Peter J. Leithart

Gifts of physical goods were always, Edwards says, part of piety ( The Miscellanies, 833-1152 , 79): “It was a thing established in the visible church of God from the very beginning, that a part of the substance of God’s visible people should be brought as an offering to the Lord. So it . . . . Continue Reading »

Jonathan Edwards summarized a widely held opinion when he claimed that Chinese language and civilization perpetuated the language and civilization of the immediate post-diluvian world: “Their language seems not to have been altered in the confusion of Babel. Their learning is reported to have . . . . Continue Reading »

Following the lead of John Owen, Edwards highlights the pneumatological dimension of the incarnation and work of Christ ( Notes on Scripture , 575): “It was by the eternal Spirit that Christ offered up himself without spot to God. It was by the Holy Spirit many ways. It was by the Holy Spirit . . . . Continue Reading »

Pastor Ralph Smith continues his studies in Deuteronomy 14 at the Trinity house web site. . . . . Continue Reading »

Numbers 19 gives the recipe for concocting the water of purification from the ashes of a burnt red heifer and some other ingredients. We expect a Reformed theologian like Edwards to reach immediately for Christological analogies. Instead, the heifer becomes a type of the martyr church ( Notes on . . . . Continue Reading »

Jephthah did not, Edwards argues, slaughter his daughter on an altar. That would have been unlawful, just as offering an unclean animal on the altar was unlawful. What he did was what he could lawfully do, dedicate her to the Lord - just as an unclean animal could be dedicated to holy service. A . . . . Continue Reading »

Jonathan Edwards observes in his Notes on Scripture that the temple was built on a threshing floor “where wheat was wont to be threshed that it might become bread to support men’s life.” Like everything else about the temple system, this constituted a type of Christ: “The . . . . Continue Reading »

McDermott ( Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods: Christian Theology, Enlightenment Religion, and Non-Christian Faiths , 151) doesn’t exonerate orthodox Christianity from responsibility for modern anti-Semitism, but he points to the large role played by Deist attacks on the uniqueness of . . . . Continue Reading »

God waited to send His Son, but, Edwards argued, he did not wait to shine light to the Gentiles. According to Edwards, God’s actions throughout the Old Testament era were designed to catch the world’s attention, not just Israel’s. As McDermott ( Jonathan Edwards Confronts the . . . . Continue Reading »

In his Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods: Christian Theology, Enlightenment Religion, and Non-Christian Faiths , Gerald McDermott notes that Edwards saw “provocation to jealousy” as a recurring pattern of history: “God, he discovered, uses jealousy as a redemptive tool to . . . . Continue Reading »