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Examples Of Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God

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Sin in the Eyes of God In order to successfully portray ideas regarding God’s wrath and power, Jonathan Edwards utilizes images such as a spider web paired with a rock and a storm, in the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. The analogy describing a spider web and rock not only shows how the rock can be equated to the amount a person sins and the magnitude of sins, but also how the web can be seen as a person’s righteousness and the rarity it is in having righteousness. “…if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of Hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a fallen rock.” The rock is seen as a person’s sin because of …show more content…

Edwards uses the web because it exemplifies how easily it can be destroyed by a rock. The rock also resembles a sin because of the magnitude and power it possesses. A sin is much greater in Edwards eyes than righteousness because sin is more important than righteousness in terms of the inability to forgive. The web can also be considered righteousness because of how fragile and uncommon the web is. Righteousness is also much harder to find; likewise, it is difficult to find a spider’s web perfectly intact. Edwards uses the image to convey his point: a person’s sins will always outweigh any amount of righteousness a person may have. God’s hand comes into play to protect a person from falling into the pits of Hell. And though their sins are much greater than their righteousness, God saves them. Edwards believes images similar to

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