Journal #12

Nika Bogoslovsky
10/12/07
Edwards

"And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners"

Summary:

Again, this is a sermon Jonathan Edwards wrote and delivered to his congregation. In this sermon he basically dooms his people to hell and calls them sinners. Yet, in the end, he manages to add that God still cares about them and they'll be saved if they change their sinful ways instantly, but this is said hopelessly and not in a reassuring way.

Response:

It's fascinating the metaphor Edwards used about the Israelites and Christ, symbolising destruction and salvation and pertaining it to his church goers. Using the Old Testament and the New Testament, to me, was also a metaphor in itself. It was like he was saying put aside your old habits and ways of life and start anew; come into a new light and be saved. He didn't have to use those examples, even though Christ is the perfect example of salvation but he could have easily chose the example of the rainbow after the 40 day flood. Instead, he chose to use something out of the New Testament. That made it seem like he was trying to accept a new change because he hadn't mentioned Christ and the New Testament in the whole sermon until the end. Maybe he himself had hope for a new, brighter future. It was really sly of him putting in that bit about how God still holds them in his hand, just seemed so impossible to hear any kind of hope in such unkind words.