I would imagine that many people today, view people like Jonathan Edwards, with his regime of self-discipline,  and always pushing himself on to gain better understanding, and to grow in holiness, as somewhat fanatical, too strict, there may be even some who think by his being so very active and hands-on in pushing himself nearer to God, as trying to merit some kind of works righteousness by it.  It is often a misperception, that to be active in our faith, and to be a doer,  makes you legalistic or working ones way to heaven; where sloth, lack of dligence, and a lack of  seeking and searching after communion with God and growing to more and more likness of him, never got anyone to heaven.  It is very easy believism and not  the work of Biblical faith, to think all we have to do is believe and leave the rest up to God, and we will read our Bibles now and again, and pray now and again, and do good works now and again,  that that by itself makes us Christians.  If that is about the measure of our so-called faith, then there maybe indeed be some inward notion and we are working our way to heaven (or think we are) by the above yet have no heartwork done upon us; no real internal change, or desiring and longing for holiness, for a nearness to God's likeness.  It's a very redundant faith, one I don't believe is a saving faith, or displays a saving interest in Christ.  If that is our outlook, we want heaven, without keeping our part of the bargain. The covenant is broken.  If you enter into a legal contract in life, between say a private individual and a company–if one person doesn't keep their end of the bargain, the other party may well sue them for breach of contract and the agreement they had is now void, because they failed to live up to their side of the bargain.  How much more when we enter into a Covenant with the Holy God of Heaven, are we obliged to keep our part of the bargain, to keep his commandments,  to love God with all our heart, minds and souls, and our neighbour as ourself; to work out our salvation with fear and trembling?  All those things, and more besides, are what we are responsible for in keeping our part of the Covenant. How much plainer could Scripture speak, to say that we are sill under the Law, even though under grace, when Christ says in Matt 19:16

And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

17And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments

Of course we are free under the law, the penalty has been paid, but we are still under it. 

Back to Jonathan Edwards. I'm not sure how many readers may be acquainted with his New Years Resolutions.   He didn't write these all at one time, they were written as he used to jot down notes, but they are really his own systemization for working out a holyway of life for himself, to live up to his calling.  It is pretty amazing that he wrote them all before the was twenty years old.  But Edwards lived by those, and he tried to live up to them. The times he did not manage to, was the times he was in a deeply afflicted condition,  beause of his wounded conscience and sense of failure before God.  Someone who wrote such as those to start with, must have had a very tender conscience, a heightened awareness of the evil of sin.  A conscience such as that could be quite easily  badly wounded. They also demonstrate that he knew human nature in all its states, and what is more, he knew himself. He knew what his natural bents were to shortcomings, and what areas he needed to address in himself, and what points he needed to work out and work on, from then until the time he was delivered into glory. And he never lost sight of that.  He developed his holiness along with developing his thought.  His attainment to holiness was in part a direct result from his pursuit after knowledge and his extraordinary mind,  and his taking extraordinary measures to  make the best of such as mind as his.

We see New Year come and go, we see many New Years resolutions, of ourselves and others, within the first few weeks, laying in tatters on the floor.  Give up drinking, smoking, eat healthily, lose weight etc.  Yet how do any of those things really give the bent towards holinesss that Jonathan Edwards resolutions did?  It seems to me a demonstration of what we too often seem to observe. that in these days, we worry about the externals of faith, being kind, not  speaking out of turn and bridling our tongue, and a thousand and one other ways this may show itself externally. But the real change needs to take place internally, in a sense of holiness and attaining higher degrees of it; of attaining closer communion with Christ; of  the inward man being constantly under renewal. It is not an easy faith to pursue those things; It may cost us many tears to do so, and many failings. We would soon lose any good or noble opinion of ourselves when we see how unable we are to  stick to that kind of regime of self-displine.   But the internal change in us, I believe, would be worth more than ten thousand external  actions that have little heart felt love to God behind them.  Yet we seem so full of externals for perhaps many and varied reasons. 

Before anyone may mis-interpret this, as me advocating Edwards merited his way to heaven on his own human effforts, I wasnt to quote what he wrote at the beginning of his resolutions:

"Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ's sake."

 If we are truly of God's elect, God will enable us to be obedient to His will, and I believe and evidence of that above any other, is what Scripture means when it says, "We shall know them by their fruit."

Let us all attain to a higher degree of holiness for 2009; let us search for close and deeper communion with the Host of Heaven; let us glorify His name in every thought, deed, and action;   Let us keep pressing towards the goal; Let us like Edwards, entreat God's help to do this, as without him supplying the grace we need, will certainly not do so under human effort.   

The externals of faith, are all very well and fine.  But those things such as listed above about what we normally decide to quit or cut down on, as a New Years resolution, will not give us the inward change, the change of higher attainments of holiness and holy living,  that will get us closer to heaven, and help us to enjoy God more fully, while still in these earthen vessels.

Happy New Year to any readers of this!

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This year we see the anniversary marked of the 500th hundred anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. There are all kinds of world wide events taking place through the year, which from someone from a country where Calvins brand of Calvinism is all but dead, I find encouraging and refreshing. One website to check out to do with this event is Calvin 55–A quincentenary.

It is sadly true that today, there are Reformed Christians who are of course by the very definition of "Refoirmed Christians," are Calvinistic, know very little abouto what Calvin thought or taught. Its more like a concept to them, a fad, rather than something that lives in them, and pervades every part of their life and outlook. Benjamin Warfied called Calvin the "Theologian of the Holy Spirit," and not without good cause I think. Sadly Calvinism, or Puritanism, or even more far out things such as "Amish" can often be seen as fashion accessories rather than essential things of our faith. In vogue fads that give us status of some kind. Of course, when I use the word Calvinism, I am merely referring to the Gospel, rightly understood.

The institutes is a great place to start, in understanding Calvin's thought on essential matters. Of coming to a better understanding of Calvinistic doctrine, from the man who was the first to write such a systematized theology, even though he was only reiterating the same Gospel that Augustine did centuries previuosly, and before Augustine the Apostles.

The guys over at Reformeation 21 are "Blogging the Institutes," in 2009. I don't know about you, but if you have the extra incentive or motivation to study with a group of people, even if only virtually, it will often give you the kickstart that you need to actually get down and do something. I have read the Institutes fairly extensively, though not in their entirety, and I may just take part in this to try and achieve actually reading them in 2009 in their entirely. People complain that Calvin can be hard going, yet even Calvin's works are avaialbe in more than one translation today, so you can really choose a format to meet your own particular reading needs.

There is of course, also, the series of lectures by David Calhoun on the Institutes which can be downloaded from Covenant Theological Seminary Website.

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