Jonathan Edwards’s Doctrine Of The Covenant Of Redemption Within The Framework Of The History Of Redemption

By Gilsun Ryu

[Gilsun Ryu is a part-time lecturer at Kukje Theological University and Seminary in South Korea.]

Abstract

In his letter to the trustees of the College of New Jersey, Edwards introduced the history project as “a body of divinity in an entire new method, being thrown into the form of a history.” This description begs many questions, some of which have arisen among Edwards scholars. Given the difficulty in understanding the “entire new method” Edwards envisioned, it comes as no surprise that the nature of this intended work has been debated among a series of scholars. Recent Trinitarian theologians such as Amy Plantinga Pauw and Sang Hyun Lee believe Edwards’s concept of relationality between persons of the Godhead departed from Western church tradition and Reformed theology. Opposing their view, this study considers the new methods as something familiar to the early-modern Calvinists. Nonetheless, this study is neither directly involved in the debate over the character of the history project nor does it attempt to provide a sketch of the context in which Edwards planned to write it. Rather, the purpose of this article is to identify his doctrine of the covenant of redemption as a summary of his view of redemptive history. While Edwards’s view of the covenant of redemption is distinct when compared to Puritan Reformed orthodoxy, it was not devised based on his metaphysical musings or concern for the Christian life. On the contrary, Edwards developed the redemptive historical aspect of the covenant of redemption, using the history of redemption as an interpretive framework for understanding the Godhead and the covenant of redemption.

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Edwards’s doctrine of the covenant of redemption as the inner-Trinitarian eternal pact between the Father and the Son is part of his doctrine of the Trinity.[1] Accordingly, scholarly works on Edwards’s understanding of the covenant of redemption have mainly concentrated on aspects of the relationship between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity.[2] In this regard, Amy Plantinga Pauw asserts that Edwards employed “two distinct models of the immanent Trinity”: (1) the Augustinian view that portrays “the Son and Spirit as the Wisdom and Love of the one God,” and (2) a social model that “depicts the Godhead as a society or family of persons.”[3] From this, she argues that Edwards’s Trinitarianism provides “largely untapped resources for understanding the complex issues of Christian practice and communal life.”[4] In her view, Edwards’s use of the social model of the Trinity provides an example for Christian community.

Maintaining Pauw’s view, Sang Hyun Lee insists that Edwards’s depiction of the three persons of the Trinity departs from both “Augustine” and “the Western church’s traditional tendency to see God’s unity in the singularity of divine substance.”[5] Following Pauw, William J. Danaher argues that Edwards reinterprets the Trinity through the lens of his own philosophical idealism in the context of the eighteenth century.[6] Ralph Cunnington holds an adapted version of this view, insisting that Edwards’s use of the “tools of eighteenth-century philosophy” reveals that his doctrine of the Trinity is “innovative,” despite “its remaining within the bounds of Western orthodoxy.”[7] In this line of thought, Edwards is considered to be one who re-formulates the doctrine of the Trinity, originally rooted in the Reformed tradition, using eighteenth-century philosophical idealism.

However, Pauw’s view is refuted by Steven Studebaker and Robert Caldwell, who contend that Edwards’s Trinitarian thought consistently reflects “features of the Augustinian mutual love model,” rather than “oscillates between the discordant social and psychological models of the Trinity.”[8] In the same vein, Reita Yazawa claims that Pauw’s argument about the two models in Edwards may be “anachronistic,”[9] since “the dichotomy of the social and psychological models” derives from French theologian Théodore de Régnon (1831–1893).

In this context, one needs to be reminded of Pauw’s argument that, in the 1740s, Edwards shifted away from rational arguments of the Trinity to a historical consideration of God’s redemptive activity.[10] This, according to her, echoes Edwards’s “decision to abandon” his projected work entitled “A Rational Account of the Principles and Main Doctrines of the Christian Religion,” and instead employ “an entire new method, being thrown in the form of an history,” using Edwards’s own words.[11] However, Pauw misunderstands as if Edwards’s explanation of the Trinity through his use of reason in exploring the Trinity would have been quite different from the historical perspective that would be seen in A History of the Work of Redemption.

There is no doubt that Edwards’s use of reason resulted from his attempt to demonstrate the reasonableness of the Trinity, which was being challenged by British deists under the influence of the English Enlightenment.[12] Moreover, for Edwards, there is no “gap” between the doctrine of the Trinity and Christian life.[13] However, these facts cannot confirm that reason itself is a driving force in Edwards’s understanding of the Trinity, nor do they signify that Edwards’s view of the Trinity rests on “his conviction of the Trinity’s profound practical value for Christian faith and life,” as Pauw argues.[14] Rather, Sweeny rightly notes, “in opposition to their [deists’] call for a modern religion of nature and reason, Edwards insisted late in his life on the necessity of transcendent, supernatural revelation.”[15] Although Edwards echoed the Calvinist dictum “book of nature” and the “book of Scripture,” he placed an emphasis on the priority of the Bible, rather than reason.[16] Moreover, it must be noted that even before Edwards planned to write A History of the Work of Redemption in the 1740s, he explained his view of the Trinity and the covenant of redemption in terms of the history of redemption. This is clear in his “Discourse on the Trinity,” in which Edwards employs rationality and exegetical considerations using the history of redemption as an interpretive framework, by which the doctrine of the covenant becomes the uniting system of the whole Bible.

A close survey of the aforementioned scholars’ works reveals an emphasis on the historical and cultural contexts that may have played into Edwards’s understanding of the role of the covenant of redemption in his doctrine of Trinity. However, no study has fully explored Edwards’s view of the covenant of redemption and its relation to his interpretive framework, the history of redemption. This article attempts to consider that question. To do so, this study investigates Edwards’s Trinitarian texts, including “Discourse on the Trinity” and the “Treatise on Grace” as essential sources,[17] as well as other sources, including the “Blank Bible,” “Notes on Scripture,” “Miscellanies,” sermons, and several publications which are considered important for Edwards’s understanding of the covenant of redemption.

This article demonstrates that Edwards’s doctrines of the Trinity and the covenant of redemption proceed from his understanding of the history of redemption. The first section explores Edwards’s Trinitarian writings, and thus considers his view of the immanent Trinity, which involves the nature of the covenant of redemption as part of the eternal counsel of the triune God. The next two sections discuss Edwards’s view of the relationship between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity. The last section examines the distinction of the economy of the persons of the Godhead and the covenant of redemption, so that the roles of the three persons (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) come into focus. This work concludes that Edwards’s understanding of the covenant of redemption is located within the essential theme of the history of the redemption as his interpretive framework.

