Jonathan Edwards On The Holy Spirit

 Jonathan Edwards On The Holy Spirit


Dedicated to all those who love the Holy Spirit through their faith in Christ


We Reformed people like to remind the world--especially the religious world--that John Calvin was the "Theologian of the Holy Spirit."  And though this statement is manifestly true, is it possible that the great Jonathan Edwards took Calvin's brilliance on this sublime subject to yet greater heights?  I personally think it is definitely possible.

 

I would like to focus on just a few sentences from Edwards respecting the Holy Spirit; and I believe that they will (in themselves) help us grasp his (Edwards') essential doctrine of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.

 

The quotes come from a work posthumously entitled, "A Treatise On Grace"--(though I think I have seen these same Edwardsian comments made in other places).  Here is the first one, " . . . The Father  approves and provides the Redeemer, and Himself accepts the price of the good purchased, and bestows that good. The Son is the Redeemer, and the price that is offered for the purchased good. And the Holy Ghost is the good purchased, for the sacred Scriptures seem to intimate that the Holy Spirit is the sum of all that Christ purchased for man, (Galatians 3:13-14)," [italics mine].

 

I wonder how many of us think of the Holy Spirit as being the redeemed church's purchased possession?  If our minds tend to go to blessings such as grace, mercy, forgiveness, salvation, adoption, justification, heaven, etc.--we are aided by another comment Edwards makes about the Holy Spirit.

 

. . . In the same treatise, Edwards writes this: " . . . the Holy Ghost is Himself the love and grace of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," [italics mine].

 

The glories of these doctrines, for regenerate Christians, is that God always gives us His very best--whether this is Christ in His incarnation and atonement; or the Holy Spirit, as the purchased possession secured through the finished work of the Mediator.  And, in and through this Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit Himself, all God's love and grace (and every other good thing He gives us) is found, disseminated, and poured out on us.

 

"Why is all of this so significant?" someone may ask; and the answer is at least twofold. . . . One, because unless we possess the Holy Spirit Himself through His regeneration of our hearts--as He applies the atonement and merits of Christ to us--we know nothing of the saving love and grace of God.  And two, unless we conceive of God's Holy Spirit as our Father's and our Redeemer's greatest gift to us, following Christ's ascension, we will seek all of God's good blessings from wrong sources, viz. any sources that are not the Holy Spirit Himself.

 

And lest anyone be concerned that Edwards is somehow obliterating the personhood (or personality) of the Holy Spirit, by his (Edwards') calling the Spirit the "love" and "grace" of God, for example, this concern is ameliorated by the fact that Edwards understands these blessings to be actually-existing attributes of God that are inherent in all three Persons of the Holy Trinity--but that they are especially characteristic of the Person of the Holy Spirit.

 

To me, Edwards' doctrine of the Holy Spirit is so masterful and majestic, that it could only be explained (the way he does so) by a human sinner/saint who has both experienced the Holy Spirit's blissful and heavenly sensation in the heart; and one whose mind has been supernaturally-illumined by that same Holy Spirit.

 

The Spirit directs us to Jesus; Jesus brings us to the Father; and the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit down onto the church, and into the hearts of all her born-from-above living members.

 

Rev. Mark J. Henninger

Treatise #23

20 August 2025

https://theologicaltreatisesinretirement.blogspot.com

https://henningerdevotions.blogspot.com/

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