Theology Of Love And Hate Essay, Research Paper

Theology of Love or Hate? ? I make seeking my redemption the chief concern of my

life. ? ( editor, Perkins. 103 ) . At the clip of the predating statement,

Jonathan Edwards neither had a full apprehension of God? s delivering love or

the ability to convey the simpleness of redemption through the love of Jesus

Jesus. It is improper and unscriptural to connote that an single must do

the quest for ageless life a drawn-out and drawn-out journey. This places the

redemption experience, or the ageless life end, in the same category as it would

the life-time campaign of a physician desiring to assist and mend others. Jesus said

in the Gospel harmonizing to St. John 3:16-17 ( NIV ) , ? For God so loved the universe

that he gave his 1 and merely Son, that whoever believes in Him shall non die

but have ageless life. For God did non direct his Son into the universe to reprobate

the universe, but to salvage the universe through him. ? Yes, there is Divine opinion

merely as there has been since adult male? s first autumn in the Garden of Eden. However,

one must retrieve that earlier opinion, there was love. God made adult male and adult female

perfect. Sin required opinion be placed on adult male. God? s love lingered with

adult male. Nevertheless, before the first raindrop of the? great inundation? fell, God

would once more judge the universe by his ain jurisprudence. Notwithstanding, God? s love was

foremost shown to all dwellers of the Earth. When adult male rejected that love,

opinion followed. As it is with any male parent, God does train his kids.

He disciplines, but with a loving manus. Edwards continually used phrases such as

? ever exposed to devastation, ? ? sudden unexpected devastation, ?

? choler and wrath of God, ? and? the awful cavity of the glowing fires of

the wrath of God. ? This does non show the New Testament message of Jesus?

love. Prior to Jesus? birth in that little stable in Bethlehem, the lone agencies

of expiation for wickedness was through the blood of a forfeit. When Jesus took his

foremost breath the old jurisprudence of God ceased, and the new jurisprudence began. Although there

would be a 33 twelvemonth delay for a resurrected Jesus, God? s love, non

hatred, was alive, walking the streets, and offering something that would now be

free: ageless life through the Son. The? black clouds of God? s wrath, ? as

Edwards termed it, would be absent until the last breath would be exhaled on the

cross, the skies would go dark, and an temblor happened. When God turned

his dorsum on his ain Son there had taken topographic point an exhibition of love on the

grandest graduated table. I feel that Edwards, with all of his good purposes, was

trying to make once more what the Puritans had failed at making. He was seeking to

scare his hearers out of snake pit alternatively of loving them into Eden. He was,

in my appraisal, stating, ? You are excessively stupid to see it. Let me state you what

God wants you to hear. Believe me because I am a reverent adult male, and you are non. ?

In chapter three of St. John, Jesus began his talk with Nicodemus three times

with? Verily, verily, I say

unto you? ? ( John 3:3, 5, 11 ) . I take pleasance

from the mode in which the new international version ( NIV ) of the Bible

translates it. It reads ; ? I tell you the truth? ? ? I tell you the

truth? ? ? I tell you the truth? ? Jesus was talking. John 3:16-17

speaks of God? s love for adult male. As a affair of fact, it shows the type of love

that Jesus radius of when he said in John 15:13, ? Greater love hath no adult male than

this that he lay down his life for his friends. ? It would take a male parent? s

love for me to decease for my boy or girl. Notwithstanding, God would put down

the life of his ain Son. It was to be done for a people who would ptyalize on him,

round him, berate him, and hang him to decease. It required non detest but a godly

sum of love. Edwards was neglecting to proclaim this. God? s message was and is

that of love and life for the spiritually lost. The? ferocity, ?

? choler, ? or? rage? of God that Edwards ministered is true in relation to

God? s response to transgress. This is, nevertheless, God? s response to transgress and to those

that follow it. There will be Divine opinion. There will be ageless damnation.

More of import than this, nevertheless, is the fact that there is and will be, the

love of God shows to individuals such as Cotton Mather, William Byrd, Jonathan

Edwards, and anyone else willing to accept it. Edwards read all of the New

Testament. Therefore, in making so, he read the full 3rd chapter of the

Gospel of St. John. It does non look, relatively, that he took every bit much

pleasance in elaborating on the hope presented by God than the damnation for the

wicked. To exemplify the message that he wanted presented to the universe, Jesus

used an case that Nicodemus could more easy understand. He referred to the

Old Testament recording in Numbers 21:9 ( KJV ) of a promise that God gave Moses

for the kids of Israel. Snakes victimized the land, and decease was at hand

to all bitten. ? And Moses made a snake of brass, and put it upon a pole, and

it came to go through, that if a snake had bitten any adult male, when he behold the

snake of brass, he lived. ? Jesus presented an equality of the Father? s

program for ageless redemption. He said in St. John 3:14, ? And as Moses lifted up

the snake in the wilderness, even so must the Son of adult male be lifted up. ? I

fail, in my hunt of Edwards? discourse, to happen the love of Jesus Christ for

world promoted. That love could hold been in being. It could be concealing

beneath the crust of abomination that Edwards has for all things non consistent

with the ways of God. In my personal divinity, Jonathan Edwards will ne’er truly

represent a loving courier of God. He does non look to be a adult male with either

a full apprehension of God? s delivering love or the ability to convey the

simpleness of such love. Works Cited Editors, Perkins. The American Tradition in

Literature: Shorter Edition in One Volume. McGraw-Hill College. Boston. 1999 ) .

Plants Cited Editors, Perkins. The American Tradition in Literature: Shorter

Edition in One Volume. McGraw-Hill College. Boston. 1999 ) .