I. The Godhead And The Covenant Of Redemption

What is the purpose of the covenant of redemption? Where does it come from? Who are the parties of the covenant? How do the covenantal parties relate to each other? These questions are answered in Edwards’s brief description of the covenant of redemption in “A History of the Work of Redemption.” He writes:

There were many things done in order to the Work of Redemption before that. Some things were done before the world was created, yea from all eternity. The persons of the Trinity were as it were confederated in a design and a covenant of redemption, in which covenant the Father appointed the Son and the Son had undertaken their work, and all things to be accomplished in their work were stipulated and agreed.[18]

The covenant of redemption is an eternal pact caused by an agreement between the Father and the Son before the creation of the world, in which the Father appoints Christ to the office of serving as the mediator for his elected people. As seen in this brief definition, Edwards’s understanding of the covenant of redemption rests on his doctrine of the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity. Thus, the nature of the Godhead in the immanent Trinity is a proper place to start a discussion of the covenant of redemption.

II. The Immanent Trinity

In “Discourse of the Trinity,” Edwards begins his discussion of the Trinity with the concept of the “idea” of God himself, which generates an infinite “happiness” in God. The conception of idea is, in Edwards’s view, compatible with an understanding of the nature of the Trinity. For instance, while “the manner of the divine understanding” is not available in human words, human beings, as made in the “image of God,” have the same kind of “understanding,” “will,” “idea,” and “love” as God, excepting “a distinction of the ‘perfection of degree and manner’ to understand oneself.” This implies that the possibility of humans understanding themselves originates with God, who created human beings in accordance with his own image. In the same way, the divine nature can only be understood by God himself through his “mere perception or unvaried presence of his infinitely perfect idea.”[19] Thus, God’s understanding of himself comes to pass through his perception of his perfect idea.

In this regard, Edwards notes that there is a twofold aspect of the very same essence in God’s being: God’s self-understanding in “his having a perfect idea of himself” leads to the sum of God’s “inclination, love, and joy.” Thus, the perfect understanding in the perception of his perfect idea of himself generates “God’s love to himself.” That God loves himself involves his becoming “his own object.” Since God has “delight and joy” in his understanding of himself, there must be a “duplicity”—“God and the idea of God.”[20] Edwards therefore defines “the Deity” as follows:

And I do suppose the Deity to be truly and properly repeated by God’s thus having an idea of himself; and that this idea of God is a substantial ideal and has the very essence of God, is truly God, to all intents and purposes, and that by this means the Godhead is really generated and repeated.[21]

Here, the repetitions and generations of the Godhead eternally take place in God himself through his reflection on himself. This self-generation of the Godhead in turn relates to the concept of “image” of God. Edwards writes:

God’s idea of himself is absolutely perfect, and therefore is an express and perfect image of him, exactly like him in every respect. There is nothing in the pattern but what is in the representation—substance, life, power, nor anything else—and that in a most absolute perfection of similitude; otherwise it is not a perfect idea. But that which is the express perfect image of God, and in every respect like him, is God to all intents and purposes, because there is nothing wanting; there is nothing in the Deity that renders it the Deity but what has something exactly answering of it in this image, which will therefore also render that the Deity.[22]

Edwards emphasizes the perfectness of God’s understanding of himself. This view plays a pivotal role in his understanding of the nature of the second person, for God’s perfectness of self-understanding offers the same divine nature and essence to the second person in the Trinity. He writes:

Therefore, as God with perfect clearness, fullness and strength understands himself, views his own essence (in which there is no distinction of substance and act, but it is wholly substance and wholly act), that idea which God hath of himself is absolutely himself. This representation of the divine nature and essence is the divine nature and essence again. So that by God’s thinking of the Deity, [the Deity] must certainly be generated. Hereby there is another person begotten; there is another infinite, eternal, almighty, and most holy and the same God, the very same divine nature.[23]

For Edwards, the Son is none other than “God’s own perfect idea of himself.”[24] As seen in his exposition of the first person of the Trinity, God’s self-loving and generation presumes that the second person is “the only begotten and dearly beloved Son of God.”[25] Having established consubstantiality in the second person of the Godhead, Edwards moves on to a fuller exposition of the Son of God.

He describes the nature of the second person in five aspects, all of which rely on the concept of idea. First, the Son of God is “the divine idea of himself.” As “images” brings about an “idea,” which is “the most immediate representation,” Christ as the image of God is the “most immediate representation of Godhead, viz. the idea of God.” Second, the Son is “the object of God’s eternal and infinite love,” since God possesses “perfect joy and happiness” in his understanding of his own “glorious essence [the Son].” Thus, Edwards identifies God’s own idea with the Son. Third, Christ is “the face of God,” which signifies “appearance” or “presence” of God that God sees when he looks at himself, as a man looks at his own face reflected in a mirror. Fourth, Christ is the “brightness, effulgence or shining forth of God’s glory” in two respects: (1) Although there is the glory of God in himself, it was not until “his idea of himself” that God’s glory shines and appears to himself. And, (2) God is “well represented by the luminary and his idea to the light.” In other words, God’s glory is revealed to himself by the light. Fifth, “the Son of God is God’s own eternal and perfect idea,” for the Son of God is called “the wisdom,” “the logos,” and “the Amen,” which means “truth” in Hebrew.[26]

While Edwards uses “idea” to understand the Son, he considers the love between the Father and the Son to be the Holy Spirit. In “Treatise on Grace,” Edwards argues that the Holy Spirit is “in a peculiar manner called by the name of love.”[27] First John 4:8 evidences that “God is love.” Thus, Edwards argues that love indicates “the Godhead” or “the divine essence.” Thus, the divine essence is called “in a peculiar manner as breathed forth and subsisting in the holy Spirit.”[28]

It should be noted that, for Edwards, there is a subtle distinction between the divine nature and essence. This does not mean he believes the three persons have their own essences, but rather that Edwards finds a distinct place for the role of the Holy Spirit. For example, in “Discourse on the Trinity,” Edwards argues that it is not until the rise of the Holy Spirit who is a “most pure act” and an “infinitely holy and sweet energy” that the Deity comes into action.[29] For Edwards, the divine nature tends to point to the state of the Godhead, while the divine essence includes the actions within the Godhead. Edwards writes:

