Charity and Its Fruits

C h a r i t y

and i t s F r u i t s

onathan Edwards took great pains to illustrate how love must be lived out and exercised in one’s life when he exposited 1 Corinthians 13. Thus Ed-

wards scholar Kyle Strobel has gone to great lengths to help readers understand this classic work of biblical spirituality by providing:

• A detailed introduction• Over150explanatorynotesaddressingdifficultconceptsthroughoutthetext• Definitionsofarcaneterminology• Relevant quotes from Edwards’s other writings• A conclusion showing how to appropriate Edwards’s work

Here is an updated, unabridged, and enlightening version of Jonathan Edwards’s Charity and Its Fruits—the perfect blend of doctrine and application on the all-important topic, Christian love.

“I am thrilled that Kyle Strobel has edited this new edition of Edwards’s Charity and Its Fruits. This series of sermons holds a special place in my affections for Edwards.”

John Piper, Pastor for Preaching and Vision, Bethlehem Baptist Church

“For those who mistakenly think that Protestant theologians overemphasize faith at the expense of love, these classic sermons by Edwards will be an antidote to a stereotype, drawing every believer closer to Christ.”

timothy George, Founding Dean, Beeson Divinity School

“For Jonathan Edwards, the true understanding of Christianity as love-life in God through Christ was a lifelong theological-pastoral-devotional focus, and his fullest display of it is found here. Strobel’s comments help us appreciate this classic on communion with God.”

J. i. Packer, Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology, Regent College

KyLE strOBEL (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is founder of Meta-morpha, an online community for Christian spiritual formation. He is author of Formed for the Glory of God: Jonathan Edwards and Spiritual Formation, Jonathan Ed-wards’s Theolog y: A Reinterpretation, and Metamorpha: Jesus as a Way of Life. Strobel has also served as a fellow at Yale’s Jonathan Edwards Center, has published several academic reviews of works related to Edwards, and has taught graduate courses on Edwards’s spiritual theology.

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Charity and Its Fruits: Living in the Light of God’s Love Copyright © 2012 by Kyle Strobel Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Jonathan Edwards’s sermons adapted and used by permission of Merrill Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Franklin Trask Library, Andover Newton Theological School. Reprinted by arrangement with Yale University Press.

Cover design: Studio Gearbox Cover image: Visual Language Interior design and typesetting: Lakeside Design Plus

First printing 2012 Printed in the United States of America

The volume editor’s Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-2970-2 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-2973-3 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-2971-9 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-2972-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataEdwards, Jonathan, 1703–1758. Charity and its fruits : living in the light of God’s love / Jonathan Edwards ; Kyle Strobel, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4335-2970-2 (tp) 1. Congregational churches—Sermons. 2. Sermons, American. I. Strobel, Kyle, 1978– II. Title. BX7233.E3C48 2012 241'.4—dc23 20110 51830

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

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C o n t e n t s

Acknowledgments 11

Introduction 13

S e c t io n O ne Love, the Most essentiaL thing

Sermon 1 Love the Sum of All Virtue 37

Sermon 2 Love More Excellent than Extraordinary

Gifts of the Spirit 57

Sermon 3 Nothing Can Make Up for Want of Sincerity

in the Heart 79

Sec t io n Two Love, the Fountain oF aLL good

Sermon 4 Long-Suffering and Kindness 93

Sermon 5 Charity Contrary to an Envious Spirit 125

Sermon 6 A Christian Spirit Is a Humble Spirit 139

Sermon 7 Charity Contrary to a Selfish Spirit 160

Sermon 8 Charity Contrary to an Angry Spirit 180

Sermon 9 Charity Contrary to a Censorious Spirit 192

Sermon 10 Grace Tends to Holy Practice 203

Sermon 11 Undergoing Sufferings a Duty to Christ 224

Sermon 12 Christian Graces Concatenated Together 237


Sec t io n T hree Love, the divine giFt that Perseveres

Sermon 13 Grace Never Overthrown 253

Sermon 14 Divine Love Alone Lasts Eternally 264

Sermon 15 Heaven Is a World of Love 278

Conclusion 308

References for Annotations 325

Reading List 331

General Index 335

Scripture Index 340


13

I n t ro du C t I o n

In 1958, a group of Jonathan Edwards scholars and interested parties descended upon Edwards’s old church in Northampton, Massachusetts, to celebrate the bicentennial of his death. Neoorthodox theologian H. Richard Niebuhr read a paper titled “The Anachronism of Jonathan Edwards,” which focused pro-vocatively on honoring Edwards by questioning what “honoring” Edwards might look like.

“By what right do we join the funeral procession, stand beside the grave, [and] intrude ourselves into the company of those who mourn him?” Niebuhr questioned.1 In an amazingly clear example of academic honesty, Niebuhr recognized that he and the collected group of scholars before him would have rejected Edwards to his face if given the chance. While they lauded his academic achievements, if confronted with his theological convictions in their own day, they—like Edwards’s own rivals—would not have hesitated to cast stones. Niebuhr continued, “By what right do we, who seem to disagree with him more strongly than his contemporaries did, now honor him?”2

In an attempt to answer his own question, Niebuhr undermined the obvious solution for academics: just honor his brilliance. This will not do, Niebuhr suggested. Instead, the only way to honor Edwards is to honor what Edwards was about.

There is no really honest and consistent way of honoring Edwards at all this day except in the context of honoring, of acknowledging and renewing our dedication to his cause. That cause was nothing less than the glory of God. I do not know whether this is the audience which can hear the summons to think in

1 H. Richard Niebuhr, Theology, History, and Culture: Major Unpublished Writings, ed. William Stacy Johnson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 125.2 Ibid.


14 Introduction

the terms of that theme, to lift up mind and heart into regions of thought and imagination so majestic, to dedicate itself to a cause so tremendous.3

While you might find yourself much more in tune with Edwards’s theology than was Niebuhr’s audience that day, we must answer the same question: What does it mean to honor Jonathan Edwards in our own day? This volume is, in part, an answer to that question. If nothing else, to honor Edwards is to actually read him and think his thoughts after him in an attempt not simply to mimic his theology but to be faithful to the gospel that he worked so hard to explain. It is not to make Edwards your Edwards but to feel uncomfortable under a message far removed from our own context and concerns.

