Edwards's Negative Marks

Today's Reading

Read 1 John 4:1-6 once more — by now it should be familiar. Then read Matthew 7:21-23: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'" Jesus himself warns that even prophecy, exorcism, and miracles in his name are not, by themselves, proof.

Read Acts 2:1-13, where Pentecost itself produced a crowd split between worship and the conclusion that the disciples were drunk. Spectacular phenomena are not self-interpreting; they require explanation.

Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, where Paul lists tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith that moves mountains, generosity to the poor, and martyrdom — and says all of them, without love, are nothing.

And read Jeremiah 23:25-32, where God denounces prophets who claim "I have dreamed, I have dreamed" but speak from their own imagination.

Reflection

In 1741 the First Great Awakening had reached the kind of scale at which it became impossible to evaluate honestly. Crowds were enormous. Conversions were many. So were fits, faintings, weeping, shouting, claims of visions, claims of healings, and a fair amount of nonsense. Some pastors, alarmed by the chaos, denounced the whole thing as enthusiasm. Other pastors, dazzled by the surface, defended every excess. Jonathan Edwards did neither.

He preached, instead, a sermon at Yale College that became The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God. Its first part is one of the most pastorally useful pieces of writing in church history. Edwards walks through the things that, by themselves, prove nothing about whether a movement is of the Spirit. They are not bad things. Several of them are New Testament things. They simply do not, on their own, settle the question. He gives, in essence, five negative marks.

The first is intensity of effect on the body. Tears, trembling, groans, outcries, agonies, the failing of bodily strength — Edwards says they are no argument either way. They might be the Spirit; they might not. "A work is not to be judged of by any effects on the bodies of men," he writes. He has read his Bible. He knows that Daniel collapsed when the angel came (Daniel 10:8-9), that Saul fell on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:4), that the soldiers fell back when Jesus said "I am he" (John 18:6). He also knows that medieval revivalists faked these effects routinely, that crowd hysteria reproduces them on demand, and that some people simply have more reactive nervous systems than others. The body responding does not, by itself, mean the Spirit is the cause.

The second is strength and rapid spread of religious feeling. "It is no sign one way or the other," Edwards writes in the later Religious Affections, "that religious affections are very great, or raised very high." A revival can be vast and shallow; a single soul's slow awakening can be deep. Numbers are not the metric. Speed is not the metric. The size of the crowd at the conference is not the metric. Pentecost was big, but so was the golden calf incident.

The third is unusual attention to religion in a community. When everyone is suddenly talking about God, when the news cycles around revival, when politicians and athletes are confessing faith, when worship music is on the radio — Edwards says this proves nothing about whether what is happening is of God. Religion can become culturally fashionable for many reasons. The mere fact that people are paying attention to spiritual things does not mean the Spirit is the one drawing the attention. Sometimes the world simply gets bored of materialism for a season; the resulting interest in spirituality can be in any direction.

The fourth — and this one is delicate — is what Edwards called animal heat in religious meetings: the felt warmth, the chemistry of a packed room, the swelling of music, the contagion of a crowd that is collectively moved. Anyone who has been to a sold-out concert knows the phenomenon, and anyone who has been to a charismatic worship night knows it can feel indistinguishable from God's manifest presence. Edwards is not denying that the Spirit can use a packed room. He is insisting that the room's heat, on its own, is not the proof.

The fifth is the most surprising: Scripture-quoting and even orderly religious behavior prove nothing on their own. Edwards points out that the devil quoted Scripture in the wilderness (Matthew 4:6). He points out that false prophets in Jeremiah delivered correct-sounding oracles (Jeremiah 23). He points out that one can attend church, sing the songs, recite the creeds, and remain dead in trespasses and sins. The presence of biblical language does not, on its own, mean a biblical Spirit is at work. Form of religion can be sustained without power of religion (2 Timothy 3:5).

Take all five together and you have a sober, almost uncomfortable list. Edwards has just disqualified the things most religious people, in most ages, instinctively use to evaluate spiritual movements. Was the room electric? Did people weep? Was attendance up? Did the preacher quote a lot of verses? All of it, he says, proves nothing. Not nothing in the sense of meaningless — the Spirit can produce all of it. Nothing in the sense of insufficient — the Spirit is not the only thing that produces it.

Why does he insist on this? Because Jesus himself does. Read Matthew 7 again: Did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, do many mighty works in your name? The works were real. The name was correct. Jesus still says, I never knew you. The miracle is not the proof. The exorcism is not the proof. The Spirit-language is not the proof. The proof is whether one actually knows him and does the will of the Father.

The pastoral application is enormous. It means that when you encounter a movement, a leader, a conference, a viral testimony, your first job is not to count the visible effects. The visible effects are real. They simply do not, by themselves, settle anything. Edwards is teaching us a discipline of patience: do not decide what God is doing on Tuesday based on what happened Sunday night. Wait. Look for the things on tomorrow's list — the positive marks, the lasting fruit, the doctrinal direction. The First Great Awakening produced both Edwards and James Davenport — the latter a preacher who burned books, denounced rival pastors, and led his followers into chaos. Same revival; very different fruit. The intensity could not, on its own, tell you which was which.

It is the same in our day. There are conferences that pass the negative-marks test by being undramatic — and pass the positive-marks test by producing decades of fruit. There are conferences that overwhelm the senses on Saturday night and produce, ten years later, a wreckage of broken leaders and disillusioned attenders. Edwards's mercy is to stop the church from making the verdict too quickly. Wait, he says. Look for the things underneath.

This is liberating in two directions at once. It frees the cessationist Christian from the false certainty that because a service is loud and tearful, it must be unspiritual. It frees the charismatic Christian from the false certainty that because a service is loud and tearful, it must be the Spirit. The Spirit can be present in either. He can also be absent from either. The marks that distinguish his real work are coming tomorrow.

Going Deeper

Make a list, on paper or in your head, of the spiritual experiences in your own life you have most confidently attributed to the Holy Spirit. Now ask, with Edwards: how much of that confidence rested on intensity? On the size or feel of the room? On the fact that Scripture was being quoted? Strip those away, gently, and ask what evidence is left underneath. You may find more than you expected. You may find less. Either way, the question is the right one.