Jonathan Edwards and Justification E-Book

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 290

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Josh Moody has assembled a team of internationally reputed Edwards scholars to ask and answer the question: What is Jonathan Edwards's doctrine of Justification? The contributors also examine the extent to which Edwards's view was Reformational while addressing some of the contemporary discussions on justification. This volume helps us look at justification through the eyes of one of America's greatest theologians, and speaks credibly and winsomely to the needs of the church and the academy today.

Leseprobe

“In 1734, at the beginning of the Connecticut Valley revival that ushered in the Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards preached on the controversial doctrine of justification. Critics found ‘great fault’ with him for ‘meddling’ with it, and he ‘was ridiculed by many elsewhere.’ So today, those who engage in discussions about the nature of justification may find themselves the objects of criticism and ridicule, but the subject is a vital one, precisely because it has been and remains divisive. And it is particularly important in understanding Edwards, because his view on justification has been hotly debated. This volume combines informed historical context and contemporary appropriation, with the aim of considering Edwards ‘responsibly and correctly.’ What emerges is a balanced assessment of Edwards as an orthodox thinker, yet one with ‘creativity, spice, and derring-do.’”

Kenneth P. Minkema, Executive Editor, Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

“This superb collection of essays provides insight and guidance not only for understanding the thought of Jonathan Edwards in his historical context, but for wrestling with the current debate regarding the doctrine of justification by faith. This volume will prove to be richly rewarding, theologically engaging, and spiritually edifying for students and scholars alike. Josh Moody is to be commended for bringing together this outstanding group of scholars for such a timely and thoughtful exploration of this important subject. I highly recommend this book.”

David S. Dockery, President, Trinity International University

“A significant work that advances the growing scholarship on Jonathan Edwards and contributes to the current debates on justification. These lucid essays demonstrate that the great biblical and Reformation teaching on justification is not a stale, dusty doctrine, but has ramifications for the vitality of the church and the reform of society.”

Dennis P. Hollinger, President and Colman M. Mockler Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

Jonathan Edwards and Justification

Copyright © 2012 by Josh Moody

Published by Crossway                      1300 Crescent Street                      Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Dual Identity inc.

First printing 2012

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-3293-1 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-3294-8 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-3295-5 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-3296-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jonathan Edwards and justification / edited by Josh Moody.

   p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4335-3293-1 (tp)

1. Edwards, Jonathan, 1703–1758. 2. Justification (Christian theology). I. Moody, Josh.

BX7260.E3J64         2012

234'.7—dc23                                 2012001373

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Contents

Editor’s Preface

Introduction by Josh Moody

1    Edwards and Justification Todayby Josh Moody

2    By Word and Spirit: Jonathan Edwards on Redemption, Justification, and Regeneration by Kyle Strobel

3    The Gospel of Justification and Edwards’s Social Visionby Rhys Bezzant

4    Justification and Evangelical Obedienceby Samuel T. Logan Jr.

5    Justification by Faith Alone? A Fuller Picture of Edwards’s Doctrine by Douglas A. Sweeney

Editor’s Preface

Writing a book with collaboration adds its share of joys, and potential stresses, but I can say clearly that writing with these colleagues has been entirely joyful and not stressful in the least. I am glad to have been able to work together on this project and to be able to see the fruit of so much expertise brought forward for this common cause of examining Edwards’s view of justification.

As always when I write on Edwards I am personally conscious of several particular debts of gratitude. I remember with ongoing fondness and appreciation the support, friendship, and collegial counsel of one of the maestros of contemporary Edwards scholars, Kenneth Minkema. His work at Yale University over the years has gone a long way to reviving our interest in Edwards as well as providing the forum for exploring that interest through the expert publication of the Yale volumes on Edwards. I am grateful for his suggestions regarding this volume and his support of it as we got nearer to completion. There are also several friends who many years ago encouraged me to consider Edwards as a serious intellectual sparring partner, and I want to mention, if not all by name at least by group, this relatively large collection of friends and contemporaneous scholars who encouraged me to delve into technical Edwards scholarship. The Whitefield Institute, as it then was, provided much of the “showing the ropes” expertise for my initial forays into this world. And my supervisor at Cambridge, Dr. Thompson, mentored me in the world of accurate, deliberate, and first-rate theological history.