Admittedly, Edwards is not necessarily an easy read! This volume was put together out of a desire to make Edwards a bit easier (because every bit helps!) and because Charity and Its Fruits is one of the best entry points into his theology. While works such as Religious Affections and the infamous “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” have come to define Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits is an intricate tapestry of Edwards’s spiritual, theological, and exegeti-cal insights, exposing readers to a much broader picture of his work. In light of this, I have supplied various features in an attempt to help you engage Edwards well. First, I include an overview of Charity and Its Fruits for an orientation to the work itself. Second, I provide a short theological overview to clarify why Edwards makes some of the theological and exegetical decisions he does. Third, and last in the introduction, I suggest some temptations that may arise in reading a work like this. This section, more than the others, is directly related to honoring Edwards by reading him as he wanted to be read (or heard, since this work was originally written as sermons).

Turning to the text itself, I have added explanatory notes in boxes through-out the volume.4 These notes are meant to explain concepts that might appear odd at first glance, to orient you to other areas of Edwards’s work that might explain the same ideas with more clarity, or even to place Edwards in parallel with other writers. Furthermore, I have defined words that will be unfamiliar to most readers.5 Edwards’s use of language confused readers even in his own day, so defining certain key terms can often be one of the quickest ways to make Edwards more readable!

At the end of Charity and Its Fruits, I have also provided a conclusion that aims to offer various ways we can appropriate Edwards’s work. This will, once again, pick up on the idea of honoring Edwards and will hopefully spur

3 Ibid., 127. 4 References for these annotations appear at the end of the volume.5 Simple definitions are provided with the help of the Oxford English Dictionary online.


15Introduction

you on to think deeply about the same material that he meditated upon so faithfully. Honoring Edwards entails more than simply having the ability to quote him. It involves genuinely pondering the same issues, questions, and, ultimately, the same God as he did. The conclusion will be followed by a reading list of both primary and secondary materials that will prove helpful for anyone interested in mining the depths of Edwards’s thought.

Overview of Charity and Its FruitsCharity and Its Fruits comprises fifteen sermons Edwards preached to his congregation in 1738.6 These sermons exposit 1 Corinthians 13 and provide a theological account of love and virtue. Charity, as Edwards uses it, is best understood as love (Edwards explains this early on in the work). The sermons were never published in Edwards’s lifetime, but aspects of the text hint that he would have published them if he had found the time. It was not until 1852, nearly one hundred years after Edwards’s death, that the sermons were first published. The 1852 edition of the sermons was edited by Tyron Edwards, Edwards’s great-great-grandson, and was the standard version used in every other edition of Charity and Its Fruits until Yale published a new edition in 1989. This new edition went back to sermons copied directly from Edwards’s own sermon booklets. When they are compared with the Tyron Edwards edition, it becomes clear that Tyron took much liberty in editing Edwards’s material. Unfortunately, this new edition is still often unread by the general public because it is bound together with Edwards’s other ethical writings in a volume that is nearly eight hundred pages long. For the first time, I provide those interested in Edwards the unedited version of this work in its own volume.

For the sake of greater readability, it is important to look at a broad outline of Charity and Its Fruits. Fortunately, Edwards himself provides one at the beginning of the fourteenth sermon.7 There, he suggests a three-section struc-ture to the series: (1) he shows that love is the most essential thing (vv. 1–3);

6 Edwards needed more than one preaching occasion to complete some of these sermons. See Paul Ramsey, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Jonathan Edwards, Ethical Writings, ed. Paul Ramsey, vol. 8 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 104–5.7 Paul Ramsey, editor of the Yale edition that includes Charity and Its Fruits, offers an outline of his own that differs from Edwards’s. Ramsey argues that the first section, comprising the first three sermons, gives a broad overview of the work as a whole and provides the fodder that Edwards plays out over the next twelve chapters. The second section, Ramsey argues, covers sermons 4 through 10 (vv. 4–6 in 1 Corinthians 13) and focuses on the love of neighbor, while the remaining sermons, 11 through 15 (vv. 7–10) focus on the love of God. This structure, in other words, follows Jesus’s summarization of the law as love of God and neighbor, which seems like a reasonable structure to use when expositing a chapter on love. While Ramsey’s


16 Introduction

(2) he shows how charity is the fountain of all good (vv. 4–7); and (3) he shows the preference for love over the Spirit’s other gifts because of its durability and eternality (vv. 8–12). Edwards claims that Paul adds a verse concluding the whole (v. 13). Edwards’s sections are broken down as

• section1,sermons1–3; • section2,sermons4–12;and • section3,sermons13–15.

What follows is a brief overview of these sections.

Section 1

Edwards’s first three sermons serve as an overview of the work in its entirety, focusing on how love relates to the nature of God and his work of redemption. Edwards starts broadly and then narrows his sights with each sermon, putting love in conversation with the nature of God and the reality of the gospel. He starts with a focus on God as love and love as the spring of life given by God to indwell the believer (the Holy Spirit as love). Importantly, the Holy Spirit manifests God’s love in the life of a believer.

From a human point of view we might mistake God’s gifting us with himself for something it is not. Power, for instance, seen through miraculous spiritual gifts, does not depend on having one’s heart changed by God, nor does it communicate something of God’s nature to the person. Power, for Edwards, is an attribute that defines not who God is but what God is. On the other hand, if love truly pours forth from individuals, then that means the Spirit of God indwells them and is working love within their very being. In light of this, when the moral life is considered, action simply is not enough. Without love, all is wanting.

The true moral life starts with love to God, which entails the nature of God’s own life given to the creature in regeneration. Love is, therefore, the essential aspect of virtue and saving faith because love is a gift from heaven. In fact, more than being from heaven, love is a gift of God’s very self. When 2 Peter 1:4 states that believers will be partakers of the divine nature, Edwards understands that primarily as sharing in the nature of the Spirit as love. What believers are given in regeneration—love—even though just a spark, will become pure flame in eternity.

structure is broadly helpful when reading the work, it is not accurate. See Ramsey, “Editor’s Introduction,” 59–61.


