Jonathan Edwards Theology Of Revival Analysis

Jonathan Edwards and His Theology of Revival Jonathan Edwards was born on October 5, 1703 in Connecticut in a pastor’s family. He was very sharp as a little boy because he was proficient in Latin at six and entered Yale at twelve from where he graduated in 1720. After graduating as valedictorian, he spent a couple of years in preparing for the ministry. He started thinking seriously about Christianity and used his writing abilities to jot down his rigorous thoughts. He wanted to serve God and glorify God with everything he had. When he became the pastor of Northampton Congregational church after his grandfather, the spiritual state of the people in the church was very dry because he described its people as “dry bones,” possessing the form

He has used the fourth chapter of 1 John as a measuring rod in his famous lecture The Distinguishing Marks of A Work of The Spirit of God, to lay down “some certain rules, distinguishing the clear marks, by which the church might proceed safely in judging of the true from the false without danger of being imposed upon.” He adds, “ The giving of such rules is the plain design of this paper, where we have this matter more expressly treated than any where else in the Bible.” In The Distinguishing Marks of A Work of The Spirit of God, Edwards divided his treatise into three major sections, negative signs or evidences of the work of the Spirit of God, positive signs, and practical matters that suit the state of affairs of the time in which he

Edwards affirmed that “when there is an extraordinary influence or operation appearing on the minds of a people, if these things are found in it we are safe in determining that it is the work of God, whatever other circumstances it may be attended with, whatever instruments are used, whatever methods are taken to promote it; whatever means a sovereign God, whose judgments are a great deep, employs to carry it on; and whatever motion there may be of the animal spirits, whatever effects may be wrought on men’s bodies. All true revivals are not to be tested by the external results on the body, nor in any temporary change of the individual’s habits. Edwards further stated that, “the good estate of individuals is not chiefly to be judged by any exactness of steps, and methods of experiences, in what is supposed to be the first conversion; but we must judge by the spirit that breathes, the effect wrought upon the temper of the soul in the time of the work and remaining afterwards.” Therefore, the test of true