Jonathan Edwards gives an apt title for his sermon, with "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" expressing much of the core message (as well as imagery) he in it expresses. At its core, I would suggest that Edwards is dealing with three critical Christian themes: God's power and omnipotence, the subject of sinfulness, and the subject of damnation, all of which are, in this sermon, closely intertwined. Critical to this sermon is his understanding of the sheer scale of which God operates, far beyond any human limits, so that concepts such as justice and anger which exist in human terms, are magnified to a degree far exceeding anything humans could easily comprehend. God is a being of justice, and also possessed with wrath, and just as a King's justice and wrath (when combined) is terrible to whoever has wronged him, then how much more terrible must God's wrath and justice be in comparison? This theological viewpoint serves, I would suggest, as the foundation upon which Edward's message here rests.
Now we can address the core theme which makes up the greater part of the sermon: the ever looming specter of damnation. Ultimately, the core message Edwards is stressing here is that, given the inherently sinful nature of man, no human being can be truly assured of their own goodness, or of their own salvation. All people exist under the mercy of God, but God is free at any moment to rescind that mercy, and cast them into hell. Questions of salvation ultimately lies outside human knowledge, and any sense of self assurance or security as it regards to salvation, amounts to nothing more than an illusion.
Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards delivered the "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" sermon as a visiting minister to a congregation in Enfield, Connecticut in 1741 during the religious revival movement known as The Great Awakening. Puritans had traditionally been taught that people were predestined for heaven or hell, thus it was a religion that produced uncertainty and anxiety in its followers as they searched themselves for signs of being among God's "elect." Notably, Edwards's sermon rejects the idea of predestination and offers the hope of salvation that can be earned.
Edwards lectures at length on the horror that unredeemed sinners will face: "The Wrath of God burns against them, their Damnation don’t slumber, the Pit is prepared, the Fire is made ready, the Furnace is now hot, ready to receive them, the Flames do now rage and glow".
But because the purpose of the Great Awakening and Edwards's sermon was to bring lapsed Christians back to their faith and convert the rest, his tone changes toward the conclusion of the sermon: "And now you have an extraordinary Opportunity, a Day wherein Christ has flung the Door of Mercy wide open, and stands in the Door calling and crying with a loud Voice to poor Sinners".
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=etas
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