17Introduction

Section 2

The second section covers sermons 4–12. Edwards explains that this section shows “how charity is that from which all good dispositions and behavior do arise, the stock on which all good fruit grows, and the fountain in which all that is good is contained and from whence it flows.”8 Building on the first section’s summary of love in relation to who God is, Edwards focuses much of the second section on particular instances of love in relation to others and the nature of that love (e.g., love does not envy, love is meek, love is humble, love is the opposite of selfishness). The tenth sermon, on the other hand, provides something of a summary statement of the preceding nine. Rather than focusing on particular forms of love, as in the preceding sermons, Edwards now paints a broader picture under the doctrine “All true Christian grace tends to holy practice.” Presumably, Edwards preaches on this where he does because of the flow of Paul’s text. If Edwards were simply writing a theology of love, he probably would have placed this material prior to addressing particular examples of the nature of love and its relation to other people. Here, instead, Edwards uses the tenth sermon as a plateau point to summarize what went before and to turn to the last two sermons in this section, first, addressing love and suffering as Christ’s people in this world (sermon 11) and, second, developing how the virtues in their entirety have love within their very essence (sermon 12). This second section, we can say, is an illustration of the main point of the first section, that love is the most essential thing. This is done with an eye to the third section, which illustrates why love is essential, owing to its perseverance into eternity.

Within these sermons, there are several important emphases to keep in mind when reading. First, Edwards focuses on the imitation of God the Father and Christ to make his point about love. Throughout this section Edwards continually uses examples of God’s graciousness and love to call his readers to imitate God. Second, love is always oriented toward heaven. Next to the examples of the Father and Christ come the examples of the glorified saints and angels in heaven. Deducing what the saints’ heavenly existence is like can help to orient our life here. For instance, Edwards talks about the glori-fied saints and angels as perfect in humility, using that as a way to ground the direction of our own humility. Third, undergirding his account is an assumption of John Calvin’s doctrine of double knowledge—that knowledge of God and knowledge of self are intertwined. If we do not know our own hearts, we have no way of knowing whether we are being faithful to the call

8 Edwards, Ethical Writings, 351.


18 Introduction

of God; we are simply too self-deceiving. Things we see as virtues are often vices in disguise. This section attempts to uncover the fleshliness of even our most virtuous of activities, helping to lead us to a true knowledge of God and self, which is the only path to humility. Furthermore, on the idea of double knowledge, Edwards ties love of God and love of self together, showing how each necessarily presupposes the other. To love God, we have to love self, according to Edwards, because all “loving self” means is having a will. Willing is loving what you love, and therefore to will as God wills is to love what God loves. This double knowledge and double love saturate all that Edwards does in these sermons.

Last, love of God is the ultimate principle undergirding his entire discus-sion. Love of God is the disposition given as the indwelling of the Spirit, and this divine love disposes believers to love others. Edwards explicitly states in the first sermon of Charity and Its Fruits, “Love to God is the foundation of a gracious love to men.”9 Love of God is the primary love, and that love is a love that leads to practice. As Paul Ramsey summarizes this section, “Readers will note more frequent uses of ‘grace’ and ‘graces’ in this division of the sermons . . . as they will have noted that love to God is often given as a reason for the disposition that is a fruit of divine love going out primarily towards men.”10 Jesus, therefore, is the perfect example of what love to God and neighbor looks like—he is the archetype by which our calling is etched.

Section 3

The third and final section of Charity and Its Fruits covers sermons 13–15. Here, as noted above, Edwards takes the previous two sections and orients his insights to the nature of love as a divine thing. In other words, love is the most essential thing because it is divine. All who will make it through the purifying fires of judgment have love at their core. Love is the only currency, we might say, that is accepted in heaven. The heavenly and divine nature of love means that love has certain attributes that make it the most worthy virtue obtainable. The broad flow of Edwards’s final section starts with the immovable and undefeatable nature of love (sermon 13), then moves to a look at how love remains while all other gifts of the Spirit fade away (sermon 14), and then culminates by illustrating how heaven itself is defined by love (sermon 15).

9 Ibid., 133.10 Ramsey, “Editor’s Introduction,” 60.


19Introduction

This section, more than the others, is a look at redemption history, and how every gift and work of the Spirit in the lives of God’s people is with an eye toward love. Because God is love, and true saving love is the Spirit given by the Father through the purchase of Christ’s work on the cross, when Edwards discusses love, he is always doing so with his mind on heaven. Edwards believes Paul does the same. One can grasp the nature of a virtue based on what its ends are—that is, “where it is going.” In Edwards’s words, “The soul which is winged with love shall have no weight tied to the feet to hinder its flight.”11 Love in the heart of the believer leads to heaven, and the fruit it bears on earth portrays heaven through a glass darkly.

At the heart of all Edwards does in these sermons stands the command to love God and love neighbor. Edwards takes this command and grounds it in its proper primary location—God’s own life as love—and he orients it to its final end: God’s perfection of believers and invitation to participate in his own life of love. As Edwards says in his final sermon:

There in heaven this fountain of love, this eternal three in one, is set open with-out any obstacle to hinder access to it. There this glorious God is manifested and shines forth in full glory, in beams of love; there the fountain overflows in streams and rivers of love and delight, enough for all to drink at, and to swim in, yea, so as to overflow the world as it were with a deluge of love.12

Outline of Charity

In order to see how the work advances through its broad contours, I have listed the doctrinal statement of each sermon and its corresponding verses under the section headings I have developed.

Section 1: Love, the Most Essential Thing

Sermon 1: All that virtue which is saving, and distinguishing of true Christians from others, is summed up in Christian or divine love (1 Cor. 13:1–3).

Sermon 2: The ordinary influence of God’s Spirit, working saving grace in the heart, is a more excellent blessing than any of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor. 13:1–2).

Sermon 3: All which men can do, and all which they can suffer, will not make up for the want of sincerity in the heart (1 Cor. 13:3).

11 Edwards, Ethical Writings, 379.12 Ibid., 370.


20 Introduction

Section 2: Love, the Fountain of All Good

Sermon 4: A Christian spirit disposes persons meekly to bear ill that is received from others, and cheerfully and freely to do good to others (1 Cor. 13:4a).