This is the eternal and most perfect and essential act of the divine nature, wherein the Godhead acts to an infinite degree and in the most perfect manner possible. The Deity becomes all act: the divine essence itself flows out and is as it were breathed forth in love and joy. So that the Godhead therein stands forth in yet another manner of subsistence, and there proceeds the third person in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, viz. the Deity in act: for there is no other act but the act of the will.[30]

Edwards considers the divine essence as the distinct domain of the Holy Spirit, in terms that refer to actions flowing out of the Trinity. The divine nature, on the other hand, is distinguished from this action. This becomes even clearer in Edwards’s summary of the Trinity in his conclusion, which follows:

The Father is the Deity subsisting in the prime, unoriginated and most absolute manner, or the Deity in its direct existence. The Son is the Deity generated by God’s understanding, or having an idea of himself, and subsisting in that idea. The Holy Ghost is the Deity subsisting in act, or the divine essence flowing out and breathed forth, in God’s infinite love to and delight in himself. And I believe the whole divine essence does truly and distinctly subsist both in the divine idea and divine love, and that therefore each of them are properly distinct persons.[31]

The Father is Deity in its primal state. The Deity generated by God’s self-understanding is the Son. The Holy Spirit is the “Deity” or “the divine essence” flowing out as the love between the persons of the Trinity. Thus, the “whole divine essence” points to the Deity that loves each other in the Trinity. The same argument is found in Edwards’s “Blank Bible.” He writes, “Holy Ghost is only divine love, or the essence of God flowing out in love and joy.”[32] The Spirit subsists in the love of the Trinity.[33] In this way, Edwards assigns the Holy Spirit a distinct place within the Trinity.

It is worth noting that Edwards’s description of the distinctive character of the Holy Spirit is closely related to his interest in the equality of the three persons. “In several places,” Studebaker writes, “Edwards gave extended thought to the nature of their equality and both of these sections reveal his particular interest in the full equality of the Holy Spirit.”[34] This is confirmed by “Discourse on the Trinity,” in which Edwards finds that the Holy Spirit, as love, shares the understanding of the other two persons. He writes:

The whole divine essence is supposed truly and properly to subsist in each of these three—viz. God, and his understanding, and love—and that there is such a wonderful union between them that they are after an ineffable and inconceivable manner one in another; so that one hath another, and they have communion in one another, and are as it were predicable one of another.[35]

The Holy Spirit has the same understanding of the other persons due to the “communion” between the persons by which the three persons belong to each other. Edwards writes elsewhere, “God loves the understanding and the understanding also flows out in love, so that the divine understanding is in the Deity subsisting in love.”[36] In other words, the persons of the Godhead subsist in love, and thereby possess the same understanding.

A similar emphasis appears in “On the Equality of the Persons of the Trinity.” Edwards writes, “The Holy Ghost is the last that proceeds from both the other two, yet the Holy Ghost has this peculiar dignity: that he is as it were the end of the other two, the good that they enjoy, the end of all procession.” He also contends that the Holy Spirit has “superiority.” He writes, “The Holy Ghost, that is, divine love, has the superiority, as that is the principle that as it were reigns over the Godhead and governs his heart, and wholly influences both the Father and the Son in all they do.”[37]

As has been observed, Edwards’s approach to the immanent Trinity focuses on the distinct characteristics of the three persons, while maintaining their equality. Moreover, he describes the nature of the immanent Trinity in terms of the inner order and the manner of their existence. The following section thus considers the relationship between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity in an attempt to shed light on Edwards’s interpretive framework.

III. The Economic Trinity

It is important to note that Edwards’s view of the economic Trinity flows out of his view of the immanent Trinity. Moreover, his understanding of the economic Trinity plays a pivotal role in his view of the covenant of redemption. That is to say that the economic Trinity can be described in terms of the immanent Trinity, as well as the covenant of redemption. Thus, this section is divided into two descriptive subsections. The first explores how the immanent Trinity relates to the economic Trinity, and the second considers how the economic Trinity relates to the covenant of redemption.

1. The Relationship Between The Immanent And The Economic Trinity: Ad Intra And Ad Extra

For Edwards, the relationship between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity can be explained by the phrases ad intra and ad extra. According to Richard Muller, ad intra indicates “absolute and necessary knowledge concerning creation, providence, and salvation that God alone can know,” while ad extra points to “the relative and accommodated” knowledge.[38] Since the ad intra-ad extra language “offers considerable insight into the nature and character of the older Reformed approach to the questions of divine absoluteness and divine relationality,”[39] the term is also crucial for understanding Edwards’s view of God’s existence and actions.

First, Edwards insists that God’s interactions with the world (ad extra) flow out of the “proceedings of the divinity ad intra.”[40] As far as God’s internal proceedings (ad intra), Edwards identifies two categories: “the proceeding and generation of the Son” and “the proceeding and breathing forth of the Holy Spirit.”[41] This is seen in “Miscellanies” No. 448, in which Edwards schematizes ad intra as the following:

God is glorified within himself these two ways: (1) by appearing or being manifested to himself in his own perfect idea, or, in his Son, who is the brightness of his glory; (2) by enjoying and delighting in himself, by flowing forth in infinite love and delight towards himself, or, in his Holy Spirit.[42]

From these two categories of ad intra, it follows that the purpose of creation ad extra is also twofold: the manifestation of God’s name and the communication of his love to the elect.[43] Edwards insists: “God glorifies himself towards the creatures also two ways: (1) by appearing to them, being manifested to their understandings; (2) in communicating himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying the manifestations which he makes of himself.”[44]

When it comes to creation, the purpose of the proceeding and generation of the Son is to manifest God’s name including “truth,” “majesty,” and “beauty,” through glorifying himself.[45] Meanwhile, the aim of the proceeding and breathing forth of the Holy Spirit is to communicate “his infinite happiness” to the creatures, making them happy.[46] While manifestation refers to “truth,” communication points to “grace.”[47] Therefore, the ad intra operation of the immanent Trinity is a divine archetype for the ad extra of the economic Trinity regarding God’s relationship to creation.[48]

The relationship between ad intra and ad extra further implies that Edwards maintains both the unity of and distinction between the three persons of the Godhead.[49] As Richard Muller argues: “A similar ad intra-ad extra model … can be identified in the Reformed appropriation of the traditional Trinitarian rule that all essential acts of the Godhead are acts of the three persons operating as the one God, which nonetheless (as is clear in incarnation and sanctification) terminate on one of the divine persons.”[50] Just as there is unity and distinction of the persons of the Godhead in the immanent Trinity, so there is unity and distinction in the economic Trinity. This means that the three persons of the Godhead play distinct roles in the history of redemption.

