God Loves… Himself

“Resolved, to maintain the strictest temperance to eating and drinking” (Resolution 20).

“Resolved, to inquire every night, before I go to bed, whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could, with respect to eating and drinking” (Resolution 40).

I Corinthians 10:31 commands all to eat and drink and whatever they do to do it to the glory of God. These resolutions reflect the heart of a man that took the word of God seriously. It also reflects a heart that wants to do all things to the glory of God. In the modern United States, this is totally a foreign concept. However, it is one that we will do well to meditate on. The thought of today is to eat as you want and as you please. Food is thought of in terms of how much it pleases the person eating or the person buying or being entertained. On the other hand, food is thought of in terms of the body. Many are fanatical about what they eat in order to maintain the appearance that they want.

Eating for the sheer pleasure of it with no or little thought of God is an act of idolatry. Eating in order to make myself look good without thought of God is also an act of idolatry. The Greatest Commandment is to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. In some way, then, believers are to eat out of love for God and His glory. That which moves man to eat should be the glory of God and the regulation for what should be eaten and how much is the glory of God. Man is not to be like the animals that eat by instinct put into them.

While some eat in order to maintain an appearance or to be healthy, that can be no more than self-love. God is to be our ultimate priority in all that we do, not self. Our souls are to be given to God first and foremost in order to glorify Him. We might need to eat food that we ordinarily do not eat in order to glorify God in being with others. Man is an eternal being and his body must not be his god. Man is to serve the living God and not the god of health and food. This is a foreign concept in the modern day where man thinks that as long as he does good things for himself he is serving God.

Let us use an illustration to make the point here. Prayer is far more than what the average person does. The average religious person has a list and asks God for things. He or she then tacks on the name of Jesus at the end. However, we are to pray for the glory of God in all things first and foremost. So all the words lifted to God without concern for His name and glories are really acts of idolatry since they are primarily about our own selfish concerns. Yet we should give thanks for the food we eat and that should be a prayer. Our prayer before our meals should be far more than just a few empty words to God, it should be in line with those set apart to do all for His glory. A clue for this is found in the so-called “Lord’s Prayer” which Jesus gave to the disciples as a pattern for prayer in Matthew 6. First of all, man is to pray that God’s name be hallowed, His kingdom to come, and then His will to be done. Then and only then is man to pray for his daily bread. But if we love God as the Greatest Commandment commands, the reason that we are to pray for our daily bread is so that we can live in a way that hallows His name, advances His kingdom, and enables us to do His will.

What we call “returning thanks” or “saying grace” should really be giving thanks to God for the food and asking Him to sanctify or set apart the food for His use in our bodies which are to be used for His glory. Man is to be totally devoted and set apart to live for the glory of God and that must include what he eats and drinks and the reason he eats and drinks. While there are many secondary reasons for why man is to eat and drink the way he does, if the secondary reasons become primary man becomes and idolater of himself. This is why Edwards could make a resolution regarding temperance but even more importantly to act the best way he could in reference to eating and drinking. He saw himself as a vessel in the hands of God and he wanted to do all that he could, even in eating and drinking, to glorify God. So should all believers.

“Resolved, never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good” (Resolution 16).

The Scripture tells us to watch our lips and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are expressly told that every careless word will be brought into judgment (Mt 12:36). We are told that every thing that we do for the least of them we are doing for Christ and what we don’t do for the least of them we don’t do for Christ (Mat 25). We are told that to call people certain name are violations of the sixth commandment and are at least linked with murder in the heart. “When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, But he who restrains his lips is wise” (Prov 10:19). Without doubt our words are very important.

When Isaiah saw the Lord in Isaiah 6 his view was turned to himself and what he saw was that his lips where unclean and that he lived among a people of unclean lips. I think that what this shows is that Isaiah knew at that moment that his heart was vile and that what came from his inner man made him unclean. This was what Jesus spoke of in Mark 7: “20 And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. 21 “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. 23 “All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.” It is what comes from within the man that defiles the man.

As we take these verses and apply them to Edwards’ resolution, we can see why he did not want to speak evil of anyone in order to dishonor them. Certainly that is against the Golden Rule and the commandments. But he also did not want to sin against God either. In David’s confession of his sin with Bathsheba and his part in her husband’s murder he confessed that he had only sinned against God (Psalm 51:4). If we speak evil of others we are guilty of murder as Jesus set out and so our sin is really against God. When we speak evil of others we are speaking against the image of God since all men are made in His image. We would do well to watch our mouths and what we say as well.