Sermon 5: A truly Christian spirit is opposite to an envious spirit (1 Cor. 13:4b).

Sermon 6: A Christian spirit is a humble spirit (1 Cor. 13:4c–5a).

Sermon 7: A Christian spirit is opposite to a selfish spirit (1 Cor. 13:5b).

Sermon 8: A Christian spirit is contrary to an angry or wrathful dispo-sition (1 Cor. 13:5c).

Sermon 9: A Christian spirit is contrary to a censorious spirit; or in other words, it is contrary to a disposition uncharitably to judge others (1 Cor. 13:5d).

Sermon 10: All true Christian grace tends to holy practice (1 Cor. 13:6).

Sermon 11: They who are truly gracious have a spirit for Christ’s sake to undergo all sufferings to which they may be exposed in the way of their duty (1 Cor. 13:7a).

Sermon 12: There is a concatenation of the graces of Christianity (1 Cor. 13:7b).

Section 3: Love, the Divine Gift That Perseveres

Sermon 13: True Christian grace is that which nothing that opposes it can ever overthrow (1 Cor. 13:7c).

Sermon 14: That great fruit of the Spirit in which the Holy Ghost shall not only for a season but everlastingly be communicated to the church of Christ is divine love (1 Cor. 13:8).

Sermon 15: Heaven is a world of love (1 Cor. 13:8–10).

Theological BackgroundIn any discussion of the great theologians, Jonathan Edwards’s name deserves mention. In many circles he is, without question, “America’s greatest theolo-gian,” and yet, Edwards is better known for his spiritual thought, and rightly so in many ways. He is lauded more for his development of religious affection than for his development of systematic doctrine. This has, unfortunately,


21Introduction

created something of a problem. Edwards’s theology, like the thought of all great theologians, is endlessly intertwined and interconnected. A novice reader may understand Edwards’s main arguments, but miss the broad picture and subtle details. Therefore, I will outline here some specific features of Edwards’s thought that illumine aspects of Charity and Its Fruits.

To adequately understand any aspect of Edwards’s theology, one must attend to Edwards’s doctrine of God. Grasping who God is will orient, order, and structure both theology itself and life under God. Thus, we start with Edwards’s doctrine of the Trinity, noting how this grounds his concept of char-ity or love. Next, we turn to what I call Edwards’s “tri-world vision.” Edwards always has the three “worlds” in mind when theologizing: earth, heaven, and hell. Then, to focus our attention on how God’s love invades his creation, we take a brief look at Edwards’s understanding of redemption. Finally, I offer a terse overview of Edwards’s moral theology, which will help to orient much of what he seeks to do in Charity and Its Fruits. It is worth noting that none of these overviews will cover all the issues necessary to fully explain Edwards’s spiritual thought. Each section will focus on the information necessary to better understand his themes in Charity and Its Fruits.

Trinity

It is universally accepted in Edwards scholarship that his doctrine of the Trinity grounds the whole of his theology. Since Edwards was a Reformed theologian, this should not surprise us. Who God is grounds what God does and how we follow him. Theology, in this sense, is coming to know and believe in the triune God of the Bible and to relate all else to who he is and how he has revealed himself in his Son. Importantly, of course, God’s work to reveal his Son is accomplished through the sending of his Spirit, who illumines those called to truly see and know God the Father and Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

To explain the Trinity, Edwards follows a major stream of thought that has its origin all the way back in Augustine. This tradition utilizes what is called the “psychological analogy” to explain how God is both three persons and one essence. Such an analogy can take on different forms, but for Edwards, it is best described as God the Father, his understanding, and his will. Edwards believes that a person is a being with a single understanding and a single will.13 Importantly, these are not actual entities but distinctive aspects of the person. In other words, you do not have a will, you simply will. Persons will certain things, and willing is a description of the person. Therefore, God the Father

13 Jonathan Edwards, “Discourse on the Trinity,” in Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith, ed. Sang Hyun Lee, vol. 21 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 133.


22 Introduction

has, as a part of his very nature as a person, both understanding and will. For Edwards, the Son is God’s understanding and the Spirit is God’s willing. This is fitting, Edwards believes, because the Bible uses images to talk about the Son being the Word, face, and image of God, which Edwards believes are best represented by the understanding. Likewise, the Spirit is often represented in the Bible in terms of love, peace, and grace. These are willing terms. Building on this, Edwards states:

The Father understands because the Son, who is the divine understanding, is in him. The Father loves because the Holy Ghost is in him. So the Son loves because the Holy Spirit is in him and proceeds from him. So the Holy Ghost, or the divine essence subsisting in divine love, understands because the Son, the divine idea, is in him. Understanding may be predicated of this love, because it is the love of the understanding both objectively and subjectively.14

Here, Edwards addresses one of the major problems with the psychological analogy—understanding and will are not persons but aspects of a person. To address this issue, Edwards is clear that when we use the term person to talk about the Father, Son, or Spirit, we are not using it in terms of an individual. That would quickly digress into tritheism. Instead, Edwards claims that the Father, Son, and Spirit all need one another to be three persons. They are not persons in their own right but persons as they exist in unity. They are within one another and truly partake of one another, and in this eternal participa-tion they are three persons.

So how does this help us understand Edwards’s sermon series on love? This is an important question. First, it is clear that God’s life is not static, as many people mistakenly think, but it is infinitely dynamic. God’s eternal life is infinite love pouring forth between the Father and Son. The Father and the Son pour forth the love of the Spirit between one another such that their relationship exists in the Spirit. This is not a one-time event but, rather, a never-ceasing eternal existence of love. Second, true love, actual love, is not simply a feeling or a human-generated emotion. Love actually exists. The Spirit is love. It is no wonder that following upon Jesus’s teaching that the law can be summed up in two commandments—love God and love neighbor—he sends his own love to inhabit his people. Third, love unites. For Edwards, it is the Spirit of love that unites the Father to the Son, Jesus’s human nature to his divine nature, his church to himself, and his people to one another. Furthermore, the Spirit is not simply love, as if that were the only attribute of the Spirit, but also peace, beauty, holiness, and grace. As will become clear below, the Spirit is

14 Ibid.


23Introduction

the fountain of virtue because love is the ultimate virtue and is, in fact, the reality of God’s own life.