Thus, it is helpful to examine the distinction of the persons of the Godhead as it relates to the economic Trinity and the covenant of redemption. Among Edwards’s various works, it is the “Miscellanies” No. 1062 that discusses the covenant of redemption in depth.[51] Here, Edwards emphasizes God’s initiative and unchangeable grace in the covenant of redemption through the unity and distinction of persons of the economic Trinity.

2. The Distinction Of Persons In The Economic Trinity And The Covenant Of Redemption

Edwards begins his discussion of the “Economy of the Trinity and Covenant of Redemption” with an affirmation of the unity and distinction of the persons in the Godhead. In his exposition of this subject, the concept of subordination is pivotal. In this regard, Edwards’s view aligns with the Puritan Reformed ad intra-ad extra model. As Muller points out, Edwards’s ad intra-ad extra understanding appears in the “Reformed language of the trinitarian nature of the decree and the subordination of the Mediator to his own divinely decreed work.”[52]

Moreover, when it comes to the history of redemption, it should be noted that Edwards distinguishes between the economic Trinity ad extra and the covenant of redemption, and between the beginning of the covenant of redemption and its establishment. In other words, there are subtle distinctions within Edwards’s concept of the covenant of redemption, concerning the roles of the divine persons. However, for Edwards, the immanent Trinity, the economic Trinity, and the covenant of redemption are interwoven with each other under the grand design, the history of the work of redemption. This implies that not only does Edwards pay attention to the elaborate plan of redemption within the Trinity and God’s initiative of grace, but also Edwards’s description of the Trinity is woven into his concept of the history of redemption.

Edwards notes that while there is “a subordination” between the three persons of the Trinity, no one person is inferior to another. When it comes to their actions concerning “the creature,” the persons of the Godhead are subject to themselves. For example, the Father functions as the “Head of the Trinity,” the Son as one who acts under the Father, and the Holy Spirit as one who acts under both the Father and the Son. Edwards’s idea of this subordination is summarized well in his sermon on John 10:15. He writes,

Indeed there is an Oeconomical subordination in the Trinity tho there be no difference of degree of Glory or excellency Yet there is order in the Trin[ity] the three persons of the Trinity may be looked upon as a soci a kind of family so there is Oeconomical order thus the Father tho he be no Greater than the son Or the Holy Ghost yet he is first in order the son next the Holy Ghost Last.[53]

This makes it clear that, for Edwards, the nature of subordination relates to the inner order of the Trinity and not inferiority. Rather, the persons are the same in “glory and excellency of nature.”[54] To illustrate this, Edwards argues that the Son is “the brightness of his [God’s] glory,” “the very image of the Father,” and “the express and perfect image of his [God’s] person,” in which there is the “Father’s infinite happiness.” Of course, the Son submits to the Father, in that his “subsistence” comes from the Father: The Son is begotten by the Father. Edwards makes it clear, however, that this dependence does not include an “inferiority of Deity,” since “everything in the Father” is continuously “repeated or expressed.”[55] The Son, as the idea of God, has the very essence of God in the repetition of God’s having an idea of himself, and the persons of the Trinity are equal in nature.

In this respect, Edwards contends that subordination is not a reference to any “natural subjection” but to “mutual free agreement,” which the persons made by their own will to manifest the glory of the Deity and communicate “its fullness.” The economy, which is established by mutual agreement among the persons of the Trinity, originates from “the mere pleasure of the members of this society.”[56]

Having sought to establish the concept of subordination and unity, Edwards notes a distinction between the persons of the economic Trinity in terms of their subsistence and actions. He argues there exists “a natural decency” or “fitness” in the established economy.[57] This means that the actions of the persons of the Trinity are ordered in accordance with the order of their subsistence. Edwards writes:

As the Father is first in the order of subsisting, so he would be first in the order of acting; that as the other two persons are from the Father in their subsistence, and as to their subsistence naturally originated from him and dependent on him, so that, in all that they act, they should originate from him, act from him and in a dependence on him; that as the Father, with respect to the subsistences, is the fountain of the Deity, wholly and entirely so, so he should be the fountain in all the acts of the Deity. This is fit and decent in itself. Though it is not proper to say decency obliges the persons of the Trinity to come into this order and economy, yet it may be said that decency requires it, and that therefore the persons of the Trinity all consent to this order, and establish it by agreement, as they all naturally delight in what is in itself fit, suitable and beautiful.[58]

That is, before entering into the covenant of redemption, each person in the Trinity willfully agreed about the order establishing the economy. This implies that “the order or the economy” of the three persons of the Trinity in their actions involving creation ad extra precedes the covenant of redemption.[59]

From this, a question arises: Why does Edwards distinguish between the voluntarily divine will that brought order to the Trinity’s actions ad extra and the formation of the covenant of redemption? In response, it should be remarked that Edwards contends that the Father takes initiative with the other persons with respect to the “determination to glorify and communicate himself.”[60] In other words, the economy or order ad extra originates from the Father’s “natural disposition” or “inclination,” even though it was established by the voluntary agreement of the three persons of the Godhead.[61] Edwards writes: “we must conceive of God’s natural inclination as being exercised before wisdom is set to work to find out a particular, excellent method to gratify that natural inclination.”[62] The Father’s disposition for Edwards is the original causation of the economy. Therefore, the economy of the Trinity, which is “an establishment” found in “the natural order” of the subsistence of the persons of the Trinity, is distinguished from the covenant of redemption as “an establishment of wisdom,” which conceives “a particular method” for the end of the creation.[63]

IV. The Roles Of The Persons Of The Trinity In The Covenant Of Redemption

Since their roles in the Trinity, as Lee notes, “are laid out” according to the covenant,[64] the covenant of redemption is involved both in the inner-Trinitarian subsistence and the loving action between the persons of the Trinity. Edwards’s view is representative of other Reformed scholars. For example, Johaness Cocceius also emphasizes the roles of the three persons in the covenant of redemption. And as Willem J. van Asselt argues, “It [the pact between the Father and the Son] is a relationship within God himself, and it is the eternal basis for God’s relationship to the elect in time.”[65] Similarly, when examining the ramifications of the covenant of redemption on Christian practice, Yazawa finds that, for Reformed scholastics, “God’s works of salvation” has “its seminal form within the immanent Trinity.”[66] These views underscore the point that the covenant of redemption is best described in terms of the work of God in the inner-Trinitarian mind. It is in this way that sovereign grace comes to the fore in redemptive history.