Specifically for this book I wish to thank Lane Dennis at Crossway for his support of this volume’s publication. It is a treasure to have such a strong theological vision behind Crossway, and I rejoice with his ministry. Thank you, too, to Tara Davis for her hard work in copyediting the manuscript for Crossway. I also wish to thank Pauline Epps. As I am writing, Pauline is just a few days away from retiring. She has served as executive assistant for my predecessor at College Church, Kent Hughes, and before him Erwin Lutzer at Moody Church. Pauline has provided support for many years for preaching and writing ministries of many in fairly prominent roles of public ministry, and I know that I speak for all who have benefited from her service to the Lord when I say that her work has been appreciated immensely, and has borne much fruit. Thank you, Pauline, and thank you to her husband Dick whose ministry at Moody Bible Institute was massively influential, too. I also wish to thank Carolyn Litfin, my executive assistant, who is such an example of ministry excellence, and whose assistance on this book was invaluable.

No preface would be complete without the traditional mention of the author’s (or in this case the editor’s) family. Rochelle is a gift beyond compare in this world, and we rejoice together with ministries such as this book and other opportunities to serve Jesus. I want specifically to dedicate this book to one of my children: Sophia. I will dedicate the next book to one of our other children, and somehow manage to keep the whole thing in strict rotation!

On behalf of all those who have contributed to this book, I wish to say simply may we receive the commendation of Jesus: “well done, good and faithful servant(s).” It has been a great joy working together with you.

Before you now you have quite a treat. We have put together a small team of internationally reputed Edwards scholars simply to ask and answer the question, what is Edwards’s doctrine of justification? Getting justification right has proven to be difficult, for some more than others, over the last decade or so, and what Edwards thinks, or would have thought about, is not a matter with small significance for the preaching of the gospel or the health of the church. So prepare to look at justification through the eyes of America’s greatest theologian, and by that means reengage with the biblical story about how we are made right with God.

JM

Introduction

Josh Moody

You will find much of what I want to say specifically about justification, and Edwards’s view of it, in chapter 1, “Edwards and Justification Today.” The purpose then of this introductory chapter is twofold. First, I introduce you to the contributors in this volume, if they are not already familiar to you, and prepare the way for their chapters to shine on their own merits. Second, I wish to make it clear in the most general terms why Edwards must still be considered today by all who take the life of the contemporary church seriously, and why in particular we must grasp his view on justification as we preach the gospel, study it, and seek to live by it.

So because I aim to be a thorough nontraditionalist in this book, let me begin in reverse order and start by explaining why Edwards must still be studied today and why in particular his relation to justification is important.

There has been a fair glut of Edwards work recently, it must be acknowledged. In fact, not all works on Edwards are so recent, but because of the prominent ministries of well-known American Christian leaders who look to Edwards for inspiration, the exposure to Edwards at a popular level is more obvious recently. If you examine bibliographies of Edwards scholarship, you will see that ever since Perry Miller’s landmark biography at the middle of the last century there has been an upswing of interest in Edwards, as Miller rescued him from the caricature of the backwards bigot (though in so doing he also painted a picture of Edwards that may not have been entirely fair to his unashamed Puritan convictions). But while this Edwards resurgence has been going on at a scholarly level for some time, at a popular level it hit the headlines in 2006 with ChristianityToday’s article “Young, Restless, Reformed” by Collin Hansen and the 2008 publication of Hansen’s book, Young, Restless, Reformed (with the accompanying image of a “Jonathan Edwards Is My Homeboy” T-shirt), and the ongoing young, restless, and reformed movement that is in play in various other avenues of ministry.