Any talk about charity and its fruits, therefore, will parallel a discussion concerning the fruit of the Spirit. There is debate, even today, whether the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22–23 is a menu of generally related terms or an actual list of ways the one fruit—love—plays itself out in the life of the believer (as joy, peace, patience, etc.). This is not merely semantic nitpicking, nor is it a gratuitous grasp at the ungraspable. Instead, it is a focused effort to hear God speak through his Word and to discern the relationship of God’s life to the life of the believer who, upon being regenerated by the Holy Spirit, is now united to God’s life in Christ. For a Christian to speak about charity, therefore, he or she must ultimately be talking about God. God sends his Son and his Spirit because redemption is about God’s work to love creatures who have become unlovable. Our creaturely response is dependent upon the gift of God, his Holy Spirit, who raises us from the dead and sets us on a journey to a world that is defined, above all else, by love. The believer’s journey to heaven is only a pilgrimage aimed at heaven insofar as it is oriented to God himself, the inhabitant of heaven. Primarily, the believer is on a journey to God. Heaven is a world of love because God is a God of love, and heaven is the place where God reveals himself fully to his creatures, perfecting the union, communion, and blessed society of eternity.

Tri-World Vision

Edwards is possibly the theologian of redemption. He cannot even exposit Paul’s depiction of love without aligning it to God’s work of redemption (and rightly so). Love, as Christians come to understand it, is not somehow abstracted away from what God is doing in redemption, but it is revealed within God’s redemptive activity for all to see—all with eyes to see and ears to hear, that is. To capture the depth of what Edwards is doing in this work, we need to turn our attention to the tri-world vision he always has in the back of his mind.

For Edwards, the realms of heaven, earth, and hell are not isolated from one another but are necessarily connected. When he talks about this, he focuses on heaven and earth.

The church in heaven, in the progress it makes in its state of glory and blessed-ness, keeps pace with the church on earth, that the glory of both is advancing together. . . . For heaven and earth are both framed together. ’Tis the same chariot; one part has relation to another, and is connected with another, and [they are] all moved together. The motion of one part depends on the motion


24 Introduction

of the other. The upper part moves on the wheels of the lower part, for heaven is the room and seat of the chariot that is above the firmament, that moves on the wheels that are under the firmament, and that go upon the earth.15

It is easy to assume that those who have passed on to the next life would no longer find earth interesting. There must be more important and fasci-nating things to focus on in eternity, even if it is before the consummation of all things. Edwards thought not. God’s work of redemption is illuminating even to the inhabitants of heaven—human or angelic. They are the ones with perfect eyes to see and ears to hear, and they use them well, watching God’s work to redeem their brothers and sisters for glory.

It would be a mistake to consider this connection between heaven and earth as one-sided. Because the Spirit indwells believers, heaven is the true North for the believers’ hearts; the Spirit orients them home. Just as in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Edwards depicts the Christian life as a journey to heaven. In one fascinating illustration, he describes our time on earth as a struggle to learn a song we will sing for eternity. Prior to heaven, we may “sing out of key” because of our flesh, but when glorified in heaven, Edwards tells us, “there shall be no string out of tune to cause any jar in the harmony of that world, no unpleasant note to cause any discord.”16 Therefore, in light of virtue, love is the tune that orients the believer’s heart to heaven, whereas hate is the deformity that leads to hell. Both will thrive in their respective locations, which Edwards focuses on in his final sermon in the series, “Heaven Is a World of Love.” There he states explicitly, “A glorious work of the Spirit of God has been wrought in their [believers’] hearts, renewing their hearts, as it were, by bringing down some of that light, and some of that holy pure flame, which is in the world of love [heaven], and giving it place in them.”17 On the contrary, “hell is a world of hatred. . . . Everything in hell is hateful. There is not one object to be beheld there but what is odious and detestable.”18

Therefore, in a way not often seen today, heaven and hell are much closer to the surface in everything Edwards does. Heaven and hell are not merely places, but they are realities that fuel the minds and hearts of all people. This fact does not diminish the reality of heaven and hell. Rather, love and hate in the world are merely precursors to heaven and hell, respectively. Furthermore, it is not, as often assumed, that Edwards is obsessed with hell. In fact, Edwards’s material on heaven far outweighs his thoughts on hell. Instead, it is that these

15 Jonathan Edwards, Notes on Scripture, ed. Stephen J. Stein, vol. 15 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 385.16 Edwards, Ethical Writings, 371.17 Ibid., 387–88.18 Ibid., 390.


25Introduction

worlds wield their powers now. Through virtues and vices—virtues being the fruit of the Spirit, who implants the reality of heaven in the life of the believer, and vice being the absence of the Spirit and the reign of hate, death, and flesh—heaven and hell are felt in the here and now. Each person leaves a wake of heavenly or hellish characteristics, and Edwards wants his readers to remember that what we sow, we will eternally reap.

Redemption

Without doubt, Edwards made theological mistakes. It would be foolish to think otherwise. But his mistakes, whatever they may have been, are prob-ably not our mistakes. Edwards’s day was so different from our own, and the issues, context, and sources are so far outside our thought world, that his work can help illuminate where we have gone astray. Redemption, I believe, is one of those areas.

One of Edwards’s great gifts was his ability to keep the broad picture in mind and to allow the broad to guide and govern the narrow, all without losing the importance of the details. We tend not to be nearly so balanced. More remarkable, perhaps, is that even in the midst of heated debates with those Edwards believed were dangerous, he did not often allow the debates to define his own position. More than once Edwards had to clarify his thoughts and distinguish them from the beliefs of heretical groups, not because his theology was somehow close to theirs, but because he refused to push his view to the opposite extreme of his opponents. To paraphrase one historical theologian: We often make the mistake, when we are in a debate, of focusing so intently on the position we are against that we simply back away from that position. Often, in the history of the church, those who do so back right over a cliff. Rather than focusing so intently on his opponents, Edwards focused on God’s Word and trusted that his view would ultimately win—not because it was his, but because he believed he was being faithful to the Word of God.