For Edwards, history before creation and after the end of the world is consistent with this redemptive history. In A History of the Work of Redemption, Edwards contends: “As things that were in order to this work, as God’s electing love and the covenant of redemption never had a beginning, so the fruits of this work [the work of redemption] that shall be after the end of the work never will have an end.”[67] This reflects Edwards’s belief that God’s love and eternal pact have no beginning, since they originate from the eternal God. Moreover, although the work of redemption is not “an eternal work,” since it will be fully accomplished, the fruit obtained by the work of redemption is eternal.[68] Thus, the history of redemption is a realization of the inner-Trinitarian redemptive plan.

1. The Father In The Covenant Of Redemption

Given the relationship between the covenant of redemption and the inner-Trinitarian subsistence, the distinction between the economy of the Trinity ad extra and the covenant of redemption, particularly, is considered to be important in understanding the roles of the persons of the Trinity. Edwards goes on to say that the economy of the persons of the Trinity is distinguished from the covenant of redemption itself. Prior to the covenant of redemption, it is the Father’s “will and determination” whether to forgive sinners and provide redemption for them. Thus, the Father plays a role of the “head of the society of the Trinity.”[69]

Edwards argues that once the economy of the persons of the Trinity is established, the Father “begins that great transaction of the eternal covenant of redemption.” By “virtue of his economical prerogative,” the Father becomes “the first mover” in the transaction, in which the determination of “redemption” and “Redeemer” come about. The Father offers the Son “matter,” “authority for the office,” redemptive “works” to do, “the reward,” and “success.” All these things take place in response to “the capacity” of the Father as the head.[70]

However, Edwards does not limit the Father’s capacity to his economical prerogative as the head of the Trinity. Rather, he contends that the Father acquires “a new right” to do the work of redemption by the “new establishment, a free covenant.” The Father, as the instigator of the covenant of redemption, is restrained to “direct and prescribe” to the other persons something that does not belong to the economy of the persons of the Trinity. That is because the Father cannot prescribe to the other persons those things which are contained in the persons’ “oeconomical divine character.” However, when the Son is engaged in the covenant with his free will, so that he agrees with the stipulation, such as “coming into the world in such a state of humiliation,” and “suffering,” the Father, then, has a right to prescribe to the Son those things belonging to “the infinite majesty and glory of divine persons.” By virtue of the Son freely entering into the covenant, “the Father acquires a new right of headship and authority over the Son, to command him and prescribe to him and rule over him as his proper lawgiver and judge.”[71] In this sense, the beginning of the covenant of redemption is distinguished from the Father and the Son’s entering into the covenant.

As seen above, the nature and order of the persons in the economy of the Trinity correspond to the order of the immanent Trinity, which in turn is in concert with the roles of the persons within the covenant of redemption. Although the subordination of the covenant of redemption is considered “new in kind,” its order follows the economic order of the Trinity, since the Father now has a new right to prescribe to the Son the same economical divine character.[72]

2. The Son In The Covenant Of Redemption

Having described the role of the Father, Edwards proceeds to explain the obedience of the Son within the covenant of redemption, using the concept of humiliation. He claims, “no other subjection or obedience of the Son to the Father arises properly from the covenant of redemption, but only that which implies humiliation.”[73] Edwards continues:

If there were any such thing as a way of redemption without redemption in their proper subordination, without any covenant of redemption or nay new establishment, as they do in the affair of rewarding the elect angels. ’Tis true that if there were no humiliation of any divine person required, in order to man’s redemption, the determination that there should be a redemption would be a determination not implied in the establishment of the economy of the Trinity, as indeed the determination of no particular work is implied in that establishment.[74]

It is clear that Edwards believes the Son’s humiliation derives not from the covenant of redemption, but from his own economical office. Edwards then classifies the humiliation of the Son into four perspectives. First, there are two kinds of obedience which are rooted in the Son’s economical office: his obedience to the Father as Redeemer before his humiliation and his obedience as “God-man” after his humiliation. Then, there is a third kind of obedience performed “under the law” and “in the form of a servant.” Edwards refers to this obedience as “new in kind.”[75] While the first two kinds of obedience reflect “humiliation below his proper divine glory,” the latter is obedience “under law” and “in the form of a servant” that justifies sinners. Thus, the obedience of the Son before and after his humiliation does not merit for sinners, nor is it imputed to sinners.[76] Lastly, there is the Son’s subjection that is not entailed in his economical character. This subjection occurs through the Son’s covenant engagement. The Son promises to obey the Father in the covenant of redemption, by which the Son receives “rules,” “authority,” and “what the Father promises.”[77]

For Edwards, the reward the Son receives is none other than the Son’s “vicarious dominion.” That is, the Son is enthroned to rule as God’s “vicegerent” by the Father as the “King of heaven and earth” and “Lawgiver” in his economy. Edwards goes on to say, “This the Father promised him in the covenant of redemption, as reward for the forementioned subjection and obedience that he engaged in that covenant.” Further, in order to acquire the “success of his labors and sufferings in the work of redemption,” the Son’s office as the vicegerent of the Father continues to the end of the world. However, when the purpose of the covenant of redemption is fulfilled, all the things “return to be administered by the Trinity.”[78] As we shall consider it later, words such as “Lawgiver,” “Judge,” “reward,” “return,” and so on, are rooted in the Bible, although Edwards does not refer to any biblical texts directly.

