| God Essay, Research Paper
God In The Hands Of Angry Sinners
Jonathan Edwards delivered his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, in Enfield
Connecticut on July 8, 1741, the year following George Whitefield’s preaching tour which helped
inspire the “Great Awakening.” Weeping and emotional conviction among Edwards’ audiences
came at a time of great spiritual thirst. While very foreign to mainstream American opinion today,
this extraordinary message was fashioned for a people who were very conscious of how their
lifestyles affected eternal consequences. By today’s popular perspective, the doctrine of
predestination probably discourages conversion because of the new-age independent attitude.
However, in Puritan culture, through Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, Sinners in the Hands of An
Angry God, fear might have powerfully affected people to look within them for the evidence of
grace and then experience salvation.
First, Edwards’ sermon is filled with graphic images of the fury of divine wrath and the
horror of the unmerciful punishment of the wicked in hell. If one were to continue in their sin,
according to Edwards, not only would a person be tormented in the presence of holy angels, but
God’s terribleness would be magnified upon his/her life and forced to suffer through God’s wrath
for all eternity (74). “Although it conveys the reek of brimstone, the sermon does not say that
God will hurl man into everlasting fires–on the contrary, doom will come from God’s
indifference…” (Thompson 71). Edwards had little need to justify his scare tactics and theology.
His consuming obligation was to preach it; to preach it fiercely, purposely, persuasively, and
firmly.
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Next, an example of God’s wrath is seen through Edward’s portrayal of “great waters
dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is
given…” (72). “Here was an old image redesigned to startle Enfield out of its smugness” (Cady
4). Every New Englander was intimate with his community’s use of water power at the mill, if
nowhere else. The dramatic peril of floods as well as the daily power of the falling waters were
familiar and exciting. “Edwards strikes blow after blow to the conscience-stricken hearts of his
congregation. He draws graphic images from the Bible, all designed to warn sinners of their peril.
He tells them that they are walking on slippery places with the danger of falling from their own
weight” (Sproul “God In The Hands Of Angry Sinners”). Edwards took the essence of his
hearer’s own minds, raised it to the plane of his own intensity, and made his vision live in those
memories.
Equally important is the spirituality of Edwards and the Puritans being far more complex
than Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God portrays. The fear in the sermon is about having a
holy respect for God’s power. Because of the18th century popular culture, unconverted audience
members probably remained more God-conscious in their daily living than most people of the past
few centuries. “Edwards understood the nature of God’s holiness. He perceived that unholy men
have much to fear from such a God” (Cady “The Artistry of Jonathan Edwards”). He did not
evangelize “…out of a sadistic delight in frightening people, but out of compassion. He loved his
congregation enough to warn them of the dreadful consequences of facing the wrath of God”
(Sproul “God In The Hands Of Angry Sinners”). He was not concerned with laying a guilt trip on
his people but with awakening them to the jeopardy they faced if they remained unchanged.
Finally, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is not directly concerned to create Hell
imaginatively. Hell is in its picture, but only at the surface. The focus is on the predicament of the
sinner, how dreadfully he dangles just before he plunges to eternal agony, while he has time to
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repent and be saved. The purpose of this sermon was to motivate those unconverted members of
Edwards’ audience to repent from unbelief and sin, become baptized, and experience a realization
of God’s grace, as imparted by His Spirit. “You have an extraordinary opportunity (to be saved)
…Therefore, let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come”
(Edwards 75). The horrific slipperiness and fearful suspension above the flaming fire described
throughout is a message intended for those individuals who know the truth, yet have remained
wicked and unbelieving. Edwards believed that God has less patience for those who know they
should be living right (Cady “The Artistry of Jonathan Edwards”).
In conclusion, Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God represents a relentless concept of
fear designed to convince the then Puritan society through future generations that the tremendous
effects of an unconverted man’s unstable state “lay in God’s whim of mercy, and the terror of this
message derived from the insecurity of being temporarily protected by an all-powerful being full
of infinite anger” (Thompson 71). How does one react to Edwards’ sermon? Does it provoke a
sense of fear? Does it form anger? Does today’s public have a feeling of nothing but scorn for any
ideas about hell and everlasting punishment? Should the wrath of God be seen as a primitive or
obscene concept? Is the very notion of hell an insult? If so, it is clear that the God one worships is
not a holy God: thus, He is not a God at all. If we despise the justice of God, a person is not a
Christian. One stands in a position which is every bit as dangerous as the one which Edwards so
graphically described. “If we hate the wrath of God, it is because we hate God Himself. We may
protest vehemently against these charges but our vehemence only confirms our hostility toward
God” (Sproul “God In The Hands Of Angry Sinners”). But a God of love who has no wrath is no
God. One who does not love God in this present world is considered a loser, as he has lost all
peace, comfort, strength, and even hope. A person’s greatest detriment in the hereafter is found
in the loss of the sight of Christ and the beholding of His glories
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