Edwards’s understanding of redemption epitomizes the point I am making here.19 In his day, just as in our own, justification by faith alone was being questioned from various sides. Rather than focusing intently on proving his point and making justification by faith the main issue of the Bible, Edwards consistently and brilliantly focused on justification within the broader work of God’s redemption in Christ Jesus, making Jesus himself the main issue of the Bible. This is, of course, a careful balance. Edwards does not undermine, question, or somehow water down justification; he simply puts it within a

19 For more on Edwards’s understanding of redemption, see Kyle Strobel, “By Word and Spirit: Jonathan Edwards on Redemption, Justification, and Regeneration,” in Jonathan Edwards and Justification, ed. Josh Moody (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012).


26 Introduction

much broader movement of God to bring a people to himself. Therefore, here we outline this broad movement and highlight God’s giving of himself to his people.

In brief, Edwards’s doctrine of redemption is an extension of his doctrine of the Trinity. God gives himself in his Son and his Spirit to fallen creatures to redeem a portion of those creatures for himself. The Son, as the understanding of God, comes to reveal the Father and take on the nature of humanity. The Spirit, as love, unites fallen creatures to the life of Christ, allowing them to partake in the redemption he purchased. This broad picture of redemption, for Edwards, is consistently relational. One of the images he turns to, fol-lowing the example of his Puritan forebears, is the image of Christ as groom and the church as bride. Jesus, the Son of God, finds a bride for himself. For Edwards, the question the atonement answers is, How is this union possible?

To put it more graphically, how could the perfect Son of God take on a whore as a wife? Edwards, with mathematical precision, analyzes how much God the Father loves the Son (infinitely), then turns to how much Christ loves his church (again, infinitely). The Father accepts the church as his daughter-in-law, as it were, because she is loved infinitely by his perfect Son. The Son’s infinite worthiness in the sight of the Father tips the balance such that the Father will accept his Son’s wife on account of his Son, trusting that the Son’s love is, itself, transformative. This is how Edwards can say, “The Gospel brings to light the love between the Father and the Son, and declares how that love has been manifested in mercy. . . . There it is revealed how the Father and the Son are one in love, that we might be induced in like manner to be one with them.”20 To put this another way, Christ has “sonship” by nature of being the Son, and in his own life he offers adoption by grace. With either image, mar-riage or adoption, the point is the same: the benefits of and the communion with God are had only through the Son. Salvation is wrought in Christ, the one who has redemption in his own person.

This is the overarching picture Edwards gives us of redemption, and it is the picture often missing from many evangelical notions of salvation. Salvation entails God’s self-giving that his people may participate in the relationship the Father has to the Son.21 Note Edwards’s point explicitly: “We shall in a sort be partakers of his [Christ’s] relation to the Father or his communion

20 Ibid., 143–44.21 For a recent book-length argument that this very point is the standard evangelical belief about salvation, see Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010).


27Introduction

with him in his sonship. We shall not only be the sons of God by regeneration but a kind of participation of the sonship of the eternal Son.”22 Likewise,

This was the design of Christ, to bring it to pass, that he, and his Father, and his people, might all be united in one. . . . that those that the Father has given him, should be brought into the household of God; that he, and his Father, and his people, should be as it were one society, one family; that the church should be as it were admitted into the society of the blessed Trinity.23

Christ achieves redemption in his own person and offers it to his people through union with himself. This is where the marriage imagery once again comes into play. If a man has a large debt when he marries his wife, she comes to take on that debt as well. Likewise, if a man marries a woman who is incredibly wealthy, that wealth is now shared between them as two who have become one. Christ has obtained the treasure of redemption in his own person, and that treasure is forgiveness, righteousness, and communion. Therefore, Christ sends his Spirit of love that he may unite people to himself so that they may partake of the treasure found in him. Redemption is found only in Christ’s person, and the Spirit unites believers to him that they may partake in the life of God.

Modern evangelicals do well to note this point, because we often err on the side of seeing salvation simply in terms of forgiveness. By grounding sal-vation in union with God, we are seeking not forgiveness but God himself. Faith does not lead primarily to forgiveness, but to Christ! In him forgive-ness and justification are known. Therefore, one’s Christianity cannot boil down to a specific moment in conversion, however important that moment is. Christianity, or, as Edwards would say, “true religion,” is communion with God. The Christian life is an ever-increasing love of God such that one’s soul comes to take on the life of God itself as God’s own Spirit of love works in the heart. With Christ at the center of salvation, the whole of one’s life is lived before the face of God.

To live this life, we are not forgiven and then left alone to work hard to act like Christians. Rather, if we are in Christ, forgiveness and holiness are now ours. Furthermore, by being united to Christ by the Spirit, we have the Spirit indwelling and acting as a fountain of holiness, love, and grace itself.

22 Jonathan Edwards, The Blessing of God: Previously Unpublished Sermons of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Michael D. McMullen (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 177. 23 Jonathan Edwards, “The Excellency of Christ,” in Sermons and Discourses, 1734–1738, ed. M. X. Lesser, vol. 19 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 593.


28 Introduction

God’s Spirit, or his love, doth but as it were come and dwell in our hearts and act there as a vital principle, and we become the living temples of the Holy Ghost; and when men are regenerated and sanctified, God pours forth of his Spirit upon them, and they have fellowship or, which is the same thing, are made partakers with the Father and Son of their good, i.e. of their love, joy and beauty.24

The life of a believer, even as a seedling, is a participation in the love, joy, and beauty shared between the Father and the Son. As Edwards notes here, the Spirit acts as a “vital principle” in the souls of believers. To put this more clearly, the Spirit—as the love, holiness, grace, and beauty of God—is given to the believer. Importantly, God does not hand these things over as if they were gifts that could be separated from his person and life. No! Rather, in giving believers himself by his Spirit, God gives fellowship, and that fellowship provides love, joy, holiness, and more. Justification by faith, therefore—to pick up my point above—is a crucial step on the way to this fellowship. Fellowship is impossible without it. That said, justification by faith alone serves the broader goal of bringing the church into fellowship with the life of God. The relational categories, for Edwards, always govern the legal ones.

Edwards’s Moral Theology

It is important to say something about how Edwards’s understanding of redemption, as the movement of God to pull the elect into the relationship between the Father and the Son, relates directly to Charity and Its Fruits. At various places in the work, Edwards talks about virtue and vice, diving into a discussion of the ethical life of the Christian. Briefly, I want to highlight how Edwards’s moral thought relates to his broader understanding of theology.

