Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards uses a verity of ways to describe what he is preaching in his sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Some of the ways, in which include figurative language, imagery, repetition, connotative words, and parallelism. This creates a picture for the audience as if they were experiencing any part of it.
Figurative language can be found through out Jonathan Edward’s sermon. One example is “…as one that stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall….”, the reader can easily picture a person walking on a slippery surface and could easily fall at any second. The audience can picture the “tormenting in hell” of some person who did not choose to accept Jesus Christ into their heart as Lord and Savior of their life, along with hearing their cries of why it was them. The audience fells like they are there watching things going on in hell “The devils watch them: they are ever by them, at their right hand: they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey.” The audience can imagine how scary it would be to witness that along with everything else that is going on. So many things can come to mind when using figurative language.
Imagery can catch the audience’s attention as a picture goes through their mind in Jonathan Edward’s sermon. The audience can see “the flames do now rage and glow.” and how they can picture what it would be like in hell, and how they flames would keeping burning no matter what happened. The audience can see some sort of actual “knocking” going on in someone’s life while actually visualizing a hand knocking on a door. The audience can imagine in their head someone being “held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell;” and God determining if they accepted Jesus into their heart or not. So many pictures can be created in a person’s head just by using a few words.
Repetition of words easily stick out to the audience in Jonathan Edward’s sermon if they are willing to be aware of what they are learning about. The word wicked can be found throughout Jonathan Edward’s sermon for example, “There is nothing that keeps wicked men…”, “…, any hand in the preservation of wicked men one…”, and “There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men…”. Another word that can be found throughout Jonathan Edward’s sermon is God, for example, “…cannot be strong when God rises…”, “… multitudes of God’s enemies…”, and “… no objection against God’s using his power…”. The audience could be hear hell mentioned several times throughout Jonathan Edward’s sermon, for example, “… to be cast into hell; …”, “… under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not…”, and “… bound over already to hell: …”. As an audience can year or read, they will see several words repeated throughout the sermon.
Connotative words are something else that can be found throughout Jonathan Edward’s sermon. One connotative word is burning, “that lake of burning brimstone, …”. The word glowing is another connotative word, “…the dreadful pit of the glowing games of the wrath of God; …”. The audience could also find the word corruption, “… the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; …”. So many words can represent a numerous of different things. Sometimes it is easier to break something down instead of looking at it all as a whole.
Parallelism can be good for several things. Parallelism can teach a lesson or make the audience thing about whatever it is they are reading or hearing. Parallelism is another part of Jonathan Edward’s sermon. “Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and…”, can represent the sins in our lives weighing us down and how if he give it all to God, our load would be a lot lighter. When a person examines their own life they need to make sure that they are not spending their life “in the service of God’s enemies.” This could get dangerous and out of hand. If a person continues down the road of sin, they are basically serving Satan and not the one and only person, they should be living their life out for on a day to day bases. “There are the black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder;…”, refers back to the darkness when Jesus was hanging on the cross, nailed to the cross to carry the world’s burden on his back and all would be forgiven due to Christ being the ultimate sacrifice.
The audience of Jonathan Edward’s sermon had the opportunity to learn about several things that are important to a person’s life and would determine their future forever. Jonathan Edward used words that painted a clear picture in the audience’s mind on how God should be reflected in their own life. Jonathan Edward gives the opportunity to the audience to hand over the keys to God because they are sick and tired of doing things their own way and messing things up over and over, the words in Jonathan Edward’s sermon due just that in the audience’s life. The words that Jonathan Edward uses created the best picture possible that he could.

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