men’s actions. As the affections do not only necessarily belong to the human nature, but are a very great part of it; so (inasmuch as by regeneration persons are renewed in the whole man, and sanctified throughout) holy affections do not only necessarily belong to true religion, but are a very great part of it. And as true religion is of a practical nature, and God hath so constituted the human nature, that the affections are very much the spring of men’s actions, this also shows, that true religion must consist very much in the affections.

For Edwards, godly affections play an essential role in the sanctification of the believer. Godly affections are “the spring” from which the Christian’s actions flow. Sinful affections produce sinful practice. Godly affections produce godly practice.

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