When reading Edwards’s discussion of virtue, we would be mistaken to suppose that Edwards is simply providing a program for living well in the world. His depiction of virtue is entirely dependent upon seeing God truly. “He who knows God,” Edwards argues, “sees him to be worthy to be obeyed.”25 The virtuous person is the one who has seen God in Christ and has had the Spirit illumine Christ to him, so that he realizes the depth of his need and the sufficiency of Christ. This sight of God is a work of the Spirit, who illu-minates Christ through the Scriptures, the community of God, and nature. In the twelfth sermon of Charity and Its Fruits, Edwards states, “The same sight or sense of God’s excellency begets faith, and love, and repentance, and all other graces. One sight of this will beget all those, because the sight of

24 Edwards, “Discourse on the Trinity,” 124.25 Edwards, Ethical Writings, 297.


29Introduction

God’s excellency shows the ground and reason of all holy disposition, and all holy behavior towards God.”26

Therefore, it is strategic when Edwards preaches in such a way as to leave his hearer undone. The goal of the sermon is not to empower but rather to leave one with no foothold or handhold other than Christ. A discussion of virtue like the one found in these sermons is an attempt to highlight what are often called “beautiful vices.” It is meant to reveal your own heart so that even in the areas where you think you are moral, what you find instead is profound sin. In Edwards’s day, just as in our own, there was a tendency to approach sins as if they were external to the heart. If a person struggled with envy yesterday, the solution was to try hard not to be envious the next day. Self-help has always been a temptation for the church. But this, of course, just isn’t a Christian way to approach sin. Edwards shows how the root of sin digs deep into the depths of who we are and has its source in a nature much more devious than we tend to admit. Envy, for example, is the external representation of a sin that is foundational to who we are.

Primarily, the solution to sin is God himself. The recognition of vice in our hearts can lead us to the cross and cast us, just as in salvation, upon the overflowing mercy and grace of God. Likewise, as noted above, Edwards wants his readers to grasp the idea that knowledge of God and knowledge of self are mutually informing; therefore, it is important to trace out the roots of our sins and expose them to the light of God’s revelation. Misunderstanding who we are is almost as problematic as misunderstanding who God is; it is the root of all sorts of sin. This is why Edwards states, “I confess that experience teaches me, the need of constantly maintaining of a watchful and jealous eye over my own heart, with humble prayer to God for light to enable me to judge truly of myself.”27 Likewise, “He who has a right sense of himself with respect to God will open his eyes to see himself aright in all respects.”28

Edwards’s moral theology builds on a knowledge of God and self because knowledge of God is not knowledge of an object but of persons—and is, therefore, a personal knowledge. Knowledge of God is not concerned primarily with knowing about God, but with knowing God truly. To know God is to be humble, because knowing God entails recognizing oneself in relation to him. “It appears that divine love implies humility because when God is truly loved he is loved as an infinite superior.”29 This is as true of knowing God as it is

26 Ibid., 333.27 Jonathan Edwards, “To Elizabeth Scott Williams,” in Letters and Personal Writings, ed. George S. Claghorn, vol. 16 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 677.28 Edwards, Ethical Writings, 235.29 Ibid., 245.


30 Introduction

of loving him. Moral judgment starts with a recognition of God as beautiful in his own life, and of Christ as the excellency of God revealed to creation, before seeing the beauty of the moral order in the world. This recognition starts within our own hearts, because God’s call in Christ is a call of love.

Religion

It is important, furthermore, to note Edwards’s use of religion. The word religion is not in vogue today as it once was, and therefore readers might stumble over Edwards’s use of the term. Religion has come to be seen as syn-onymous with religiosity. This was as far from Edwards’s understanding as you can imagine. Edwards frequently uses the word religion as a synonym for virtue, the Christian life, and even, at times, Christ. There was false religion and there was true religion, to be sure, but religion was not simply defined by things people do; it was understood as the appropriate response to God.

It is helpful to note that true religion—what we might call religion per-fected—is known only in heaven. Therefore, unlike our modern-day usage, religion was not a negative term. The term, for Edwards, denoted our whole posture, life, and devotion to God in Christ. In light of this, religion might be closest to what we might today refer to as the Christian life, Christian spiritu-ality, or spiritual formation, assuming those terms are used with distinctively Christian (and Protestant) content. Even moving beyond heaven, we could say that for Edwards, religion is ultimately God’s life. As the Father and Son love one another infinitely, so believers are brought into that Father-child loving relationship through the Son by the uniting power of the Spirit.

Temptations in Reading Charity and Its FruitsThe main goal of this volume is to help people read Charity and Its Fruits well. As I have highlighted, this includes grasping the theological background and breadth to the volume, but it must not be limited to that. To ignore the temptations of reading a book like this would be to fail to take seriously the sermons’ original intent, which was to expose hearts to God. Therefore, reading well means reading prayerfully.

Perhaps the most obvious temptation in reading this work is the academic one—the temptation to read this simply because it should be read. Maybe this book appears on your mental list of “must reading,” books you are embar-rassed to admit you have not read. You read, then, not out of a desire to know God more, but out of a desire to have conquered the “right” books. This is a temptation of self-aggrandizement, to be “in the know” in all the respect-able ways. It is born, typically, out of a desire to be seen in a certain light,


31Introduction

to be lauded for historical, theological, and spiritual depth. When reading with this set of lenses, one’s mind gathers interesting tidbits of information, but often fails to hear a truly prophetic call against one’s own life, heart, or beliefs. Someone not open to this kind of prophetic call will relegate it to the backseat or jettison it completely. Vice itself gets puffed up by the very exercise that should help deflate it.

Following upon this temptation is another, related one. Instead of reading to judge your own heart, you might read all too readily to bring judgment on others. As a subconscious attempt at self-protection, pride often asserts itself by pointing out the failures of others rather than facing the reality of one’s own sin. Pastors, particularly, may struggle with this temptation, thinking of congregants or the church at large, rather than themselves as they read material that may hit uncomfortably close to home. This temptation arises from a broader vice, which is a failure to know oneself truly. As will be seen throughout Charity and Its Fruits, knowing your own heart is tied together with knowing God and grasping the reality of the Christian life. Those who do not know themselves may balk at Edwards’s detailed depictions of pride, envy, selfishness, anger, and the like, failing to recognize how these very vices blind them to their own hearts.