So the question must be asked, and answered in a way that does not feel like special pleading from someone who has a stake in a publication of a book on Edwards, do we really need another book on Edwards?

I think the answer is yes, and defensibly yes on almost any subject that Edwards addresses, because (1) it is always good to read great Christian forebears, such as Augustine or Edwards, and (2) because Edwards was writing in response to the secular Enlightenment, and the greatest need of the contemporary church today is to formulate a theological vision that effectively (also affectively, but that’s another story) answers the charge that Christianity is about as up-to-date as the bubonic plague. If we are to find the answer to that challenge, we will find it in Holy Scripture, not in Edwards, or at least that is my conviction as an unembarrassed holder to the doctrine espoused in 2 Timothy 3:16. But while we will find it in Scripture, we may also find that useful conversation partners, such as Edwards, will point us to parts of the Bible that we may have otherwise ignored. Edwards will no doubt be particularly good at this for he was dealing with the source of the Nile of secularization, and we are some way further down trying to work out what to do with it all.

Now to the specific matter of justification. While I think it is defensible that any amount of Edwards studies is a good thing, partly because he was a theological genius, partly because he was dealing with matters that are particularly pertinent today, I believe that we are especially rewarded by paying attention to what Edwards thought about justification.

If you are a theologian, scholar, pastor, preacher, or thinking and reading Christian, you would have had to be living under a rock somewhere, or in some blissful haven on a Pacific Island, not to be aware that there has been a bit of a controversy over justification in recent years. Edwards has been marshaled from time to time as someone who might give support to one idea or another along that controversy. Because of Edwards’s authority as a theologian, it is, of course, important that we understand carefully what he thinks about justification.

What the essays before us show is that Edwards’s view on justification was as thoroughly orthodox (or not, depending on your point of view) as Calvin’s or Luther’s. Yet, as ever, Edwards with his orthodoxy has more than a little dash of creativity, spice, and derring-do. That creativity can set you off in the wrong direction unless you consider carefully Edwards’s overall work and writing, and put him faithfully and properly into historical context. So it is important not only to consider Edwards, not only to think about what he said regarding justification, but also to do so responsibly and correctly, such as this book tries to achieve.

In addition, as the contributors to this volume make clear, it is important not to do away with Edwards’s creativity as a barnacle on an otherwise exemplary individual, as if we were saying, “Thanks Edwards for being orthodox; no thanks for being interesting.” Instead, we must not only take heart that creativity is not the foe of orthodoxy; we also need to look at some of the areas of exploration to which he points as models for us to develop a better view of justification, one that can stand the test of time and provide answers to some of the questions that have been raised contemporaneously.

In particular, Edwards’s view on justification explores the importance of what is normally called our “position” in Christ. That we are “in” him is surely the crucial area that has to be considered, the area that Paul clearly says was at stake when he wrote to the Galatians: “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 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. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose” (Gal. 2:19–21).

Unpacking that paragraph requires studying the rest of Galatians, or at the very least accepting the notion that by putting my faith in Christ I not only receive as something external the righteousness of God, but in doing that I become in him, and he in me, “Christ who lives in me.” This idea is very different from the traditional Roman Catholic idea that justification is gradually achieved, but it is also rather different from (probably the caricature of) the view that righteousness moves across to us like a gas moves across the room. Instead, righteousness, alien righteousness to use the technical term, is ours purely by faith, and with that, we are in Christ!

Now, I will give the game away if I explore too much more of what that means for Edwards, as the rest of the chapters in this book do that. But it is worth pausing and realizing that when Edwards talks about infusion and the like, what he is referring to is not the infusion of righteousness that the Westminster divines spoke against, but rather the experience of the new creation, the experience of having Christ in us, and us being in him. This supernatural event takes place when someone becomes a Christian—that is what Edwards is describing—and it is what rescues justification from the dusty tomes of the law court exegesis to the living entity that is in biblical thought, and in the experience of millions.