But another reason that we should want to emulate Edwards in this is because we should desire pure hearts. We should want to have hearts that love others and even our worst enemies. We are commanded to love the sheep of Christ and we are commanded to love our enemies. Can we love others and speak evil of them at the same time? This is not to say that we have to speak with syrup on our lips all of the time, but we need to be wary of speaking evil against others because each time we do we violate the Greatest Commandment and the Second Greatest Commandment as well. A desire for a pure heart and to love God and all people should make us keep a close watch on our lips. The tongue “is a restless evil and full of deadly poison” (James 3:8). When we speak evil of men we are striking at them with a deadly poison that is perhaps worse than vipers.

We must also be careful not to speak evil of people because of the influence our sin will have on the people that are listening. Our words sink to the depths of their being and certainly have some influence on the purity of heart in other people. We certainly do not love anyone when we speak evil of others and dishonor them with our lips. One, we sin against God because we are verbally attacking His image. Two, we wrong the person that we are speaking against when we dishonor them before others. Three, we dishonor the person we are speaking to in that we are not loving them and being a bad example to them. We also are possibly putting wrong ideas in them by our words that they will use to sin against others with. Four, we certainly dishonor ourselves. So we can see why Edwards resolved never to speak evil of anyone unless it would bring about some real good. If this same resolution was practices in churches across our land, it would certainly result in greater peace and harmony.

“Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings” (Resolution 15).

This is another step in submission to God. Irrational beings might mean animals or perhaps inanimate objects. Many people get angry at cars, computers, and all sorts of mechanical objects. Others get angry at animals and whatever might prevent them from getting what they want when they want it. All animals and all objects, however, are instruments of the sovereign plan of God. In reality, then, when people get angry at irrational beings and inanimate objects they are getting mad at how God is using those things. The stated resolution, therefore, is to be in submission to God and His sovereignty. But even more, the resolution is not to suffer the least motions of anger. In other words, he wanted an immediate submission to God. He wanted to so walk with God that his spirit would not even rise against anyone or anything in the slightest at any moment.

Edwards believed in the sovereignty of God with all of his being and he wanted to be in meek and willing submission to whatever God willed for him. This is a true recognition of God’s sovereignty in all of live and a desire to want to please Him in all things. How trite and infantile modern man is when he wants to know how far he may go in certain activities and for it not to be sin. Rather, like Edwards, we should desire and long for pure hearts in all ways and at all times no matter what God brings to us. It is simply recognition from the heart and not just a head doctrine when desires like this are expressed. When Edwards died he basically choked to death over a period of a few days. His doctor was amazed as Edwards died without the appearance of the slightest perturbation or dismay. He simply meekly received what God had ordained to bring Him glory.

“Resolved, never to do anything out of revenge” (Resolution 14).

In this resolution we can see the heart of a man that desires to love all for the sake of His name and not act from selfish motives. Taking revenge is not an act that reflects love for God and our enemy, but reflects a person that loves himself more than anything or anyone else. Revenge is a self-centered act as if one is the true God. “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord. When we take revenge, we are playing God in meting out personal punishment which is really going over what justice require. We are to love our neighbor and leave the rest to God. Instead, “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone” (Rom 12:17). Even more, “‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:18). Rather than take revenge, man is to love. Returning good for evil and love for hatred is what is to some degree what is meant by being meek as in the Beatitudes (Mat 5) and is the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5). When a person resolves never to do anything out of revenge, that person is resolved not to act like the devil and to act like Christ. Christ died for His enemies. This is submission to the sovereignty and love of God who allows and brings all trials to us, even the people that abuse us out of evil hearts and yet God intends it for good.

“Resolved, to be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and liberality” (Resolution 13).

Believers should always be looking for people to show mercy and charity to in order to glorify God through Jesus Christ. But not everyone is a fit object of these things in terms of physical relief. Many people have their hands out, but not many are fit objects of charity. We must try to be sure that people are not just begging as a way to avoid labor and are really needy. Most people have limited means and so in order to be good stewards and honor God as they want to they need to try to be sure that individuals they help are fit objects of charity.

In trying to find fit objects for charity we emulate God in the Gospel. There are many people that want to be saved, but they do see themselves as truly needy and without means to help themselves. Many want God to save them but do not really think that God needs to do it all. They want God to help them so that salvation will be easier than doing it all by themselves. So in finding people that are truly needy we look for people that truly cannot help themselves and so in an analogous way they are like those that are poor in spirit. In this our help for people is like the Gospel which helps those by sheer and total grace with no expectation of a payback. In this way Christians show the world in some way the Gospel of grace that is of nothing but mercy.

“Resolved, if I take delight in it as a gratification of pride or vanity or any such account, immediately to throw it by” (Resolution 12).

