A Divine and Supernatural Light

This morning I finished Edwards' sermon "A Divine and Supernatural Light."

The sermon is based on Jesus' statement in Matthew 16:17: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."

The full title of the sermon is "A Divine and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God."

Edwards argues from Scripture and reason (as he usually does) that saving faith - the faith in which Peter declared Jesus to be the Christ - is faith achieved by an act of God alone, in which he reveals the truth of who Jesus is by the Spirit.

By "immediately imparted" he means that the cause of the faith is ultimately the Spirit alone, not a preacher, teacher, book, or anything of that sort (though he may use these means). In fact, he argues that the kind of knowledge these things in themselves provide is "natural knowledge," which is quite distinct from real, spiritual knowledge.

And this distinction between natural and spiritual knowledge is perhaps one of the most helpful parts of the sermon. Regarding this distinction he says,

"Thus there is a difference between having an opinion, that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance."

Edwards, like Luther, Kierkegaard, Pascal, Barth, etc., is clear that he does not negate the importance of reason, but he carefully defines it's limits:

"Reason may determine that a countenance is beautiful to others, it may determine that honey is sweet to others; but it will never give me a perception of its sweetness."

The sermon would take you less than an hour to read. It is very rich. Read it, and enjoy it.

Here is a link:

http://www.ccel.org/e/edwards/sermons/supernatural_light.html