Jonathan Edwards
A rediscovery of the contribution of the writings of Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) on the subject of angels propels him into the category of one of the most significant thinkers on angelology in the Christian tradition. While Edwards never constructed a systematic angelology, he wrote on the subject in nearly fifty entries in his varied collection of Miscellanies, and he alluded to the subject in multiple sermons and treatises.
Much of what Edwards wrote on angels, as well as on demons, repeats much of traditional orthodoxy. The angels were created by God and are bodiless spiritual beings. They are intelligent creatures who are spectators to God’s work in the universe from the moment of their creation up to the present church age. They are also moral creatures with a capacity to choose both good and evil. Edwards believed angels exist in vast numbers and have powers that greatly exceed those of human beings. Some angels fell, including Satan, through sin or disobedience. These fallen angels are called demons. Edwards saw the holy unfallen angels as servants and ministers of God’s providence, performing various functions throughout the physical universe and in the lives of human beings.
The History of Redemption
Between March and August 1739, Edwards delivered thirty sermons on the Old Testament text of Isaiah 51:8. The doctrine Edwards provides in his series is continuous from the first sermon to the last, and is basically stated, “The Work of Redemption is a work that God carries on from the fall of man to the end of the world.”1 The themes developed by Edwards in the framework of this discourse on redemption engaged him both directly and indirectly in most of the expositions he preached throughout this time period. These themes can be summarized under three traditional headings: heaven, earth, and hell.
Angels play a frequent role in the tri-world narrative that Edwards constructs. He draws these themes out of his Miscellanies and includes them in his sermons, reminding his congregants that “the creating heaven was in order to the Work of Redemption; it was to be an habitation for the redeemed and the Redeemer, Matthew 25:34. Angels [were created to be] ministering spirits [to the inhabitants of the] lower world [which is] to be the stage of the wonderful Work [of Redemption].”2
The angelology of Jonathan Edwards should be viewed as a corollary to his Christology. Throughout the sermons in his 1739 series, Edwards positions the angelic beings at the epicenter of his teachings: “Scripture is filled,” he says, “with instances when God hath . . . sent angels to bring divine instructions to men.”3 Angels, in heaven, “spend much of their time in searching into the great things of divinity, and endeavoring to acquire knowledge in them.”4 When they are not employed in ministration and singing, Edwards considers that angels may be studying. Regularly, Edwards asks his parishioners to follow the example of angels and imitate their diligence in the study of Scripture. Both angels and humanity, Edwards says, will find “the glorious work of redemption” at the heart of that study. For Edwards, the love of Christ in His redemption stands at the center of all angelic contemplation.

As Job is beginning to understand, God may indeed have a purpose in his suffering which does not fit with Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar’s insufficient grasp of the situation. As the dialogue progresses, Job’s heart is now stirred and moves him to confess his faith in a coming redeemer, even through tears of pain, doubt, and fear! Job knows that his redeemer lives! Job knows his redeemer will one day stand upon the earth. And Job knows that he will see that redeemer with the eyes of a resurrected body! In the midst of his terrible circumstances, the suffering prophet nevertheless confesses “for I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.”

Job’s Faith Is Re-Kindled
Despite all appearances to the contrary, and despite the cruel counsel coming from his friends (most recently Eliphaz), Job still expects vindication. Job knows that God is good, keeps his promises, and that some how and in some way, his ordeal will end and it will be clear to all that Job is not hiding some secret sin.
As the dialogue between Job and his friends continues to unfold, in Job 16:18-17:3, the glowing embers of Job’s faith reappear. With this hope arises, as Job calls out his erst-while friends for their cruel and self-righteous counsel. He calls them “mockers.”

O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry find no resting place. Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who testifies for me is on high. My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God, that he would argue the case of a man with God, as a son of man does with his neighbor. For when a few years have come I shall go the way from which I shall not return. `My spirit is broken; my days are extinct; the graveyard is ready for me. Surely there are mockers about me, and my eye dwells on their provocation. Lay down a pledge for me with you; who is there who will put up security for me?’

Job now realizes that the answer to the “why?” question (which he has asked of YHWH), along with his personal vindication before his friends, might not come until after his own death. But yes, Job will get his answer. He will be vindicated—if not in this life, then certainly in the next. His friends do not understand nor, apparently, do they care to.
Because of this glimmer of hope and because Job still has faith in the God of the promise (however, weak that faith may be under the circumstances), Job knows his friends cannot help him. He sees their efforts are futile, if not cruel. There is nowhere else to go. Job’s only hope is in God. Yet, his mood still swings wildly, bringing him right up to the point of despair. But in the balance of Job 17, Job possess enough of his prior faith to continue to call out his friends for their faithless response.