3. The Holy Spirit In The Covenant Of Redemption

Given the importance of subordination in the unity and distinction of persons of the Trinity, it is not difficult to see why Edwards pursues this subject in regard to the Holy Spirit. He argues that the Holy Spirit’s subjection to the Son is twofold. First, the Holy Spirit’s acts are under the control of the Son as “the Father’s vicegerent,” until the Son’s “vicarious dominion and authority” end.[79] This means that there will be no subjection of the Holy Spirit to the Son at the end of the world, after the purpose of the covenant of redemption has been accomplished. Second, the Holy Spirit is put under the Son as “God-man,” which means that the Holy Spirit is subject to the Son in his nature as God and the Son in his nature as man. Edwards contends that these natures correspond to the Son as both “the husband and vital head of the church.” In this sense, Edwards argues that the Holy Spirit is the “inheritance that Christ as God-man purchased for himself and his church.”[80]

However, Edwards distinguishes between the subjection of the Holy Spirit and the subjection of the Son. He argues that the Holy Spirit’s subjection to the Son in the covenant of redemption is not “a new kind of subjection,” as was the Son’s subjection under the law which led to humiliation. In contrast, the Holy Spirit’s subjection to the Son as God-man does not involve “abasement,” since his subjection results from “the economy of the Trinity.” In other words, the subjection of the Holy Spirit to the Son does not arise from the establishment of the covenant of redemption, but from the economy of the Father. Thus, the Holy Spirit is subject to the Son not in terms of “abasement,” but in terms of “the gift by the Father” because of his “economical character.”[81] Therefore, it is clear that, for Edwards, the roles of the persons in the Trinity in the covenant of redemption are interconnected with their offices and roles in the economy of the Trinity.

Moreover, it is important to note that Edwards uses the word “gift” to refer to the Holy Spirit. In “Miscellanies” No. 220, Edwards writes, “All Gospel righteousness, virtue and holiness is called grace, not only because ’tis entirely the free gift of God, but because ’tis the Holy Spirit in man; which, as we said, is grace or love.”[82] Here, grace means the free gift of God, that is, the Holy Spirit. For Edwards, the Holy Spirit is not simply an applicator of the benefits of salvation, but rather the grace and benefit itself. Thus, in “Treatise on Grace,” Edwards asserts that “when the sacred Scriptures call grace spirit, the Spirit of God is intended; and that grace is called ‘Spirit’ no otherwise than as the name of the Holy Ghost, the third person in the Trinity, is ascribed to it.”[83]

Yet why does Edwards focus on the Holy Spirit as grace or gift? It appears it is an attempt to address at least two concerns. First, Lee points out, Edwards criticizes “a general tendency in Puritan theology to see the Holy Spirit as the one who applies what the Father and the Son have accomplished.”[84] For Edwards, this understanding falls short of reality, since ascribing these works to the Holy Spirit does not ascribe “equal glory” to him as compared to the other persons of the Trinity. Thus, Edwards defines the Holy Spirit as “the thing purchased,” that is, Christ’s inheritance: “But according to this, there is an equality. To be the love of God to the world is as much as for the Father and the Son to do so much from love to the world; and to be [the] thing purchased was as much as to be the price, and the thing bought with that price, are equal.”[85] Edwards argues that the Holy Spirit is not the one who applies the benefits of Christ, but “the thing purchased” itself. This establishes the Holy Spirit’s equality with the other persons of the Trinity.

A second consideration is Edwards’s controversy with the Arminians about grace. In the “Efficacious Grace” section of the “Controversies” notebook that lays out his view against the Arminians (Daniel Whitby and George Trunbull), Edwards affirms that true grace is obtained not through human power but through a supernatural act of God. He begins the note with a mention of the Holy Spirit as follows:

According to Dr. Whitby’s notion of the assistance of the Spirit, the Spirit of God does nothing in the hearts or minds of men beyond the power of the DEVIL, nothing but what the devil can [do] and nothing showing any greater power in any respect than the devil shows and exercises in his temptations. For he supposes that all the Spirit of God does is to bring moral maxims and inducements to mind, and to set [th]em before the understanding, etc.[86]

Edwards’s concern is that the Arminian view of grace reduces the role of the Holy Spirit in human salvation to bringing to mind “moral maxims and inducements.” In contrast, Edwards asserts that it is not “the laws of nature” but “the grace of God” that is supremely authoritative in giving human beings “saving virtue.”[87] That is, “saving virtue” is obtained by “a supernatural and sovereign operation of the Spirit of God.”[88] For Edwards, the Holy Spirit is not just the deliverer of the benefit, but rather the divine influence itself. The same argument is found in the “Miscellanies” No. 1263, in which Edwards states:

These are infinitely greater effects … the great degrees in which the miraculous influences of the Spirit of [God] was given to Christ and to his apostles, and the great degrees in which a spirit of saving grace was given, which is properly supernatural and in many respects arbitrary in its operation.[89]

Edwards argues that the Holy Spirit himself exerts his own miraculous influences on the human mind. While it is true that Edwards attributes “saving virtue” to the persons of the Trinity, it nevertheless becomes clear that he tends to equate grace with the Holy Spirit.

V. Conclusion

As seen above, the nature and order of the subordination of the persons in the economy of the Trinity is not only correspondent to the order of the immanent Trinity, but also in concert with the order and roles within the covenant of redemption. This exposition of Edwards’s view of the Trinity can be contrasted with Plangtinga Pauw’s argument that Edwards’s view of the Trinity and his emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit were caused by his own interest in Christian society. Moreover, Edwards’s rational account of the Trinity does not proceed apart from his understanding of the grand design, the history of the work of redemption. This article confirms that Edwards describes the immanent Trinity, the economic Trinity, and the roles of the three persons of the Godhead in the covenant of redemption in terms of the history of redemption.

We explored Edwards’s view of the immanent Trinity. He believes that just as human beings, created in the image of God, possess an idea of themselves, God also can understand himself through his perception of his perfect idea. This implies that there is a twofold distinction of the same essence in God’s being. That is, God’s perfect understanding of his perfect idea brings about God’s love of himself, which is an inclination, love, and joy toward himself. Thus, the second person of the Trinity, the Son, is the very perfect idea of God himself. Edwards argues that the third person, the Holy Spirit, is the divine essence flowing out in love and joy. It appears that in this description, Edwards is preoccupied with the equality of the persons of the Trinity. Moreover, it appears that the immanent Trinity for Edwards is interrelated with the economic Trinity in terms of God’s unity and distinction.

After considering the nature of the immanent Trinity in Edwards’s theology, this article moved to his view of the relationship between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity. It noted Edwards’s belief that the works of the economic Trinity follow the inner order of the immanent Trinity. This in turn indicated that the unity and distinction in the economy of the Trinity plays a pivotal role in Edwards’s description of the covenant of redemption. Moreover, the concept of subordination is pivotal in appreciating the equality and distinctions between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Notwithstanding the subordination between the three persons of the Godhead, Edwards argues that no inferiority exists between them. In contrast, since the subordination is involved in the inner order of the Trinity, it is implied that each person has the same glory and excellency of nature. For Edwards, the distinction of persons within the economic Trinity relates to the persons’ subsistence and actions. The actions follow the inner order of their subsistence.

