A Frightful Tone

As a girl who has a strong faith and belief in God, I never pictured our Heavenly Father as angry or someone we should be afraid of. I liked to think of him more as my friend, and well, my Father.

However, this is not how the famous Jonathan Edwards depicted God. In his well-known sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Edwards compares a sinner being dangled over the gaping jaws of hell, to a spider being dangled over a fire. Edwards point was to bring the people of his day out of sin and unto Christ to be saved. He does this by inflicting fear. His tone in his sermon seems scary. I couldn’t imagine hearing this in person and hearing how God was about to drop me into hell. I think hearing this given orally would be even more frightening, but even Edwards’ written words were definitely impactful.

Edwards was a preacher at the time of the Great Awakening, when there was much religious fervor to be had throughout the nation and throughout the world. I think Edwards, who was one of the most prominent preachers at that time, was caught up in the fervor and intensity of this religious movement, and his sermons reflect this.

Edwards uses analogies and certain repetitions and pronouns to make his sermon feel more personal to the people, his direct audience, thereby making his fear tactic more intense, hopefully bringing more people to Christ. He uses the analogy of the sinners being dangled by God over the gates of hell, like a spider would be dangled over the fire. This puts a much clearer and more tangible image in his audience’s head, increasing their awareness of the severity of this matter he is preaching against – sin and damnation. He also repeats things several times in a row to add greater stress his points: “you have no interest in any mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have ever done, nothing that you can do to induce God to spare you one moment.” His repeating of the words “you” and “yourself” seem as if he is almost very harshly pointing a finger in his audience’s face, accusing them of being sinners at the hand of this angry God who will not spare them.

To finish his sermon off, Edwards uses a Biblical analogy and compares New England with the wicked city of Sodom. Leaving this very unsettling thought in this audience’s mind, he uses this fear and severity to then invite them to come to Christ and be saved from the torments of hell.