My spirit is broken; my days are extinct; the graveyard is ready for me. Surely there are mockers about me, and my eye dwells on their provocation. `Lay down a pledge for me with you; who is there who will put up security for me? Since you have closed their hearts to understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph. He who informs against his friends to get a share of their property— the eyes of his children will fail. `He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom men spit. My eye has grown dim from vexation, and all my members are like a shadow. The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless. Yet the righteous holds to his way, and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger. But you, come on again, all of you, and I shall not find a wise man among you. My days are past; my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart. They make night into day: ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’ If I hope for Sheol as my house, if I make my bed in darkness, if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ where then is my hope? Who will see my hope? Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?

Not only is Job giving back as good as he is getting from Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, but only a man who has done nothing wrong will fight so hard to be vindicated–as Job is now doing.
Bildad’s Second Speech—More “Belly Wind”
As Bildad makes his second speech one thing is becoming clear–Job, the suffering prophet, is longing to probe deeper into the mysteries of God’s providence, while Job’s friends focus entirely on the their distorted views regarding the suffering of the wicked. Bildad is clearly resentful of Job’s low estimate of his three friends’ theological abilities.[1] Whereas Eliphaz tried to moderate his second speech, Bildad is much more cantankerous. In verses 1-4 of Job 18, Bildad responds to Job with words which reflect the former’s growing frustration and anger. “Then Bildad the Shuhite answered [Job] and said: `How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and then we will speak. Why are we counted as cattle? Why are we stupid in your sight? You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you, or the rock be removed out of its place?” Bildad’s challenge is that if the law of divine retribution is immutable (God must punish wrong-doing), and if Job refuses to repent, he will foolishly continue to throw himself against the fixed law that God must punish all sin.[2] How dare Job think that he is above the fixed laws of YHWH’s sovereign will!
As Bildad sees it, the moral order of the universe is set in stone. Since God will punish the wicked for their sins, in the balance of the chapter, Bildad recites a catalogue of the troubles of the wicked, all designed to appeal to Job’s conscience so that he is convicted of sins. The problem with Bildad’s speech is that Job’s conscience is clean. Says Bildad,

Indeed, the light of the wicked is put out, and the flame of his fire does not shine. The light is dark in his tent, and his lamp above him is put out. His strong steps are shortened, and his own schemes throw him down. For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walks on its mesh. A trap seizes him by the heel; a snare lays hold of him. A rope is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him in the path. Terrors frighten him on every side, and chase him at his heels. His strength is famished, and calamity is ready for his stumbling. It consumes the parts of his skin; the firstborn of death consumes his limbs. He is torn from the tent in which he trusted and is brought to the king of terrors. In his tent dwells that which is none of his; sulfur is scattered over his habitation. His roots dry up beneath, and his branches wither above. His memory perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the street. He is thrust from light into darkness, and driven out of the world. He has no posterity or progeny among his people, and no survivor where he used to live. They of the west are appalled at his day, and horror seizes them of the east.

Job’s Speech — He Knows His Redeemer Lives
With that, we come to one of the most remarkable speeches in all the Bible (Job 19:25-27). Job’s words inspired Handel when writing the Messiah, and they continue to profoundly move all who read them. Job’s speech is so profound because it is not as though Bildad’s words contain no truth. Yes, God will punish the wicked. But Bildad’s cold and formulaic “canned” answer does not fit the facts at hand. This may be true of the wicked when they suffer. But what about the righteous? They suffer too. Thus the issue is not what fixed moral law Job has broken. For Job, the issue is “why has God turned his back on him?”
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Written by Glenn A. Moots |
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
The Protestant ethos of “Ad Fontes” (“to the sources”) demonstrates their appreciation of the ancient faith. Protestants likewise cherished the social and intellectual roots of ordered liberty, and they opposed all efforts by radicals or revolutionaries to tear them up. 