If I stay on this topic much longer, I will begin to turn this academic-level consideration into an altar call, because, of course, as we consider these things with our minds, it is impossible to not at the same time realize their considerable importance for every aspect of our being. In a book on Edwards I dare not use the jaded language of “head” and “heart,” for Edwards rightly assures us through his writings consistently that biblical epistemology is not so bifurcated. That is a theme for another book, and I have touched on it in a couple of my previous ones from time to time, but it is enough to say here that when I say that through faith in Christ I experience his righteousness, and this means that I am in him—well, the bells of the church should ring, the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, a shock of thrill run down your spine. There is simply no other subject that is more important for the winning of heaven and the avoiding of hell, and if you get no further in this book than this paragraph, and you take this paragraph to heart (pace Edwards), then you have more glory than, I am afraid, countless others who stand on their own religious merits and not on the merit of Christ and his death on the cross.

I want then to whet your appetite for what is to follow. First, my chapter explores the theme of how Edwards’s view of justification intersects with some contemporary debates. In doing so it overviews Edwards’s view on justification, corrects some common misapprehensions about that view erroneously drawn from his “Miscellanies,” and analyzes his better-known writings on the topic, before relating all this in some brevity, but hopefully fecundity, to various well-known more recent conundrums on the topic.

Then comes Kyle Strobel’s chapter on participation in justification. In some ways this is the heart of the matter on the technical side of understanding Edwards’s view on justification, and Strobel expertly guides us through the relevant material with a deft hand and a sure touch. Rhys Bezzant then broadens the debate to consider the implications of Edwards’s doctrine of justification for a social vision. An extraordinarily creative thinker himself, Bezzant connects Edwards’s work on justification with his other themes regarding his social vision in ways that portray avenues of great beneficent rewards. Samuel T. Logan Jr. does his excellent work on Edwards’s definition of being a Christian in relation to his topic of justification, and with a winsome touch and insightful scholarship shows us how important it is that we connect these two and get them right in Edwards’s thinking. Finally, Douglas A. Sweeney asks the question about Edwards’s doctrine of justification and presents to us a remarkably vibrant and fulsome depiction of Edwards’s doctrine of justification, drawing on areas of Edwards’s writing that have not been properly considered previously.

I thank all the contributors for producing such a feast of intellectual consideration and clear exposition of Edwards’s world and writing. Read on.

CHAPTER ONE

Edwards and Justification Today

Josh Moody

There has been considerable discussion about Edwards’s view of justification in recent years. There has also been a feisty series of interactions about the doctrine of justification itself in contemporary theology. The interplay of the two is not by happenstance, of course, as Edwards (often claimed to be the greatest American theologian) is a bit like Michael Jordan: if you can get him on your side, you have a better chance of winning, or at least of slam dunking on your theological opponent.

The reason why justification is a hot-button issue is essentially straightforward. Justification has been the defining doctrine of Protestantism ever since the Reformation of the sixteenth century, so anyone who wants to redefine Protestantism or the Reformation must tackle this particular doctrine. But the reason why justification has today become a matter of debate is a little more complex. For some, apparently, it needs to be discussed in order to make significant progress in Protestant/Roman Catholic ecumenical dialogue (and if progress in such dialogue is not what you want, then the doctrine needs to be underlined and kept entrenched). For others the notion of “justification by faith alone,” as traditionally formulated, has become unwarranted due to some technical work on the background of the New Testament, especially by E. P. Sanders. Then into the fray comes the general feeling that much of at least Western Protestantism has become a little superficial, and there seems an implicit agenda in some of the discussion to find room for “works” within Protestant thinking and thereby into Protestant living.

