Holiness is Wholeness: According to Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards once said in A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, Part III, Section III: "So divines make a distinction between the natural and moral perfections of God: by the moral perfections of God, they mean those attributes which God exercises as a moral agent, or whereby the heart and will of God, are good, right, infinitely becoming, and lovely; such as his righteousness, truth, faithfulness, and goodness; or, in one word, his holiness."

Notice Edwards' last word on all these things is to say all of them in "one word." All these parts can be summarized in one whole, "holiness." This would then be the whole. Also notice his four major parts that make up God's holiness. They are righteousness which has to do with amounts, truth which has to do with relationships, faithfulness which has to do with actions and goodness which has to do with things. He has also touched on the major parts in Scripture as well as the major whole in Scripture from the moral standpoint of what is our obligation to one another. The only change I would make to his list of moral things is to put love ahead of faithfulness or faith as found in 1 Corinthians 13. Otherwise, I agree with him fully in his fundamentals.

This moral standpoint is fundamental to Edwards. He places the moral ahead of the natural in his heading for this section which reads: "Those affections which are truly holy, are primarily founded on the moral excellency of divine things. Or, a love to divine things for the beauty and sweetness of their moral excellency, is the spring of all holy affections." This is something to meditate upon as I would have been encouraged to do by my professors in college and in 2 seminaries.

I thank God richly for having introduced Edwards to me in my college years through my professor, Dr. John Piper and through another professor, Tom Stellar. They know him much better than I, as did one of my professors in seminary, Dr. Daniel Fuller, and I know from them that Edwards' writing on religious affections is supposedly his best. May God richly bless you from it.


In Christ,

Pastor Jon