Edwards was a man that guarded his heart and mind in order to love God and glorify Him rather than do anything for himself apart from the glory of God. He saw the incredible danger of pride and vanity and saw that whatever came from that had to be done away with. “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate” (Prov 8:13). While God is a God of love, He does hate pride. Pride is the swelling up of self and all that is done from pride is done from a narrow and selfish love for self. One cannot do anything for the glory of God and do it from pride at the same time. God is opposed to the proud in the sense that He stands against them in battle alignment (James 4:6). God fights the proud and will bring them down. Edwards saw that pride was such an enemy of God that he knew that if he did something out of pride it was not to the glory of God and as such his heart would be hardened by whatever it was that he took pleasure in. So he determined to examine his heart to be sure that what he did or obtained was not to gratify his pride and vanity. He resolved to keep such a watch on his heart that he would watch his heart closely for a delight in something that sprang from pride. This is recognition of the state and danger of the human heart.

“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You. 5 The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity” (Psa 5:4-5). This text should focus our attention as it did Edwards. God takes no pleasure in wickedness, yet we are to do all for His pleasure since He does all for His own glory and pleasure (Psa 115:1-3). Man is to seek to try to please God and clearly God takes no pleasure in pride. No evil dwells with God and pride is evil. So for those who desire to dwell with God, they must beware of pride in all instances. If a person wishes to stand before God, that person must realize that the boastful (form of pride) will not stand before Him. The text even says that God hates all who do iniquity and we know that all that has pride cannot be anything but iniquity.

“Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling” (Prov 16:18). Here we see that pride precedes destruction and the haughty spirit precedes stumbling. In other words, when we see that this verse goes along with God fighting the proud, we see why the proud are destroyed and the haughty stumble. God is able to humble the proud and He will do it. A man or woman that knows that God fights the proud and brings destruction upon them is the person that realizes how much God hates pride and learns to hate it too. So when we look in our hearts and know that what we have done or obtained has been from pride, what is the proper response of the person that realizes that God hates pride and that I should also? It is to cast away whatever was obtained by pride in order to please God. No matter how much I desire something and am gratified by it, if I desire it or obtain it because of pride then I am fighting God and have or desire something that God will hate because of my pride. The safest course of action is to cast the thing away, even with detestation.

Human beings are by nature proud and selfish. If God has not broken and humbled a person’s heart, then all that the proud person does is sin and nothing but sin. Even the outward righteous acts of the unhumbled person is done from pride and so done out of an idolatrous heart. While man does not like this as it cuts into his self-righteous heart and tells man that his self-righteousness is as filthy rags, it does not negate the truth of the assertion. All acts, no matter how good they may be in appearance, when they are moved and motivated by pride come from an idolatrous heart and God judges even our best actions as less than worthless.

Can we say that Romans 1:25 does not teach us about religious man too? They “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man” (Rom 1:23). “For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen” (Rom 1:25). All of these things people do in religion when the religion is not that set out by the Creator. People exchange the glory of God for an image, even an image of God that is unworthy of Him in the mind. People exchange the truth of who God is for a lie and so they worship and serve themselves. What if man’s religion and worship are moved from pride? Are not these things to be cast away as well? What if we find that our technological toys, houses, cars, preaching, worship, and traditions are moved by pride and vanity rather than the truth of God?

“Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can toward solving it, if circumstances don’t hinder” (Resolution 11).

Here is the heart and mind of a man that desired God. Edwards was a man that spent his life thinking about God and the things that related to God. This resolution is required by a man that intends to love God with his mind and to keep his first two resolutions which I will list: “Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory and to my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now or never so many myriads of ages hence” (Section of Resolution 1). “Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the forementioned things” (Resolution 2).

When a person studies the Bible and/or theology, there are seeming contradictions and issues that arise. One can choose to ignore those, handle them simplistically, or dive to the depths of the issue. Edwards seemed to always want to dive to the depths of the issue. Yale University Press has put out four volumes of Edwards’ Miscellanies, from a through 1360, in which he wrestled with many issues. Some of his wrestling with issues or musing on paper extends for several pages. It is obvious that he took his theology seriously from his many writings and from his resolutions.

Some think that Edwards was guilty of novelty in his theology and even used too much philosophy. The older Southern Presbyterians Robert Dabney, James Thornwell, and John Girardeau certainly did. While they would defend him at points, they seemed to believe that he was innovative at too many points in his theology. I would like to present another view. I believe that Edwards was a man that started with God and His glory at all points. This made it harder for him to fit with any particular theology that might be more driven by other issues. Edwards strove to make all that he did flow from the glory of God and that primarily. He did this in his sermons, his theological writings, and his more philosophical writings as well. While he was an orthodox theologian, he did differ because of his thorough God-centeredness at all points. While his logic was precise, it seemed that he was more concerned that his theology flow from the glory of God and end in the glory of God than he was with holding to a traditional way of putting things. This caused many to look at him as a man with novel views.