And no doubt there are other rationales, streams of discussion, and various forms of argumentation. The doctrine of justification more generally is discussed today in the works of James Dunn and N. T. Wright, among others. Those who are counterarguing for a more traditional position are rarely found in exalted academic ivory towers, except for Simon Gathercole of Cambridge University. Specifically within Edwards studies, the discussions are found in Thomas A. Schafer’s article in Church History, Anri Morimoto’s book, George Hunsinger’s writings, some parts of McDermott’s monograph, and, arguing the more conservative position, Samuel T. Logan Jr.’s article.1 If academic debates were won by sheer weight of numbers, then those who argue that Edwards basically takes a traditional view of justification would be in trouble.

Edwards’s doctrine of justification is articulated in three areas of his work: his quaestio MA thesis essay, his Justification by Faith Alone lectures of 1735, and various entries in his “Miscellanies” unpublished writings. This book will examine each of these areas and determine what exactly was Edwards’s doctrine of justification, to what extent was it traditional Reformation thought, and whether the form of the doctrine that Edwards expressed has any relevance to contemporary discussions about justification. This chapter will give an overview of Edwards and justification today. Each of the succeeding chapters will analyze in detail the different areas where Edwards articulates his understanding of justification, taking the form of text and commentary upon the text.

I argue that Edwards’s view of justification is relevant today because it articulates the Protestant Reformation view of justification in a way that addresses some of the contemporary questions that are posed to that view. I will first look at Edwards’s view of justification, then more briefly at the Reformation Protestant view of justification, and finally at how Edwards’s view of justification addresses some of the contemporary questions about justification.

Edwards’s View of Justification

Jonathan Edwards has long been recognized as a creative mind, and his formulation of the doctrine of justification is no exception. The crucial issue, however, is whether Edwards’s view of justification is creative in form but essentially traditional in content, or whether Edwards’s view of justification is creative at both levels. Is Edwards saying something novel (that is “new”), or is he saying something in a novel way? There is a world of difference between the two possibilities, and no reason logically to assume that just because Edwards is at least saying something in a new way, he must therefore be saying something new. There is a kind of specious, uneducated cant that is suspicious of anything novel, lest it not be “what was always said.” I trust we can all avoid that sort of ancestor worship. And there is a kind of immaturity that looks for the letter not the spirit of an idea, and that once it finds a slightly different formulation believes that the essence has changed. Ironically, of course, the reverse can be true. One can find someone who has a “justification by faith alone” bumper sticker, and talks of imputation of righteousness, propitiation, and all the rest, but actually behind the apparently old-fashioned formulations holds to a completely new set of ideas. What we are looking for here is the spirit of what Edwards is saying, not the letter. We will certainly look at the “letter,” the details, but what we need to understand is the message that is being communicated, or to use Edwardsian terminology, we are looking for the idea.

A word about bias: personally, I hold to a rather traditional view of justification by faith alone, though I hope I am able to express it in some interesting, perhaps even at times novel, ways. But I am not committed to finding that Edwards agrees with me. I do not agree with Edwards about everything, perhaps particularly his fascinating eschatology, or his rather invigorating semi-idealist metaphysics. I come to my own views for my own reasons, and without doubt have long found Edwards a helpful sparring partner in the matter of working out the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. But he is not my master, and my world will not be shaken if I find that Edwards really was a crypto –Roman Catholic. I will say this though: those who argue that Edwards’s view of justification inches him toward a Catholic view of justification are the ones who have to do all the legwork. After all at a basic commonsense level it is intrinsically unlikely that Edwards was a pseudo-Roman Catholic. He was, let’s remember, an eighteenth-century Puritan in New England who, perhaps more than anyone in world history, did not usually have to defend himself against charges of “going over to Rome.” Still, you never know. And I’ve come to this discussion with an open mind.

Discussions about Edwards’s teaching on justification focus primarily on three areas, namely his use of the word “infusion,” his understanding of the order of salvation, and his discussion about faith and love.2 We’ll consider each of these in turn.