Finally, this study shows how, for Edwards, the roles of the persons of the Godhead in the economy of the Trinity are interconnected to the offices and roles in the covenant of redemption. In other words, the roles of the persons of the Godhead are laid out in agreement with inner-Trinitarian subsistence and loving action between the persons of the Trinity. This means that the redemptive work of God has its seminal form within the immanent Trinity. Edwards describes the subjections between persons of the Trinity in terms of the purpose of the covenant of redemption, in which the three persons of the Godhead each have their own distinct work in the history of redemption. The Father carries out his role as the head of the Trinity so that he may acquire the right to appoint the Son as mediator through the Son’s response to the Father’s proposal of the covenant. The Son voluntarily enters into covenant, which involves humiliation. The Holy Spirit becomes subject to the Son, who in turn is the Father’s vicegerent and God-man as the result of the covenant of redemption. However, the Holy Spirit’s subservience to the Son in the covenant of redemption does not include abasement, because his subjection belongs to “the economy of the Trinity,” and not to the covenant of redemption itself. In this sense, Edwards emphasizes that the Holy Spirit is the gift according to his “economical character.”[90] He goes on to emphasize the Holy Spirit as grace, that is, not just the deliverer of the benefit of the covenant of redemption, but the divine influence himself who exerts his own miraculous saving grace on human beings.

Therefore, it appears that both Pauw and Lee fail to account for the relationality involved in older Reformed language about God that predated Edwards, including the concept of ad intra-ad extra. It is as if they believe Edwards’s concept of relationality between the Godhead departed from Western church tradition or Reformed theology. Their misplaced view is reminiscent of Richard Muller’s appraisal of Barth’s critique of Polanus’s definition of God as immutabilie and immobile. Muller writes, “How odd it was of Polanus, had he meant to confine God in absoluteness and to deny any positive divine relationality ad extra, to go on in the very same definition to state that the utterly unmoved nature of god is the foundation for declaring that God is the source of all movement in all things!”[91] The similar misreading in Barth would appear in both Pauw and Lee who did not see Edwards’s view of relationality in the Trinity and his interpretive framework: the history of redemption. Edwards seeks to reveal the grand design, the history of the works of redemption, in his exposition of the Trinity. That leads to an understanding in which the immanent Trinity, the economic Trinity, and the roles of the Godhead in the covenant of redemption are interconnected and placed within the framework of the history of redemption.

