Light to the Gentiles

God waited to send His Son, but, Edwards argued, he did not wait to shine light to the Gentiles. According to Edwards, God’s actions throughout the Old Testament era were designed to catch the world’s attention, not just Israel’s. As McDermott ( Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods: Christian Theology, Enlightenment Religion, and Non-Christian Faiths , 104) summarizes:

“Adam, for example, was alive for two-thirds of the time before the Flood, so that ‘a very great part’ of those still alive before the Flood heard from his own mouth ‘the things which passed between him and his Creator in paradise.’ After the Flood, Noah was commissioned by God to preach to the world for 120 years . . . .

“God placed Abraham’s family ‘as it were in the midst of the earth, between Asia, Europe and Africa, in the midst of those nations which were most considerable and famous for power, knowledge and the arts.’ Through that family and their descendants, whom he intended to be a ‘city on an hill . . . a light to the world,’ he conferred ‘visible tokens of His presence , . . manifesting himself there, and from thence, to the world.’ . . . As a result, Abraham was known in all the principal nations of the world. His acquaintance with Melchizedek proves that the great works of God for his family were sufficient to have awakened ‘the attention and consideration of all the nations in that part of the world, and to have led them to the knowledge and worship of the only true God.’ . . .

“Similar things took place in Jacob and Joseph’s time. God’s wonders on their behalf ‘were done in the sight of the nations of the world, tending to awaken them and lead them to the knowledge and obedience of the true God’ (173). In Moses and Joshua’s time, God manifested himself in miracles quite publicly—‘in view as it were of the whole world.’ The world was shaken, ‘the whole frame of the visible creation, earth, seas, and rivers, the atmosphere, the clouds, sun, moon and stars, were affected; miracles greatly tending to convince the nations of the world of the vanity of their false gods.’ . . .

“News of Gideon’s defeat of the vast armies of Midian, the conquests and riches of David and Solomon, and the miracles performed through Elijah, Elisha, and Jonah were intended to induce the heathen ‘to know that the Lord was God and that there was none else.’ . . . God’s purpose was ‘to enlighten, affect and persuade them.’ . . .

“Then God undertook a ‘new method with the heathen world and used, in some respects, much greater means to convince and reclaim them, than ever before.’ He drove his people into captivity in Babylon, which had by then become ‘the head and heart of the heathen world,’ since Chaldea had been the ‘fountain of idolatry.’ Consequently, the story of the faith and bravery of the four young men in the fiery furnace was published throughout the empire . . . . And when Daniel’s exploits in the lion’s den became known, ‘Darius was induced to publish to all people, nations and languages, that dwelt in all the earth, his testimony, that the God of Israel was the living God and steadfast forever, etc.’ . . . Jews brought ‘as it were all over the heathen world’ their Scriptures, synagogues, and worship of the true God. So heathen all over the world were given enough light to enjoy true religion—if they would only take advantage of it.”

This will all seem quaint to contemporary Old Testament scholars, including many Evangelical ones, who doubt the historicity of Adam and the flood and regard the exodus and conquest as tempests in a Hebrew thimble. But once one has dispensed with the history, what explanation do we have for the timing of the incarnation and God’s delay in offering life to the Gentiles? Edwards forces us to see that what’s at stake in critical scholarship is not only the accuracy of Scripture but the goodness and justice of God. Debates over the Bible’s historicity are finally about theology proper.