Edwards ran into many problems that he had to work out from his radical God-centered view of things. He had more problems to solve than other theologians because he worked from a different paradigm. Systematic theology is very concerned about logical consistency within the doctrines that are held. That is a very good and noble goal. However, Edwards wanted consistency with the glory of God. It is not that he wasn’t concerned with logical consistency between the doctrines, but he was more concerned with the consistency that a doctrine had with the glory of God. This caused him to think through his doctrines from a different view than others did.

As an example, we can look at the difference Dabney had with Edwards’ ethics. Dabney thought that Edwards was a Utilitarian. On this Dabney is simply very wrong. In his writing on The Nature of True Virtue Edwards tried to use more of a philosophical language in setting out theological truths. I think this is what threw Dabney off in trying to read Edwards’s writings on ethics. Edwards used the phrase “Being in general” in that work and if Dabney or anyone does not get that definition right a great misunderstanding will occur. The term, as Edwards used it, simply meant God and all intelligent creatures. Dabney seemed to think that Edwards used it to say that man’s definition of good is simply to do that which leads to the greatest good for the most. Edwards meant that we must do what is for the glory of God out of love for God or we are not doing what is best for all men either.

Edwards drove himself to continually work on theology in order to work it out in a consistent manner with the glory of God. While others have misunderstood what he was doing, he is a great model for all of mankind to follow. Out of love for the glory of God we should pray and strive that all of our theology and practice flow from the glory of God and tend to the glory of God. That is what it means to love God while we do theology and Bible study. Imagine what it would be like to study theology and the Bible while breathing out desires and love for God. That is what Edwards did and that is what we should do too.

“Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom and of hell.” (Resolution 10).

We might be tempted to think of this as just a mind game or trick that Edwards used in order to win over pain or to make life easier in a day that did not have the pain relief medication that we have in our day. However, we should not think of these Resolutions like that. The Resolutions were meant to help Edwards focus on eternity in order to live to the glory of God now and forever. So we will attempt to understand this in that light.

What spiritual benefits could there have been that Edwards was thinking of in this Resolution and how will it help us in our day? I think that there are a few possible ways of looking at this. One, there is always the possibility that Edwards was striving to understand how to endure pain to the glory of God. After all, we should suffer pain to the glory of God since whatever we do is to be done to the glory of God (I Cor 10:31). Paul was spoken about in Acts 9:16 when the text says this: for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” Paul’s sufferings were indeed used by God to advance the kingdom of God and the Gospel to the known world at that time. We can then see Paul’s view in the next two verses:

Romans 8:17 – and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

Philippians 1:29 – For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake,

While it is hard to know what kind of pain Edwards was speaking of, whether physical or internal, or pain of illness or of persecution, we don’t have to exclude any of these. While Paul was more likely speaking of pain inflicted by persecutors of the faith, the verses do not have to be limited to that in principle. We know that God disciplines and trains His children in many ways (Heb 12:4-11). We know that God brings illness on His children for His purposes of training them. So we should learn to deal with pain and discomfort in a way that we would glorify Him and indeed would be to suffer for His sake. Whether we live or die we are His: “8 for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom 8:8-9). No matter where we are or what condition we are in, we should live to the glory of God.

This also teaches us to think of things from the eternal perspective. The pain of martyrdom is something that each believer should prepare for. Any believer might at any moment be called upon to die for Christ, even in the United States. Acts 7:20 gives us a powerful example of what each believer is called to do: “And when the blood of Your witness Stephen was being shed.” The Greek word for “witness” in this text is martus. In Acts 23:11 we have another very interesting verse in this light: “But on the night immediately following, the Lord stood at his side and said, “Take courage; for as you have solemnly witnessed to My cause at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also.” The word for witness in this text is martureo. At this point, I think, the root of the English word “martyr” should be clear. Stephen was the Lord’s WITNESS when he died. Paul was called to be a WITNESS when he went to Rome to preach Christ there. In Revelation 1:5 Jesus is called the faithful witness. And then we have the case of Antipas: “and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells (Rev 2:13).

We then have the words of Revelation 12:11: “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.” In that text we have the word “testimony” which is marturia in the original language. To be a witness of Christ and to bear testimony to Him was to be a martyr in that day and in some way our own. Each person that bears witness to Christ has to die to self in order to bear witness to Christ out of a true love for Him. Each person should realize that to be killed for that witness is possible. So we must train ourselves to think through certain thought processes now in order to stand firm at a time like that. One of those is to think of pain that we have now and realize that we must honor Christ with and in that pain. Another way that Edwards mentions is to think of how little the pain is in light of the pains of hell. That points to the grace of God who delivers sinners from the pains of hell.