Edwards’s Use of the Word “Infusion”

The word “infusion” stands out because it is used in Roman Catholic theology to explain a theory of how grace works that is different from the Protestant theory of how grace works. But does Edwards use the word in a Roman Catholic (or semi–Roman Catholic) way, or does he invest in it some meaning of his own? A third alternative is that he uses it in a non–Roman Catholic way but a thoroughly traditional Protestant way. Oh the vagaries of theological lexicography! If I wanted to be really devilish, I might suggest that he could also have been using a knowingly Roman Catholic word without intending to import into it our particular ecumenical sensitivities. Protestants do use Roman Catholic words frequently (“Trinity,” “salvation,” etc.) without necessarily meaning them in Roman Catholic ways, or use them in Roman Catholic ways, but only when they overlap happily with Protestant meaning (such as the word “Trinity”). If the word “infused” always meant something irreducibly Roman Catholic, then spotting it in Edwards’s writings would certainly set the Protestant scholastics’ nerves tingling. But I don’t see any reason why it should, and in fact, on closer observation, it does not. This is not like finding Edwards talking approvingly about purgatory, for instance.

Actually, when Edwards uses “infusion,” he is talking about regeneration (to use another theological term). He sometimes uses the language of “infusion” in his “Miscellanies”—his unpublished notebooks—when he is discussing how ridiculous he thinks it is to deny that the Holy Spirit can actually come in and change someone’s life. Edwards is not attempting an ecumenical dialogue on the topic of justification in any of these “Miscellanies” that I can see (unsurprisingly for someone writing before Vatican II and certainly before Evangelicals and Catholics Together). He is trying intellectually to browbeat the deists of the eighteenth century who wanted their cake and to be able to eat it too; they wanted to have God and rationalism, no miracles, nothing so “weird” as being born again, or grace coming into your life. Edwards talks in fairly repetitive terms throughout his “Miscellanies” about how absurd it is to say that God can do something in your life but that the Holy Spirit cannot be “infused” (or cause regeneration). A few examples should make this obvious:

Those that deny infusion by the Holy Spirit, must of necessity deny the Spirit to do anything at all. “By the Spirit’s infusing” is an unintelligible expression; but however, let be meant what will, those that say there is no infusion contradict themselves. For they say the Spirit doth something in the soul; that is, he causeth some motion, or affection, or apprehension to be in the soul, that at the same time would not be there without him. Now I hope, that God’s Spirit doth he doth; he doth so much as he doth, or he causeth in the soul so much as he causeth, let that be how little soever. So much as is purely the effect of his immediate motion, that is the effect of his immediate motion, let that be what it will; and so much is infused, how little soever that be. This is self-evident.3

Edwards is arguing against “those.” Who are these people? We, of course, do not know for sure, but almost certainly they are some mixture of those eighteenth-century New England bugbears, Arminians and/or deists. Surely they are not Reformation Protestants who deny “infusion” in the sense that justification is a declaration of righteousness, not an infusion of righteousness. Note that Edwards nowhere here mentions justification.

To say that a man who has no true virtue and no true grace can acquire it by frequent exercises of [it], is as much a contradiction as to say a man acts grace when he has no grace, or that he has it [when] he has it not. For tell me [how] a man that has no true grace within him shall begin to exercise it: before he begins to exercise it, he must have some of it. How shall [he] act virtuously the first time? How came he by that virtue which he then acted? Certainly not [by] exercise of virtue, for it supposes that he never acted virtuously before, and therefore could not get it by acting of it before.4

This is a similar point. Edwards is saying that morality or virtue cannot take place simply by trying hard or developing habits. For there to be an exercise of grace there needs to be grace. Again, no discussion of justification (incidentally, it is common to use “grace” in Puritan and Reformation writings in a wider sense than solely justification).