Instead, I suggest reading this volume in a truly devotional manner. It would be much more fruitful to ponder the text prayerfully than to rush through it. Edwards will, without question, cause you to shift uncomfortably in your chair. Rather than moving on to escape your discomfort, turn to prayer. The matters Edwards explores are, I suggest, the very areas God may want to expose in you. Allow Edwards to reveal the reality of your heart, but don’t stop with self-knowledge alone. Use these opportunities to rest in the grace of God and avail yourself of the power of his love alone to remedy the death that resides within you.

Publishing NotesIn an attempt to make Charity and Its Fruits as readable as possible, without departing from Edwards’s original intent or language, I have made several slight adaptations. First, I have accepted all of the editorial clarifications into the text itself. In the critical edition of Charity and Its Fruits, from which our manuscript derives, Paul Ramsey placed in brackets clarifying terms that are strongly implied but not explicitly stated by Edwards. These additions, now incorporated without Ramsey’s brackets, do not detract from the original meaning, nor do they add ideas not in the original; instead, they draw out the implied meaning more explicitly.


32 Introduction

Second, Edwards has a tendency either to end a sentence with a Scripture reference (e.g., “We, therefore, know that without Christ we can do nothing, John 15”), or to start a sentence with a Scripture reference (e.g., “John 15:5, ‘I am the vine; you are the branches . . .’ ”). I find both approaches to be unhelpful for readers. For clarity and consistency, I have put each Scripture reference in parentheses at the end of the sentence unless the reference is integrated into the sentence itself. Parenthetical Scripture references are abbreviated, and punctuation around them is minimally adjusted. A few references are corrected.

Third, I have added one subheading to the text to delineate a digression where Edwards takes an “explanatory aside” to talk about the unforgiveable sin. This addition cues the reader to a change in the flow of thought and highlights that the following section is truly an aside, rather than part of the main argument.

Fourth, at times, Edwards’s outline becomes confusing. For instance, he will have a subsection 1 and underneath that a further subsection 1. The Yale edition modifies such instances by adding parentheses to the lower-level numerals, thus (1). Nonetheless, reading the same number in two successive levels of an outline can be difficult to follow. For greater clarity, I have changed the lower-level numerals to letters (A, B, C, etc.).

Fifth, in several places I quote from Edwards’s still plentiful unpublished material. When I do so, I provide my own edits (of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, etc.) for the sake of readability.

Finally, I have added the section headings noted above into the table of contents and text to help orient the reader to Edwards’s broad purpose in the work.

Turning now to the text of Charity and Its Fruits, I believe it will be useful to allow Edwards to narrate his own experience after his conversion. While Edwards is well known for his spiritual discernment, he is less known for his poetic depictions of life under God. Therefore, I leave you with his own thoughts about gazing upon God in Christ by his Spirit.

From about that time, I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by him. I had an inward, sweet sense of these things, that at times came into my heart; and my soul was led away in pleasant views and contemplations of them. And my mind was greatly engaged, to spend my time in reading and meditating on Christ; and the beauty and excellency of his person, and the lovely way of salvation, by free grace in him. I found no books so delightful to me, as those that treated of these subjects. Those words (Song of Solomon 2:1) used to be abundantly with me: “I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys.” The words seemed to me, sweetly to represent, the loveliness and beauty of Jesus


33Introduction

Christ. And the whole book of Canticles used to be pleasant to me; and I used to be much in reading it, about that time. And found, from time to time, an inward sweetness, that used, as it were, to carry me away in my contemplations; in what I know not how to express otherwise, than by a calm, sweet abstrac-tion of soul from all the concerns of this world; and a kind of vision, or fixed ideas and imaginations, of being alone in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, far from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, and wrapt and swallowed up in God. The sense I had of divine things, would often of a sudden as it were, kindle up a sweet burning in my heart; an ardor of my soul, that I know not how to express.30

30 Jonathan Edwards, “Personal Narrative,” in Letters and Personal Writings, 793.


C h a r i t y

and i t s F r u i t s

onathan Edwards took great pains to illustrate how love must be lived out and exercised in one’s life when he exposited 1 Corinthians 13. Thus Ed-

wards scholar Kyle Strobel has gone to great lengths to help readers understand this classic work of biblical spirituality by providing:

• A detailed introduction• Over150explanatorynotesaddressingdifficultconceptsthroughoutthetext• Definitionsofarcaneterminology• Relevant quotes from Edwards’s other writings• A conclusion showing how to appropriate Edwards’s work

Here is an updated, unabridged, and enlightening version of Jonathan Edwards’s Charity and Its Fruits—the perfect blend of doctrine and application on the all-important topic, Christian love.

“I am thrilled that Kyle Strobel has edited this new edition of Edwards’s Charity and Its Fruits. This series of sermons holds a special place in my affections for Edwards.”

John Piper, Pastor for Preaching and Vision, Bethlehem Baptist Church

“For those who mistakenly think that Protestant theologians overemphasize faith at the expense of love, these classic sermons by Edwards will be an antidote to a stereotype, drawing every believer closer to Christ.”

timothy George, Founding Dean, Beeson Divinity School

“For Jonathan Edwards, the true understanding of Christianity as love-life in God through Christ was a lifelong theological-pastoral-devotional focus, and his fullest display of it is found here. Strobel’s comments help us appreciate this classic on communion with God.”

J. i. Packer, Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology, Regent College

KyLE strOBEL (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is founder of Meta-morpha, an online community for Christian spiritual formation. He is author of Formed for the Glory of God: Jonathan Edwards and Spiritual Formation, Jonathan Ed-wards’s Theolog y: A Reinterpretation, and Metamorpha: Jesus as a Way of Life. Strobel has also served as a fellow at Yale’s Jonathan Edwards Center, has published several academic reviews of works related to Edwards, and has taught graduate courses on Edwards’s spiritual theology.

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Charity and Its Fruits

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