If critics of Protestantism are to believed, Reformation Day is a day to lament: Patrick Deneen blames Protestantism for Enlightenment liberalism; Ralph Hancock charges Calvin with rationalism; Catholic intellectuals Hilaire Belloc and Brad Gregory blame the Reformation for destroying Western civilization. So serious and existential are these charges that going “home to Rome” is, for some converts, the ultimate act of resistance against modernity.
But was the Reformation revolutionary at all? If one rightly confines it to the Magisterial Reformation: No. Magisterial reformers are called “magisterial” because they partnered with civil authorities (or “magistrates”) to preserve the corpus christianum and social order in Protestant polities against radicals on one side and Catholic powers on the other. Magisterial Protestantism included the Reformed, Lutheran, and Anglican traditions as well as some British nonconformists. Magisterial Protestants rejected the proliferation of radical sects and dissenters on both sides of the Atlantic and were, by liberal standards, quite severe with their opponents (e.g., Anabaptists or Quakers). According to Sidney Ahlstrom, three-quarters of eighteenth-century Americans were magisterial Protestants.
Progenitors of Individualism?
Even if magisterial Protestants opposed radicalism, didn’t they still seed it by asserting freedom of conscience? That would be true if Protestants had in fact freed the conscience in the way critics assert. Freeing the conscience was not directed at presumed “irrational religious and social norms” (as Deneen put it). Nor did Protestant theology necessitate a successive wave of freedoms, as David Corey has asserted.
Luther refers to the conscience over five hundred times, identifying it as the “coram deo”—that which puts us before the face of God—to distinguish it from the ethical and political rules of society. Luther never frees the conscience; he prioritizes its binding. The conscience of man is bound by ethical and moral rules of society as well as the Word of God—particularly Old Testament Law. Human bindings are conditional; the conscience is unconditionally freed only by the Gospel. Luther did not empower the individual to free his own conscience any more than Thomas Aquinas did. Luther opposed anyone who presumed the conscience to be autonomous and it is impossible to find a magisterial reformer who did not bind the conscience to the authority of scripture and church leaders. Ordered liberty of the conscience is not anarchistic spiritual individualism.
What we now call “Church-State Relations” (an ongoing debate in Christendom) entered a new phase during the Reformation, but “freedom of conscience” had little or no effect on the freedom of an individual. In fact, because a believer’s conscience is inwardly free (as Luther, Richard Hooker, and others argued) it is therefore untrammeled by outward impositions (e.g., conformity in vestments or liturgy) judged prudent by civil or ecclesiastical authorities for the unity of Church and Commonwealth. Nonconformists in England were counseled by continental reformers like Heinrich Bullinger to be prudent in their dissent. So-called “adiaphora” were not presumed to bind in the same way that the Word of God did, but they were imposed for the sake of unity and good order. John Locke’s defense of imposition of adiaphora or “things indifferent” in his unpublished Two Tracts (1660-62) is an inconvenient truth for any Whig history of toleration from Luther to Locke to Madison, for example.
If the Protestant Reformation led to what would eventually become religious liberty, then the path is indirect at best, and not landing there for at least a century or two. If anything, circumstance and pragmatism should get the credit. Arguments like those of Roger Williams were ridiculed, if not forgotten, for almost two centuries and Andrew Murphy makes a good case that principled arguments for toleration probably had little effect. More importantly, Williams, Anabaptists, Congregationalists, or Baptists desiring to separate believers, as wheat, from the tares of society (Matthew 13) were accused of secularizing the commonwealth and abandoning Christendom. Some were martyred. Most Protestants therefore fought against secularization and liberalization.
The Doctrine of Vocation vs. Egalitarianism
Protestants not only opposed an autonomous conscience, they opposed leveling the social institutions essential for civil society. Activities of daily life, freed from their implicit inferiority to holy orders like monasticism, were elevated almost to the level of worship. Daily life was directed by one’s vocations. Though Luther is most famously associated with the Protestant doctrine of vocation, its fullest presentation was in a remarkable work of 1626 by William Perkins, a Cambridge theologian of the Elizabethan settlement more popular at the time than Shakespeare or Richard Hooker. Perkins argued that every calling must be “fitted to the man, and every man be fitted to his calling.” And though Perkins argued that God is the author of each man’s separate calling through Creation and Providence, the application of that fact is neither individualistic nor egalitarian but instead deeply conservative. One learns one’s desires and gifts within a community, particularly the communities of family, the Church, and one’s neighbors. Our contribution to these communities invests our vocations with moral significance, not some modern individualistic and existential search for personal identity.
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