“This view or sense of the divine glory, and unparalleled beauty of the things exhibited to us in the gospel, has a tendency to convince the mind of their divinity… He that truly sees the divine, transcendent, supreme glory of those things which are divine, does as it were know their divinity intuitively; he not only argues that they are divine, but he sees that they are divine; he sees that in them wherein divinity chiefly consists; for in this glory, which is so vastly and inexpressibly distinguished from the glory of artificial things, and all other glory, does mainly consist the true notion of divinity: God is God, and distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above ’em, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty. They therefore that see the stamp of this glory in divine things, they see divinity in them, they see God in them because they see that in them wherein the truest idea of divinity does consist.”
Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, p. 298
Edwards argues in this paragraph and its own context that it is the glory and beauty of God exhibited in the Gospel that convinces minds of the divinity of the things exhibited. While some might argue that Edwards is a mystic in his argument here, I would argue that Paul sets the same type of argument out in Scripture. Jesus taught us that unless one is born again that person cannot see the kingdom. If we look at the new birth as giving the soul a faculty of spiritual sight, then we can see that Edwards is arguing along the same line as Jesus. The book of Hebrews speaks of the ancient people as seeing ahead and of Moses as “considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward” (11:26). If Edwards is overly mystical to some, then Moses was too. There is a spiritual sight of the soul that gives it a view of the divine glory and of an unparalleled sense of beauty in the Gospel and of the things of God. In fact, the text that Edwards based his work on the Religious Affections is I Peter 1:8: “and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.”
In the I Peter text something is going on that is beyond the physical view of the eyes and yet something that leads to a true love and a true faith. It is something that leads to a rejoicing that is with joy inexpressible and is full of glory. Hebrews speaks of men living by faith in things that were not seen. By that we can be safe in saying that they did not see them with their physical eyes. We are also told to walk by faith and not by sight (II Corinthians 5:7). But if faith is the sight of the soul rather than the physical eyes, then this means something totally different than a blind leap into the dark. It means that true faith is built upon spiritual realities and the soul lives upon the sight of spiritual realities rather than what the physical eyes see. This can be seen by reading Hebrews 11 over very carefully. The people in that Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11) lived by the sight of the glory of God and not by the data that their senses derived for them.
The statement by Edwards that follows this sentence, I think, should be interpreted in the sense of the above paragraph. “He that truly sees the divine, transcendent, supreme glory of those things which are divine, does as it were know their divinity intuitively.” Edwards is not talking about seeing the divine glory with the physical eyes, but with the spiritual sight or the eyes of the soul which is a view or sense of the divine glory. The people in Hebrews 11 had a view and sense of the glory of God and were willing to trade their lives and all they had to follow that divine glory. This was far more than an intellectual or logical glory. This was far more than a glory that the historian can pull from the rotting pages of old books. This is a sight and sense of glory that God alone can give to the soul. When God opens the eyes of the soul to spiritual things, people then know God in a way that is different than the conclusion of an argument. It is God giving the soul a sight of His glory and it is God that is giving the soul a drink of His beauty and utter majesty.
The soul does not need to be deeply humbled in order to derive God from a logical argument, but it must be deeply humble for God to give it a taste of His love for His Son by grace. The soul must be deeply humbled and broken to receive grace as grace can only be received rather than earned in any way. The soul must be truly humbled rather than to work up a false virtue of humility which passes as humility in many corners. Theology and Reformed theology too can have a type of logical glory to it that is derived by deduction and hard work. Without knocking that in all ways, what we must assert is that God alone can give us a sight of His glory. God alone can open the eyes of the soul to see His beauty and give it a drink of His glory. In other words, this is true Reformed theology.
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