Notes

1. Lucas notes that the covenant of redemption for Edwards implies two elements: “pre-temporal” and “intra-Trinitarian,” that is, Christ’s covenant with the two members of the Godhead before the creation of the world. See Sean Michael Lucas, God’s Grand Design: The Theological Vision of Jonathan Edwards (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 27–28.
2. On the debate about whether or not Edwards’s Trinitarian theology belongs to Reformed orthodoxy, see Amy Plantinga Pauw, The Supreme Harmony of All: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); Steven M. Studebaker and Robert W. Caldwell III, The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards: Text, Context, and Application (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012); Richard M. Webber, “The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards: An Investigation of Charges against Its Orthodoxy,” JETS 44 (2001): 297–318; William J. Danaher, The Trinitarian Ethics of Jonathan Edwards (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004); Reita Yazawa, “Covenant of Redemption in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards: The Nexus Between the Immanent and the Economic Trinity” (PhD diss., Calvin Theological Seminary, 2013); Ralph Cunnington, “A Critical Examination of Jonathan Edwards’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” Them 39, no. 2 (2014): 224–40. On the various studies of Edwards’s Trinitarian theology, see Herbert W. Richardson, “The Glory of God in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards: A Study in the Doctrine of the Trinity” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1962); Krister Sairsingh, “Jonathan Edwards and the Idea of Divine Glory: His Foundational Trinitarianism and Its Ecclesial Import” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1986); Rachel Stahle, “The Trinitarian Spirit of Jonathan Edwards’ Theology” (PhD diss., Boston University, 1999); Robert W. Caldwell III, Communion in the Spirit: The Holy Spirit as the Bond of Union in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2007); M. X. Lesser, Reading Jonathan Edwards: An Annotated Bibliography in Three Parts, 1729–2005 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). For brief descriptions of these works, see Studebaker and Caldwell, Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 1–18.
3. Pauw, Supreme Harmony of All, 11; Sang Hyun Lee, ed., The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 46–47. According to Lee, while the first model emphasizes “divine unity,” the other model focuses on “relationality” within the Trinity. According to Pauw, Edwards “was willing to live with the theological tension between these two models for the Trinity” (Supreme Harmony of All, 11).
4. Pauw, Supreme Harmony of All, 16.
5. Sang Hyun Lee, “Editor’s Introduction,” in vol. 21 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 27, 26 (hereafter Works). Here, Lee argues that traditional Western theology focuses on God’s simplicity alone that indicates “God’s unity in the singularity of divine substance.” This view, he argues, makes it “difficult to explain how such an impassible God is capable of activities such as creation and incarnation” (Lee, introduction to Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, xiii).
6. Danaher, Trinitarian Ethics of Jonathan Edwards, 17.
7. Cunnington, “A Critical Examination,” 225.
8. Pauw argues that Edwards’s Trinitarian thought lurches between the relational and psychological models of the Trinity, as well as the atomistic view of personhood in the Trinity which emphasizes the initiative of an individual. See Pauw, Supreme Harmony of All, 77; Studebaker and Caldwell, Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 16.
9. Yazawa, “Covenant of Redemption,” 20. For the following materials I am indebted to Yazawa: Steven M. Studebaker, Jonathan Edwards’ Social Augustinian Trinitarianism in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2008), 78; Théodore de Régnon, Études de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité, 4 vols. (Paris: Victor Retaux, 1892–1898); Michael René Barnes, “De Régnon Reconsidered,” Augustinian Studies 26, no. 2 (1995): 51–79; Barnes, “Augustine in Contemporary Trinitarian Theology,” TS 56 (1995): 237–50.
10. Pauw, Supreme Harmony of All, 10; Lee, Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, xiii. Pauw states in her introduction to Works, vol. 20: “During his last years at Northampton, Edwards took up again the question of the Trinity, a subject to which he had devoted concentrated attention in the 1720s and early 1730. Whereas his earlier ‘Miscellanies’ entries on the Trinity explore the doctrine’s connections to his philosophical idealism and notions of consent and excellency, Edwards’ approach in the 1740s reflects new apologetic strategies. Since the beginning of the century, the classical doctrine of the Trinity had come under wide attack as a prime example of metaphysical abstruseness and irrationality by both deists and more moderate critics of Christian tradition, including Samuel Clarke, Edwards’ favorite source for arguments from the ancients. Starting in this period, and continuing to the end of his life, Edwards brought a new theological urgency to defending the doctrine’s reasonableness” (Amy Plantinga Pauw, “Editor’s Introduction” to The “Miscellanies, 833–1152,” ed. Pauw, vol. 20 of Works [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002], 29–30).
11. Pauw, Supreme Harmony of All, 10; Jonathan Edwards, Letters and Personal Writings, ed. George S. Claghorn, vol. 16 of Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 727.
12. Ava Chamberlain, “Editor’s Introduction” to The “Miscellanies,” 501–832, ed. Chamberlain, vol. 18 of Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 27.
13. Lee, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Works, 21:4.
14. Pauw, Supreme Harmony of All, 11.
15. Douglas A. Sweeney, Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word: A Model of Faith and Thought (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 92.
16. Ibid., 91.
17. Jonathan Edwards, “Discourse on the Trinity,” in Works, 21:113–44; Edwards, “Treatise on Grace,” in Works, 21:153–97. Scholars agree that “Discourse on the Trinity” reflects Edwards’s mature Trinitarian view. See Caldwell, Communion in the Spirit, 28; Cunnington, “A Critical Examination,” 225; Kyle Strobel, Jonathan Edwards’s Theology: A Reinterpretation (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 35.
18. Jonathan Edwards, A History of the Work of Redemption, ed. John F. Wilson, vol. 9 of Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 118. A similar definition is found in his sermon on 1 Cor 13:1–10. See Jonathan Edwards, “470. Sermon on 1 Cor. 13:1–10 (b) (Apr. 1738),” in Sermons, Series II, 1738, and undated, 1734–1738, vol. 53 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online (New Haven: Jonathan Edwards Center, 2008).
19. Edwards, “Discourse on the Trinity,” in Works, 21:113.
20. Ibid., 21:114.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid., 21:116.
24. Edwards, “Miscellanies” No. 446, in Works, 13:494.
25. Edwards, “Discourse on the Trinity,” in Works, 21:117.
26. Ibid., 21:117–20.
27. Edwards, “Treatise on Grace,” in Works, 21:181.
28. Ibid.
29. Edwards, “Discourse on the Trinity,” in Works, 21:121.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., 21:131.
32. Jonathan Edwards, “Romans,” in The “Blank Bible,” ed. Stephen J. Stein, vol. 24 of Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 997.
33. Edwards, “Discourse on the Trinity,” in Works, 21:121.
34. Studebaker and Caldwell, Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 79.
35. Edwards, “Discourse on the Trinity,” in Works, 21:133.
36. Ibid.
37. Jonathan Edwards, “On the Equality of the Persons of the Trinity,” in Works, 21:147.
38. Richard A. Muller, “God as Absolute and Relative, Necessary, Free, and Contingent: The Ad Intra-Ad Extra Movement of Seventeenth-Century Reformed Language about God,” in Always Reformed: Essays in Honor of W. Robert Godfrey, ed. R. Scott Clark and Joel E. Kim (Escondido, CA: Westminster Seminary California, 2010), 57–58.
39. Ibid., 57.
40. Edwards, “Miscellanies” No. 1151, in Works, 20:525.
41. “Miscellanies” No. 1082, in Works, 20:466.
42. “Miscellanies” No. 448, in Works, 13:495.
43. “Miscellanies” No. 1084, in Works, 20:467.
44. “Miscellanies” No. 448, in Works, 13:495.
45. “Miscellanies” Nos. 1082 and 1066, in Works, 20:465, 446.
46. “Miscellanies” No. 1066, in Works, 20:446.
47. “Miscellanies” No. 1094, in Works, 20:483.
48. Muller, “God as Absolute and Relative,” 57.
49. Lee, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Works, 21:4.
50. Muller, “God as Absolute and Relative,” 61.
51. Yazawa, “Covenant of Redemption,” 76; Sang Hyun Lee, introduction to “On the Equality of the Persons of the Trinity,” in Works, 21:145.
52. Muller, “God as Absolute and Relative,” 61.
53. Jonathan Edwards, “John 15:10 (Mar. 1736),” in Sermons and Discourses, 1731–1732, ed. Jonathan Edwards Center, vol. 46 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online (New Haven: Jonathan Edwards Center, 2008).
54. Edwards, “Miscellanies” No. 1062, in Works, 20:430.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid., 20:431.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid., 20:431–32.
60. Ibid., 20:432.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Lee, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Works, 21:39.
65. Willem J. van Asselt, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius (1603–1669) (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 230.
66. Yazawa, “Covenant of Redemption,” 62–63.
67. Edwards, History of the Work of Redemption, in Works, 9:119.
68. Ibid.
69. Edwards, “Miscellanies” No. 1062, in Works, 20:432.
70. Ibid., 20:435–36.
71. Ibid., 20:436–37.
72. Ibid., 20:437.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid., 20:437–38.
75. Ibid., 20:441.
76. Ibid., 20:438.
77. Ibid., 20:438–39.
78. Ibid., 20:439.
79. Ibid., 20:440.
80. Through the Holy Spirit’s twofold subjection to the Son, Edwards finds that the Son has a twofold dominion over the world. Edwards states, “He [Christ] was invested with a twofold dominion over the world: one vicarious, or as the Father’s vicegerent, which shall be resigned at the end of the world; the other as Christ God-man, and head and husband of the church. And in this latter respect he will never resign his dominion, but will reign forever and ever, as is said of the saints in the new Jerusalem, after the end of the world, Rev. 22:5” (ibid., 20:440).
81. Ibid., 20:441.
82. Edwards, “Miscellanies” No. 220, in Works, 13:345.
83. Edwards, “Treatise on Grace,” in Works, 21:192.
84. Lee, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Works, 21:39.
85. Edwards, “Discourse on the Trinity,” in Works, 21:137–38.
86. Edwards, “Controversies: Efficacious Grace,” in Works, 21:294.
87. Ibid., 21:300.
88. Ibid.
89. Edwards, The “Miscellanies,” 1153–1360, ed. Douglas A. Sweeney, vol. 23 of Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 211.
90. Edwards, “Miscellanies” No. 1062, in Works, 20:441.
91. Muller, “God as Absolute and Relative,” 56.