And in case any wonder whether I am making up the idea that Edwards’s use of “infusion” equates to what we more normally discuss under the heading of “regeneration,” or that I’m just substituting a term used by Edwards for a term that I might feel more comfortable with, consider two “Miscellanies” on the subject of infusion. First,

And seeing it is thus, how analogous hereto is it to suppose that however God has left meaner gifts, qualifications and attainments in some measure in the hands of second causes, that yet true virtue and holiness, which is the highest and most noble of all the qualifications gifts and attainments of the reasonable creature, and is the crown and glory of the human, and that by which he is nearest to God and does partake of his image and nature, and is the highest beauty and glory of the whole creation, and is as it were the life and soul of the soul, that is given in the new creation or new birth, should be what God don’t leave to the power of second causes, or honor any arm of flesh or created power or faculty to be the proper instrument of, but that he should reserve it in his own hands to be imparted more immediately by himself, in the efficacious operation of his own Spirit.5

By “infused grace” Edwards means, he says, what “is given in the new creation or new birth.” I am not sure it could be much clearer than that.

Second, in “Miscellanies” 1028 on the same topic, where as typical for his later “Miscellanies” he quotes from various authors and there is less of Edwards’s own thoughts on the matter, the author he is reading about “infused grace” is, “These things above are taken from Dr. Doddridge, On Regeneration, Sermon 7.”6

I am tempted to say QED in terms of infusion. But one last point may help: in none of the “Miscellanies” on infusion is justification mentioned. And, out of 1,359 notes or “Miscellanies” on various topics, plus two scales of “Miscellanies” from A–Z (the second time with the notation of “aa,” etc.), Edwards wrote eight “Miscellanies” on the subject of infusion. I find this hard to square with Thomas Schafer’s confident comment with relation to the “Miscellanies” that, “The conception of regenerating and sanctifying grace as an infusion of new habits and principles is prominent in Edwards’s writings on the subject.”7 It is a rate of 0.5 percent on infusion in the “Miscellanies,” which is not what I would call prominent.

Edwards does have some interesting things to say under the topic of justification itself about obedience, but we will turn to that when we consider the general matter of what Edwards called “evangelical obedience.”

For now, let us turn to another common discussion concerning Edwards’s view of justification: his understanding of the order of salvation.

Edwards’s Understanding of the Order of Salvation

If you were to write an Idiot’s Guide on the distinction between Roman Catholic theology and Protestant theology regarding the matter of the order of salvation, and you were a Protestant, you would simply say that Protestants believe that justification precedes sanctification while Roman Catholics have it the other way around. There’s a lot of truth in that statement, even if it would be a summary worthy of the popular “Idiot’s Guide” series. Given that common distinction, then, when people read various statements in Edwards that indicate he believes that God is at work in a sinner’s life before he savingly believes and is justified, some understandably leap to the conclusion that Edwards thereby is overturning this common distinction in terms of the order of salvation.

For instance, Perry Miller, in his seminal biography of Edwards that kick-started much of the modern fascination with Edwards as a towering intellectual giant, noticed this since-frequently-commented-upon phrase in Edwards’s Justification by Faith Alone lectures: “What is real in the union between Christ and his people, is the foundation of what is legal.”8

What does Edwards mean by this phrase? Various possibilities present themselves. Edwards could mean that he thinks that sanctification precedes justification. From the wording of that phrase alone, without paying any attention to the context, both historical and in the actual argument of the lectures themselves, that is a possible interpretation of the phrase. But is it likely? For various reasons we have already suggested—that Edwards was famed as a defender of Reformed orthodoxy, arguing against Arminians, and that there wasn’t a Roman Catholic in sight in the heart of Puritan New England as a viable theological opponent—it seems superficially unlikely. But it is possible if we simply take the words themselves without considering their context.

However, if we consider Edwards’s words in context, then that interpretation is impossible. The following is a long quotation, but if we want to understand Edwards’s view of the “order of salvation,” we need to read the context of the phrase that Miller highlighted: